by MakeUsWell

Who Is David Joosten?

Family man and entrepreneur David Joosten’s ability to measure probability and recognize trends started at a young age. While most students in high school are busy with the banality of adolescence, David found his passion for entrepreneurship early and started a business as a PowerSeller on Ebay. Clearing six figures selling video games and DVDs led to studying economics at Harvard. 

After graduation, he joined marketing at Google. There he learned how data-driven marketing worked at scale—making growth systematic—with a team that was eclectic and inspiring.

According to David, Google did not hire people to the marketing program based on experience in marketing. They came from many different fields with the common thread being that they were “people who were smart and entrepreneurial.” It was a good place to learn as well as a great place to meet people.

I feel very fortunate I met my wife actually, when I was in high school and I met Chris, my cofounder, at my first job [at Google] when I was 22. That's enabled me to do a whole lot of things in life pretty early, and it's been a very rewarding journey because of that.

Flywheel Software

David co-founded Flywheel Software in 2015 with fellow Google alumnus, Chris Sell. Together they have developed a “No Code Data Activation Platform.” At its core, Flywheel turns a company's customer data warehouse into a growth engine. With its “no-code” interface, it makes it possible for non-technical professionals to activate their data in minutes, to define customer segments, sync them to all their marketing channels, and test the results with automated experiments.

Though David and Chris started their work with Flywheel in the retail space, they ultimately realized that what they were building could be used to drive any outcome that's measurable with data. Today they have loyal customers in banking, recruiting, and health care, along with sports teams that want to promote ticket sales, among others.

In May of this year they announced a growth equity investment from The Jordan Company.

Family Time

In addition to being a successful entrepreneur, David is busy as a father. He and his wife have a son on the cusp of turning four and a daughter who is almost two. 

The demands of modern parenthood are tremendous, but I am very fortunate to have an incredibly supportive wife, Brooke, who has helped to make entrepreneurship possible for me.

When asked how he balances life and work, David emphasized that pretty much all of his time spent outside of work is spent with his family. He describes the experiences of being both an entrepreneur and a father as “challenging and humbling.” At the same time, he said,

The experience of balancing both has also led me to trust my intuition more as a leader… And my children have taught me to be present in each moment, because that is how they experience life.

Much like the application of a flywheel, David is unrelenting in his pursuits, creating perpetual momentum.