That's the TL;DR. Something resembling a resume can be found on LinkedIn.
Dan Golden is an entrepreneur, marketer, epic prankster and business innovator. He spent two decades in performance marketing — co-founding the award-winning agency Be Found Online, taking it international, and exiting — and now spends his days building and launching software and businesses through Pandotic.
Like that photo shows, he's usually juggling between 10 and 10,000 priorities — a software company, a portfolio of apps and content sites, a home-hardening business, a few advisory seats, and a full house with four kids in it.
Took a search marketing internship at ConsumerGuide Auto as a side gig while touring with my jamband — right as Google launched AdWords. Turns out that was good timing. It's also where I met my future co-founder, Steve Krull.
Steve KrullLike many agency stories, it started as a side hustle in my apartment.
A few years at Performics learning the ropes — running the Toyota, Cabela's and FTD teams. During my tenure Performics grew to be the largest search agency in the US, was acquired by DoubleClick, and then by Google in 2007.
After about a month of free Google lunches, I left big-agency life. Joined forces with Steve Krull to start Be Found Online. Also the year my uncle found an orange jacket on sale — and the rest is history.
BFO expanded with offices in London and Singapore.
Rolled our international operations into our sister agency Huble Digital — now 150 people strong and one of the world's leading HubSpot consultancies. Around the same time I stepped out of day-to-day agency life for good.
Building Pandotic — an AI software company — and a portfolio of ventures that ride on it: tools for parents, caregivers, homeowners and schools. Still marketing, still advising, still teaching when asked. Now with a house full of four kids.
Brands & institutions I’ve partnered with over 22 years
The short version: I'm a widower who remarried, and I'm now a father of four — three from my first marriage and one who arrived later and reset the whole house. There were a few years in there where "caregiver" wasn't a cute noun in a hero tagline; it was the job.
I don't lead with that, but I don't hide it either, because it explains the work. Nearly everything I've built lately — the caregiver tools, the kid-safety site, the home-protection business, the school paperwork software — started as something my own family needed and couldn't find.
So if my portfolio looks like a scattered pile of small bets, it isn't. It's a list of problems I've lived through, in roughly the order I lived them.
Outside of the agency, I've been heavily involved in business communities committed to making the world a better place — and I still teach.
Simple answer: I've always liked orange and orange things make me happy. In 2009 my uncle saw my now sorta-search-marketing-famous-ish orange jacket on sale and the rest is history. As for sports teams — nope, I don't root for any orange ones. If you want the extended answer with the funny anecdotes, you gotta book a meeting and work for it.
I'm still a BFO guy — co-founded it in 2009, ran it for over a decade, took it to London and Singapore, and I'm proud of every bit of it. But I'm not there day-to-day anymore. These days I build software and launch small businesses, mostly through Pandotic. Search marketing is still the craft under everything; it's just no longer the headline.
A software company called Pandotic, and a fleet of apps and sites that run on it. The short list: tools that help parents make sense of school paperwork, a site that vets baby products for safety, a manual for helping your aging parents, and a business that hardens homes against wildfire. There are more. There are always more. The full pile lives in Ventures.
See the full pile in VenturesI grew up in the Pacific Northwest in beautiful Bellingham, Washington, and have been rooting for the power-hawks since Cortez Kennedy. I'm also proud to be one of the “hawkfathers” of the Chicago Hawksnest — launched with about $20 in Facebook ads.
The case study: $21.49 in Facebook ads launched the Hawks NestRunning a conscious business combines what I'm good at with what I care about. That used to mean running an agency that treated people right. Now it mostly means building products that solve a real problem for a parent, a caregiver, or a homeowner — and running them like they matter.
Why I'm all in on conscious capitalismGreat question, thanks for asking. Indeed, we considered several designs even before the smiley face logo. But after 12 focus groups we went with the consensus choice — and added a tutu at Dan's insistence.
No. Just a domain and a personal website — which does represent some real businesses that I'm involved with.
See all of them in Ventures