Welcome to another exciting episode of Entrepreneur’s Enigma! In this episode, our host Seth Goldstein sits down with David Schneider, the CEO of Shortlist.io, an innovative marketing company based in Philadelphia. David has a unique entrepreneurial journey, having traveled to over 60 countries and transitioning from the corporate world to becoming a serial entrepreneur. He shares insights into his entrepreneurial ventures, his experiences managing multiple businesses, and the challenges and rewards of being a lifestyle entrepreneur. From language learning to family life and business management, this episode offers a candid and engaging conversation that will inspire and inform aspiring entrepreneurs. Tune in for an in-depth look at the entrepreneurial journey with David Schneider.

Key Moments

[00:00] CEO of Focus, traveled to 60+ countries.

[04:47] High school sweethearts break up, reunite in college.

[08:59] Expected milestones bring joy in little things.

[10:15] Stress over day-to-day and future uncertainty.

Find Dave Online

https://Shortlist.io

https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-schneider-8a693115/

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Transcript Provided By CastMagic.io

Seth [00:00:00]:
Entrepreneur’s Enigma is a podcast for the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, so the wins and the fails that we all face being entrepreneurs, how we learn from adversity. Every week, I talk to a different entrepreneur with a story to tell. I’m Seth Goldstein. Come with me on the journey. This is Entrepreneur’s Enigma. Let’s get started. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Entrepreneur’s Enigma podcast.

Seth [00:00:34]:
You know who I am by now, but if in case you don’t, I’m Seth, your host. Today I have a buddy of mine, David Schneider. He is the CEO of Shortlist. Io, which is a marketing company, white label marketing service for agencies that add revenue without the overhead. He is based out of Philadelphia. He is a serial entrepreneur. This guy’s been busy. He’s been busy.

Seth [00:00:57]:
He’s traveled to those over 60 countries in the world, which I didn’t know there’s that many in the world. No. I did, but still I mean, that you would wanna visit too. So that’s pretty wild. Let’s talk about that a little bit. He is the CEO of Focus, which is a organizational management tool to help you set and crush your goals, your OKRs to be exact. He is also the CEO and cofounder of Inspirer. He’ll he’ll pronounce it better when I get him on there, but that’s an employment and engagement tool.

Seth [00:01:25]:
He’s done a lot, this guy. He’s done a lot, and he’s not that old. He’s not grizzled yet. So hey, Dave. How’s it going, dude?

Dave [00:01:33]:
Hey, Seth. Doing well, man. Thanks for having me.

Seth [00:01:35]:
You’re also the chief bottle washer over at the Philly Tech Entrepreneurs’ Slack and in person Event thingy. I don’t know what to call it. It’s It it’s it’s together. Meetup.

Dave [00:01:46]:
Yeah. We’ll call it meetup. Yeah. We’ll call it meetup.

Seth [00:01:48]:
We’ll call it meetup. You have 2 little kids. Right?

Dave [00:01:50]:
I do. Yeah.

Seth [00:01:51]:
A wife and a dog. Right?

Dave [00:01:53]:
No dog.

Seth [00:01:54]:
No dog. Almost. You’re

Dave [00:01:56]:
you’re you’re

Seth [00:01:56]:
you’re busy. You you don’t sleep.

Dave [00:01:58]:
Everyone has their limits. Right? And I draw the line at everything you just mentioned, and the animals

Seth [00:02:03]:
There was no dog. No dog. Not yet, at least. Until because they beg you for one.

Dave [00:02:07]:
Not yet. Until they, you know, come up with yards in Philadelphia.

Seth [00:02:10]:
Yeah. It’s kinda true. Because you’re downtown. You’re down in a graduate hospital area. Not to docs you or anything, but you know? Yeah.

Dave [00:02:16]:
It’s okay. Yeah.

Seth [00:02:17]:
Yeah. It’s okay. You’ll survive. You’re not that famous.

Dave [00:02:20]:
No. Not at all. Yeah.

Seth [00:02:21]:
Hey, I was Dave, how did it all get started? I mean, I know you I mean, you started on the Corporate world, you did some work for Capital One, and then you said screw it and went traveled the world pretty much?

Dave [00:02:33]:
Actually, my wife said screw it, to get credit where credit is due. I was prepared to just, you know, do the whole corporate nine to 5 or 9 to whatever was needed for decades, try to rise that ladder, maybe go to business school, something like that. I had a very traditional path in mind. Yeah. After about a year or so, she was working we were in DC at the time. She was working Yeah. A similar style job. She said, I’m done with this.

Dave [00:02:58]:
Do you wanna go travel? If not, I’m leaving without you. I said I said okay. Oh. You know, I I guess I’m gonna stick with you. Exactly. Yeah. So we went we went off, we went backpacking, and I started working online because that was the only way to do anything when you’re

Seth [00:03:13]:
just

Dave [00:03:13]:
kinda moving from country to country. Once they kinda led to another and and then here we are.

Seth [00:03:19]:
Exactly. So your team is stateside and in Macedonia of all places, which is kinda interesting.

Dave [00:03:25]:
Yeah. It’s, it’s a country that’s, like, a bit north of Greece. Whenever I mention it, very few people know where it is, but it is Yeah.

Seth [00:03:33]:
It’s in the Balkans.

Dave [00:03:34]:
It’s the Balkans. Yeah. It’s a see, you know more countries than you let on.

Seth [00:03:37]:
No. I know that. I I well, that’s my it’s my, what, 8th grade geography class?

Dave [00:03:42]:
Okay. Yeah.

Seth [00:03:42]:
So I had to memorize all the all the countries in Europe.

Dave [00:03:45]:
Yeah. Okay. It’s one of them. Yeah. It’s landlocked. It doesn’t get as much travel, but it’s a great place, great culture. Lovely people working there. They speak really good English.

Dave [00:03:54]:
Very

Seth [00:03:55]:
A hard language to understand now. Oh, really? Yeah.

Dave [00:03:58]:
I speak Russian, so I kinda get some stuff, but it’s not exactly one for 1.

Seth [00:04:03]:
But but it’s not Cyrillic. It’s it’s, Roman Characters. Right? It’s just

Dave [00:04:08]:
They do both. Yeah.

Seth [00:04:09]:
Oh, jeez. This thing is really complicated.

Dave [00:04:11]:
Yeah. They you gotta, like, yeah, you gotta do it all.

Seth [00:04:13]:
We’re We’re gonna take a quick break, hear from our sponsors, and get right back to the show. You gotta do it. Oh, that’s wild. A little leftover from from the cold war era. Yeah. Yep. Mhmm. Let’s do everything.

Seth [00:04:23]:
Let’s do everything. Why not? Yeah. It’s like sort of like Dave over there. Let’s do everything. So you speak Russian?

Dave [00:04:29]:
Yeah. My wife is Russian, and, she was born in Moscow. She moved when she was 4. But she’s,

Seth [00:04:35]:
yeah, barely Russian.

Dave [00:04:36]:
Barely Russian in the way that I’m, like, barely Jewish. But, basically, I mean, I should just say. But if you’re

Seth [00:04:44]:
Jewish, it’s fine. With Schneider, are you either German or Jewish? One of the things.

Dave [00:04:47]:
Yeah. Or both. But in any case, so yeah. You know, long story short, when we were we were high school, sweethearts, when I went to college, I started learning, Russian to kind of understand What was going on over there? We broke up after about 4 weeks, but I decided to keep learning Russian, for 4 years anyway because I really liked it. I figured I’d meet someone new. But then at the end of college, we got back together, and I ended up learning the language in the meantime.

Seth [00:05:13]:
That’s good. So it kinda helps you out with the in laws, though.

Dave [00:05:16]:
Yeah. Now I understand what her mom is saying about me all this time. Exactly.

Seth [00:05:19]:
I just can’t bad mouth you now. She’s like, shit. I can’t say bad things about Dave now.

Dave [00:05:23]:
Not anymore.

Seth [00:05:24]:
Are you fluent? Conversational. You can get around.

Dave [00:05:28]:
I can I can do I can

Seth [00:05:29]:
do more than get around? I can do more than get around, but I don’t like the word. It’s not it’s not an easy language. And it’s also the compliment.

Dave [00:05:35]:
Yeah. It’s a very hard language, and I always I have a it’s one of those pet peeves around the word fluent where for me, like, that’s Very, very high bar that I wouldn’t consider myself of, but certainly

Seth [00:05:45]:
but it’s more than just your mother-in-law can’t bad now if you’re in Russian. That’s that’s the bar you met.

Dave [00:05:50]:
Yeah. That’s the level.

Seth [00:05:51]:
Yeah. It’s level. You know what they’re saying about you.

Dave [00:05:54]:
Exactly.

Seth [00:05:54]:
So so her in law or her family comes over from Russia and visits, And they said, who’s this guy? Who’s this guy in Russian? And, you know, you’re back to them. They’re like, oh, crap. We just said bad things about him. That’s kinda well, that’s kinda wild. So short list, what is the whole premise behind that? You it’s, like, inbound linking and SEO and all that kind of good stuff?

Dave [00:06:15]:
Yeah. A lot of that good stuff. You certainly know the space as well as anybody. We do some design and dev. We do content marketing strategy. We do some SEO link building, things like that. But recently, we’ve been trying to position ourselves more to be white labeled by other agencies. Oh.

Dave [00:06:30]:
So we do work direct with brands for sure, but, You know, the services are really built to kind of be the product ties, and they meant that an agency could, like, take them, kind of done for you, offer them to a client, add their margin, and, you know, Focus on their strategy, their acquisition, whatever it is they need. So that’s directionally more where towards we’re moving.

Seth [00:06:49]:
So that’s pretty cool. And then you also as if you’re not busy enough with the family and all You you have focus at usefocus.com. So with then that’s kind of kind of a focus app for employees to stay focused at work.

Dave [00:07:02]:
Yeah. I have a couple apps that I’ve been messing around with. Originally, prior to Shortlist, I was always a software guy. My industry was really about Kind of, building outreach and and kind of managing the product and everything. So I’ve always really loved that. But then after selling it, you know, I wanted to Kinda get back into it. So a couple a couple of little irons in the fire, but they’re more labors of love at this point.

Seth [00:07:23]:
Yeah. Kinda keep you busy as if you’re not busy enough.

Dave [00:07:26]:
Keeping busy.

Seth [00:07:27]:
Exactly. So here’s a question for you. What’s the best thing about being an entrepreneur? I mean, other than traveling to 60 countries with your wife.

Dave [00:07:33]:
Best thing about, being an entrepreneur, at least, and and I wanna preface this by saying a lifestyle entrepreneur because that’s what I consider myself to be. But the best thing about being a lifestyle entrepreneur is Flexibility of your time and sort of really you know, in this case, I got 2 young ones at home, right, I got, like, a 1 and a 3 year old.

Seth [00:07:51]:
Oh, beautiful.

Dave [00:07:52]:
Yeah. So I’m in the thick of it. We’re in the trenches, but I’m I’m there with them. Right? I’m I’m around. Most of the days, I can Organize my schedule to prioritize the kids. I’m not missing out on a lot of the key moments, the developmental milestones, and everything that’s going on. So without the lifestyle that I have right now from From doing what I’ve been doing, it probably wouldn’t be possible.

Seth [00:08:12]:
Yeah. So that’s what I have to say about having goals to meet you for 16 years. My 11 year old, I’ve seen him grow up. Like, I’ve seen him grow up for better or for worse. I’ve seen him become an 11 year old little snot nose little teenager, you you know, who I love dearly, who’s a complete pain in the ass. That’s what you need to look forward to. But, but that’s one thing about entrepreneurship. It’s like I’ve been I’ve been able to be around where I haven’t missed those milestones.

Seth [00:08:37]:
And I’ve seen them and, like, like, funny funny enough, some of these milestones, like, you’re not wearing diapers to bed, have happened with me when the wife’s out. And I’m, like, he’s got no wearing I’m wearing underwear to bed. I’m, like, that you you you you are? That’s gonna be a mess.

Dave [00:08:54]:
That day. Of course,

Seth [00:08:55]:
of course, it was a mess. Of course, that night, he weaved the bed.

Dave [00:08:59]:
Yeah.

Seth [00:08:59]:
And it was to be but it was to be expected. But then, you know, he like, all these little milestones, like, if I was working 9 to 5, I’d be asleep at that hour. Now Yeah. I and I mean, it’s like, you know, it’s funny because people are, like, oh, that’s the number you have? I’m, like, it’s dumbest, stupidest, silliest numbers the parents cherish. You know, it’s a it’s it’s a stupid little things like, you know, he sleeps in a big boy bed. It’s like all that stuff. It’s like it’s like it’s the joy, you know.

Dave [00:09:27]:
That’s a great memory. I love that. We haven’t crossed that barrier yet, but I know it’s probably

Seth [00:09:31]:
throw it on you. They’ll tell you when they’re ready to do it.

Dave [00:09:34]:
Exactly. Yeah. So wait until And then you

Seth [00:09:36]:
can’t say no because you know that that’s gonna make them feel bad about themselves. So you gotta say, okay. I’ll be up at 3 o’clock in the morning cleaning up the sheets. Oh, God.

Dave [00:09:45]:
It is what it is.

Seth [00:09:46]:
It is what it is. Kids, man. They grow up. And before you know, they’re 11. They’re coding Roblox games In code, looking at YouTube and learning how to code. And I’m like, geez. I I didn’t do this when I was 11.

Dave [00:10:00]:
I I’ll be home around some customers.

Seth [00:10:01]:
11, but it wasn’t that.

Dave [00:10:03]:
Yeah. No. Give me 8 years, and and I’ll give you I’ll let you know how it’s Going.

Seth [00:10:07]:
We’ll check back in 8 years. Exactly. So now on on the flip side of on of what’s the best thing about being entrepreneur? What keeps you up at night being entrepreneur?

Dave [00:10:15]:
You know, the things that stress me out is the the day to day, the year to year volatility. Yeah. You know, and call me neurotic, But I’m always thinking, like, what if I wake up tomorrow and shortlist no longer exists? What if nobody needs these services anymore? What if Something about Google’s algorithm changes or nobody wants Google anymore, AI, whatever it is. There’s so many existential things, that you can kind of worry about. And some of that is a little bit inflated. It’s really kind of you know, you’re making a mountain out of all of those.

Seth [00:10:48]:
Around tomorrow. Yeah. It’s kinda weird.

Dave [00:10:49]:
But but But I’ve had, you know, massive income, swings, you know, from your prior, where, you know, sometimes, hey. It’s gone up a lot, which is awesome, but sometimes it’s 50% of what it was the year before. You know? It’s hard to kind of structure your life when you have that type of volatility. It’s hard to know how to how to budget, you know, what type of purchases you could make and things like that. So there are definitely some, some some nuances there that is not for everyone.

Seth [00:11:17]:
Yeah. Exactly. So then what is the most important thing carry with you all the time. That’s gonna be physical or metaphysical or you can go as woo woo as you wanna go with this.

Dave [00:11:26]:
For me, I guess we’re going, boy. I mean, for me, it’s a to do list. I don’t know. That’s a lame answer. But, realistically, you know

Seth [00:11:36]:
very important when you’re an entrepreneur.

Dave [00:11:38]:
I feel that without, kind of a set sort of, these are what I’m planning on doing today. This is my this is, You know, my task to do, I get totally lost in how to structure my time because entrepreneurship is so unframeworked. Right? It’s so unstructured. I gotta know that I’ve got these things to do. And it’s not just necessarily professionally. It’s personal as well about I I’m I’ll make notes about unloading the dishwasher and stuff like that. I I just If you won’t,

Seth [00:12:06]:
you won’t be mad at you. Right. You need to be mad at you.

Dave [00:12:09]:
Yeah. I know. It’ll be a lot of very strong curse words. I need to really understand, like, what, yeah, what I’m expected to do every day. I need that type of direction.

Seth [00:12:18]:
Exactly. Exactly. So are the kids bilingual yet?

Dave [00:12:22]:
They are bilingual understanding. They are

Seth [00:12:24]:
Oh, that’s bad. So they can understand it. So you can’t you can’t so so but they can the they can’t spell English. They can still spell.

Dave [00:12:32]:
Right. Yeah. The it’s, it’s like it’s can’t it’s not even a secret language that we can speak to each other anymore because they do understand, but they pretty much you know, they they speak English.

Seth [00:12:41]:
And well, that’s pretty wild though. I mean, it’s kinda handy because kids are such sponges. And like, literally, I wish I’d learned the language at 3 because then that’s when that’s that’s when the time is to learn something. Not when you’re 42 years old. I forget my brain is fat and deteriorating right now. So

Dave [00:12:58]:
Yeah. It’s pretty crazy how easy it was for them to pick it up, without any real formal, instructions at all. Meanwhile, like, I Just I’ve grinded for 4 years in college. You know? Yeah.

Seth [00:13:09]:
You had to go you had to go to Harvard and learn Russian. Exactly.

Dave [00:13:13]:
Yeah. There’s no way to do that.

Seth [00:13:15]:
Picking it up, you know, like, darn it. You’re so you made it so easy, and and it’s not like, we said, it’s not an easy language.

Dave [00:13:23]:
No. I’m not

Seth [00:13:24]:
Why did I say no in Russian? And that’s it.

Dave [00:13:28]:
Yeah. I’m so glad that that is,

Seth [00:13:30]:
Yes. So I say no.

Dave [00:13:32]:
It’s duh. But, yeah. So it’s, it’s done. It’s in the past. It now exists as this Passive entity in me and I.

Seth [00:13:40]:
Kinda nice because, you know, I took Italian in college a little bit. And once you lose it, you don’t if you don’t use it, you lose it.

Dave [00:13:46]:
Yeah.

Seth [00:13:46]:
At least your wife, you know, is fluent. I’m sure she is fluent. I she she’ll probably take that mantle. So so you guys can, like, practice and keep it kind of

Dave [00:13:56]:
Yeah. For sure. I I can speak with the kids. Speak with the kids. I’ve got the in laws. So there’s enough, in the ecosystem to kind of keep Keep it.

Seth [00:14:04]:
But but they wanna practice their English with you. So because now do they sign it from Philadelphia now?

Dave [00:14:08]:
They never they don’t they don’t wanna speak English with me. No one wants to Speak English with me, even native English speakers. No one wants to speak with me whatsoever. But they are they are in Boston.

Seth [00:14:19]:
Other than Boston. Oh, Scott. So they’re the Boston Russian accent.

Dave [00:14:23]:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s warm

Seth [00:14:25]:
up. Yeah. In the past, we kinda have yeah. Not yet. No. Hey. Cool. Yeah.

Dave [00:14:30]:
It’s sort of a a grow it’s a weird r. Right? You’re rolling the r because it’s Russian, then you’ve got the Boston r. It’s a mess.

Seth [00:14:36]:
Oh my god. So you’re like, wait. What did you say? I thought you understood Russian. Well, not Boston Russian. That’s fine.

Dave [00:14:42]:
I don’t know.

Seth [00:14:43]:
We’ll have to figure out what parked the car

Dave [00:14:44]:
at Harvard Yard is in In the Russian

Seth [00:14:46]:
Exactly. That’s the only thing about Boston English is that I don’t understand it. They don’t understand me down here in Boston. They don’t understand I don’t understand them. So And we’re in this we’re supposed to speak English, so go figure. So, Dave, where is the best place for people to hang hang out with you online? Where’s your order hall of choice?

Dave [00:15:03]:
If you want immediate answer, shoot me an email. I’m like an inbox zero guy, so I’m gonna be on it. David shortlist dot I o. But I have started to get more active on LinkedIn. Dan, kudos to you for that, you know, for the encouragement. You’ve been kind of actively posting your your content, and and I’ve been, soaking that in. So, you Yeah. Feel free to ping me there as well.

Dave [00:15:23]:
I’ve been writing a lot of good stuff there.

Seth [00:15:25]:
And it’s David Snyder over there. You know, he was with Dave, but, you know, he’s got the special and and snooty on LinkedIn.

Dave [00:15:33]:
So David is my professional persona. Correct?

Seth [00:15:35]:
Professional persona. You’re you’re MO. I like that. Well, Dave, thank you so much for being on the show. This has been so much fun, and we’ll see everyone next time. That was a great show. If If you’re enjoying Entrepreneur’s Enigma, please view us in the podcast directory of your choice. Every review helps other podcast listeners find our show.

Seth [00:15:55]:
If you’re looking for other podcasts in the marketing space, look no further than the Marketing Podcast Network at marketing podcasts

Dave [00:16:07]:
.net.

Seth [00:16:27]:
Gold Steam Gia hopes you have enjoyed this episode.