Business

Discussing Business, Life, and Everything in Between with Danny Tran

Published

4 years ago

June 12, 2020

We had the opportunity recently to sit down with young millionaire Danny Tran and he shared valuable insights entrepreneurs can learn from. Danny is the man behind Highstoke Media, a company that scaled past 7-figures in just 18 months. In this interview, he tells us about his journey and vision.

Can you tell us something about your company Highstoke Media and how you got here?

I came up with the idea for Highstoke Media at the lowest point in my life. At that moment, I had just about 14$ with me. From day one, I had sincere faith in the company and gave it my all to make it bigger and better than anything I’ve done in my life.

The idea behind Highstoke Media is simple, we help people. We help companies grow with us. Many companies have benefited from our help and we’ve helped them grow to a six-figure level. We’ve helped aspiring entrepreneurs to reach their business goals and every day, we help as many people as we can.

Was it difficult to create a company that grew past 7-figures in just 18 months?

To be honest, anything worthwhile in life is going to be difficult. Highstoke Media was created for struggling businesses and entrepreneurs but at the same time, we faced significant challenges in our own journey to the top. I believe, what is important is to remember why we wanted to do this. Even when things were tough, we didn’t give up. We always kept in mind our mission to maximize impact in the modern world of digital marketing and paid advertising. So in moments like when we’ve lost all of clients and faced severe competition, remembering our “why’s” always pushed us through.

Even when we did start doing well, we always kept trying to find a better winning formula. If you stop after finding the key, your growth stagnates. The business and industry are always evolving and you have to evolve with it.

Do you have any advice for the people trying to follow your footsteps?

As a young entrepreneur, you are bound to make many mistakes. One of them is being focused on too many things or on the wrong things. Shiny object syndrome is a real thing and can lead to the demise of your business. In addition to that, too many people try to sell products and not solutions. Your key to succeed in the market is to solve an actual problem and not just push out a product you think that will sell.

Also, with so many things prone to go wrong at any given time, you have to be patient. So many people dive into entrepreneurship or the world of business thinking it’s a get rich quick opportunity. Remember that all great things take time and for us, we didn’t finally reap the rewards of all of our efforts until after almost two years.

Is there anything that one should avoid doing with their ventures?

The number one thing is remaining stagnant. In the world of digital marketing and entrepreneurship, the industry is changing daily. Strategies and tactics that worked a few months ago will not last forever. Simply put, if your business stops innovating, it will stop growing and eventually decline.

The second is to be a copycat entrepreneur. I’m a huge advocate for taking frameworks and improving on existing things that work but if you can’t expect to get very far if you model someone’s business to the exact details. With so many new businesses being created daily, it’s crucial that you not only break into the market place by solving a valuable problem, but to also stand out from the millions of other businesses out there.

Being a young millionaire, what goals do you have for the future?

To be honest, it’s crazy to look back at everything we’ve accomplished so far. If you asked me 2 years ago, I wouldn’t have expected to have built a million dollar company from the ground up with $14 to my name. Now with an amazing team around the world, I hope to scale Highstoke Media even further and be a household name in our industry.

In addition to that, we hope to continually grow our impact in the digital space especially with young entrepreneurs. To date, we’ve coached and mentored thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs and hope to build a larger community to maximize the amount of impact we can have in this ever-evolving industry.

What values do you try to instill in your daily life to maintain success?

Achieving success is all about having the right mindset. Introspection is a very important aspect of what makes me myself. Being self-aware helps you think clearly and make better decisions. The key to making better decisions in life is to understand perspective. Everything that happens to you in life can be perceived in a good or a bad way. If you look at things negatively, you will never be able to get out of a stump.

Most importantly, I try to live every day of my life to the fullest. Having a tough background, it is easy to be obsessed with achieving it all but you have to learn to live your life to the fullest and enjoy every moment of it. After all, you only live once.

Business

Turning Tragedy into Triumph Through Walking With Anthony

Published

6 days ago

April 18, 2024

Rosario Farell

On the morning of February 6, 2010, Anthony Purcell took a moment to admire the churning surf before plunging into the waves off Miami Beach. Though he had made the dive numerous times before, that morning was destined to be different when he crashed into a hidden sandbar, sustaining bruises to his C5 and C6 vertebrae and breaking his neck.

“I was completely submerged and unable to rise to the surface,” Purcell recalls. “Fortunately, my cousin Bernie saw what was happening and came to my rescue. He saved my life, but things would never be the same after that dive.”

Like thousands of others who are confronted with a spinal cord injury (SCI), Purcell plunged headlong into long months of hopelessness and despair. Eventually, however, he learned to turn personal tragedy into triumph as he reached out to fellow SCI victims by launching Walking With Anthony.

Living with SCI: the first dark days

Initial rehabilitation for those with SCIs takes an average of three to six months, during which time they must relearn hundreds of fundamental skills and adjust to what feels like an entirely new body. Unfortunately, after 21 days, Purcell’s insurance stopped paying for this essential treatment, even though he had made only minimal improvement in such a short time.

“Insurance companies cover rehab costs for people with back injuries, but not for people with spinal cord injuries,” explains Purcell. “We were practically thrown to the curb. At that time, I was so immobile that I couldn’t even raise my arms to feed myself.”

Instead of giving up, Purcell’s mother chose to battle his SCI with long-term rehab. She enrolled Purcell in Project Walk, a rehabilitation facility located in Carlsbad, California, but one that came with an annual cost of over $100,000.

“My parents paid for rehabilitation treatment for over three years,” says Purcell. “Throughout that time, they taught me the importance of patience, compassion, and unconditional love.”

Yet despite his family’s support, Purcell still struggled. “Those were dark days when I couldn’t bring myself to accept the bleak prognosis ahead of me,” he says. “I faced life in a wheelchair and the never-ending struggle for healthcare access, coverage, and advocacy. I hit my share of low points, and there were times when I seriously contemplated giving up on life altogether.”

Purcell finds a new purpose in helping others with SCIs

After long months of depression and self-doubt, Purcell’s mother determined it was time for her son to find purpose beyond rehabilitation.

“My mom suggested I start Walking With Anthony to show people with spinal cord injuries that they were not alone,” Purcell remarks. “When I began to focus on other people besides myself, I realized that people all around the world with spinal cord injuries were suffering because of restrictions on coverage and healthcare access. The question that plagued me most was, ‘What about the people with spinal cord injuries who cannot afford the cost of rehabilitation?’ I had no idea how they were managing.”

Purcell and his mother knew they wanted to make a difference for other people with SCIs, starting with the creation of grants to help cover essentials like assistive technology and emergency finances. To date, they have helped over 100 SCI patients get back on their feet after suffering a similar life-altering accident.

Purcell demonstrates the power and necessity of rehab for people with SCIs

After targeted rehab, Purcell’s physical and mental health improved drastically. Today, he is able to care for himself, drive his own car, and has even returned to work.

“Thanks to my family’s financial and emotional support, I am making amazing physical improvement,” Purcell comments. “I mustered the strength to rebuild my life and even found the nerve to message Karen, a high school classmate I’d always had a thing for. We reconnected, our friendship evolved into love, and we tied the knot in 2017.”

After all that, Purcell found the drive to push toward one further personal triumph. He married but did not believe a family was in his future. Regardless of his remarkable progress, physicians told him biological children were not an option.

Despite being paralyzed from the chest down, Purcell continued to look for hope. Finally, Dr. Jesse Mills of UCLA Health’s Male Reproductive Medicine department assured Purcell and his wife that the right medical care and in vitro fertilization could make their dream of becoming parents a reality.

“Payton joined our family in the spring of 2023,” Purcell reports. “For so long, I believed my spinal cord injury had taken everything I cared about, but now I am grateful every day. I work to help other people with spinal cord injuries find the same joy and hope. We provide them with access to specialists, funding to pay for innovative treatments, and the desire to move forward with a focus on the future.”