Hi, I'm Daniel!

I'm A Driven Autodidact

Learning is my passion, and you can find me in my spare time researching programming techniques, studying higher level mathematics, working with the team at Lolly Co and lending a hand in opensource/charitable/educational translation projects where I can.

I've been obsessed with computers from a young age after breaking inheriting my father's IBM Personal System in 1991, and regrettably saw my mathematics GCSE as an inconvenience leading me to create a program on my Casio Algebra FX 2.0 using a form of BASIC that could store and beat the 1999 maths GCSE exam.

Out of all the programming languages that I'm versed in (PHP, Python, Javascript, MySQL, CSS, HTML) and the machine learning and AI techniques that I have studied and applied (K-Nearest Neighbours, Naive Bayes, Linear regression, Random Forests, Neural Networks, GANs etc.) 100% are all self-taught with the power of the internet from a young age. If you're ever interested in emulating my knowledge then check out my technical reading list.

I'm an avid reader of non-tech books too and keep a running reading list that can help anyone in a corporate position of leadership titled 'The reading list your MBA should (but won't) require'.

I've Been Around The Block

I'm a Tech entrepreneur/engineer with over 10 years of business, sales, strategy, engineering, architecture and SDLC experience across various industries who likes to think of himself as a bit of a stoic strategist able to keep calm under intense bouts of pressure.

For a long time, a passion of mine has been generating more leads for businesses (my own and for others) while simultaneously increasing the conversion rates within sales teams. I've seen what works, what doesn't and what it means for a company to truly fail on this front.

I'm a keen public speaker and have presented to large audiences of up to 500 people. Giving a great speech is a joy and I recommend that you go to a Toastmasters meeting at least once during your professional career.

As a technology man, I am versed in multiple programming languages and techniques and it's my bread and butter skillset that I've taught to many programmers joining the ranks of the companies I have founded and worked with.

I have also had private and public financial market experience over the years including FTSE 350 trading, IPO launches, VC/Angel led funding rounds and commercial banking debt financing.

I Strive For Results

Results can come in many forms depending on the desired outcome, for me, it's about profits and people.

When hunting for profit increases I like to understand the businesses processes and look closely for bottlenecks causing friction in sales and automating those tasks that employees in companies have to do day in day out. Computers will happily handle these bottlenecks with ease. Chasing your customers by email for invoices? Automate it with code. Reminding customers of their booking slot? Automate it with code. Calculating your best sales performers? Automate it with code.

The list of tasks that can be automated with code in business are truly endless, and in my experience, it's good to focus on those that will result in one of three outcomes:

• Higher staff productivity
• Increased numbers of sales-ready leads
• Superior sales conversion rates

When looking at teams and individuals within a company I believe that all employees have something unique to offer and can be truly happy in their workplace, it's up to management to foster the best in people. Everyone wants to do shine and should be celebrated.

A better man than me (Chris Hadfield - astronaut) once said "Ultimately, leadership is not about glorious crowning acts. It's about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it, especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter. it is about laying the groundwork for others' success, and then standing back and letting them shine".

I like to understand what makes individuals tick and set them on a path to 'upgrade' their skillset through self-learning, to become more organised (read as less stressed) with systems such as GTD and importantly happier in the role they are currently doing and prospects their future can bring.

Currently I Am Busy

My main focus is over at Lolly Co where I am CEO heading up our development, consulting and content teams, and the general technology setup. The state of the art systems have been internally created to deliver what we believe to be industry leading results for our worldwide clients. We use a standard LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL, Javascript, HMTL, CSS) with a little Python thrown in for our own in-house development tools.

With the above technology/marketing/sales stack operational the company has seen lead numbers increase by 43% and lead conversions rise from 27% to 76% over the last 12 months.

Whilst I can't go into much detail here about my current role without revealing sensitive corporate information you are more than welcome to take a look at my full professional history on LinkedIn here.