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With nearly three decades of entrepreneurial leadership, deep OPM roots, and the humility of a lifelong learner, Daniel Silva brings a rare blend of technical rigor, family-business insight, and reflective wisdom to this conversation. As the co-founder of DMS International, Daniel shares lessons from building and scaling a 29-year family business alongside his wife. Trained as a software engineer and now serving as Chief Innovation Officer, Daniel reflects on entrepreneurship as a path of sacrifice, learning, and continuous reinvention. He discusses the evolution of infrastructure from on-prem to cloud, the importance of surrounding oneself with complementary talent, and how OPM shaped his thinking through case-based learning, negotiation frameworks, and financial discipline. Daniel also explores leadership wisdom, family-business dynamics, and the importance of purpose beyond profit, while emphasizing that in a fast-changing world, innovation is not optional.

Here are the Top 10 Takeaways from the conversation:

1. Experience compounds into wisdom: A wise leader learns from experience, absorbs lessons, and adjusts pace, knowing when to accelerate and when to slow down.
2. Innovation is existential: “Do lunch or be lunch”- if you’re not constantly creating, someone else will disrupt you.
3. Complementary partnerships matter: Daniel and his wife succeeded by dividing roles - innovation and engineering paired with financial structure and discipline.
4. Family business requires boundaries: Productive conflict can drive innovation, but leaders must consciously separate business disagreements from personal life.
5. Early-stage founders must wear many hats - but not forever: Scaling requires bringing in specialists for HR, finance, and marketing as soon as possible.
6. Entrepreneurship demands sacrifice: Founders may go unpaid while building infrastructure and paying others but long-term ownership can be rewarding.
7. It’s far easier to start a company today: Cloud computing has dramatically lowered capital barriers, allowing founders to focus on mission and value creation.
8. Build with optionality: Looking back, Daniel would have built tighter, sellable companies and explored exits rather than indefinite self-growth.
9. OPM’s case method builds pattern recognition: Learning from others’ challenges helps leaders realize they’re not alone and sharpens judgment before crises hit.
10. Always know your company’s value: Regular valuation discipline (NPV, enterprise value) is essential, even if you’re not planning to sell.

Books: 

• Do Lunch or Be Lunch
• The Five Keys to Value Investing