He made $25 million in six months, never sold a course, and doesn’t do sponsorships. For two years, he just gave everything away for free. This is Daniel Dalen, and his strategy changes everything you think you know about personal branding.
Most creators build an audience to sell them a $500 course. Daniel built an audience to attract $1 million clients.
Daniel runs EcomFlow, a logistics company that helps e-commerce brands ship products faster and cheaper from China. Instead of selling a “how-to” guide, he uses his personal brand to prove his expertise. He documents his life, traveling to China, negotiating prices in Chinese, and showcasing complex quality control processes.
The key to his success is patience. He didn’t monetize for two years, building an unshakeable level of trust that is impossible to fake. When he launched a limited-edition pair of glasses, everyone thought he was finally selling to his audience. They missed the point.
The glasses were a case study for his real business, EcomFlow. Every video about the glasses—from finding manufacturers to international fulfillment—is a 20-minute ad demonstrating his company’s capabilities, attracting high-level clients that generate millions in revenue.
If Daniel attracts just five to ten high-level clients a year, he easily makes more than he would selling courses for a decade. He shows his failures, his struggles, and his uncertainty—never positioning himself as a guru. He’s simply a friend on a journey, and that authenticity is his most compelling, and most profitable, marketing asset.
If you want to understand how the internet’s most successful entrepreneurs operate, follow for more stories of million-dollar creators.
Leave a comment