Dan Fonseca is a serial entrepreneur and startup growth freelancer who is the founder of Dental Tourism Colombia.
Balance the Grind spoke to Dan about a range of topics, including his startup background, dividing the day into reactive and proactive work, a typical workday, recharging to find balance and plenty more.
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1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your background and career?
I come from a startup background. I’ve been working in the space for the last 10 years. I started out, and my strength continues to be, Marketing but have spent time in Sales, Product, Design, and Customer Support.
2) What is your current role and what does it entail on a day to day basis?
Right now I’m a founder at Dental Tourism Colombia. We bring Americans and Canadians to Colombia to get premier dental care for about a third the price. I like to split up my day into two categories, reactive and proactive work.
Reactive work happens in the mornings. We’re talking emails, sales calls, patient support, bookkeeping, and other things I need to do to keep the business running.
My afternoons I like to spend doing proactive, growth oriented tasks. Here we’re talking about conversion rate optimization, boosting organic traffic, sending out email campaigns, and other things to grow the pipeline.
3) What does a typical day in the life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?
My pleasure! I like to wake up at 6am to do some exercise.
This usually means doing some body weight exercises, yoga, or going on a run or walk. After, I wind down and browse Reddit.
I wake up my fiance and get ready for the day. I start work around 8:30am and work in 1-2 hour sprints on given tasks. In between sprints, I rest away from wherever I am working as a sort of soft reset.
I stop working on the business usually around 4:30pm-6:30pm, which I will then do an hour of other responsible life things like chores, planning for the wedding, calling family, or learning a new graphic design or coding skill.
When my fiance gets home (usually from 6:00pm-7:00pm) I stop and we figure out what we’re going to eat and do for the evening. Sometimes we do something responsible like I mentioned earlier and other times we watch TV, play video games, or just hang out on our phones. Bed time is 10pm.
4) In between everything you do and all your responsibilities, how do you ensure you find some sort of balance in your life?
I rarely work past 7pm and try my best not to work on the weekends, and if I do, I get it out of the way before noon. Having nights and weekends free to live life and recharge gives me balance.
5) What are some of the things you do to take time out and recharge?
Stretching has been something I’ve been getting into a lot lately. It’s a simple activity I can do that physically stimulates me enough to keep my mind off of things.
Playing my acoustic guitar and video games helps a lot as well. Anything I can do to put the phone down, sometimes watching Netflix isn’t enough. Bathes and walks are nice as well.
6) Are there any gadgets, tools or products that you can’t live without?
My brain lives in Evernote. I can’t live without it. Any idea I have, any task I need to do, gets logged into Evernote.
Zapier automates a lot of the business which keeps me productive.
Cognito is a great lead capturing tool as well.
My Bose noise canceling headphones help me get lost in the task I’m doing. Spotify supplies the endless instrumental chill tracks.
7) What is the number one thing you do to make sure you get the most out of your day?
Wake up at 6am, doesn’t matter what day of the week it is.
If you’d like to have a conversation with us about how you balance the grind, get in touch with us!
