Hey, I'm Dan 👋

That's me in the photo, standing on Solheimajokull Glacier in Iceland, squinting into the sun and wondering if I set the exposure right. It's a fitting metaphor for how I approach most things in life – stepping onto unfamiliar terrain, making adjustments as I go, and finding beauty in the process.

What I Do

You know that feeling when you're the translator between two worlds that desperately need to understand each other? That's where I live – with one foot in the technical trenches and the other in the messy reality of human needs and business challenges.

I've been building products from founding engineer to product lead, not following some polished playbook, but navigating by instinct and iteration. Like hiking a mountain without a map – sometimes you backtrack, sometimes you discover unexpected vistas, but you keep moving forward.

"I thrive in that space where vision meets execution and where building the right thing matters more than being right."

These days, I'm doing product things @ Risk Ledger, a Series A scale-up. Some days I nail it, other days I catch myself making the same mistakes I swore I'd avoid. I'm getting better at recognizing the difference.

Beyond Work

I'm still figuring out the right aperture settings for my film camera, still getting lost in new cities, still curating playlists that never feel quite finished. There's something about the deliberate imperfection of these pursuits that keeps me coming back.

Film photography teaches me patience in a world of instant gratification. Travel reminds me how little I actually know. Music gives me the soundtrack for connecting dots that don't obviously belong together.

Why I Write

I started writing because I kept having those "I wish someone had told me this earlier" moments. Not that I would have listened – some lessons you have to learn by doing, by getting it wrong first.

So I'm documenting the journey in real-time – the victories that weren't as victorious as they seemed, the failures that turned out to be foundations, and those rare moments when everything clicks into place and I think, "So that's how it works."

Let's Connect

Got thoughts on any of this? Found yourself nodding along? Or maybe completely disagree? I'd love to hear from you either way.

Shoot me an email at hello@mckenziejdan.com – the best messages I get usually start with "This made me think about..." or "Have you considered..."