Dan Russell
About · The full story
A decade asking one question.
What actually moves a person? I asked it of buyers for nine years. Then, in 2022, I turned it on myself.
01
The part before
I started in finance and technology. [Two or three sentences about where you grew up, what you studied, and what you thought the work was for.]
02
Nine years asking why people buy
I spent nine years running Vivid Labs, a conversion optimization agency, in which we unlocked over $50 million in trapped revenue in our clients’ websites and sales architecture. Split-test labs, behavioral science, the slow discipline of measuring what people actually do rather than what they say.
Along the way I wrote Snake Oil, a book to help small business owners navigate the treacherous waters of digital marketing.
03
Fifty startups
As Chief Marketing Officer at 10X Incubator I led a go-to-market team for a Miami-based venture studio where we brought over fifty early-stage startups to market. [A sentence on what fifty launches taught you that one agency could not.]
04
The turn inward
In 2022 the question I’d been asking about customers turned inward. I co-founded a nonprofit for personal growth and healing, trained in depth work, and began building programs that apply the same rigor to the interior lives of men. [The honest version: what broke, what it cost, what it made. This is the chapter the podcast is built on.]
05
Now
I lead a conversion studio, Shok + Koda. I run Men of Moksha, a year-long depth work program for accomplished men who’ve hit an invisible ceiling. I host What It Cost, a podcast with people who paid for who they became. And I write essays on men’s growth, depth work, and the self-directed spirit, where the ideas get worked out in public.
Work with me
Three doors, one question behind them.
A conversion project, a seat in Men of Moksha, or a conversation for the show. Every one of them is the same question asked in a different room.
