From Pro Ironman to 125+ Stockists: Daniel McDonnell's Maple Movement Revolution – How Gut Issues Sparked a Natural Energy Gel Brand Scaling to $500K, 70K Months & National Growth Without Big Investors. (Episode 766 - Daniel McDonnell)

In this episode of the Grow A Small Business Podcast, host Troy Trewin interviews Daniel McDonnell co-founder of Maple Movement, shares how severe gut health issues during his professional Ironman career led him to discover the power of maple syrup as a natural fuel source and launch Maple Movement. What began as a house-deposit gamble quickly evolved into a fast-growing gut-friendly energy gel brand now stocked in 125+ stores across Australia and New Zealand. Daniel opens up about bootstrapping the business, learning margins from scratch, managing rapid growth from his living room, and transitioning to a 3PL. He dives into brand positioning, organic content strategy, subscription revenue, and building a lean, aligned team. It's a raw, practical story of turning personal pain into a scalable FMCG business with purpose and momentum. Why would you wait any longer to start living the lifestyle you signed up for? Balance your health, wealth, relationships and business growth. And focus your time and energy and make the most of this year. Let's get into it by clicking here. Troy delves into our guest's startup journey, their perception of success, industry reconsideration, and the pivotal stress point during business expansion. They discuss the joys of small business growth, vital entrepreneurial habits, and strategies for team building, encompassing wins, blunders, and invaluable advice.

And a snapshot of the final five Grow A Small Business Questions:

1. What do you think is the hardest thing in growing a small business? According to Daniel McDonnell, the hardest part of growing a small business is keeping up with rapid growth before scalable systems are fully in place, especially during big sales months when demand spikes beyond operational capacity. He shared how he and his wife were packing nearly 95 orders a day from their living room while trying to maintain a personal brand touch, highlighting that the real challenge wasn't generating sales but managing growth sustainably while building the right infrastructure to support it.

2. What's your favorite business book that has helped you the most? Daniel said his favorite business book that's helped him the most is "Built to Sell" by John Warrillow — a practical guide about structuring and scaling a business so it's not dependent on the founder and becomes sellable. He's mentioned it shaped how he thinks about systems, value creation, and building something that can run beyond him.

3. Are there any great podcasts or online learning resources you'd recommend to help grow a small business? According to Daniel McDonnell, one podcast he highly recommends for small business growth is Chew the Fat by the Greive brothers, where they share real, relatable stories after building and exiting Realbase. He values listening to founders who have scaled and exited businesses, as their practical lessons help avoid costly mistakes. Daniel also emphasizes learning directly from experienced mentors and operators rather than figuring everything out the hard way. For him, real-world business conversations and founder-led insights have been the most impactful learning resources.

4. What tool or resource would you recommend to grow a small business? Daniel McDonnell would point to a tool that helps you systemize and scale without chaos, and one he personally recommends is Notion — it's where he organizes products, SOPs, content calendars, order processes, and more in one place so nothing slips through the cracks. He also emphasizes tools for automating the parts of your business that don't need manual work, like Mailchimp or Klaviyo for email automation, and Shopify + a good 3PL integration to handle orders cleanly as volume grows. For analytics and ads, basic dashboards like Google Analytics and Facebook/Meta Business Suite help you make smarter decisions instead of guessing. The key, he says, isn't having every tool under the sun — it's picking the ones that actually save you time and help you standardize your processes so the business can scale.

5. What advice would you give yourself on day one of starting out in business? According to Daniel McDonnell, on day one he would tell himself to raise far more capital than he thinks he needs, understand margins and cash flow from the start, and build scalable systems early—because growth can come fast, but without enough cash and structure, it becomes far more stressful than it needs to be.

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Quotable quotes from our special Grow A Small Business podcast guest: Solve a real problem and the market will pull you forward - Daniel McDonnell When the team wins in their own lane the whole brand moves faster - Daniel McDonnell

Build systems early because growth exposes every weakness - Daniel McDonnell