One night, while working on my game and eating one of those sad, expired meals… I had a realization.

It dawned on me that I needed to focus on marketing (and sales) if I ever expected any sales or success.

So I put software engineering on pause and pivoted.

I began to dig deeper into learning digital marketing—reading dozens of books, and thousands of marketing articles…

And actively began promoting my game through trial and error…

Organic Funnels, Paid Acquisition, Cold Email, Influencer Marketing — the whole nine yards.

You name it, I tried it. Hundreds of marketing tactics on dozens of different platforms.

And after a while, I found myself building a modest audience.

People congregated around my game. But more than that, people congregated around… me.

Daniel Doan, the personal brand.

Seeing the success my experiments had given me, I realized that helping others could be a fruitful career path.

By turning my attention to other creatives...

I could help them sell more products and succeed in an crowded marketplace.

So I started sharing my success story with others... and started consuming an unfathomable amount of bananas on a daily basis.

And call me crazy, but...

Okay, so not really...

But, in all seriousness…

Taking the time to build a loyal following paid off in a huge way.

I was able to use my marketing knowledge to sell over half a million copies of my first video game, SanctuaryRPG.

The crazy part, though?

This was almost ALL organic traffic.

My little game would go on to be played by hundreds of thousands of players, and receive worldwide critical acclaim…

I even got to work with game industry tycoon Markus Persson of Minecraft fame.

It was incredible, really.

From a hobbyist programmer in a college dorm room...

To selling over half a million copies of a video game.

Was this sheer luck?

I did a lot of soul searching.

It was then that I stumbled upon a true eureka moment.

I put two and two together and realized…

My game wasn’t the best. I mean, sure it was decent…

And my background in psychology, user retention, and game design helped a ton.

But honestly? It was something much more simple than that.

The ability to write words that sell.

All my success, my newfound networking abilities, my following… it was all thanks to copywriting.

So I continued down the path, and devoted every waking hour to just one thing:

Mastering the craft of writing persuasively.

Over the next few years, I would go on to write copy for other developers and spearhead their marketing efforts.

And sell several million dollars worth of interactive software products on Steam.

Along with my 10-person team, I ended up leading one of the fastest-growing full-service digital agencies in the interactive entertainment industry.

We handled marketing, copywriting, and publishing operations for dozens of games industry executives and development studios…

And grew, fast.

As the company scaled, so did we.

No, really, though…

I think I gained a bit of weight after eating so poorly (and spending most of my days hunched over my laptop writing landing pages and nurture emails).

But more importantly, I scaled my copywriting skills.

I subscribed to and studied hundreds of email lists, wrote tens of thousands of lines of direct-response copy for clients, and got my hands on as many copywriting books as I could.

Breakthrough Advertising, Tested Advertising Methods, Scientific Advertising.

Dozens more books... about 40 of them in total. I read them all.

And along the way, I even got hired by a few of the world's best copywriters and had them coach me.

As my name became more synonymous with copywriting, new doors opened.

Getting good at copywriting genuinely changed everything for me.

It transformed me from a lost college grad into a marketing executive.

But more than that, it made me a lot more human.

It gave me the ability to transform words into stories. And not just stories for storytelling’s sake...

But stories that’ll enchant, delight, and nurture prospects closer and closer to the sale…

Until they bite and get swallowed whole by a rockstar sales team armed to the teeth with Jordan Belfort's scripts.

Haha, just kidding.

I’m not evil like that.

But if I was, that’s what it’d be like.