When he founded M.A.I.D. (Market Analysis Information Database) in 1984, Dan famously established himself as one of the first great .com entrepreneurs, going on to experience enormous success and acclaim throughout the 80’s and 90’s. Yet, this is a man still starting new businesses (as founder and Chairman of umbrella company Bright Station Ventures, he is chairman of e-commerce platform Powa, revolutionary group buying site BuyaPowa, innovative merchandising and site search solution Locayta, and #1 female-focused blog publisher Aigua Media). He continues to innovate, and pursue his visions with all the determination and bluster he learned as a 16 year old school leaver selling hi-fis.


The Hi-Fi - which Dan sold at an early branch of legendary hi-fi retailer Richer Sounds - brought new experiences for Dan in the world of the hard sell. Desperate to win a bet with the manager that he could get every customer to make a purchase, he would even resort to standing with arms-outstretched in the doorway to prevent customers from leaving. Fun though this was, his ambition drove him to secure a job at ad firm WCRS under Robin Wight, where he forced his way in as a runner, then hauled his way up to account man. On one account at WCRS, he was required to research BT for a pitch, a job which usually required endless trips to dusty corporate libraries. This time, he had the opportunity to visit BT’s research centre, where he was shown an extraordinary thing: computers across the world communicating with one another.


This was his first eureka moment: it was a revelation. Near instantly, Dan quit his job at WCRS, certain - despite the panic of his mother and the ridicule of his colleagues - that he could do something spectacular with what he’d seen. After a long period of encountering only scepticism, Dan used his innate sales bluster to secure Pergamon Infoline as a developer and various publications (crucially beginning with The Economist) as content providers for a prospective net search database to be supplied to ad firms and corporate libraries. He secured £100,000 from a small venture capital firm just in time to pay off his bills, and M.A.I.D. was launched in 1984.


A second eureka moment came in 1986, when Dan used a Pergamon Infoline stand at a New York trade show as a platform to secure three major contracts for the fledgling business, including one with Colgate-Palmolive. For the next three years, he worked between London and New York, spending much of his time in a cramped two bedroom apartment on the West Side of Manhattan. Sharing the ‘home/office’ in a ‘dorm like’ environment with two other salesmen, they worked hard from 9am-11pm, partying until 2am and then repeating the cycle. With a combination of zealous faith in the product, hard work and savvy sales acumen, Dan took the company public in 1994. It floated for £120m, and went on to join Microsoft and AOL and Adobe in exclusive launches during the 90s. Dan was lauded, not entirely without justification, as “the British Bill Gates”.


In 2000 Dan sold the company to Thomson (now Thomson Reuters) for $330m. Convinced the next stage for internet business lay in de-localised, customisable platforms (what we now call the cloud), he started ecommerce solutions provider Venda in 1998, acquiring the defunct boo.com and using its real-world infrastructure, along with core technologies from M.A.I.D, which he carefully retained in the sale. When he told companies he could cut whole development teams from their workforce with a simple, one size fits all platform, he was often laughed out of the office. Throughout the past decade though, his views on e-commerce platforms were proved prescient: he grew the company to become the world’s #1 cloud e-commerce provider. He remains the principle shareholder.


Always zealous in the defence of his business beliefs, he continues to pursue new products in the face of opposition. With the development of Powa, he expects to be proved right once again. The platform allows for the development of thousands of microsites under one brand umbrella. Fundamentally, the platform infrastructure delivers powerful search engine optimisation: with consumers more and more frequently searching for specific products rather than brands, the ability to develop product specific microsites at a moment’s notice enables Brand Owners to quickly influence and affect consumer purchasing decisions. Of course, his detractors remain sceptical, but that’s never stopped him before. Dan Wagner remains with his arms firmly stretched across the doorway: he knows what clients need, and sooner or later they’ll always be forced to admit he’s right.

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