From Soap Star to Startup Builder: Daniel Goddard on Branding, Pricing, and Finding Your People
Host: Christian Brim
Guest: Daniel Goddard, actor turned entrepreneur, founder of Under theIn and Disco
Montclair, California gets the shoutout, and we kick things off with an Australian pronunciation lesson. Then we get to the good stuff. In this episode, Daniel Goddard shares how a 15–year run on CBS’s The Young and the Restless trained him for entrepreneurship, why marketing sits at the root of every business, and how his AI networking app Disco helps strangers become collaborators faster.
The Pivot: Treating your Career like a Brand
Daniel does not see acting and entrepreneurship as different worlds. In both, you are packaging a brand for an audience. That mindset guidedhis transition out of daytime TV in 2020 into two ventures:
- Under the In: a creative marketing studio that builds brands from scratch, including naming, websites, social, email, SEO, and ad testing.
- dysko.co: an AI networking platform that matches people by shared interests and goals, then starts the conversation for them.
His point is simple. Whether you sell software, skincare, ora TV character, the work begins with brand and message clarity.
Brand building that actually moves the needle
Daniel’s branding playbook is pragmatic and sharp.
- Name the promise. Pick a name that instantly communicates the outcome. Time Machine Cream. Eat What You Want. Backyard Booty Club. No one should ask what it does.
- Win organic before paid. If you cannot be found or understood without ads, you are pushing a boulder uphill.
- Avoid un-winnable SEO fights. Choose names you can own. Disco becomes Dysko to create a unique search footprint.
- Test ads like a scientist. Launch multiple small-budget variants, keep the winners, kill the losers, and iterate on data not ego.
Under the In also niches into high-clarity service offerings like 3D real estate listing graphics, adding data overlays and guided fly-throughs to listings to sell the value quickly.
Pricing, rejection, and the mindset to last
Early on, Daniel underpriced out of fear. Word-of-mouth then cemented the too-low price point and made raising rates painful. His fix:
- Price on value, not insecurity. Experience saves clients time, mistakes, and opportunity cost. Charge accordingly.
- Detach from outcomes. Auditions taught him that rejection is often about things you cannot control. Master your craft, ship the work, move to the next rep.
- Stress builds strength. Adversity refines the offer, the process, and the founder.
Disco: AI that makes meeting the right people easier
Disco tackles a universal problem. People want meaningful connections but struggle to start the conversation.
- How it works: Users select work and social tags that define them. Set a radius at a live event or “drop into” locations virtually. The app flags strong matches nearby and uses AI to propose conversation starters based on shared tags.
- Where it helps: Conventions, colleges, and dating. Universities use it to reduce first-year social anxiety, so students arrive on day one with a ready-made tribe.
The thesis is powerful. If you compress the time fromstranger to shared context, you get more friendships, more deal flow, and better collaboration.
Takeaways for creatives and founders
- Treat your offer like a character the market understands at a glance.
- Name the outcome, not the clever metaphor.
- Do not pay to scale confusion. Earn organic signal first.
- Test everything. Let the numbers, not your ego, decide.
- Price with courage. You are selling outcomes, speed, and certainty.
- Build tools that reduce social friction. Relationships drive revenue.
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