My name is Daniel DiPiazza. I’m the bestselling author of three books and an entrepreneur with a career that has spanned multiple industries for almost two decades.
From film and television production, to online education, new media, traditional publishing and e-commerce — I’ve dedicated my life to sharing my journey in life and business with millions of people around the world.
Career Highlights
- Creating online content since January 2007
- Produced / directed film and streaming television
- Columnist for TIME, Fortune, Inc., Entrepreneur, Fortune, LA Weekly etc
- Marketer and copywriter for 7 & 8-figure brands
- On the cover of Foundr Magazine
- Built a 7-figure e-commerce brand with 20,000+ customers
- Published 3 bestselling books in multiple languages
- Over 400 podcast episodes published
- Built personal audience of 500k+ people across email and social media
- Hosted an international speaking tour
- CEO & Publisher at New Wave Press
Many people reading this have been following my work for a decade or more now — and that blows my mind! Since I’m just getting back into posting consistently again, I wanted to get everyone caught up on who I am, how I got here and what you can expect to learn from me on this site.
I only have one ask: if you haven’t subscribed to my newsletter yet, please do that here so that we can stay in touch. You can read my entire story (up to now) in the post below. Thank you in advance!
2008: Awakening In Egypt
It’s May 2008. I’m a Junior in college. I’m standing at the bow of a small cruise ship as the golden outline of distant shores come into focus on the horizon. Our journey had taken us across the wine dark Aegean Sea from Athens, headed for Port Said, Egypt en route to Giza and Cairo.
For as long as I could remember, I’d been fascinated by ancient Greek and Egyptian history. There’s a patina of magic that still resonates with those epochs and I always felt that by studying them, I was getting closer to something deep inside of myself.
At the Sphinx circa May 2008
Technically, I’d entered university as a Sophomore because I took many so many credits in high school — and that was fine with me. I didn’t want to stay in college any longer that I had to. I wanted to explore the world, and that’s why I jumped at the opportunity to study abroad for six months in Thessaloniki, Greece.
The experience transformed my mind and expanded my expectations for life. It also taught me that that with focus and tenacity, I had the ability to direct my own future. It gave the the confidence to go for something big. I just knew that I was meant for important work, but I didn’t know what.
2009: Caged Dreams
Coming back to the States was hard for a few months until I got readjusted. Everything was in its place, exactly where I left it. Yet something in me was different. I’d been toying with the idea of going to law school or medical school, but those ideas seemed hollow now. They felt like prepackaged versions of life, not my unique path.
Truth be told, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I just knew that leaning into the things that I genuinely enjoyed had proven to be a good strategy up to that point — so I went with it. I’d always wanted to try my hand at acting. I’d never taken an acting class in my life. I’d never even auditioned for anything, unless you count the one time I auditioned for the role of Chip the teacup in the traveling version of Beauty and The Beast when it came to the Detroit Theater in 1994.
(They asked me to sing “Happy Birthday” and I belted out my best Mariah Carey impersonation. I did not receive a callback.)
I began acting classes at The Performer’s Studio Workshop in Tampa and looking online on message boards to find roles I could cut my teeth on. The classes were challenging, frustrating and humbling — but man, did I love performing. I wanted to create fun, interesting and exciting work that people would love. And let’s be real: I wanted to be highly-praised and highly-paid for it.
My first moment as an “influencer”?
I won a few small parts in local plays, including one in which I played a disgruntled Rudolph the Red- Nosed Reindeer in a dystopian Christmas production. I got professional headshots taken and was somehow able to land my first agent.
That resulted in my booking my first notable role as Randy in Caged Dreams, an MMA short film which went on to win several local and regional awards.
The most memorable part of this experience was the training. To get ready for the role, the production team enrolled me in fight training — specifically, jiu jitsu. For context here: while the UFC is very popular now, MMA was much smaller then.
BTS shots from Caged Dreams
I was lucky enough to train with the legendary 6th degree black belt Renato Tavares and it sparked my curiosity for jiu jitsu, which later turned into a deep passion. After the film hit, I moved to Atlanta.
2010-13: Atlanta, Georgia
I left Florida in January 2010 and was determined to break into the secondary entertainment market in Georgia, which was beginning to get a lot of film and television contracts due to lucrative tax credits designed to draw production companies to the state. My strategy was to land a few roles in shows or movies that would get me exposure, then ride the wave out to Los Angeles. That’s exactly what ended up happening three years later, but not for the reasons I expected.
In what proved to be a fortuitous decisions, I also decided to document my journey online.
Please understand, 2010 is almost prehistoric in internet years. Social media was still nascent — Facebook was only a few years old and Instagram wasn’t invented yet. Funny enough, the website you’re reading right now still existed. It was dedicated to chronicling my progress as an up-and-coming actor in Atlanta.
The original danieldipiazza.com in March 2010
As soon as I touched down, I began looking for agents to represent me, signed with Atlanta Models & Talent and began going on auditions. I went out for everything I could. Acting is a particularly fickle industry. It’s not really about talent, though that plays a role. It’s not just about looks, though they’re important, too.
It really just comes down to is getting others to choose you. It’s the biggest “pick me” career there is. I enjoyed the craft, I was always grateful to get an audition or book a role…but I hated depending on the whims of casting directors to decide whether or not I had the opportunity to play roles.
I remember the moment when I realized that the actor’s career path wasn’t for me. I was at an audition for AMC’s Walking Dead to play the role of a zombie. Admittedly, I’d not watched the show before and that was my downfall. Always do your research before a job interview! I ended up doing a bad Frankenstein impression mixed with some version of a wild animal — and the casting directors were less than impressed. It was a really funny audition because I’d never seen someone so bored and repulsed at the same time.
Better actors would have taken the experience as feedback to study more and actually try harder. In my case, it simply made me realize that if I was going to do something with my life, I had to be the one calling the shots. I knew that I couldn’t always predict how the waves of destiny would churn, but I damn sure wanted to be the one steering the ship.
I asked myself a pivotal question: why don’t I just make my own films and cast myself?
I began writing in earnest to develop a script about something that really interested me. At the time, I was fascinated with and inspired by the jazz music of Duke Ellington. I began writing Blossoms for Clara, a short about an aging jazz pianist and his dying wife. This became what I consider my first “Big Project.”
Unlocking The Magic of My First “Big Project”
One of the most important decisions you can make to improve your life and drastically increase your career potential is to begin working on a what I call a “Big Project.”
Your Big Project will be something that forces you develop new skills and intentionally pushes you to the limits of your comfort zone. You want to focus on projects or ideas that are challenging enough to stretch you and occasionally frustrate you, but still allow you to get in a few wins along the way so that you don’t get too discouraged.
This is the type of pursuit that requires the type of effort Georgetown professor and author Cal Newport would call Deep Work.
Some examples of a “Big Project” you could undertake:
- Learn to play guitar and join a band, then go on a mini-tour.
- Bootstrap a SAAS company or start a freelance business.
- Launch a Kickstarter for a product you invented.
- Study Japanese for a year and plan an extended trip there to practice.
- Write, direct and produce a film and enter it in a film festival.
- Write a book and plan the entire marketing rollout.
- Learn chess (or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu!) and start competing at tournaments.
Everybody has something. You just have to find your something and get good. Then get great.
The ROI of a Big Project is usually much higher than advertised. But it’s not always money. And that’s the point. You will end up learning much than you could ever imagine, because you’ll have to dedicate yourself like never before.
It’ll force you to grow. Doing meaningful work pays dividends, in more than one way. There’s no way to say whether or not your first Big Project will lead to money, fame or any type of “success” as you may define it. But I can promise you that when you get really good at something, your odds of getting paid really well to do it go up dramatically.
The process of creating this film lit my world on fire because it taught me to learn and incorporate many different disciplines that I had no previous experience with:
- Writing the film
- Producing / raising money
- Scouting the locations
- Casting for the roles
- Directing the film
- Completing the project
- Marketing it
Here’s the film:
Click to watch on YouTube
My team and I raised $13,000 for a two day shoot. We even got Jasmine Guy to star in it. The experience showed me that I could create, direct and execute an idea — and launch a product with multiple people involved, while managing a budget. I went in because I loved film, but I came out knowing how to launch a product and run a small team.
At the same time I was tapping into my inner Stanley Kubrick, I met the woman who would become my wife on OKCupid, of all places.
Meeting Sara and Going “Full Time” Into Entrepreneurship
Meeting somebody online in 2024 is normal. In 2011, however, it was weird. But that’s ok…because I’m weird — and so is Sara. I often think about the impact that algorithms have on our fate. Even if you believe that humans have “free will,” something has to be said for the fact that between GPS, online dating and food delivery, many of our most important decisions are being made for us. Or at least “curated”.
And thank God for that!
I met Sara in October 2010 and we quickly became inseparable. Meeting her was the lead domino in an incredible period of growth and positive change for me.
Looking back on my life, it’s easy to see that at least 80% of my best decisions were either directly or indirectly made because of her. She’s 5 years younger, but she’s always been a very wise guide and partner to tackle life with.
While I was auditioning and producing Blossoms, I was also had two part-time jobs. One as a server at LongHorn Steakhouse and the other as a SAT college test prep instructor with a company called Kaplan. This was a job I’d started during college after making very good scores myself on the test — a function of the fact that I’ve always been strangely good at multiple choice tests.
We all have our gifts.
Each of these jobs taught me something different.
LongHorn taught me a lot about people. I became more confident approaching and pitching once I realized one simple truth: everybody who comes to the restaurant wants to eat. That meant I didn’t have to be “salesly” in order to get people to buy. All I had to do I was people what they already wanted and they’d buy happily. That powerful frame helped me become a much better salesperson.
As they say in more business books that I can count: “The most important element of sales isn’t having a great product or the perfect pitch — it’s a starving crowd.”
Kaplan taught me about margins and positioning in business. I was making about $24/hour while I was instructing — which seemed decent at the time, until I considered all the other hidden work I was doing outside of just teaching.
I was doing all the teaching of the students and the communication with the parents. I was the one grading the assignments and managing the often empty office in Roswell, GA. I even drove to homes and taught privately on behalf of Kaplan. I wasn’t really mad at the job — I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. I knew Kaplan was charging parents about $100/hour and in my mind, that price point validated that if I went out on my own, my skills were worth at least the same amount.
So that’s what I eventually did. I leveraged my college test prep business to go full time into entrepreneurship.
It’s been over a decade and I haven’t looked back.
Leveraging The Marsupial Method
My strategy for getting students is something that I’ve documented several times, including this article in Foundr Magazine. It’s called The Marsupial Method and at the time, I thought it was pretty innovative. The central process is essentially an effective referral strategy that allows you to partner with adjacent businesses and build out your own clientele.
Here’s an old ass video of me explaining how it works:
I was a good coach and teacher. My students got results — but the transformations they made in their test scores had more to do with building self-confidence than it did academic skills. In more ways than one, this was the beginning of my career as a coach.
My favorite experience during that it time period was teaching a weekend class with 35 people all paying me $300 for the class — and walking out with a cool $10,000 in cash and checks in my name. Right in a manilla envelope. I felt like a pimp and I got used to making $5k, $7k or even $10k some months. Since I was making $3,500/month max at the restaurant, it was a tremendous upgrade. This part of the story is also the intro to my bestselling book (but that wouldn’t come out for another 5 years).
I enjoyed that business. But Sara and I were considering moving to Los Angeles where she was from — so I needed something with more mobility.
When “Hacking Elance” Went Viral
I landed on web design because I’d already had a bit of previous experience with it in high school. I took Web Design I and II, loved it, and felt comfortable enough to at least play around with WordPress software. That were enough to get me started on Elance — the freelancing site which eventually became UpWork.
Just like my approach to the test prep business, I started this new business strategically. My approach revolved around using job board sites like Elance to research and outwit my competition, while utilizing short, personalized video pitches to get more sales calls and close more deals.
I documented this sales strategy on my blog and even included screenshots with research and tips for readers. The strategy was called “Hacking Elance” — and it resulted in me having my first $20k+ month, which absolutely blew my mind at the time. My article about the process I used went viral in several places online — including The Huffington Post and Under30CEO, which I’d later go on to buy in 2016.
This strategy is the #1 thing that thousands of readers over the years have told me changed their sales game. The combination of market research and targeted pitching is something that still works to this day!
The success of that article and a few more began to heat up my personal brand. My newsletter grew to a few hundred people — then a few thousand readers — I took myself through a crash course on internet marketing to learn everything I possibly could.
Sara and I moved twice during this time. First, to Marietta. Then, to a beautiful spot in midtown Atlanta off 14th street. Life was fun. I kept building websites and sharpening my skills for a few years while we plotted the move to Los Angeles.
2014: Los Angeles Move and Rich20Something Begins
Sara and I touched down in Los Angeles in the hot summer of 2013. We didn’t have a place lined up, so we stayed at an old Residence Inn in Long Beach off Willow for 3 weeks while we waiting for my car and all our belongings to be shipped from Atlanta to Los Angeles. We affectionately named that place “the Cheese Hotel” because it smelled like the carpet hadn’t been washed in…ever.
Needless to say, we were happy to get our first place in Redondo Beach locked down — but by the slightly swagged out standards we’d gotten used to at our last place in Atlanta, this was a step down. It was thirty years older, but double the price!
The move to LA was a shakeup in the best possible way, and I realized that I didn’t want to continue building websites for other people. I really wanted to focus my skills and attention on building my own brand — even if I wasn’t completely sure how I was going to monetize it.
During 2013 and 2014, I worked behind the scenes with many different people in the internet space on their marketing, copywriting and sales projects. I was one of the head copywriters at I Will Teach You To Be Rich for a little bit. I also worked with Maneesh at Hack the System and later on at his startup Pavlok. I liked it so much, I even got a tattoo.
In 2014, I began to get more serious about the production of my content and I even set up a little home studio. It basically took up the entire living room of our 700 sq ft Redondo apartment when you consider how big the “green screen” was — but luckily Sara was always very supportive!
The initial home studio setup for Rich20Something
Since I was in Los Angeles, I wanted to meet as many people as possible — but I literally knew nobody.
Well, that’s a lie. I knew one guy.
The Jordan Harbinger Effect
I’d met him through a random pop-up chat box on a men’s dating and social skills site called The Art of Charm. I’d been studying their marketing and when the a bubble popped up with “Jordan” as the avatar, I was sure it was just automated. But it turned out to be a real person.
Jordan Harbinger had started the podcast with his friends AJ and Johnny as early back as 2006 — which is essentially the dawn of time for social media. By 2014, they were already well-established and actually making a few million dollars per year online with just a podcast and website. I was surprised that the main face of the brand was actually speaking to me via chat, and I specifically remember asking him: “If you could do one thing over with online business, what would it be?” He told me: “I would have started my email list earlier.“
“Me too.” I thought.
I remembered Jordan mentioned he lived in LA, so when I got there…he was pretty much the only “industry” contact I had. I wanted to reach out and get a meeting with him, but I didn’t have any valid reason to connect — until I remembered Under30CEO.
I figured that since I’d written a few hits for Under30, they’d be happy to take an introduction to Jordan to feature some content. Jordan brought his own audience and both would benefit. I reached out to him via email to make sure he didn’t get kidnapped in North Korea. Turns out he made it safe and sound. I pitched him on a meeting to discuss setting up a collaboration between him and Under30.
He agreed and we were eating sushi in Hollywood the next week. We hit it off, I agreed to set up the collaboration. At the end of the meeting, I asked him a question that became one of my signatures: “Who else do you think I should know that might make for an interesting conversation?”
“You definitely need to meet my friend, Gabe Mizrahi” he said.
“The one you went to North Korea with?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok, but just so you know…I’m not going to North Korea.”
After lunch, Jordan introduced me to Gabe via email and we jumped on the phone to have a quick convo. I don’t remember the context or the content — I think it was just a quick chat that we both agreed to because Jordan said it would be a good idea. Goes to show the power of warm introductions.
Gabe is a super dope guy, extremely creative and into film production. At that stage, his career was just beginning to take off as the host at a streaming television network called The Lip TV. I thought it was fucking awesome.
Hosting For The Lip TV
Nothing initially came of that call – but a friendship was formed. It wasn’t until March of 2014 when Gabe and I connected again. This time, I had as ask. As a way of bolstering my career in the online publishing space, I was connecting with well-known figures to interview.
I’d heard that Shark Tank star Lori Greiner was launching her book Invent It, Sell It, Bank It and I was hoping there was an opportunity to interview her. But I didn’t have anywhere to do so. I called up Gabe and asked if he knew anywhere appropriate.
“Why don’t you come down and do it at The Lip?” he said. So that’s what I did. Later that week, I coordinated with Lori’s team and we met up at the Beverly Hills Hotel and then made our way to the studios down the street. It was my first time in a full production studio and while I was a little nervous — I got the job done.
The interesting part about this process is that the owner of the studio Michael Lustig was so impressed with my balls and ability to go out and find my own subjects to interview that he offered me a position as a journalist / host on the platform. This provided me the opportunity to access celebrities and personalities I’d never previously been able to — and that opened up many doors!
Here’s me interviewing Nev Schulman from Catfish. I’m a little wet behind the ears, but I loved what I was doing!
It was through this platform that I met my mentor Stephen Key, who went on to help me by introducing me to the editors at Entrepreneur Magazine, where I had a column for years. He also introduced me to my literary agent Kirsten, who eventually helped me get my first book deal with Penguin RandomHouse in 2015. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves a bit.
2015 – 2019: The Rich20Something Era
In this 3 year period, my life exploded in many positive ways. Naturally, I’m sharing the highlights — that’s never the totality. But overall, this was a fantastic period for my business and my ego. I went full time producing content, courses and programs while building a readership for my blog.
This was also the period that I really began to grow on Instagram and gain widespread notoriety. I was featured in major outlets like TIME, Entrepreneur, Fortune, Forbes, Inc, and the cover of Foundr Magazine to name a few. I was hot, hot, hot!
What a rush!
I released my first book, Rich20Something, to rave reviews and a flood of sales in May 2017. This book was a pioneering work for a frustrated Millennial generation looking for answers to questions about life, work and overall happiness. I’ll always love what I was able to do with this work — and it proved to me the power of a book to bring in customers for life. Years later, I started New Wave Press utilizing the lessons I learned from this launch.
By 2018, I’d undergone what can only be described as a series of entrepreneurial seizures that led me from the maw of uncertainty to the precipice of self-mastery. I was becoming somebody different and my writing was changing in unexpected ways.
I was terrified.
Would my new ideas resonate as much now as my old ones had before? Would I still be useful to the huge audience I’d built? Had I pigeonholed myself into a niche I couldn’t easily escape?
I had plenty of self-doubt. But I left it on the shore and dove headfirst into the river of change.
I started doing the deep inner work that was really important to me and sharing that journey with my audience. To my surprise and relief, they didn’t show up on my lawn with pitchforks. So, I kept talking.
I opened up about my grandmother’s death. About the weeks where I spent over 35 hours meditating. About my work with perception shattering psychedelics. About jiu jitsu. About attempting to master myself physically, mentally, financially and spiritually. In late 2018, I even did a talk which was streamed to over a million people via the CreativeLive platform that dove deep into all the new things I was learning.
Here’s a piece of that presentation.
And no, I haven’t written the book this material speaks about. Yet.
I could feel that I was getting ready for a shift — and 2020 ushered it in hard.
2020 – 2023: Rebrand, Revise, Renew
If I’d known the world was going to shut down in 2020, I’m not sure if I would have done anything differently. Regardless, I was forced to pivot when the pandemic hit — mostly because I was just burnt out from talking. I was sick of being front-facing. And I also wanted to try my hand at a business model that didn’t require my personality to succeed.
So I called up my friend Micah and we dug up an old business idea that we’d stop/started a few times over the years. It’s called Strength of Seduction — and it’s based on a book that I wrote the manuscript for all the way back in 2012. That book was released in 2021. We’re a B2C product company that’s completely focused on health and wellness for Black couples.
We’re known for our spicy and sensual workouts for couples. And they’re aren’t just for show. They actually work!
This company is still growing — and I help to operate it day-to-day. So far we have about 20,000 paying customers for our workout and relationship coaching programs.
The cool part is that while all this was cooking, I was still able to publish my next book — The True Artifact — which is a collection of philosophy and practical advice garnered throughout my career. I’m basically a poor man’s Alan Watts.
(Or maybe a rich man’s, come to think of it.)
2024 and Beyond: New Wave Press Is Born
In 2023, I stopped coaching and went radio silent on all my social platforms in order to tap into what was next for me. I began looking at the common denominator for what really makes me happy in life — and the truth is….it’s books.
Reading them. Writing them. Producing them. Smelling them?
In the space of 12 months, I launched New Wave Press — an independent publishing company that produces beautiful books for experts, industry-leaders and entrepreneurs who want to share their wisdom with the world — but don’t want to spend their valuable time learning how to write, publish or market a bestseller.
(Hint: it’s a lot of work.)
Up to this point my career, I’ve published 3 books and spent the better part of a decade learning how to turn a well-written book into a lifelong stream of customers. I’d say I’ve gotten quite good at it.
I’m happy to announce that we will be publishing our first two authors in early 2025:
James Swanwick’s new book The Alcohol-Free Lifestyle (we may change the title). This is aimed at top-performers and professionals who want to get an edge on life by quitting or reducing their drinking. Huge for me as I nearly never drink for this reason.
Dr. Brett Jones’s new book The Healing Way. This is a fascinating exploration into how you can take your own mental, physical and spiritual healing into your own hands.
These are two very close friends who I’m excited to help share their gifts. It’s been an honor thus far to contribute to the writing process.
I’ll continue to keep you updated as their books roll out. A book is an asset that will continue to generate leads and sales forever if you write it with the end in mind.
Want more updates? Make sure you’ve signed up for my email list. I regularly send out my best writing, book recommendations, business tips and more.
If you’re a professional, entrepreneur or expert who is ready to become a bestselling author, I’m happy to answer any questions about writing, publishing and promoting your book. Reach out by completing the application on this page and we can discuss how New Wave Press may be able to support you.
