News from Ray
The Man Who Never Took a Percentage
By Ray Diaz · August 2026
Every career has a person standing behind the person. Look closely at mine and you will find Dan Fleyshman.
Here is the fastest way to explain who he is to me. In this industry, when someone opens a door for you, there is almost always a number attached. A cut, a finder fee, a favor you will owe at an inconvenient time later. That is not a complaint, that is just the math of how things work.
Dan brought me the biggest deal of my life, with Andy Frisella and 1st Phorm, and took nothing.
That tells you everything.
He kept going after that. Sugar Bear Hair. FitTea. Fashion Nova. More brands than I can name in one sitting, during the exact window when influencer marketing was being invented in real time and nobody had a map. He also pulled me into Bitcoin mining, because he was early on that the way he is early on everything. He is known for putting one of the first Bitcoin ATMs in Las Vegas.
I think we clicked because we were both everywhere at once. He had built an omnipresence across business and digital media. I had built one across entertainment and social. We were speaking the same language before most people knew there was a language to speak.
But that is the business version, and the business version is the smaller story.
The real one is this. My partner, the mother of my son, worked with his team and became his number one closer. His daughter has birthday parties. My son goes to them. What started as a mentor taking a call has turned into our kids growing up around each other.
You do not get many of those in this town. I know exactly what I have.