By: Joshua Finley
Daniel Saks grew up immersed in small business. His great-great-grandparents founded a furniture store in 1908 on the main street of Niagara Falls, Canada. As a child, Daniel played with his cousins in the store, which came to define his family’s identity for over a century.
After graduating in 2008 at the onset of the Great Recession, Daniel’ family store fell victim to the economic crisis and closed down after more than 100 years in business. This experience shaped Daniel’ perspective and motivated him to help other small businesses harness new technologies to stay competitive.
Discovering Cloud Technology
After his family’s store closed, Daniel serendipitously ended up visiting a friend in San Francisco. On his way there, Daniel received a free ticket to a Web 2.0 conference. “Everyone was talking about new tech-enabled business models like crowdsourcing and web-based services, what we now call SaaS or software-as-a-service.”
Daniel immediately recognized the potential to help small businesses access cloud technologies. He brainstormed ideas with his friend Nick, who worked in consulting. Within months, they devised a plan for an “app store” to connect businesses with cloud services.
Timing was opportune. In 2009, most small businesses had collapsed amidst the recession. But Daniel and Nick persevered with their vision despite the challenging landscape.
Turning Vision into Reality
Daniel first focused on identifying relevant software vendors for their envisioned app store. Using criteria like cloud-architecture and ease-of-use, he narrowed down a target list of around 100 apps to potentially partner with.
“I essentially started reaching out to these apps to bring them on board,” Daniel explains. “At the time, they were just getting started too – companies like Box, Freshbooks, Zoho, CloudFlare, Newrelic, Shopify, and Clio. We tried to get them integrated so we could bring them to the world.”
But Daniel knew businesses wouldn’t immediately trust apps from unknown startups like his. “Trust comes from relationships,” notes Daniel, recalling the furniture salesman who won over his grandfather through rapport and personality.
To build trust, Daniel and Nick decided to partner with major telecom carriers like Bell Canada, which already had established business relationships. As Daniel puts it, “If businesses are already paying for telephone and internet, why not add cloud apps through a provider they already trust?”
This strategy landed their first customer partnership in 2009 with Bell Canada. But working with large enterprises brought longer sales cycles. “We had to wear suits and ties, make fancy printed decks – I called it being a cultural chameleon,” Daniel remembers.
After extensive preparations, Bell launched its new Business Apps store powered by Daniel’ technology. Expecting an influx of traffic, Daniel eagerly waited to see the spike in users just like in the movie “The Social Network”.
But then – nothing.
Bouncing Back from Failure
“We spent three years of our lives preparing for this launch and then literally zero traffic,” laments Daniel. “Harley, the President of Shopify, emailed me saying his intern’s blog had more traffic than Bell’s business app store.”
This devastating failure could have sunk Daniel’s young startup. Instead, they analyzed fundamental assumptions. Daniel explains, “It wasn’t that businesses didn’t want these tools, but a massive marketing campaign wasn’t the way to sell enterprise software.”
Their research uncovered that businesses preferred buying from trusted sales reps who tailored offerings to their needs. Serendipity struck again when Deutsche Telekom urgently needed to launch its own app marketplace ahead of a major conference.
Daniel seized the opportunity. “I told them I could deliver in 2.5 months if they paid upfront to save our business. My co-founder Nick said we’ll do whatever it takes, day and night.”
With Deutsche Telekom’s strict board-watching, Daniel recalls his mom awkwardly interrupting his video call with lunch. After slamming doors and putting on a suit jacket without pants, they somehow managed to pull off the tight timeline.
The launch succeeded spectacularly. At the CEBIT conference, Deutsche Telekom’s CEO and even German Chancellor Angela Merkel came on stage to highlight the platform.
“This was my first big tech conference – I got to meet my business heroes,” beams Daniel. “It just shows if you believe in your vision despite failures, success can happen.”
Global Expansion and a New Venture
The Deutsche Telekom deal marked a turning point. Daniel went on to partner with AT&T, Comcast, BT, Telstra, and Softbank in a globetrotting effort to connect businesses with cloud apps.
After 15 years of enabling business digital transformation through AppDirect, Daniel spotted a new opportunity. “The problem was businesses could become more productive with SaaS tools, but people’s days were still spent heads-down in software.”
The rise of AI, especially generative models like ChatGPT, inspired Daniel to humanize software again. This led him to start Landbase, which leverages AI to generate leads and create content for sales and marketing teams.
Landbase’s AI engine helps foster stronger relationships by analyzing and predicting which personalized messages may resonate best with each prospect. This streamlines processes, allowing teams to dedicate more time to higher-value activities.
“You shouldn’t work for your software; your software should work for you,” Daniel emphasizes. “Our goal is to help you ‘reclaim your day’ to free yourself from technology so you can do more of what you love.”
Key Lessons for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Reflecting on his entrepreneurial journey, Daniel highlights three key pieces of advice:
- Have conviction in your vision – Don’t listen to naysayers. Stay focused on your fundamental principles.
- Never give up – Persist through failures. They are part of every great entrepreneur’s story.
- Be grateful – Appreciate your team, customers and opportunities. Give back to others without your advantages.
Daniel brings this spirit to Landbase, aiming to end repetitive software drudgery so people can spend more time on what matters. Just as his small business family showed him as a child, work and life can be integrated with purpose and harmony.
To learn more about Daniel Saks, check out his LinkedIn profile here.
Published by: Josh Tatunay
