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I’m sharing here a podcast interview with Lee Jones, from Hindsight. In this conversation, I walk through my journey, from quitting a high-paying IT job, to building salsa classes from scratch, to scaling multiple businesses, and eventually creating OneTake AI. We talk about failures, breakthroughs, marketing lessons, and the mindset shifts that made everything possible.
Below the video, I’m also sharing an article where I go deep into the key lessons, strategies, and even the painful mistakes I shared during the interview.
What you will learn today
- How one marketing decision made me earn back my investment in days
- How a single campaign created a snowball effect in my business
- The power of pre-selling instead of building in isolation
- How I grew an audience from a few hundred to thousands
- The mindset behind taking big risks at the right time
- How I went from one customer to thousands in my AI business
- The lessons from salsa that shaped how I build companies today
- Why content marketing is still one of the most powerful tools
Below is a detailed breakdown of the strategies, lessons, and failures I shared in the conversation.
From IT to Salsa Star
Quitting the Job: The First Bold Step
I had done everything right. Great school, great job, great salary. And still, I was deeply unhappy. There was nothing to fix on the surface, which made it even worse.
Because when everything looks right, but feels wrong, you’re left with one uncomfortable truth:
You need to change everything. So I quit.
Not with a business plan. Not with clarity. Just with the certainty that I couldn’t stay.
Salsa as More Than a Dance
Salsa wasn’t a “business idea” at the time. It was just something I knew how to do.
But when you start from nothing, you don’t start with the perfect idea, you start with what you have. And for me, that was salsa.
The Birth of Salsa Classes
Embracing Fear and Finding Students
I didn’t know what I was doing. So I followed a simple structure: define how much I needed to earn, then reverse-engineer it. No overthinking. Just action. And that led me to salsa classes.
Learning to Teach, Learning to Hustle
My first official class? One student. One guy. That was it.
And I remember thinking, “Maybe this isn’t for me.”
But I kept going.
Getting Creative with Costs
The Rule of Zero: Innovating Solutions
I had no money. So instead of asking, “How do I pay for this?” I asked:
How do I make this cost zero?
That mindset changed everything.
From Empty Bars to Full Classes: A Turning Point
I found bars that were empty. I brought people.
They made money from drinks. I got the space for free. Simple.
At one point, I showed up with 30 people to a venue that… didn’t open.
So I walked everyone to another bar that had rejected me before.
This time, the owner looked at an empty room, looked at my group and said yes. That night changed everything.
Early Marketing Struggles
Heartbreaking Missteps
I was terrible at marketing. People would reach out, interested and after I replied, they disappeared. I was literally losing customers by talking to them. That’s when I realized: I needed to learn.
Finding My First Mentor, Finding My Path
I invested everything I had into a course by Frank Kern. $2,000. Three months of rent.
It felt insane. And then something unexpected happened.
In his recordings, he mentioned “a crazy guy from France who made his money back.”
That was me.
Expanding Horizons through Media
Video Marketing: A Game-Changer
That first success created a snowball effect. One campaign filled a workshop with 8 people.
Then 16. Then 30. Then a major magazine, Paris Match, came to cover it.
I started using video marketing before it was mainstream. I didn’t just show what I did, I taught it.
And that made all the difference.
Celebrating Breakthroughs on a Global Stage
I later learned from Jeff Walker about launching differently. Instead of building in isolation, you pre-sell. You find your audience first. You understand their problems.
Then you build the solution. Using that approach, I grew my email list from a few hundred to 17,000. And when I launched?
I made €16,000 on the first day, twice what I had made the entire previous year.
At 23, I even rented the Eiffel Tower for a seminar. Not a smart financial move. But definitely a memorable one.
Transitioning to Tech and AI
Applying Lessons from Salsa to OneTake AI
Everything I learned from salsa applied to building OneTake AI. Start simple. Focus on the customer. Solve real problems. When I launched OneTake AI, I had one customer.
Just one. And I remembered that first salsa class.
So I focused on her. She’s still a customer today.
Building Confidence, Building a Brand
Confidence doesn’t come first. Action comes first. Confidence follows.
That’s true in dancing and in business.
Financial Lessons and Risks
Betting on Myself: The High-Stakes Game
That $2,000 investment could have ended everything. Instead, it changed everything.
Not because it worked but because I committed.
The Importance of Calculated Risk
Risk is not about gambling. It’s about understanding that staying still is often the biggest risk of all.
Final Thoughts and Acknowledgments
Reflecting on the Path Taken
Looking back, the journey makes sense. At the time, it didn’t.
It felt messy, uncertain, and unpredictable. But every step mattered.
Encouragement for Future Entrepreneurs
If you’re at the beginning or stuck somewhere in the middle, here’s what I want you to take away:
Start.
Even if it’s messy.
Even if it’s unclear.
Even if you only have one customer.
Because that one customer can become 10.
Then 100.
Then thousands.
And one day, you might look back and realize:
It all started with a single step.
