S4E10: Dan Melnick

Welcome to Commerce Famous, a podcast that celebrates the celebrities of our industry. Join us for a conversation with the tastemakers in ecommerce. In their daily lives, these are just normal everyday people like you and me. But to us, they are commerce famous. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Commerce Famous.

This is season four, episode 10. And joining me today is the founder of a business called Xyng. His name is Dan Melnick. Dan, thanks for being on the pod. Thanks for having me.

Dan, we met relatively recently at our partner day in Austin, Texas. And, I was immediately struck by your robust amount of unique ecommerce experiences from an eBay store to a startup to finding your own agency. I'd love to kinda hear in your own words. Take us through a little bit of your journey, and we'll use that to to have a discussion. Yeah.

Sure. So, my first ever company was called Chicago's Memorabilia. So for me, it was more of a hobby. So I started this hobby back when I was 12 years old, and I was used to just going to collect autographs. And by the time I got 16, 17, I used to go to to, Downtown Chicago and just wait outside the hotels and go to the games and airport, whole nine yards.

You know? I was like, I'm one of those people. And, my friend was like, dude, what are you doing? Well, you're getting all these autographs, spending all this time doing this. And you might try and, you know, sell some things because you're spending so much time and money on this hobby.

So I'm like, you know what? It's not a bad idea. Put some stuff on eBay. Somebody actually bought what I put on eBay. And so that's kinda how we, you know, just got started.

And I was like, hey. Like, listen. This is like an actual business. So I did that for about nine years. That was really just like my first, like, venture in entrepreneurship and ecommerce, and I was doing all the fulfillment, marketing, taking all the photos, all of it just on my own.

So What was that business called? Chicago's memorabilia. It was very simple. Yeah. Almost ten years.

Crazy. Well Yeah. Well, you went from someone who tried to list something to a power seller, which is like in the top 1% of all eBay listeners. What did you learn by having to kind of do everything yourself from listing optimization to I'm sure customer service was a big part of it, fulfillment, packaging. What what are some of those things that stood out to you?

Yeah. I think it was just, you know, in the very beginning, like, I was like, I went to business school and I studied business, but, you know, just simultaneously, but I'm, like, I was learning much more from actually doing it. Right? It's like how to deal with people, I think, is obviously very important, especially, like, in the autograph space. You know, people are buying these collectibles because it's very, like, personal to them, and sometimes people are skeptical about the authenticity.

Is it going back and forth about that? And really just, like, looking at things, like, I am holistic and objective perspective because I think, you know, in the very beginning, I get, like, super defensive. Hey. Like, how could you accuse it, you know, of it being fake or something? But over time, just just, you know, while I'm learning how to, talk to people and handle those things.

But, yeah, I did all the fulfillment myself, all the, marketing and listing and all of that, but it was great. It was a great experience, and I had by the end over 10,000 items in my store, which I was storing in my parents' basement. Yeah. It was a pretty robust, small business, but yeah. Amazing.

Well and you did that for eight years. So it kinda ran a parallel track to your professional career, as well. Correct. Yeah. So I finished college, and then I did that for a couple more years.

But I knew by the time I finished school that I wanted to go out of that business because it wasn't scalable. Right? It was just me on my own, and I had to fulfill every single thing. I said, hey. Like, you know, why don't I try to do something more in the, you know, technology side where I don't have to actually go and, you know, fulfill every single where I can travel and I have to worry about going on vacation.

Right? Because with an eBay store, you have to say, hey. I'm on vacation. I won't you know, it's not gonna ship for a week and a half. Right?

Things like that. So that for sure was a big challenge. But, yeah, I mean, I started this mobile application. My whole vision was to connect personal trainers to end clients. I myself was looking for trainers on social media.

It was very hard to find online trainers, and so that's my vision for that. It didn't work out. You know? But, that's kinda why I like you know, so I pivoted from that, you know, to this, this called the, workout pros because I I I really, wanted to just go after and help more people and create something that was much more substantial and much more global. Commerce famous is proudly presented by Shopware, the leading open source e commerce platform for mid market and lower enterprise merchants.

More than 50,000 clients already process over $25,000,000,000 in annual GMV through Shopware. Find out more about Shopware and the best value in ecommerce at shopware.com. Okay. So the workout pros, you started that in 2019. Again, you're still doing the eBay thing, but now you've kinda transitioned into this other opportunity.

What were some of the lessons you learned about trying to be a founder of a business that wasn't just riding on eBay's rails and and kind of leveraging their search volume? You had to kind of create a business from scratch. What what did you learn? Yeah. Yeah.

I think just understanding product market fit, you know, and so I built this whole thing and this app and it was super robust, but I had never, you know, validated this concept and try to understand if people would actually want this concept. Number one and number two, just how to market it. You know, I never made much money. I never really had, like, any customers. I never any paid ads.

I mean, I had no idea what I was doing because, like, obviously, on eBay, it's so different. Right? You put the item on there. You can order an ad in their platform. It's super seamless.

But here, I, you know, had no idea how to run, you know, ads on, you know, meta and I never even, like, you know, I did some here and there. Like, I boosted some posts, but I had no idea what I was doing. And so that's really just kind of what it was understanding, like, you know, PMF marketing. You know? I never even thought about raising money.

Like, I just had no clue about anything in, like, you know, entrepreneurship, I would say. I mean, I I I wouldn't say that, but it was like a very different venture. And so I didn't really have anybody to, you know, chat with that's looking before chat GPT, so very different time. Yeah. You beat it by a couple of years.

Well, so talk to us a little bit about that moment when you decided to do it. What did you see in the market that was an unmet need that you were trying to fill? Yeah. I mean, for the workout pros, my thought was like, hey. Listen.

You know, I I myself was kind of annoyed with, like, having to find a coach or, like, a trainer through Instagram. And people that's kinda what people, like, were doing and how you know somebody's good. Right? And so that was my thought of, like, hey. How can I actually, you know, help make this process more seamless and and just make it easier for people to find, like, the right coach?

And I was like, I was like, the whole vision was like a two sided marketplace to connect personal trainers to end, clients. And so that was I was, like, solving a problem for myself, and I think that's oftentimes how most of my companies have started. So yeah. Did you set out to be an entrepreneur? I mean, you look at your history.

I think you started three companies, worked for a couple others, but clearly you had a passion to be your own boss. What where does that come from? Is that something you studied in college or is this just an itch? Yeah. I mean, like, my parents are immigrants, and they came to this country from the Soviet Union, you know, so they escaped communism.

And I think for me, like, being born in The US, like, having this opportunity to, you know, grow up in America, and I always felt like I wanted to make the most of it. You know? And I think it took a lot of people who come from, like, you know, immigrant backgrounds like myself share a similar sentiment. But, yeah, for me, it was just, you know, I always wanted to, like, just do something big because I felt like, you know, I study a lot the founder of Bloom, Greg, Lavecchio. And he's, like, says, you know, it's, like, ultimately, it takes, like, the same amount of effort to go for something massive than it does to take, you know, go for something small.

Right? So I'm like, why not go for something big? And that's always been, like, my vision. You know, just do something and add, lots of value to people. So Fantastic.

Well, explain to us a little bit of of when you decided to shut it down. So Workout Pros was a startup. You didn't get product market fit. You clearly had a moment where you said, okay, let's pivot again. What what what was that moment?

Yeah. I mean, so I was working on it for a couple years, and I was kind of, like, pouring money into it, like building features and, you know, and I had just moved. I sold, you know, like, a eBay store, and then I moved to Texas from Chicago. And so I was like, hey. You know, I kind of, you know, wanted to just get as a god of it.

I'm like, hey. I've been doing it for a several amount of time. I wasn't passionate about it anymore. I'm like, why am I still doing this? And I called up, you know, my friend at the time who is now became one of my cofounders because Xyng Effie, and I was like, hey.

Like, he had, like, a, like, a similar thing with an app that he built, but he ended up, you know, sunsetting, and he never made, like, any money on it. And I said, hey. Listen. Like, you know, when do you know if it's, like, the right time to step aside? He's like, well, if you're asking me, the time is now.

And I'm like, you're probably right. So that's pretty much what it was. And so, yeah, it goes that simple. Yeah. That's well, that's a very insightful comment, by the way.

Yeah. You're asking when you already know. Exactly. Yep. Okay.

So now you've got Effiom. You've got yourself. You hired him as a freelancer, and you said, do you wanna do this new thing called Xyng? Or how how did that how did that parlay into what's next? No.

So I I do have one more cofounder, Qasem. So Qasem is the one who I hired and so Qasem. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So so Qasem is the yes. Effie is also cofounder. But Qasem, yeah, essentially, like, I I found him on Fiverr.

And so I had a different developer, and he, like, introduced me to Qasem. Qasem is doing, like, like, my front end. He was doing back end of this, you know, other guy and then he's like, hey, like, you know, actually, you know, I can do all of it and so, you know, we sort of like been working together like on the app and he was working on it and they had to actually go and rebuild my app and they did it, within a month, and it was really good. And so he was like, hey. Like, I have an idea.

Why don't we partner and try to get some clients in The US together? And he's based in Pakistan. I said, okay. I'm like, sure. Like, what do you have in mind?

He's like, well, let's go on Upwork and, see if somebody would hire you and, like, you would just you know, they would just use, like, my account. You're not supposed to, like, do that by the way, but, like, you know, that's what that's what we did. And so we got one client that was based in Austin. I was living in Dallas, and and that company had raised about 15,000,000. It was a company called Vessel Health, and, they were super happy with their work.

The CTO was sort of, like, in several companies and the founder also serial entrepreneur. And I was like, hey. Like, it's one thing if, like, I think we're good with these guys, like, are legit. So that's kinda how we kind of validate this concept. So in '23, when I was a consultant full time, I was working for a firm that that was part of an acquisition to PWC.

That's when I went full time with Xyng. But, yeah, it kind of was a couple years of, you know, part time on the side, Upwork, what have you, and then kind of got involved and took a real business in '23. Amazing. And so talk a little bit about Zaynt. I mean, what kind of firm are you?

What kind of customers do you have? What what is your differentiation? Yeah, sure. So we are mostly a software development firm And so most of our clients are in e commerce, but we definitely work in different industries, mobile apps, AI. So our team is kind of a balance of being cost effective, but being overseas and also being AI forward.

We use all the tools, you know, Cursor, you know, ChatGPT, QuadCode, all the LOMs, you know, OpenQuad. You know? So we're using all those tools plus being in Pakistan. So we really focus on being efficient and cost effective. And so that's the biggest, differentiator is really focusing on, like, how do we add as much value as possible for our clients?

I love it. So you're a very lean team and your goal is to do as much of as little as possible. Is that right? Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. Well, give us some examples of clients you work with. I think that'd be a really helpful way, ones you can share, obviously. Sure. One of the things you've worked on that that have been exciting.

Yeah. I mean, AppSumo was a cool one. They're actually based in Austin where I just moved from, and I had lived there for several years. But, yeah, I mean, AppSumo that we helped them with one of Shopify apps since it was a pretty critical project for them because as you probably know, Shopify has updates from time to time. And so they were spinning off one of their apps to actually some former employees, to buy for 7 figure acquisition, very, you know, time sensitive.

So we came in, did these updates, and they were just very complicated because, like, you know, they have their own dev team, of course, a $100,000,000 company, but, they, you know, don't specialize as much in some of these complexities in Shopify. So they had brought us in, and we did the work. And, Noah Kagan, the founder, basically, you know, he told me he didn't he doesn't really do so many videos, and he didn't like, I I I kinda kind of nudge him. And he's like, hey. Actually, I have more work for you.

And he is like, okay. Fine. I'll go do a video for you. So, he did, like, a video, which is cool. So we always, like, you know, play that video.

It's on our our on my LinkedIn, like, on our site. So, yeah, it was super cool to work with them for sure. That's a tremendous example. I mean, AppSumo is a pretty vital player in the Shopify ecosystem, and and to be connected to it is is pretty awesome. Exactly.

100%. Yes. Well, you have some other ones on your LinkedIn profile. Ferguson Farms, Joey Dolls, eight Hours. Have you found the ThruLine that connects all these different types of businesses why Xyng is such a good fit for them?

Yeah. So, you know, part of what we do as well is paid ads and marketing and growth. And so for those clients that you mentioned, I was all like on the marketing side. But why we're a good fit is very simple because many agencies are focused on one piece of the puzzle. You know, we're doing dev, but we're also doing marketing, and we kind of look at things from a holistic perspective.

Right? So if we're gonna update your website, we wanna make sure it's optimized for conversion. We're not just robots. Right? We're looking at things and, hey.

Listen. Like, how can we actually take the site and and make it as dynamic as possible? And, that's one of the biggest things that we really just focus on. But, yeah, I mean, it's really just, you know, companies that are growing and scaling and need help with some extra oomph, you could say. It's like, you know, for example, Ferguson was a cool one because, you know, they they were really just doing okay.

You know, he was doing ads on his own. And so then we came in, did all of his ads, optimized his site, email marketing. And so the you know, great thing is is that, you know, he does not love doing marketing, and he does not have to do it anymore. We do all that for him and just make his life so much easier. Fantastic.

Well okay. So you've got a pot of hat as well, like, everybody, including me. Talk about what is Think Big with Dan and Kasim. Yeah. So Think Big, is focused on featuring founders, and so I've been doing that for several years now.

We've had some cool guests for sure. I mean, several guests that were on Shark Tank, several, you know, founders, CEOs of, like, some big companies, publicly untraded companies. So, yeah, like, for me, it's really just, like, how do we you know, similar to the way they have, you know, went like an approach businesses. Like, how can we actually go and give value to people, when they're watching our show? And so that's kind of what it's all about is featuring people and sharing their stories with folks and our listeners.

I love it. I'm a Shark Tank superfan so I'm going to have to go back and look at What what are some of the guests you've had on? I'm a see if I've seen those episodes. Yeah. Ice Shaker, Chris Gronkowski was one.

Trying to think who else. There have been some yeah. Yeah. There have been several others. There were some that actually went on Shark Tank later on.

So they weren't Shark Tank brands at the time, but they went on Shark Tank. Yeah. I I I have to go back and think. I mean, we did, there was a guy, CEO of, RCH Hospitality. It's a $500,000,000, you know, plus public company.

So, yeah, I mean, it it it's been different people in different industries, but, you know, it's kind of all across the world. But, yeah, for sure, mostly ecommerce and definitely some cool founders, but I really have to kinda go back and think and and see, like, who else? Because it's been so long. I've done so many episodes over the years. Yeah.

So if people wanna find it, they find it on YouTube or is it on I Apple Apple iPad? YouTube is the best. Like, we definitely have some on, like, on those platforms, but YouTube every single episode is on YouTube. That's the easiest place to find it. It's called, Think Big with Dan and Qasim.

Kasim is spelled q a s I m. Exactly. Yep. Yep. Alright.

So serial entrepreneur, I also see that you very recently founded, Av you have to say it. Avira. Avira. Avira. Spell it for us.

A v y r a. Alright. What the heck is Avira? Yeah. Avira is a sugar free creatine gummy.

And so, really, for me, I love creatine. I've been taking creatine for several years. So, you know, my vision is to make creatine more accessible for people. And so yeah. I mean, like, it's gonna be something obviously DTC for now.

I definitely wanna go into mass retail and, you know, make this product, just much more convenient. I mean, really for me, I I I kind of view creatine as, you know, like, in many ways similar to protein. In the same way that protein bars are available everywhere as a snack, I would love creatine to be in and then, like, in the same category. And I think especially when you're shopping at c stores and places like that, You know, you want something quick and easy. And I think for a lot of people, they understand creatine.

They might have taken it once or twice or when they were younger, but there's really so many studies now that show, like, the value of the product. So really, yeah, like, my focus is how do I get it into more people's hands and get more people using it, and taking it, and that's my goal. So Very cool. I I and, again, back to the kind of why. Like like, why why do more, Dan?

I I don't modestly well. You're you're a busy guy. You got hungry customers. I'm sure you got no spare time. Why do another thing?

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I am gonna be focusing more on Avira. So it's kind of like in terms of, like, my role at Xyng, still a partner, still gonna be involved, but I'm gonna kinda focus more on this company. So other things that I do don't take up as much of my time.

I am trying to kind of I think you like, we had spoken a bit about, like, Fort Worth furnished sales. Like, yeah. It's just like I do that, but I'm trying to kind of move away from that. You know? It's just the hassle and headache of it.

So, yeah, like, my goal was to eventually, you know, focus fully on Avira. That's, like, that's my vision, because I do agree. Yeah. If you if you're focused on too many things at once, you're just gonna be mediocre at all of them. Right?

So that is my my goal, but, it's not gonna happen overnight. But, but I definitely wanna a 100%, like, you know, focus, like, on this brand. So Yeah. Very cool. I'll definitely check it out.

I'm hoping to see you on Shark Tank with your own version of a story. I would love it. Cost you to make? How much do you sell at a retail? Like, we could, you know, we could Oh, for sure.

Possibly that. Yeah. Hey. Listen. If I get onshore, I think I'll for sure let you know.

So Fantastic. Alright. For folks who wanna, learn more, maybe have a chat about some of your experience, connect with you at Xyng or buy your products, how do they do it? How do they connect with you? Yeah.

LinkedIn is the best channel. It's Dan p Melnick. You can just search Dan Melnick. I mean, there are a couple other ones, but, I'm the one that has the most followers, 30,000 plus. So that's the like, that's my account, so you can find me that way.

And that's why you're common famous, by the way. The ugly thing. Exactly. Exactly. Fantastic.

Well, thanks for being a guest with us today. Really enjoyed our chat. You have such an interesting background, and I absolutely love your entrepreneurial spirit. You can just feel it, in our chats. Thanks, Jason.