EP 484: How Day One Experts Connects Texas Businesses To Local Incentives

What makes Super Dave Quinn with Day One Experts a good neighbor?

We talk with Super Dave Quinn, founder and chief inspirational officer of Day One Experts, about how small business owners are often leaving money and local support on the table without realizing it. He breaks down how economic development resources actually work, how cities think about investment, and why the help is often there—but invisible if you don’t know how to access it.

Dave shares his path from working in economic development roles to stepping into entrepreneurship, including the real risk conversations that come with leaving stability behind. We also unpack the biggest misconception he hears from business owners—that their community “doesn’t offer incentives”—and what’s actually happening behind the scenes.

If you’re dealing with business expansion, funding challenges, or trying to understand how to grow with local support, this conversation gives you a clear starting point on what to look for and how to think about opportunity differently.

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Day One Experts 

//d1experts.com/

 214-775-0617

Transcript

Welcome To Good Neighbor Podcast

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Sophia Yvette.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of an economic development consulting firm? Well, one maybe closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, Super Dave Quinn, founder and chief inspirational officer of Day One Experts. Super Dave, it's great to have you on today. Now we're excited to learn all about you and your business. So please start off by telling our listeners just a little bit more about your company.

What Day One Experts Does

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Yeah, sure. So Day One Experts was formed in 2019. I'm a certified economic developer and I had worked in communities across Texas up until 2018. I was in Frisco working for their economic development corporation and decided to leave and start my own consulting firm. Now, what we do is help small to medium-sized business owners connect with economic development resources day in and day out. I get to help people grow their business by connecting to the men and women who want to help them do it through economic development resources.

The Leap Into Entrepreneurship

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Dave, I love that you use the word connection because that is so important in everything that we do. Now, jumping back in time here to your story, you know, when did you decide this was the business you wanted to really get started with? Was there a turning point in life where you're like, I'm just ready for this?

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Well, it's probably like many other small business owners. Sometimes you uh these opportunities come out of nowhere and you have to make a decision. I'm just gonna make make the leap. And uh that was sort of what happened. I was leaving uh Fairview, uh the Frisco Economic Development Corporation. I set my kids down and I said, we can go move to a different community, and you know, life will continue as we know it, or I can start a consulting firm. We may have to start eating bologna and you know, beans and rice, and things will change drastically because we're starting a business. And you know, they all said, Hey, we're re we're willing to eat beans and rice with you. We're you know, go for it, make this leap, and and we're with you. And that's what we did, and we were blessed right from the get-go. We landed um one of our clients, Fairview, Texas, and really the hit the rest has been history. And and you know, I it's I just wake up every day so grateful that I get to do what I do. Um, it's truly just an amazing God thing that you know I have this gift and ability to help people in a way that I love to do that, and he's found a way to allow me to do that.

The Big Misconception About Resources

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Well, Super Dave, I am right there with you. Now, kind of going back in time after you had taken that risk, you know, what was that most common misconception people started to bring to you on the day-to-day?

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Well, I think um first and foremost, most business owners don't even know economic development resources exist in their communities. I speak at 10ksv often uh about this topic, and a lot of times I have participants arguing with me saying, no, no, my community doesn't do that. And I promise you, if you're in Texas especially, um their communities have economic development resources for you to tap into. And so the trick is finding how your company um brings value to the community and how you can leverage what you do to help them, and they will help um you know take their resources and help you. It's all about aligning the conversation and the dialogue and getting those um that connection made between the company and the uh the community uh to plug into those economic development resources.

Who Economic Development Helps Most

SPEAKER_02 3:47

So super Dave. Let's go ahead and switch gears for a second and talk about a must in any business. Now we do know that marketing is the heart of every business. So today, ideally, what types of those small to medium-sized businesses are you looking to help? And you know, how are you attracting them?

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Well, that's a great question. Uh, I'm probably the worst at helping myself market. I have I'm really good at helping other people market their business. Uh, it's kind of like the cobbler's kids has no shoes because he's so busy helping others. Um, but first and foremost, um, it's about um we connect with companies. The best companies are those, especially small manufacturing uh concerns, and because they generate a lot of capital investment for the communities, they have employees obviously on the economic development side. Communities are looking for companies that bring value that's either in capital investment, employees, or sales tax. So if you're a retail concern and you're looking to grow, maybe you're going from one restaurant or two restaurants to that third or fourth location, we can help you do that because you're bringing sales tax to the community and oftentimes you're providing something that that community doesn't have yet. And so they're willing to invest and help make that happen. What we like to say is the communities are in the business of helping bridge the risk gap. As small business owners, um, it's very um, there's a lot of inherent risk in owning a business and starting a new location. And so, what economic development resources are uh really designed to do is help bridge that risk gap. When there's financing, you know, the bankers love a slam dunk, but most small business owners aren't slam, you know, when they're creating a new business or going into a new location, it's not a slam dunk. And so a lot of times communities can help bridge that risk gap and get the financing that they need to make that business a success in that community.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

100%. Now, how are you attracting these clients?

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Honestly, it's word of mouth. We do a lot of networking, we do a lot of small business. Um, we do workshops and we we have some online uh resources, YouTube, those sort of things that you can uh kind of go out and find. Well, honestly, the way we get connected nine times out of ten is somebody heard um saw me at an event speaking on uh a topic, and they said, I know a friend who needs your help. And that happens day in and day out. Again, we're so blessed that um you know God just finds a way to connect us with the people we can serve.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Amen. Amen. That's called giving seed to the sower.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

I like it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Now, so you know, when you get to help these businesses, if I was gonna come to you and say, Hey, I need economic development help with my business, you know, what are those three standout qualities that your business offers to ensure your clients they're in the best hands?

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Well, first and foremost, um, the way we structure our uh services is a small upfront fee gets you in the door. What that really allows us to do is sit down and ask a lot of questions. And we can do that um prior to even the onboarding fee, right? So we sit down with you, we really understand what are your challenges, what are you trying to do? A lot of business owners come to us and they say, I need some money. But we all need money, right? There's never enough money in a small business. So what we really dig into is what are you trying to accomplish? What is what would that money do for you? What are you trying to do with that money? Once we understand that, we can then say it will or won't be a good fit for communities because we understand how communities um gauge their investment with these companies. And so once we understand that we can help you, then we have an onboarding fee. Once we get you in the system and we start um working on your behalf, you don't pay again unless we're successful. So, you know, we can work months, maybe a year, getting you to the point where you're ready to sign an economic incentive, and and there's no payment unless we're successful. And at that point, we take a small 10% of the resources that we were getting you. So it's really not any money out of the business owner's pocket per se. It's only out of the incentive that the community is investing to that business owner.

Where To Find Super Dave

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Wow, that's an amazing service. And finally, where can our listeners go to find day one experts?

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Well, so we obviously we have a website, it's dnumber1experts.com. You can find us on all the socials at that same d1experts.com. Or the super simple uh answer is just Google Super Dave Quinn. I promise you we'll get to me. You'll see all the other things that we do at day one experts. But I promise you, if you just Google Super Dave Quinn, you'll find me.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

Well, Super Dave, I really appreciate you being on the show today. We wish you and your business the best moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Hey, Sophia, thank you. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for getting the word out for small business owners. I appreciate what you're doing on their behalf. It's a hard, hard life, um, but it's so rewarding. And I think we need more men and women doing this kind of work and being who they are in the world and bringing their value into the marketplace. So thank you for helping us do that.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPfrisco.com. That's GNP Frisco dot com or call four six nine two two two one nine three four five.