![Dailius Wilson]()
The tech world is full of young entrepreneurs, but that doesn’t make it any less strange to see someone in their early 20s with a resume that would rival that of someone enjoying the twilight years of a long career.
Sydneysider Dailius Wilson is one such entrepreneur. At 23, Wilson has just finished up his stint as
Oneflare's national head of sales and partnerships and is now set to head to San Francisco to take up a post as vice president of sales at
Safesite, a startup which came out of muru-D accelerator's first intake last year.
Wilson got his start in the tech scene working as a telemarketer while at university; attached to the call centre he worked for was a home loan startup called Rates Direct, for which he began to do some casual work. He then founded his own consulting businesses, focused on helping small business owners increase their business online through SEO, email marketing, and online sales strategies.
Recently named on Anthill Magazine’s 30under30 list, Wilson’s own ventures include Content.Care, a content creation business, Wolf of York Street, a daily YouTube channel in which he gives advice on sales and digital marketing, and Increase my Online Business, or iMOB, another site giving businesses advice. For good measure, he was also a guest and assistant on the Ellen DeGeneres show when she came down under two years ago.
The full time job at Oneflare came mostly by accident.
"One day I decided, as a little bit of a test, to go in and do some interviews and see what my knowledge would get me in terms of a career salary because I just wanted to check that I was charging clients the right rate. So I applied for the national head of marketing role with Oneflare and that's where it all began. We kind of had a chat and we figured out I had a few skillsets," Wilson said.
He worked as head of digital sales and national manager of partnerships and sales at Oneflare, as well as national manager of partnerships and sales at Word of Mouth Online, which Oneflare acquired in July last year. Since Wilson joined Oneflare the same month, the startup has raised $4 million in funding across two rounds. As of July 2015, it has over 70,000 businesses registered on its platform, with a number reporting they have made over $100,000 from the site, and attracts 1.3 million unique visitors a month.
Following success at Oneflare, Wilson recently decided to take up a new challenge and head to San Francisco to work with Safesite after giving the team some sales advice on internet marking forum Warrior Forum. The startup, founded by Peter Grant, David Fontain, and Leigh Appel, has created a mobile app that records and communications critical safety information across construction sites, enabling supervisors to improve safety culture, resulting in fewer injuries.
Safesite has raised $500,000 in funding to date, facilitating the opening of its new headquarters in California, and is currently in the process of raising a second round.
David Fontain, Safesite's chief operating officer, said the move came after the startup saw 80 percent of its sales coming from the US after its official launch a year ago. One of the startup's first major clients began using Safesite on a light rail infrastructure project in LA last year, which led to more projects in the US.
Wilson has a personal reason for making the move: his grandfather suffered for a year following a fall from a ladder on a worksite, and as a result, Safesite’s work is close to his heart.
"The beauty of technology is that you can give so much back to the community. I just thought it was a match made in heaven. Also being in Silicon Valley, going over to the States, there's so much opportunity to bring back knowledge and also connections to help the Australian startup industry to continue to grow as well," Wilson said.
When it comes to making decisions, Wilson is often guided by gut instincts and emotions, for which he said he has received some criticism.
“Ultimately I think the products that win are the ones that win in people's hearts and their minds. So if you're too logical and too cautious, you may be too generic. So I think, don't feel afraid to follow your emotions and use them to your advantage because that passion will allow you to succeed more than other people.”
Wilson is now charged with being a key driver of Safesite’s push into the US market.
“The US construction industry is a trillion dollar industry so we feel as if that it would be fantastic to take on the bigger market, because we feel like that's where the real growth is,” Wilson said.
As vice president, Wilson’s role will have three parts: growing and expanding the sales team, coordinating the startup’s marketing efforts, and securing partnerships. He’ll be doing that while continuing to work on his own ventures on the side.
“Often in my career I’ve been criticised for having too many irons in the fire and not enough focus on one thing, but how I look at it being an intrapreneur, working at one place but then also having other ventures, opens up new opportunities,” he said.
“It allows you to test things on your smaller venture without risking the place that you work or a larger one. I also think as well that it doesn't matter if those smaller ventures are successful or not. They provide passive income which can allow you to buy more freedom in your life.”
