As a coach to 50+ tech-founders over 13 years – every founder confided they’d felt lonely, doubt, uncertainty, fear, and a rollercoaster of emotions. Almost daily.
Sound familiar?
As a founder in my first tech company, I felt the same. On the surface – things looked great. I was in three teams that took three companies global. But under the hood, I lived many days worrying where I should focus, who I should talk to, what I should say, and where to spend our scarce capital.

Like me, those I coach looked to advisors, mentors, incubators, accelerators or even online groups to provide guidance.

Like me, they found these people could not help them with the core challenge of feeling confident, calm and in control.
As a result, 80% of tech-startups failed. Even the “successful” ones ended with founders in poor mental-health: burnt out, having made significant sacrifices for their “success”.
13 years ago I had an insight: it doesn’t have to be this way. The reason it was, was one missing link.
Just like in the 18th century one missing link in our knowledge (the importance of sanitization) meant that most patients in hospitals died unnecessarily.
I formed a group of other tech-founders and started teaching them the one missing link.
The result blew my mind. Over the next 2 years, they all
They all said what I’d showed them was what made the difference.
So what was it these entrepreneurs learn that made all that difference?
Superficially, it looked like they learnt four things
But actually, they’d learnt just one breakthrough skill.
That skill is (cue drum roll)
Positively influence the people your destiny depends on
Positive influence applied to
Positive influence is the breakthrough technique to realise your vision
But knowing that gold is valuable doesn’t make you rich
Similarly, knowing positive influence is valuable wont give you the influence you need to succeed.
But the Positive Influence program does.
But first, here’s something for you to ponder:
What happens if you don’t increase your positive influence?
We see this all too often don’t we? – The gradual loss of the energy and enthusiasm of the founder. Sometimes with the consolation prize of an exit. Often without.
If you can’t trade in the currency of positively influence, you are left trading in time. In other words, you work long hours.
This strategy may appear to work – for a time. But it then it betrays you.
This betrayal is not sudden. It happens imperceptibly – like a frog boiling alive.
It all starts to become a grind. You keep telling yourself “this is just for now.” Yet each new success brings new grind, new stress.
It all feels like you’re collectively banging your heads against a brick wall 80 hours a day until the brick wall falls over or you do.
This reality in self-harm. It’s utterly preventable and totally unnecessary.
Now imagine you see that wall has a door. That door has a key. That key is positive influence. You turn the key and walk through that door. Suddenly you’re hearing more people say “yes”. Everything feels easier. Your vision is coming to pass.
What specific new skills will I pick up in the program?
By implementing the tools in this 10-week program, you will learn
Who is it for?
This program is not for you if you enjoy
This program is for you if
What you don’t get
The transformational magic is in the sacred union of this program I’ve poured my soul into, and your commitment to do the work on the program.
Results you can expect after the 10-week program
Imagine yourself waking up to this reality:
By positively influence investors you win almost every pitch
By positively influence prospects, you sell and grow rapidly.
By positively influence your team, you grow a culture of star-players who think like business owners and recruit people smarter than them
By positively influencing yourself, you develop winning habits so that you stay in peak mental health, and never need sacrifice time on family or hobbies.
This may seem a distant reality. But it’s not. But it’s the reality the tech-founders I’ve coached in positive influence find themselves waking up into.
This reality is available to you too.
Those who learn to positively influence feel in control.
They grow companies that success.

Their shareholders, directors, employees and partners are a joy to work with.

How it works

You’ll get access to the 10-week online program + a special group to support you

  • 10x weekly videos with practical actions at the end of each
  • Specialist training videos for the tech-entrepreneur including pitching ninja sessions, and reproducible analysis of actual winning pitches I worked on, so you can do their winning moves
  • A special online support group of your peers to give you support and inspiration and keep you accountable
  • Some other things I’m keeping secret for now
Decision Time
If the strategy of maxing out on time is working for you, if you enjoy long cap-raises, long sales cycles, long hours and long heated discussions – keep going.
But if you want to experience a better way – the choice is simple.
Frequently asked questions
If positive influence really is the answer, why is no one talking about it?
Same reason that Doctors weren’t talking about sterilization in the 18th century. The whole ecosystem has a blindspot. Like Doctors who couldn’t see the impact of failing to sterilize, the tech ecosystem has been unable to see the impact of failing to emotionalize the communication of founders.
But I have a mentor – can’t they teach me this stuff?
No. A mentor or advisor can pour more into your cup. But they cannot increase the size of your cup so you can do more in the same number of hours.
But there’s some good templates and formulas out there for pitching and selling These formulas are like most martial art forms. They look great. But they don’t actually work in a real-life street fight. They are a sequence of stylized maneuvers.
But I have an advisor who’s run a very successful large company. I’m sure he can help me.
Did s/he run a tech company? If not – then they know how to drive a truck. But they don’t know how to ride a motorcycle. Let alone teach others to ride a motorcycle. As a tech-founder, you are racing a superbike. Would you learn to ride that powerful – yet potentially lethal – machine from a truck-driver?
I have a mentor who took a tech-company global. So I’m fine. They can teach me how to do all these things?

Really? Because they’ve run a tech company, they have automatically also acquired the skill of being able to work out exactly what things they did worked and didn’t? They automatically know where their knowledge may be useful and where it may not be based on your different context? They have spontaneously discovered how to hand on knowledge to another human? The profile of someone who makes a great coach is different to the profile of someone who makes a great player. You’ll confuse the two at your cost.

It’s not possible to learn from an online program. You need an in-person coach.
I used to believe that also. That’s what held me back on writing my book on pitching for years. But after I wrote it, I had so many people who wrote back to me saying “I haven’t lost a pitch since reading your book.” Why? Because I used my knowledge of how to coach and infused it into my book so people would apply it, not simply read it. This Positive Influence program is 20x more powerful than my book.
But if people can win pitches simply through reading your book – why don’t I just buy that?
Yes, the book will help you win your pitches. But it will not prepare you for the other three areas that are critical to your success as a tech-founder: selling, leading and self-leading. And without those other three areas, you’re still very vulnerable. Plus, the program is designed to help you get better at pitching much faster, without you having to try to work out so much by yourself.

About the Creator

In industry where 10.4% of entrepreneurs seeking capital raise it, Daniel’s clients have won an unprecedented 100% of their pitches (last 14 cap raises straight). This result is as far as I know unheard of globally. Three of their last four rounds were oversubscribed. Again – unheard of. They all got value-aligned investors, the terms they wanted, were able to turn down low-ball offers and disadvantageous terms. All without protracted Due Diligence. Why? Because they had developed the superpower of positive influence.
Daniel’s ability to help tech-entrepreneurs doesn’t stop with winning each pitch. He knows how to use the same positive influence principles to have you win at sales, recruitment, leadership and self-leadership so it’s the one skill you need to run your successful tech company. His global thought-leadership on pitching received attention from numerous publications including Nature Magazine. He had senior leadership roles in 3 tech-startups himself. All 3 went global and achieved healthy exits. Right now he’s helping two organisations win pitches with a combined value of $118,000,000. The first one just won. He also runs a VC firm where he helps entrepreneurs pitch better to him! Now, for the first time ever his heralded positive influence tools are available to any tech-entrepreneur.
Testimonials
Recently, I asked the tech-founders who’d had my positive influence training “What results have you got from the program?” They said:
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