Chris Salter – CEO of Music Wizard Next Gen

Dan worked with our company in Florida in the early expansive phases of the company, and was one of the first to understand the real potential of the project. In spite of the distance, (he lived in Seattle) he helped us raise early stage capital, introducing us to perhaps 50 plus investors over the next 2 years, including some high level contacts at Microsoft, and other VC networks and firms. His network extends well beyond Seattle into Canada and NY and Southern California at least from my personal experience. What appealed most to me about Dan was he is extremely outgoing and personable, traits you don’t always find in a CFO, so he could engage the investor candidates and bring both his deep business development mind and his numbers to the table in an easy and enthusiastic conversation, one that made sense of it all.

I learned a lot from him about just making sense and putting your cards on the table rather than playing games or hiding behind obscure business jargon. Together we raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and fine tuned our business model to the point where Fischer-Price ended up licensing our product in 2006. We then moved to Boulder and found a local CFO to handle the ever increasing load, but Dan stayed on our advisory board for a few years, and has stayed a friend and fan in the ensuing years, even bringing in a few more small investments during the toughest recession years to help tide us through. When he is with you, he never really stops thinking about ways to find a win-win and close a deal, with his goal always to bring it all home for the investor and CEO alike. That stickability combined with a fine business mind makes him a very valued asset for any company.