Dan Martell
Founder & CEO, SaaS Academy. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderinvestorauthorexecutive@danmartell ↗LinkedIn ↗danmartell.com ↗
Dan Martell is an entrepreneur and angel investor who founded and exited Spheric Technologies, Flowtown, and Clarity.fm. He is the author of Buy Back Your Time and the founder and CEO of SaaS Academy.
2shows
2appearances
28statements
1resolved
0supported
0contradicted
0%fully supported
79said about them ↓ Everything Dan Martell said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Martell: Intentionally stalling business growth slowly kills the company
“And the truth is, and this is the big one, Rob, as you know, it's like your team wants more opportunity. So if you decide that you want to stall, you're inadvertently slowly dying.”
Martell: Founders should hire an assistant before hiring a COO
“Like start by just freeing up your calendar and do the work that a COO would do and get the business to a place where it can actually absorb that type of talent and that cost structure. Because that's not a very efficient way to spend money.”
Martell: Founders Must Delegate 100% of Their Inbox and Calendar
“Where I think a lot of people make the mistake is the outcome goals you have to delegate is a hundred percent of your inbox and a hundred percent of your calendar.”
Martell: Founders must handle sales until it consumes 50% of their calendar
“Level four is sales. Now I actually think most founders should keep those conversations. If you're buying companies, that should be you. If you're selling, that should be until it becomes 50% of your calendar. If you're spending 50% of your calendar on sales o…”
Martell: Founders who believe 'no one does it right' are the problem
“If your experience today with hiring people is that they don't do it right, then I know the problem. He's staring at you in the mirror and you have to confront that.”
Martell: Founders hit an operational breaking point around $1.2M and 12 employees
“It is different for different people that hit ceilings, but on average, it's usually about 1.2 million in revenue and about a dozen employees, right?”
Martell: Have new hires write SOPs based on your daily screen recordings
“I literally record myself Doing the work while I'm doing the work. So it takes me no extra time. I call it net time. And then when I'm ready to hire somebody to do the work, I've got three to five videos of me doing it and talking about it that I then give to …”
Martell: A founder without an executive assistant is their own expensive assistant
“First off, if you don't have an executive assistant, you actually do have one. It's you. And you are an incredibly expensive one. Like, that's just a fact.”
Martell: At-Risk Youth Develop Unusually High EQ to Survive
“Some of the smartest kids, and I have the privilege of working with them today, these at-risk youth their EQ is off the charts because they've just, you know, they've really had to develop that muscle just to even stay alive.”
Martell: Syncrude spent $2M on Plumtree licenses without in-house operating expertise
“There was this oil company called Syncrude that just bought this enterprise portal software called Plumtree and spent like two million dollars on licenses, but they didn't have anybody that knew how it worked.”
Martell: Mark Cuban invested $250K in Clarity after 13 emails
“It was literally 13 email questions. And then the last one was like, I'm in for 250.”
Martell: Clarity.fm required an enterprise expert-network pivot to reach $1B
“Couldn't figure out the business model at scale to be a billion dollar company. Knew what it would have to take, which would be totally different than what we were doing. Essentially, we would have to go more enterprise and start selling licenses to like big h…”
Martell mandates the '1-3-1 rule' for problem-solving across his companies
“And the one, three, one rule is a core principle and it's part of our culture and all my companies.
I literally, it's shorthand. We use it all the time. What's your one, three, one. And it's essentially asking the person to come to you and first off, describe …”
Martell: At 16, led police on high-speed chase with a handgun
“When I was 16, I had a backpack with a handgun because the police were looking for me and I decided to steal a car. And while I was making my way out of the province, I figured I'd go to Montreal. I pulled off the highway to get gas and a routine roadblock and…”
Dan Martell: Served 5–6 Months in Adult Jail Before Rehabilitation
“I ended up doing five to six months in an adult jail due to the severity of my crime. I got released out of there for good behavior to finish off my sentence at a rehab center called Fortage New Brunswick, which was in the middle of nowhere as an old church ca…”
Martell: Sold receivables at a 27% discount to meet Spheric's payroll
“So I ended up having to sell my receivables to a factory company for like, I want to say, 27%. I gave them for like 90 days.”
Martell: Spheric did $1M first year, grew 150% annually for four years
“We ended up doing about a million the first year and then just kept doubling every year for four years, a 150% year over year.”
Martell: Would have kept Spheric Holdings and hired a CEO instead of selling
“That's probably the one decision I would have done differently. Like now that I know what I know about business and assets and scaling teams, I would have kept it hire a CEO because it was a great business.”
Martell: Bought back 21% equity from initial partners before Spheric exit
“A hundred percent. And when I started it with three initial guys, yeah, I gave them 21% each, seven, seven each and 21% total. And then over the first two years, I ended up buying their equity back because I learned there's a difference between being a founder…”
Martell: Demandforce Was Acquired by Intuit for $550 Million
“But, and then when Demandforce got acquired by Into it. That's when my investors, you know, they got bought for five hundred fifty million.”
Martell: Clarity.fm raised $1.6M seed anchored by Baseline's Steve Anderson
“Originally I was only gonna raise seven 50 K, ended up one of my previous investors, Steve Anderson at Baseline, Decided he wants to write a check for seven 50 and then, and convinces me to go one six or one four. We ended up closing at one six.”
Martell: Mark Cuban thoughtfully replied to every Clarity investor update
“Every six weeks I send an investor update and he's one of the only investors I can say has always replied to everyone with something thoughtful. Very short, but always replied.”
Martell: Clarity.fm acquisition by Startups.co featured a zero-day earnout
“A zero day earn out. So I got to give Will props on the negotiation. I still remember the moment I was sitting, standing in my pacing in my driveway and he goes, Hey, I just want you to know, I don't expect you to stay more than a day.”
The other half of the tape: Dan Martell's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 78 times in 36 episodes across the shows. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Nathan Latka 24Aaron DeCruz 7Rob Walling 6Will Schroeder 5Matt Prados 4Ivo Dragunov 4Brad Parker 4Tom Nignish 3
Statements about Dan Martell, by other people (1)
Prados: Invested ~$250k in executive masterminds over the last decade
“I've spent probably a quarter million dollars in the last 10 years on my education, so I didn't go to college college, but, you know, I've joined, you know, masterminds you know, everything from Dan Kennedy to Frank Kern to Dan Martell”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
Top Founders 64
Startups For the Rest of Us 14
2025 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2024 5 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode
2023 5 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
- Bootstrapped doing $2.4m Revenue, $600k Cash in bank, helps retailers manage inventory
- Why Tiktok is the Best Marketing Channel for Bootstrapped Startups in 2023
- 12 Founders disciplines that helped to bootstrap to $10m+ ARR
- How he Bootstrapped to $4m In Real Estate SaaS Space
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2022 18 mentions in 7 episodes 3 per episode
- He sold his bakery to launch software for Restaurants, $36k in revenue already
- How he grew 400% by acquiring his smaller $450k ARR competitor without using cash
- How I Generated $250M In Leads As A One Person Marketing Team
- Details of $20m Revenue Profitwell and $55m Revenue Paddle Deal and what led to the $200m Acquisition
- How he sold his $2.3m SaaS with approx $500k EBITDA for $6m+ Cash
- $100m Deck Builder: Bootstrapped to $100M Valuation
- MVP Power: Found Tech Co-Founder on Upwork, $0 to $180,000 in under 12 months
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
2021 14 mentions in 6 episodes 2 per episode
- Real Estate SaaS Did $2.2m Last Month, 140% Growth, Mostly Affiliate Sales
- Pet Land Riches! 60% Profit Margins on $100m SaaS Fintech Play
- 1,000 Schools Pay them $2m for This Unique Tool
- FlowChat Goes From $0 to $40k MRR in 4 Months Using 1 Tactic
- How He Hit $2m in Revenue Cold Calling 20,000 PER WEEK
- Episode 537 | On Launching, Funding, and Growth with Serial SaaS Founder Rand Fishkin
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 20 mentions in 4 episodes 5 per episode
2019 7 mentions in 7 episodes 1 per episode
- 1496 Employee Engagement Platform in Brazil Passes $1.8M ARR, Raising $3m on $10m Pre
- 1492 Industrial IoT Platform Hits $150k MRR, 3x YoY growth
- 1488 ECommerce Solution Hits $8m in ARR and $8m in Services, Raising $20m on $60m pre?
- 1484 Content Marketing at Scale Passes $3m ARR, 500 Customers
- 1480 Social Listening Tool Raising $6m on $22M Pre Money (10x Valuation)
- 1474 Advantages of IoT+SaaS with $2.5m Revenue CEO of Senorberg
- 1466 Sales Demo Tool Passes $3m in ARR, Transitions To Enterprise
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
2018 1 mention in 1 episode
2016 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Dan's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TOP FOUNDERSLEDGER | Founder & CEO, SaaS Academy | 1 | 19 | 0% 0/1 | full record on Top Founders → |
| STARTUPS FOR THE REST OF USLEDGER | Founder & CEO, SaaS Academy | 1 | 9 | — | full record on Startups For the Rest of Us → |