$0 to $4M: Inside the Bootstrapped Rise of Whippy with David Daneshgar

Hey, Justin here, and welcome to Just Go Grind, a newsletter sharing the lessons, tactics, and stories of world-class founders! Premium subscribers get full access to this newsletter, exclusive events, event discounts, and more.

David Daneshgar is a man of many talents.

He’s gone from being a World Series of Poker winner to the co-founder of Whippy, the number one AI platform for business productivity.

Former LA Lakers owner Jerry Buss ignited his passion for business, so much so that his letter of recommendation for The University of Chicago was of Lakers headed paper.

It was early in his business school days that he co-founded his first company, BloomNation, where he learned from experience all things sales.

But by 2021 he partnered with co-founder Jack Kennedy to build Whippy AI, making their way into one of today’s broadest, richest fields out there.

In this episode of the Just Go Grind Podcast David shares his unique journey, from his poker background and first steps at BloomNation, all the way to the present of Whippy and the future of AI in businesses.

Listen to David’s interview on Spotify, YouTube or Apple Podcasts.

Thank you to our sponsor:

• Rho - A business banking platform, purpose-built for startups.

Let’s dive in.

Rho is a business banking platform, purpose-built for startups and they work with everyone from two-person YC startups with world-changing ideas to publicly-traded enterprises.

With Rho, founders get:

• A single pane of glass they can use to run and scale their business from Day 1: Bank account, corporate cards to start running – and expense management, bill pay automation, and accounting to help you move fast as you scale.

• The big thing with Rho: Every customer has a "person" at Rho. 24/7 customer support - phone, text, email - they will be there at every critical milestone in your startup's journey.

To learn why startups choose Rho, visit www.rho.co today.

• In David’s eye, you have to have no backup plan if you wanna be a successful entrepreneur. It may sound rough, but having your back against the wall is what gets you hustling, which is what it gets to get a business up and running.

• Selling is a lot like dating—when it comes to attitude, at least. By being confident and overcoming the fear of rejection you are already half way there. Well, having a good product is no small thing either. But taking an assertive approach to market is really what will get you a long way.

• Leveraging connections was pivotal for growing both BloomNation and Whippy. You can make the most out of every customer you gain by going one step further, whether it is asking them to refer other customers or even hosting joint events, like David did.

• To David, true product-market fit is ‘charging to the Amex’. You’re not sure your idea is a good one or not? Well, if people are willing to go as far as spending their hard-earned money, you know you have a promising vision on your hands.

• The ‘one vertical, one product’ approach that’s been historically so valued by investors is now obsolete. Whippy decided to break this unspoken rule and become a compound startup, developing many products and targeting various industries at a time. This ended up being the secret to scaling.

• Getting feedback is key, but so is actually putting it into motion. As a founder, make sure to be available, be approachable, just be there. Your employees will be honest and transparent with you when there’s no barrier in between. Don’t underestimate how much human-to-human conversations reflect on the company’s growth, culture and success.

Listen to David’s interview on Spotify, YouTube or Apple Podcasts.

00:00 What’s coming in the episode…

1:21 Introduction

2:15 The present state of Whippy

3:18 David’s background

6:26 From poker to business school

8:34 Early days of BloomNation

11:45 What makes David a good salesman?

13:12 Events as a growth strategy

15:49 Growing Bloomnation

18:06 Starting Whippy

25:21 The start of Whippy’s revenue

27:35 Product development at Whippy

33:14 The first million in revenue

34:54 Where is Whippy going

41:37 David on hiring

43:44 The distributed team at Whippy

46:39 Next big challenges

50:05 David as a founder

54:03 Keeping Whippy on top of the AI world

57:09 Who is Whippy for?

58:42 How to contact David

• HubSpot

• Jerry Buss

• Andreessen Horowitz

• Spark Capital 

• Everett Cook from Rho

• Tim Ferriss

• Shutterstock

• Sam Altman

• Jack Kennedy (co-founder of Whippy)

• Tim Huelskamp from 1440

• Shawn Sheikh from Adly

• Rippling

• Travis Kalanick from Uber

• Patrick Collison from Stripe

• Christina Cacioppo from Vanta 

• Gale Wilkinson from Vitalize Venture Capital

Best,
Justin

Founder of Just Go Grind

P.S. Hiring? Check out the team at Athyna