Red Ventures Profiles
Dan Feldstein is the CMO and co-founder of Red Ventures. Dan focuses on new marketing, new business incubation and launch, and marketing innovation. Prior to founding Red Ventures, Dan held a variety of general management and senior marketing positions within CUC International (later Cendant). Dan's roles have included general manager of Sidewalk.com, a joint venture between Microsoft and Cendant, SVP, Marketing, for Cendant’s membership group; and general manager of Shoppers Advantage, a $300MM online and catalog retailer. Dan began his career with the global consulting firm Bain & Company. He received his undergraduate degree from Duke University and is also a graduate of the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania.
An Interview with Dan
It's obvious that Dan Feldstein marches to the beat of his own drum the minute you enter his office. The first thing you notice about his lavish corner office is that he doesn't have one. Most days, Dan can be found in a conference room, with a collection of people debating marketing strategies while he draws all over the white boards and windows in a myriad of colors. "I don't need a traditional office," he says, "since I add the most value meeting with others to create opportunities and to solve problems."
What else would you expect from a guy who, as a teen, developed his own software for SAT prep when he decided that the tutorials available at the time didn't really teach anything? After hammering away on his Apple IIe, Dan created his own program, and then got his high school computer teacher to drive him (he had no license) to pitch his new and improved SAT tutorial to the very software company whose product had let him down. He didn't know it at the time, but this was Dan's first foray into developing solutions to unmet consumer needs, the basis of why Red Ventures exists today.
Dubbed "The Idea Guy," Dan graduated from Duke University before joining the consulting firm Bain & Company in Boston. After earning an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, Dan moved on to the direct marketing holding company CUC International (later Cendant). The promise there was to learn to run and grow direct marketing businesses. In six years he had five material jobs. "My bosses used to come to me and say, 'Feldstein, give me your 20 best ideas,' and I'd send them 100. I couldn't help myself," he says.
The caliber of roles and impact positions Dan held at Cendant led him to meet Ric Elias, his future Red Ventures Business partner, who also managed a variety of other growth businesses there. It was only a matter of time before the two decided to leave CUC to merge their marketing talents in a new venture. "Entrepreneurship is just in our nature. My first foray was before I was 10 in sports collectibles and Ric's first came about the same age selling avocados in his town in Puerto Rico. It was an inevitability that we would branch out on our own," says Dan. Their tenacity and business savvy are in synch every step of the way.
Dan lives with his family in Charlotte, N.C.