On our blog today we’ll be featuring Dan Anton, a retired United States Infantry Army Ranger Major. Dan Anton is a military war veteran, served two tours in Iraq shortly after the initial invasion. He was decorated with two bronze stars for courage during combat. Dan is now enjoying every day to the fullest and creates cutting edge Software and services based around SEO.
I see you enjoy traveling. How are you able to travel and run a successful SEO company?
After my military career was over I decided I wouldn’t take anything for granted. We are only here a short while on this Earth and I wanted to get the most out of my time here. Time is a constraint for everyone, but it’s also what led me to develop our most successful SEO software and services. Once you understand what can be automated, even if it appears impossible at first glance, you free up an incredible amount of time, and simultaneously free up the people that were once doing mundane, repetitive tasks. Because I don’t want to work all day long, I develop systems and protocols to accomplish tasks much quicker. After testing everything thoroughly and putting my own money and websites to the test, I’m then able to open up to beta testers and prepare for a full-scale launch of the software, service, or application.
How did your military career prepare you to be an entrepreneur?
I grew up playing sports and my parents always expected me to excel in academics, so I had a good base of discipline when I enlisted. The Army instilled a deeper sense of commitment, attention to detail, and honor. Most people say they want to do something, but don’t take the necessary steps. This isn’t there fault usually, they just haven’t been given the correct path, or know where to begin. When you are responsible for the lives of men you don’t overlook any possibilities and you better know yourself and your enemy. As an entrepreneur it’s important to know your greatest assets, weaknesses and the competitive landscape. Civilian side doesn’t result in deaths when you make a mistake, but it’s still extremely cut-throat. Much of the dog eat dog logic can be thrown out when you attempt to rise above it and create new markets or opportunities versus playing in the same sandbox with everyone else. Entrepreneurs not only see potential, they create it through synergistically combining multiple industries and approaches to find new, innovative ways to problem solve. Without the military I don’t believe I would have developed the mental toughness required to be a leader in such a large industry.
What was your first website?
When I was 15 I was selling video games and World of Warcraft guides on ebay. As a fan of mmorpg video games I had the idea of creating a social network for gamers, but lacked any coding experience at the time. Fast forward to 2006 my brother Matthew Anton and I created a social network for gamers, and we had a few thousand users at one time. At the time we lacked intimate knowledge on hosting, servers, importance of multiple developers, and we lacked the funds. After a very passionate run we learned how to promote a website, even though we didn’t have our own business. We then started to get leads for real businesses, and they were happy to pay us. It evolved from a handful of clients to hundreds of thousands of users of our SEO and online marketing software, apps and services.
Do you work with businesses directly?
95% of our customers are other SEO experts or marketing agencies that are looking for results for their own clients. In this relationship we provide a service and get paid. There isn’t much need for consultation as the people we are selling are highly educated and understand exactly what they are purchasing. We do however have a 24/7 helpdesk in case someone needs help accessing their service, or has a question about the software. Recognizing the need to work with brick and mortar businesses or national brands directly, we launched Atlanta SEO, a full service search engine optimization company which does personal consultations, technical audits and edits, content build outs and promotion.