How Daniel Became “The LinkedIn Red Box Guy”

Transcription

Matt: Welcome to Connection Accepted. Today, we're interviewing the one and only Daniel Greenberg, my co-host. So Daniel, where do we even begin? Why don't we start from the very early days? People know you today as the guy on LinkedIn who does the red boxes, the arrows, whatnot. But very few people actually know who you are as a person and your origin story. So today I want to dive into that. Let's start from when you were really young. Like, what was your childhood like? What was your upbringing like in Louisville, Kentucky? Daniel: Man, I can tell we've gotten a lot closer now because your pronunciation of Louisville is much better than when it started. It's no longer Louisville or Louisville, which is awesome. And you hit the nail on the head there. I was born and raised in Louisville. It has become pretty much a part of my personality now. When I grew up in Louisville, I really loved math as a kid. I also loved Lightning McQueen. I was obsessed with cars. I still have a Lightning McQueen blanket on my house that I love. In middle school, which is, like, I would say some of my more prominent memories. I don't remember much from elementary school, but I was on the basketball team and that's when I really started to love math. That was like my favorite subject in school. I was good at it and I was obsessed with it. Matt: Wow. Honestly, I wouldn't have clocked you for a math guy. I thought you were a humanities guy, to be honest. But that's, that's super impressive. Daniel: Did you end up doing any sort of math related extracurriculars? I know I was on like the math team in my high school or at least the math honors society. Did you guys have something like that? We're bringing back so many memories for me. So first in lower and middle school, I was pretty obsessed with chess. Like my parents would take me to chess tournaments. I would do pretty well at some of them. And then in middle school, there's this, these competitions called governor's cup and a lot of schools would compete and they'd have math competitions. I did those. I did pretty well on some of them. And then by the time it came to choosing a high school, my parents wanted me to go to a different high school. Like the middle school is attached to my high school and my parents wanted me to go to a different high school. Said I would go to the new high school if and only if that I could stay on the same math track at this new high school. Well, I ended up switching high schools and not getting on the new math track and I'm actually happy I switched because it was, I think a better experience. I'm so fortunate for the friends I made. But yeah, that killed me that I was not in the same math track when I went to high school. I honestly lost my, my love for math. I was in that Mu Alpha Theta math honor society, but I never really clicked it with my teachers. It was that middle school math teacher who I had for like three years who just was awesome and made me love math so much. Matt: Man, couple thoughts here. One is related to chess. I also love chess. I grew up playing a lot of chess and we got to have a connection accepted, I don't know, chess tournament at some point. But not to get distracted. I want to dig into that experience of switching high schools. So what was that experience like? And if you put yourself in the shoes of younger Daniel, were there any challenges that you had to overcome when you transferred to a new environment? Daniel: It's funny looking back on that experience because it's such a small thing, but switching from a middle school to a different high school where you have to make totally new friends, you don't really know the people that you're going to go to school with. You don't know the teachers. You're now having to take one lower math than you want to take. You think at the time it's the biggest decision you're ever going to make. And I'm sure it's just like a lot of people switching jobs right now, and you know it's going to be better for you. But at the beginning, it was tough. My freshman year at that high school, socially, it was pretty hard for me just to make a bunch of new friends, especially because a lot of people had already known each other from middle school. I'm so happy I switched in the end because after that first year of overcoming that, just kind of awkwardness and trying to insert myself and make new friends, it was so worth it in the end. Daniel: And to anyone in the audience right now thinking about switching high schools or doing anything change-related, because change is hard, and as you'll see with more to come in my story and as we heard with Matt earlier, change is what can help you improve more in life. So to the audience watching, I encourage you to change, especially. you think you're gonna improve at the end of that change, and even though in the short term, it might be pretty hard. Matt: Love that. And let's talk about once you got to that high school, what was your mindset like? And did you have any particular goals of what you wanted to get out of that experience? Daniel: I would say I had three experiences in high school. My first experience was kind of the awkward experience that I was just mentioning, where it was my first year getting adjusted to a new environment, trying to make new friends. My second year, sophomore year, is when things started to click for me socially. I was more comfortable with myself. Not only just socially, but also in the classroom, more comfortable to raise my hand, more comfortable to learn more and push myself and join more clubs. And that pushing myself and being more comfortable led me to this third phase of high school, which was Viral LEDs. Viral LEDs is a business I started in high school. Where it started was in my computer science classroom, AP computer science. Mr. Ragner, the teacher, who is awesome, had a unit on LED lights. Daniel: At first, I was like, you know, just another computer science LED lights, let me just get by and try to get an A on this. But after the first homework assignment, I was hooked on these things, and the person I sat next to, Sims, was equally as hooked. So for an extra credit project, we made our own LED lights. We did what, honestly, it was very cringe to do at the time, which was post on TikTok. This is January of 2020. After we posted that first TikTok about the LED lights, showing off what we made, we got a million views. It was crazy. We were getting so many DMs, likes. It was unbelievable. And this is when TikTok is very early. Like this is, it's mostly people, especially middle school girls, really, just lip syncing on the platform at the time. And it's cringe for two high school people right now to be on this platform and making these lip syncing videos to LED lights. I had always, like you, Matt, been passionate about entrepreneurship. My dad was an entrepreneur, and I think that's kind of where I get it from. I would binge watch Shark Tank on the weekends. So when I went to this classmate, Sims Wilson, we said, and I was really pushing him to do it, we decided to start this business together, where we sold these LED lights on TikTok. That was pretty much this final phase of high school for me, because that business pretty much consumed the rest of my high school experience. Daniel: It went from just at the start, soldering, which is like using iron where you melt it to like, I think it's like 400 degrees or something, like boiling iron to make LED lights in our garage and outside. And this is during COVID too, and it eventually expands to where we're hiring 20% of the class and I'm using a film and company, which it was honestly so crazy. So that was the second half of my high school experience where it just flew by. And then I also had to apply to college, the ACT. You're bringing back so many memories, Matt. Matt: And okay, I'm gonna stop there. What questions do you have so far? But this Viral LEDs experience of high school is probably my most interesting part of my high school experience. I'm actually kind of curious to dig into why you wanted to do this business with your co-founder, Sims. Now, it sounds like you guys are pretty good friends. And as someone who's working on this podcast connection accepted with you, Daniel, I'm genuinely just trying to satisfy my own curiosity here. What were, trying to think of the best way to say this. Daniel: I think I understand what you're trying to ask me. You're trying to ask why I did this business with him and kind of how it all got started. And there are kind of two answers. One is pretty similar to how we started connection accepted. I pushed Sims a decent amount to start this business. And one of the reasons I pushed him to start the Viral LEDs business is because I was super scared to do it alone. Matt: And let me be clear. What happened with Viral LEDs generating over $750,000 in revenue in like, I mean, it was like 12 months or something crazy like that and selling over 20,000 of these things. That was not possible without Sims. So I want to make that clear. But I was still trying to push Sims into the start and that was because I didn't want to do it alone. I was scared of going into this battle of entrepreneurship alone. And looking back on it too, I'm so happy I had him. Yeah, we had our arguments over everything pretty much, like social media strategy. We never even had. business plan for this. So how it all got started was I pressured Sims to do it, and we didn't even have a business plan, Matt. Like, we just went 50-50 on a handshake. And before we knew it, we had like $100,000 in revenue and we're like having to figure out all these things. It was just crazy. But the main reason I did it is because I needed someone else, and I saw Sims was very good at TikTok as well. Daniel: That makes a ton of sense. And honestly, I do not blame you whatsoever for not wanting to do it alone. Even with connection accepted and what we're doing today with the pod, it is, for the audience, it is a lot of work. It is very, very difficult at times. A lot of what you see on the surface is the tip of the iceberg with how much mental fortitude and persistence and just not giving up it takes to run a podcast or any successful business. Matt: And not saying that connection accepted is where we want it to be yet, we will get there at some point. But the journey to get there is really tough and is often pretty lonely. And so I totally understand why you wanted to do it with Sims when you were just starting out. It was also your first major business venture, you could say. So it makes a ton of sense. And I think one of the things that really also stands out to me is you guys had some complementary strengths, right? Like he was really good at TikTok and that probably helped you guys with the sales and marketing side of things. Daniel, I know you have a lot of strengths yourself, maybe not in TikTok at the time, but I'm sure there were other things that you contributed to the team that enabled viral LEDs to go from zero to 750K in revenue in 12 months, which is crazy for two high schoolers. Daniel: As you think about the end of your high school experience, though, what happened with viral LEDs? Obviously, you had to go to college, so what was going on through your mind at that stage in your senior year? Matt: So that senior year was our COVID year, and fortunately, it didn't affect my high school too much. And I was still able to like have a tennis season. I was the co-captain of the tennis team, which was pretty fun. Although Kentucky tennis is like super low stakes. Like as soon as I got to Brown, I was like, wow, I am like not that good at tennis at all. Daniel: In that senior year, we were getting so much demand, Matt, that we had to shut down the store multiple times because there just wasn't enough time for all the LEDs we ordered that we had bought on China. Because this wasn't a drop ship product. This was something that we are hand making every unit with a fulfillment company in Louisville that we taught them how to flash our code onto these LEDs, how to assemble these LEDs, which wires to put where. Like this is a totally custom product. So we were having to like shut down the store. I was having to study for the ACT, do my college apps. And it became to a point where viral LEDs just wasn't the number one focus in our lives because these other things seemed more important to us and were more important to us at the time. Like I wanted to be able to play on the tennis team and hang out with my friends on the weekends if I wanted to and go to prom and get into a good school and do well on the ACT. So viral LEDs had started to dwindle down less, especially when we were shutting down the store more because we didn't want to have someone waiting a month for LEDs. We just didn't think that was fair. As you also know with content, it's a game of momentum. What we're doing with connection accepted right now, we're constantly every week hitting all-time highs, all-time highs, all-time highs. Matt: But if you all of a sudden took a month break, then we're almost like starting from three months back, and we have to keep on building up the momentum up and up and up and up and up. And then that's what a lot, that's the financial content is. It's building a movement with viral LEDs because of all these other external factors, Sims and I took accountability for the fact that we lost some of our momentum. But we were gaining momentum in other areas, whether it was getting a good ACT score, getting into Brown, doing well in tennis. By the time our freshman years of college came around, we decided that the momentum we were pursuing in other places was better than where we're at with viral LEDs right now. And TikTok had gotten much more competitive. The format we had found with the LED lights wasn't working anymore. So we decided to move on. So that's why you can't buy any viral LEDs today. Unfortunately, yeah, you cannot. Find any viral LEDs. But Daniel, I think you touch on a really interesting point, which is prioritization and how that influences whether or not you decide to continue investing the time, energy, resources into a particular goal of yours. In your case and in Sid's case, you guys were at a stage of life where there was a lot going on. You were about to go to college, and so obviously one of your priorities at the time was, let me get into the best school possible and clearly you did. You got into Brown. Matt: And on top of that, you also wanted to have a life outside of just the business, which is totally, totally understandable. And I think there's something to be said in maybe a separate conversation as well about how to make things sustainable for ourselves. But it sounds like you had to make a deliberate and intentional decision around, I'm going to deprioritize viral LEDs, or at least it's not going to be the number one priority for me because at this stage of my life, there are these set of things that are also really important to me. And so I need to prioritize those now. And that's probably not the answer that a lot of people want to hear. Like, I always get a lot of questions of how do I do five different things at once? Like, how do you manage your time so that you can achieve big things on in five different fronts? But in my experience, it's really, really hard to do that. And even today, I'm probably not even listening to my own advice, trying to run my own YouTube channel, do Connection Accepted with you, Daniel, and then also Forge. There's just only so many hours in a day and only so much mental bandwidth that we have, even the most exceptional entrepreneurs and the most hardworking people out there can only do so much in a day. So I like that you guys were pretty intentional about it. And let's transition then to once you got to Brown, freshman year, what was that experience like for you? My freshman year at Brown was just like my freshman year of high school. Daniel: It was pretty rough to be honest, Matt. Well, I should say my first semester of freshman year was the worst. Just coming from Louisville, Kentucky, I knew no one at Brown. I didn't know what to expect. It was just a much different environment. I'd never lived alone before. And there were so many new things that I was experiencing. It was pretty tough on me mentally. The change was pretty hard. Flash forward to second semester, I was starting to do better socially. I got a solid group of friends going that my core eight that really solidified through the rest of senior year of high school. One of the things that actually solidified it and made me really comfortable around my friends and feel really supported was something that happened on Valentine's Day my freshman year. In my second semester. And that was when I got a call from my dad telling me that someone had tried to kill him, but he luckily survived. When I got this call, I honestly had no clue how to react. And to give the audience context too, my dad was running for mayor at the time. And someone came into his office, fired six shots directly at him from 15 feet away. Fortunately, all of them missed, but one came so close that there was a hole in the back of his sweater. How does a hole in the back of his sweater and it doesn't hit him? I mean, I'll show the audience a photo, but I honestly, still to this day, have no clue how it happened. When I got this call from my dad, I was like, taken aback. Matt: I didn't like know how to react at the start. At first I was like, make fun of it, act like it didn't happen because most of my family is like in Louisville and they're trying to also process everything. So at that time, my friends were like pretty supportive, even though I was reacting in kind of different ways at different times. And then it was like on the New York times. I'd never seen my dad on mainstream media like that. It was really crazy for me to process all of this. But at the end of it, watching my dad get back up after everything and continue to run for mayor is still one of the things that motivates me so much to this day because I think if he can get up after that and face that fear, like there's no excuse that I can't do the same in my life. Daniel: That was pretty much my freshman year. Wow. That is a crazy way to start your college experience and end your, you know, your first year. At university, and I'm sure that at the time, there was a lot of stuff going through your head. Right? I can't imagine if, say, my dad called me up and was like, hey, Matt, you know, somebody just tried to kill me. So it's amazing that your dad continued to still stick on the path that he was on. And ultimately, you know, he he succeeded. And he's now the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, which is incredible. And it's so inspiring to hear about that story because he could have pulled out of the race, right? He could have been like, you know, this isn't worth my safety or my family's safety. Matt: But because he chose to stuck to it and ended up succeeding, you know, I think even if he didn't succeed, it still would have been a really inspiring story. And it's cool to see how his actions have influenced the way that you think about how you go about your life and how you think about your goals as well. Because ultimately, when we think about the types of goals that most of us have in our careers, we rarely, we very rarely have to think about things like life and death. It really puts things into perspective, Daniel. Because it's like, oh, yeah, maybe like my business isn't doing well, or maybe we lost a couple of customers. But in the grand scheme of things, like we're still so lucky to be able to do what we do. And it's a privilege to have the kind of pressure that we have, you know, trying to run this podcast and, you know, as much work as it is and as much frustration comes out of it at times. It's still something that I'm grateful and glad to have the opportunity to do with you because of all the people that we get to meet and just the fact that we're able to build something really, really cool and unique. But yeah, I'm just blown away by that story. And I'm sure the audience is as well. Daniel: Do you think that going into your sophomore year then, or even your junior year or the second half of university at Brown, was your mindset different compared to freshman year because of that event? I don't think I really truly processed the shooting until kind of that sophomore semester, sophomore fall into sophomore spring because when your dad gets shot, it's one of those weird things and maybe it's just everything too. I'm even processing it right now but like I wasn't there. So a part of yourself is like, kind of denying that it happened. But the other part is like, no, it did happen. Like, look at, like the security precautions we're taking now is a result. And through that sophomore semester, it was like when I first started to like really process it, that's when I started doing things like Headspace every night and get more into meditation, which has really helped me mentally. And I do think I started to use that more as, as motivation, but it didn't really happen until the sophomore spring. I think sophomore fall, I was still pretty, you know, a degenerate sophomore in college, as most people are. And to the audience thinking that Brown doesn't party, I'm not saying we're South Carolina. I visited some friends in South Carolina. They have an awesome time, say UNC and a bunch of other schools. So yeah, I had a lot of fun at Brown, was partying a lot and not thinking too much or being pre-professional. Matt: But when it came to sophomore spring is when I started to lock in and be like, okay, I've got to find an internship. Let's use this as fuel and get dialed in. That's when I first started to try to really dial in what I was going to do internship wise for junior year because all the investment bankers are starting to talk about everything. I can relate all too well to the investment bankers that start talking about internships in freshman or sophomore year. At what point then, Daniel, did you set your sights on consulting as the role you want to postgrad? And maybe you didn't even know sophomore year that you wanted to go into that field. But how, what was your thought process around career prospects postgrad at that point? Daniel: At that point, sophomore year, I was attracted to consulting for two reasons. One was the prestige. I think that pretty much goes without saying. I mean, I mean, it's a prestigious job. If you tell most people at Brown that you're going into consulting. And you're working at like one of the more known consulting firms, end of conversation, no one really bats an eye and you're like praised. The second part was, it was a job that had a clear process of how to get. I mean, we talked earlier about how we both like chess and like you can win a game of chess or lose a game of chess. When it comes to getting a job at Nike, there's not a clear process on how you do that. You know, you might have a connection there. Daniel: You might DM someone who went to Brown that works there. Maybe they flag your resume. That doesn't work out, but you reach out to someone else on LinkedIn, or you apply cold with your resume. There isn't a clear process for how to get into a lot of jobs. But for consulting, it was, and I knew it was a hard path, but I was delusional and thought I could do it at the start. That sophomore year, I started trying to take all these calls, ask my dad for whoever he could introduce me to at the top firms. And I got a final round at a lot of the top firms, one of them being Bain. I didn't get the job. I didn't get the internship. And I was devastated. I ended up working at, and I got this internship, I think in March or, I think March before my junior year at BBR Partners, a boutique wealth management firm, ultra high net worth as well. And I loved it that summer. They had a great culture on their mandatory reading list was the book Smart Brevity, which to anyone in the audience who hasn't read, you have to read. It literally changed the way I write my LinkedIn post, changes the way I email. I cannot recommend it enough. I've sent it to so many previous guests as well, like Will Bauman. That's where I think like that BBR Partners internship was meant to be, great experience. And then I got recruited for consulting during that. I, like, I love working at BBR. I just didn't think I wanted to be in the wealth management field. Gave consulting another shot, ended up working out. Matt: Now I'm an associate consultant at Bain. I got that my senior fall and then experimented with a lot of stuff my senior year at Brown. I think there's a really cool lesson in there about persistence. And one of the things, Daniel, that I find a lot of people looking from the outside at folks like you, me, anyone who's currently working at these top consulting firms or top investment banks, even, is there's a possible thought pattern that people have that tells them, oh, this person, they were always meant to be an investment banker or like they were naturally talented enough to get into Bain. And so usually what I say to that is, yes, everyone's got natural strengths, but what you're probably missing is all of the rejections and failures that you just don't see on their LinkedIn profile. And in your case, I didn't even know that you got rejected from Bain a year before you got the full-time job. And I'm sure that there were also many other rejections and failures that happened along that journey of just experimentation and finding the right job for you. I'm curious, if you were to pinpoint one or two, quote unquote, failures that happened while you were at Brown, what would those be? And they don't have to be career-related, for the record. Daniel: I'm going to answer this question in a pretty unique way. And it's going to start with a story with one of my friends invited me to a really fancy event where a lot of celebrities were going to be there. Daniel: And at that time in my life in college, I was that person who, when I see celebrity, I would want to take a selfie with them. Not that I even posted that much on Instagram. I would just want a photo and I would go up to them, say hi, and I would act like a fan when I met them. That friend of mine was hesitant to invite me because I would make him look bad if I was doing that to people like he knew and other celebrities at this event. He didn't tell me that until after the event and was like, you know, you actually did fine. Thank you for not going crazy. Not that it was crazy behavior, but just made us both look good and we had a good time. That's one story that's really stuck with me a lot because at the end of the day, everyone is people. And we talk up people that we talk up people that are mega celebrities or that are partners at these major consulting firms or have these awesome jobs in private equity. And that doesn't mean that they're not talented. That doesn't mean they're not super smart because they all are, but they're people at the end of the day. And we've all made mistakes to get where we are. That partner has sent cold emails that people didn't respond to. That influencer has made movies that flopped or made Instagram posts that flopped. We're the same, man. And the audience is the same too. So to anyone listening to this, I think the way I'm trying to answer your question, Matt, is that everyone's made these mistakes. Everyone's human. Daniel: Knowing that has just made me, I think a more compassionate person. And also see the world in a more positive light, because even when I've started to meet some of our cool guests, like, we're just talking to them like we talked to normal people because they are. It's not like they're super different and like talking a different language just because they're a celebrity. And I'm sure you've seen this a lot, Matt, with all the creators you've met too in New York. Matt: 100%. Completely agree with what you said, Daniel. And I think that what's really cool for anyone once you get that light bulb moment, that realization of, oh, like maybe that person that I really look up to, not that they're any less impressive than I thought before, but they're also like me in a sense. They're also human, and they also go through things like making mistakes, and they also have doubts and worries at times. Like those things, the feelings of even imposter syndrome, those are completely normal, even for the people that I look up to as my heroes or my inspiration. Anyone who has had that realization at some point, whether it be through like the content creation route, right? If you become really big and then you end up meeting a lot of the big creators that you once looked up to, or even in your professional career, right? You go work at Bain and Company or you go work at McKinsey or BCG, then you realize that these people, they're all very hardworking and very intelligent, but they're also just people. Matt: All of the top institutions in the world, whether it be in corporate or in academia or anywhere else, at the end of the day, they're held up by people. While the reputation of an institution, say like Harvard or Brown or even Georgetown, is larger than life in many people's minds, at the end of the day, you cannot forget the fact that the building blocks of every institution and every company and every successful company, business, whatever it is, is always the individual person. When you have that mental unlock, at least for me, Daniel, what it did was, one, similar to you, made me a more compassionate and empathetic person, but it also emboldened me to go out there and try to do the things that previously felt out of reach. Daniel: The beautiful thing about Connection Accepted is we're obviously talking on a daily basis with our guests who are typically very successful in different things. And it's really cool to get a window into their perspective and their mindset and how they think and really to realize that they're all regular people as well, just with slightly different ways of thinking or the fact that they've just been doing something for a very, very long time and that's compounded to the point where they now have a million followers. If it's someone like Professor Aswath Damodaran who we recently talked to, who's got massive following across audiences, he's been doing his blog and his YouTube content for years to get to his size. Or if it's someone like Dr. Daniel: Juliana Chen, who we also talked to, who's built a really successful LinkedIn coaching business, but previously was a biologist and went to Davos and was an academic researcher. All of these people, they are very much human. And the lesson that I think the audience can take away just to tie this all up is you shouldn't feel like some goal that you have is out of reach, because you never really know if it's within reach until you get there. And the first thing you can do to shoot yourself in the foot is to not even try, because mentally you think it's impossible. But that's the beauty of life, is all the possibility. Matt, I'm adding on one more thing to it. It's the fact that just because you get into Brown doesn't mean you're smart and can build a billion-dollar company. A lot of people who've gotten to Brown have done that, but if you didn't get into Brown, that doesn't mean you can't build a billion-dollar company. At the start, when I didn't get that junior year internship at Bain, I thought I was a failure. I thought I wasn't smart. That's not the case. To the audience watching, I mean, we've had previous guests on the show who've gotten denied from so many opportunities that the company just made a mistake of not letting it in, honestly. And you shouldn't let that make you not strive for anything big, because we're all humans and we can all strive for something. We've all made mistakes, and that's the only way you can improve. Matt: I'm drawing like a up-down-up right now, and I go on and on about this. But when I was working on the LED company, I was a high school student who had not done a business before. I barely knew how to code. I mean, this is pre-ChatGPT. I'm going on this random site called Alibaba trying to find LEDs. I'm like paying thousands of dollars in tariffs. If I can figure out that in high school with like no college education, no ChatGPT, the possibilities are endless for you. There's no excuse to why you can't do anything. Daniel: Yeah, I love that point about just doing things. You know, I think the word agency is a pretty big buzzword, perhaps in certain communities and tech entrepreneurship. For the audience, if it's new to you, that's the idea that an individual person, even if they're not trained formally in a specific skill set or a specific field, you still take the agency, you still believe that it's possible to do something, even though maybe you don't know a lot about it. So you take your own future and your own fate almost in your own hands. You don't just sit back and say, Oh, I was never a numbers person, so I'll never be good at math. I was never good at computers, so I'll never be able to code. Or I was never good at speaking in front of people, so I'll never be good at content. Those are really limiting beliefs. And I think people with high agency, yourself included, Daniel, don't let those kinds of doubts get to them. Matt: And instead, go out there and recognize that it's going to be messy and it's going to be difficult, but there is a path and a way to getting to the end state that your goal is. So really, really cool. And I want to transition now to talking about post Brown or even how you got into the whole LinkedIn space. Give us a little bit of context. Then as you're exiting Brown, you've got this Bain job lined up. Why are you posting on LinkedIn? Let me take you back to first my fall senior semester. I've gotten the job at Bain and I tested a startup idea with my friends. It was called Lunjo. You can go on the website right now, Lunjoe.com. And it was a table reservation platform for coffee shops. So the thought is that in Boston, if you're going to go to a place like Tate or in New York, if you're going to go to a watch house or depending on the location, maybe a blank street and have a coffee chat, you could reserve a table there. I was trying to get a bunch of coffee shops on. I was cold emailing. I was going in person. I was leaving flyers under their doors when they were closed. Hopefully someone came in, saw it, was going to email me. I cold called coffee shops. None of it worked. So I started posting on LinkedIn random, random stuff. Like when Coke used to have a Coke coffee or the coffee company Coke bought Costa Coffee, which was actually rumored to be sold soon, which might be interesting. But it was experimenting with all this different stuff, just posting on LinkedIn. Daniel: The LinkedIn posts were doing pretty well, but I couldn't get any coffee shops to join. So by the time the summer came, I graduated from Brown. I was like, you know what? I'm done with with Lunjo. We couldn't get any customers on and shout out to the team for still sticking it out that long with me, but we just couldn't get anyone once we stopped. We stopped because we had a different idea called Place2Place. With Place2Place, it was a travel search engine that I've probably talked about many times before you put into addresses and it scans all airports and flights within a three hour drive, adds the Uber cost in to get you the best door-to-door cost. You can also remove the Uber cost if you just want the best flight cost. We posted exclusively on LinkedIn to get our first 10,000 users. When my LinkedIn posts for Place2Place were going viral, I was instantly hooked. The reason I was so hooked right away is because the same things I saw on TikTok in 2020 with viral LEDs. Now when I was on TikTok in 2020 with viral LEDs, I was one of the few people on the platform at the time. It was much easier to go viral, even though my content wasn't as good. Like I guarantee you, if we post some of the stuff that has 10 million views back in the day, if we posted it today, it might not even get 100,000 views because algorithms evolve, the audience changes what they want. There's a higher standard. There's now a TikTok shop, all these things. Daniel: But I saw this first mover's advantage in LinkedIn. I was also seeing myself scrolling it a lot more. Because of that, that I liked the content a lot more. I saw myself able to do it in the long term. So really between seeing the first mover's advantage of it, because not a lot of people were posting, which means more opportunity for us, I was scrolling it a lot, which means I'm able to do it on a long-term end. If people like me are addicted to it, there are probably a lot of other people like me. And the final thing is that it was working well. So I was instantly hooked on LinkedIn. I was posting a bunch over the summer for Place2Place. We're talking like three, four, five, sometimes even six times a day. It was insane the growth we were having all because of LinkedIn. Not because of TikTok, not because of posting TikTok, not because of posting on Instagram, because of LinkedIn. And that experience of Place2Place, we ended up, fast forward to the end of the summer, stopped doing it because, you know, I'm off at my job, my co-founders are off at theirs. But I was still super bullish on LinkedIn and I couldn't get this itch out of my system. I took a week off of LinkedIn, not posting, and I was like, this is awful. So that's when I immediately contacted Matt and was like, we got to get Connection Accepted going. But maybe that's too soon, Matt, and you have to pull me back. But that's why I'm so bullish on LinkedIn and how I got started. Matt: No, I think that's a really great backstory on why Daniel Greenberg is so bullish on LinkedIn. And I think genuinely the audience of Connection Accepted knows that both of us believe in LinkedIn, but less of them understand your personal backstory to how you ended up becoming so bullish on the platform. And it's almost as if you weren't even intending to do this, but because you were posting on LinkedIn for your other business, Place2Place, and then you saw how much traction you guys got with 10,000 users. And obviously you were getting millions of impressions over the summer posting multiple times a day. You realized, hey, there's a there's a big opportunity here. There's an arbitrage between the fact that not as many people are posting on LinkedIn and this platform, though, has so much potential. And I think that's an excellent segue into the genesis of Connection Accepted, because for the audience, at the same time that Daniel was posting six, five, six times a day for Place2Place, I had just started my LinkedIn journey as well. And I was started posting actively. I don't want to say in July of 2025, because I had always been a user, but more of a lurker of the LinkedIn platform. So I was very much acquainted to it, but less from the perspective of being a creator. And I've been a creator mostly on YouTube for the past three years, and I understand the power of content. Matt: And through some of the conversations that I had with marketers that I was actually working with at Google at the time, they made me realize that LinkedIn was a big opportunity. And so even though I didn't have that much experience with the platform, I was thinking to myself, I should try posting and see what happens. And I realized a few things, not to get on this giant tangent, but after posting for about a month, I realized, wow, there's a lot of potential here. The audience here is super high value if you're running a business. And at that time, I think it was in August that I saw a post from a guy named Daniel Greenberg. And he was posting about like Texas Roadhouse and Chipotle. And these posts were getting hundreds of, if not thousands of reactions and engagements. And then he also posted something about ghostwriting that really caught my eye because at the time I was also exploring this opportunity of, hey, maybe I should spin up some sort of ghostwriting agency service because there's a lot of people that want to post on LinkedIn, but they don't know how to do it. And maybe if someone comes in with a little bit of expertise and knowledge and offers to do it for them, then there's an opportunity there to make some money. And I saw this post from this guy, Daniel Greenberg, talking about how ghostwriting is this big opportunity, blah, blah, blah. And so I sent him a connection request and then he accepted it and messaged me immediately. Matt: It was like, Forge, my ghostwriting agency, is a great idea. And then we hit it off. We had a couple of calls and he pitched me Connection Accepted, I think on the first call. So I was like, wow, this guy has got a lot of ideas. And, you know, I honestly, I think the reason why, even though my intention was never to do a podcast, I still did, decided to go in on this with you is because one, of course, I was also bullish on LinkedIn and I knew doing a LinkedIn-focused podcast would be a really interesting way to expand my knowledge of the platform. If you think about the conversations that you and I are having, Daniel, nobody else is having these conversations in public like we are. And over time, after having 100, 200, 500 conversations with top creators on LinkedIn, there is a really powerful compounding effect in the knowledge and the perspective that we're going to have on LinkedIn as a platform. So that's one thing. That's kind of the more strategic reason, right? But really, the other reason why I decided to do this with you was I had never met someone with so much energy and commitment to an idea that was barely fully formed. And let me tell you what I mean by that, because I remember before we even started, before we ever recorded our first episode, you were already emailing people and getting guests for the pod. So we had like one or two people already lined up. And I was like, damn, like, he's very serious about this. Matt: And then also, you were like, yeah, I'm ready to go all in and invest whatever it takes so that we can get the highest production quality on this podcast, which includes purchasing, you know, some pretty expensive equipment and cameras for the pod. And so I was really impressed by the commitment, and also just like, the fact that you were actually doing the work and following through with the things that you were saying. Because one of the things that I find is less common. A lot of people have ideas, right? But execution and people that actually, like, do what they're gonna say they're gonna do is a lot harder to find. So not to, you know, hijack this conversation because it's supposed to be about you, but Genuinely, that was what got me on board, and the rest is history. We're, you know, four, five-ish months into this podcast now. We've interviewed probably, what, 30-something people? It's nuts. And I'm so fortunate to have you as a co-host now because I remember our first episode, which I've honestly tried to erase a lot from my brain. I remember when you were interviewing me in a Capital One cafe. I have my iPhone camera hooked up to Riverside, but I've got it like on a stack of books and then my backpack trying to get it in the perfect angle with like weird lighting. I have this one mic that like, I had like tried making a TikTok with in 2020, that I'm like awkwardly holding like this, trying to make everything work. I'm super awkward. Daniel: I mean, I still am and have a lot of work to go with my communication skills here. But like, even worse back then, don't know what I'm doing, so nervous. And to have you as a coach throughout this year, I've been so fortunate. I could go on and on of how excited I am for the next five months of this podcast. And the only other thing I wanted to add too on this Connection Accepted note is that it's not just what we're learning these next 200 and the past 50 episodes about LinkedIn, about hooks, about graphics, about connecting with people, about writing good DMs. It's also about what the audience is learning, too. It's awesome how we get all these cool DMs from people saying, oh, I changed my title, and this happened. Oh, I changed my about section, and this happened. Or I listened to your Sarah Rath episode and had this takeaway. And every single one of these, it's cool the, not just kind of community we're building, but also the impact we're having and the movement we're building. It's awesome how we get all these cool DMs from people saying, oh, I changed my title, and this happened. Or I changed my about section, and this happened. Or I listened to your Sarah Rath episode and had this takeaway. And every single one of these, it's cool the, not just kind of community we're building, but also the impact we're having and the movement we're building. It's awesome, and crazy it's happened so fast. I'm so fortunate to anyone who's listening right now that's been a part of it. Matt: I mean, I'm wearing the hoodie today for a reason. It's the first episode we've brought out the merch for. Amazing. Daniel, is there anything else that we haven't talked about that you want to share with the audience, whether it's like related to Connection Accepted or your background or anything else? Daniel: Might just fire off a few things I've learned over the years, Matt. Go for it. And just fire off a few things, see what resonates with you in the audience. Since this is my one time to tell you and the audience what I've learned. One thing I've learned a lot is that people love talking about themselves. So the more you can get someone to talk about themselves on a call, the better you think it will go. So I know a lot of people in sales say if you get the customer talking a lot, then it's a great call. Most people think, oh, the more you talk, the better the sale is going. And that doesn't mean that you shouldn't say anything and you should be muted. It's a balance to find. But that's one thing I've learned that's been pretty interesting, especially when I was networking, you know, for consulting and whatnot. Another thing is that people are often more free than you think. It's always worth an ask to try to get on the phone with someone or to ask something or else you'll never get it in the first place. I think us being entrepreneurs, we're more comfortable with asking for things. Matt: And I don't think that means going to Star Market, the grocery store or Kroger and asking for 20% off from the cashier. That's not what I mean. I mean more, like, if you really want to get on the phone with this VC or Or with this partner, like, just try things to do it, and it will happen. Like, it's worth a shot. Daniel: The only way to get on the phone with someone or the only way to build this podcast and have a cohost is to ask. And that's what I did. I mean, I can just riff off of that. Matt: Yeah, riff off, riff off. I think that that is a incredibly valuable piece of advice. On the surface, yeah, of course you should ask for the things that you want. But in practice, a lot of people don't ask for the things that they want, even if they want them. Daniel: And I'm not saying that I'm good at this, to be honest, Daniel, I think you may be better at asking for stuff than even I am. And obviously you asked me to do this pod with you. You ask and get a lot of our guests to say yes to come on to the show. It's a extremely high leverage skill to just get in the habit and be good at asking people for things. And you don't need to do it in a way that is annoying. I think one common objection is, oh, I don't want to be annoying, or I don't want to be that guy. You know, I don't want to be the one that's always bothering people and begging them to come onto my podcast or to do X, Y, Z thing for me. Matt: I think there's a way to ask that is respectful and obviously, like, demonstrates that you're not just going to be extracting value from someone, but you're also providing value to them in return. Like what we do on this podcast by giving the guests a platform. And so if there's anything that entrepreneurs and even people that aren't building businesses, like, professionals who want to get the most out of their work, asking for that promotion or asking for that coffee chat with someone is one of those things where the downside is so minimal relative to the potential upside. Daniel: 100%. I mean, when we ask a guest, the worst thing they say is no. And then it's like, we might try again later. We might not try again. And no hard feelings. Like, we totally understand people are busy. Like, even asking for my roommate if I'm recording, just telling him that if you wouldn't mind, just, like, not playing the speaker, like, turning it down a little bit. He understands. And then next time he'll feel more comfortable if it's late at night and he wants to go to bed early, then he'll tell me, like, that's, it's tough at the start, but it's a better experience for everybody. Matt: One more thing I wanted to add is, I was thinking of things just now, and I actually was writing a post on this before we started recording, is that there is a chronic shortage of viral content on not just LinkedIn everywhere and there always will be. And here's what I mean. Daniel: If it's 8:28 AM and you're waiting to log on to your 8:30 check-in, we're getting a good LinkedIn scrolling. And you see a Spencer Jones post from an NBA starting forward about how he's on LinkedIn in the NBA and he's doing an investment. And it's the super juicy post. You're going to keep scrolling and you're going to start paying attention at 8:31. If you're doom scrolling at 11 o'clock at night, just trying to do something before you go to bed, and all of a sudden you see a Mr. Beast video, you're going to stay up another 45 minutes. Or if LeBron tweets something like with the eye emoji, you're going to stay up another 15 minutes to see what that means. Or if you're Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey are getting engaged at 11:30 on a Friday, you're going to stay up another 30 minutes to figure that out. The second you leave a platform like LinkedIn or like Instagram, that means they failed. They lost ad revenue. That's how they work. For better or worse, this is how it is. And you talked about this, Matt, with Oswaf. There's always a shortage of that great viral content that keeps you on just one second longer on the platform. A lot of people have been thinking, oh, LinkedIn is getting so saturated. AI is flooding the algorithm. No, AI is not flooding the algorithm. There will always be a need for that top 1% of content that always keeps you on the platform. Daniel: So if anyone in the audience has been, like, thinking to themselves that it's too late to make content or I'll try this another time or I've lost my opportunity, you have not. There will always be a market for the top 1%, because that's the only way these platforms can survive, is if they have stuff that prevents you from scrolling. And that's what Matt and I hope to make every time and every episode. And you should not let your fears of thinking you're too late, regardless of what everyone says, prevent you from posting on social media. You heard it here first. Matt: Honestly, I don't have anything else to add to that. I feel like you put that so well, Daniel. The opportunity is still massive on LinkedIn. And anyone who's saying, oh, it's too saturated, or, oh, it's too late, is not taking a step out of the bubble of being on LinkedIn. What you have to realize is this platform is still, one, smaller than many of the major there are so few people still in the grand scheme of things that are actually creating good content. And I say good because I'm not just talking about any content. I'm not just talking about AI slop. People that actually create well-thought-out, experience-based or research-based content that actually resonates or provides value to their audience. Those people, they're always going to have a place on the platform. So if you have something to say and you have the experience to back it up, I see no reason why you shouldn't be posting on LinkedIn. Daniel: But anyways, thanks for tuning in to this episode of Connection Accepted. We'll see you guys in the next one. If you made it this far, Matt and I appreciate your support. And make sure to like and subscribe. Thanks again.