2 years ago, I lost $90’000.

In fact, it was stolen from me.

By someone I trusted.

It hurt DEEPLY.

But guess what?

I kept working…

I put my nose to the grindstone, pulling 16-hour days and sleepless nights….

And after some of the toughest 3 weeks of my life, I made $240’000.

The biggest wedge of cash I’ve ever made.

All from one online business model that hardly anyone is exploiting.

Do you want to know how I pulled it off?

Keep reading because I’m going to share the whole story with you, right now.

Yes. This is a huge chapter in my origin story…

THIS, my friend is where the Dan West you know today was forged…

Blind Sided By A “Friend”

”Is there any reason why $90’000 has been moved from your treasury wallet?”

This was the moment I found out I’d been robbed $90’000.

Just 16 hours after making it.

It was 27 February 2022.

I’m sat comfortably on the sofa in the tiny flat I was renting with two of my best friends.

Together, we’d just made $100’000 in less than 12 hours launching our first digital product.

The product?

NFTs.

Without going into detail, NFTs are essentially digital crypto tokens, in the form of artwork.

The business model goes like this:

1) Build brand

2) Build community

3) Build product

4) Launch product to the community

5) Make hundreds of thousands of dollars

6) Reinvest in the project and build the brand (most people skip this part…)

And we did it all from our flat living room… without having even a desk between us.

Anyway. We’d just built a 6-figure launch from our sofas in less than 5 months.

I was on cloud 9.

“I still don’t know how we pulled this off” I thought to myself.

But what happened next, I never saw coming….

And it changed my life forever.

16 hours after launch, we received a message from an anonymous whistleblower which read the following message:

”Is there any reason why $90’000 has been moved from your treasury wallet?”

I thought it was a joke.

So I check the wallet...

It wasn’t a joke…

The wallet had been bled dry.

I mulled in disbelief.

"What the FUCK happened?"

It seemed impossible.

These crypto wallets are 99% unhackable.

Who would've targeted us?

What % of people realistically have the capability to hack an unhackable encrypted wallet?

More questions popped up in my mind...

Who had access to the wallet?

Was it an inside job…?

Get this…

We’d been working with 2 developers on the project.

Both had wallet access.

One of which came in at the very last minute to help with the technical issues we were having with our launch site.

I put 2 & 2 together…

We’d been robbed.

Someone saw an opportunity to run off with the cash, and took it.

But then a cruel reality hit me.

How naive we were to trust someone we’d never met in the flesh!

Whatever the case, we had no time to cry about it…

The Comeback

We still had a job to do.

2000 more units of our product that weren’t going to sell themselves.

Over the next 3 weeks, we pulled off a miracle.

The community we’d built came through for us.

We sold out the remaining 2000 units.

This amounted to >$240K in sales.

After losing $90K just 3 weeks ago, we’d SOMEHOW turned it around.

You’re probably wandering…

How did we turn it around?

What’s the one thing that enabled us to get people to spend on average $1000/person?

(Some people spent way over $10K…)

Persuasion.

Persuasion helped us build a cult-like community that consumed everything we put out.

Even with our reputation in tatters, and a market that was on the decline.

To sell these bad boys out, we pulled out every trick in the book.

• Flash sales

• Competitions

• Emergency meetings

You name it.

The crazy thing is, it actually worked!

$240K in sales in 3 weeks.

I was exhausted… but we did it.

How did it all end?

Well, sadly market totally crashed.

PLUS (and you’re gonna say this is BS, but it’s true…):

We never paid ourselves.

DUMB, right?

We spent, lost and mismanaged every last cent almost as fast as we made it.

Really this letter should be called “How To Set $240K On Fire”.

But screw the money for one sec.

What we’d built was impressive.

AND.

REAL.

The wildest part?

That community is STILL going today.

Unlike most of these NFT projects, ours was built on real relationships, integrity and connection.

And the fact the community still stands today is living proof of that.

No. I’m no longer involved with the project.

No. I don’t check in or even consult for the project.

No. I never took a dime of profit from the project (in fact, it got me into more debt than you can imagine).

But boy did it teach me ALOT.

8 Lessons From A $240K Cult Scandal

Crazy stuff.

But what did I learn from it all?

And more importantly, what can YOU learn from this fiasco?

You’re going to get $90’000 worth of life lessons right now, for free.

Here are 8 lessons being robbed $90K, then making $240K 3 weeks later taught me.

1. Most People Are Dishonest

Are you an honest Joe?

Hate to break it to you, but you’re one of the rare few!

I used to think that because living honestly is important to ME, then it would be important to others.

It’s not.

Expect the worst from people. Don’t be sad about this. Just realise that it’s a fact.

Would you be upset that the sky is blue? Of course not.

So don’t be upset that most people are dishonest.

You’ll sleep better.

2. Traitors Always Start Out As Friends

I know. This one cut me deep too.

A traitor, by their very nature is a man on the inside.

Someone close to you.

Judas was one of Jesus’ 12 closest disciples before he turned him over to the authorities.

Lancelot was one of King Arthur’s closest men before he f*cked his mrs.

Fredo Corleone was Michael’s own brother in The Godfather II when he sided with the enemy.

I’m not saying you should become a paranoid schizophrenic.

But realise that the only person you can really trust is you.

Therefore, anyone who betrays you… it’s your own fault.

Always.

3. Whoever Holds The Purse Strings Is The Master

Tough one to take this.

But it’s true.

The person in charge is the person who holds the purse strings.

Or… at least has the power to make the decisions with the purse.

In our case, we thought we were running the show… When in fact, we were just pawns.

So yeah. It’s kinda obvious.

This also holds true in society… it’s a hierarchy. Those at the top control the most wealth… the purse strings.

So they have the power.

See how it works?

It’s why rich men who a -3 in looks can attract Mrs. Universe who’s a smoking hot 10.

Whether you like it or not, great power resides with he/she who controls the money.

If you want to be in charge, make sure you’re the one holding the bag.

4. Creativity Can Make You Rich

“CAN” is the keyword here.

There are plenty of starving artists out there.

But we managed to raise $240K in a matter of weeks… All with creative work.

Work that required insanity, massive balls and a willingness to look stupid.

This is what creativity really is… a series of experiments.

• We created a fictional story/universe

• We created a community culture from 0

• We created a product that people genuinely wanted

Then…

We created $240’000.

See the chain of events?

As Dan Koe says:

“Hard work won’t make you rich. Creative work does.”

We just combined the two and made double money ;)

Just so you know I’m not making this stuff up, here are the NFTs by the way.

We called them “Bad Creatures”, and they were basically Teletubbies on Bath Salts.

Made 100% from the weirdest, darkest most unhinged parts of our minds:

What do you think?

Pretty funny right?

5. Naivety Will Leave You Dead

The best thing about getting stabbed in the back in business is that you don’t actually die.

But imagine if the stakes were higher… let’s say out in the wilderness or the savannah, like our ancestors.

You trust the wrong person, or you misjudge someone’s character…

And as soon as your back is turned?

You’re dead. And there’s a knife in your back, or a rock smashed over your head.

This is sadly the cost of naivety, and it can cost you your life if you’re not careful.

The key takeaway?

Trust no one. Expect the worst from everyone. The best you can hope for is that someone will do the right thing. But always take precautions in case they don’t.

6. One Starving Crowd Can Feed You For Life

How were we able to make such a large amount of money so quickly?

I’ll tell you how:

We found a starving crowd. A red hot market. A junkie who was clucking for another hit.

If you find this market, realise:

People are hungry as f*ck for these products. And will gobble up anything you throw at them.

Therefore, your job as a marketer is to find out what each market wants. Then give it to them.

Become a student of markets.. then find the starving crowd within that market, and you’ll be able to sell anything.

7. Cults Are Money Pits (until they’re not)

What we essentially did with this little venture is we created a cult.

Inside the community we had:

• Rituals

• Ceremonies

• A strong group identity

It became a living organism.

People got tattoos, designed artwork and spent thousands of dollars without batting an eyelid.

In these culty types of environments, price resistance diminishes.

Money becomes secondary to relationships.

In fact, the value of money dissolved pretty much altogether.

At the point a community reaches cult status, money is just gets seen as more tokens/energy to use to feed the cult, which the members gladly contribute as sacrifices and to consolidate their allegiance further.

This is why they become money pits.

However, all cults come to a bitter end. Like it did for us.

If you can no longer please the rabble, the crowd can turn on you as fast as they pledged themselves to you.

Remember:

When you play with the crowd, you play with fire.

8. Whatever Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

Fredrich Nietzsche famously said:

”Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

And boy, he wasn’t kidding.

When the $90K got stolen, our community reached a crisis.

The crisis, once passed made the group closer than ever.

When the $90K got stolen, I reached a personal crisis.

The crisis, once passed made me more confident than ever.

When something rocks you, but doesn’t kill you, you adapt and come back 10000x stronger.

It’s like a vaccine (although I totally boycotted them)… the exposure to the pathogen inoculates you. Your body crushes the attack, and as a result, emerges stronger.

This is how this event affected me.

Not only is it a great story, it also made me realise:

“Hey, we created $240’000 pretty much out of thin air. YOU did that. We can do it again…”

The takeaway is this:

You only have to succeed in something once.

Then you can do it again. And again. And again.

And you better believe I’m out for redemption.

To summarise this letter I’d say this:

Getting betrayed sucks.

But it was the best thing that EVER happened to me.

I learnt more about human nature in a matter of months than most people do in their whole life.

This is the weird paradox of failure.

It always teaches you the most.

So here’s what you should take from this:

Who you work with is more important than WHAT you work on.

Always expect there to be snakes in the grass.

I know this might suck to hear, but it might just save your ass.

As the high-integrity person I hope you are, you must realise that most people SUCK. By the law of averages, someone will take advantage of your honesty and good nature and stab you in the back eventually.

So do yourself a favour and just expect that will be the case.

It costs nothing. And will save you everything.

And look, I get it… Accepting that without experiencing it first isn’t exactly easy...

You probably just need to go through it tbh. No amount of me telling you will make you realise.

Just remember though… I was like you. I thought because I’m honest so was everyone else.

And it sucks BIG TIME when you realise they’re not.

I hope you realise this sooner rather than later.

And hey… don’t get down about it.

It’s actually the best thing ever when you realise how much people suck.

It makes you realise that human nature won’t change.

And we can use that to our advantage ;)

Have a great week.

Dan

PS. Want to make an extra $5K revenue a month simply by sharing your ideas?

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