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How this Tech Savvy Military Leader Became an Entrepreneurial Titan
Dan Ashburn was always destined to be a leading entrepreneur. While the average 13-year-old might be head down playing video games, he had a laser focus on achieving the goals that would set him up for the future.
Amongst other entrepreneurial ventures, Dan’s journey started with building websites and ranking them, long before Google was a household name. He says, “I saw early on that success comes from providing a service that others appreciate”. A quick search shows his very first website still brings in revenue today.
Asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he’d reply “I want to run a successful business by the time I’m 30”. He became an Amazon entrepreneur with a team responsible for 8 figures long before that birthday, but like any industry leader, Dan’s achievements didn’t come easy.
While he taught himself the basics of digital marketing and business management in his spare time, Dan’s home life became challenging. His parents divorced, and he moved out of the UK to the Spanish island of Tenerife, where the responsibility to take care of his mother and his younger siblings shifted to him. Although life had its challenges, by becoming head of the household, Dan learned resilience, foresight and leadership skills that would continue to serve him throughout his career.
A Leader from Day One
When he was 17, Dan moved back to the UK to use this innate leadership for good by enlisting in the Royal Air Force. He spent the next four years observing and learning elements that would later serve him well in business, including teamwork and adaptability, but during a tour of active duty in the Middle East, Dan questioned whether he could make more impact beyond the restraints of the military structure.
Four years after enlisting, he returned home to bring together everything he’d been taught in the military with the expertise in digital marketing and eCommerce he’d worked so hard at as a teenager. After marrying his childhood sweetheart Dan had a new “why”, and was driven to make his young family proud.
Like all entrepreneurs, Dan knew he had to take a risk to achieve lifestyle freedom. He had launched a profitable business with a large team, but was becoming…
