About the Author
Dan Tohatan, founder of Dacris Software, was born in communist Romania in 1986. Imagine a country run in a fashion similar to Orwell's 1984. His father, a science fiction writer at the time, was pro-freedom and not a member of the communist party, but was cautious about speaking out. Following the violent revolution of 1989, Dan's family hoped for a better life but found themselves behind a corrupt backward system that crushed anyone who played by the rules. Seeking a better life, Dan's family emigrated to Canada in 1996. That is when Dan became an avid computer geek and began to learn about hardware and computer programming, at the age of 10. In 1999, Dan created his first commercial software product, Dacris Benchmarks, which he would go on to sell online. In the early 2000s, Dan discovered the world of the Internet, including online forums and chat rooms. In those early online communities, Dan made connections with other people interested in computers, and exchanged knowledge freely. By the time he entered university, Dan was an accomplished 2-hour-a-day programmer and business owner - a solopreneur. Even though he had much popular acclaim in the 2000s, Dan did not earn a significant amount of money from his products business. In fact, his total earnings never exceeded $12,000 a year from product sales. After university, he began working on contract for various clients, at a modest hourly rate, on a 9-to-5 schedule. His work was interrupted briefly by a mental health challenge which he had to overcome. Early on, Dan developed an interest in investing, and knew that in order to become financially independent, he would have to save and invest his modest earnings. Seeking to do more with less, Dan researched investing in his spare time starting in 2020. He wanted to see if there was a way he could automate his investing using proprietary software and achieve lower risk and higher return. This led Dan to discover the risk-centric investing philosophy that led to the creation of MarketRisk. After studying historical data and experimenting with multiple strategies, he settled on the risk-centric or safety-first investing strategy, because it was the easiest to understand and conformed closely to the idea that risk matters more than return. Saving and investing for over 7 years, from 2016 to 2024, Dan was able to build a portfolio that provided him with a passive income. These days, Dan is learning about fitness and writing, and is looking forward to building an online learning and self-help business. His goal now is to use his experiences to help other people get through challenges in life and create better lives with more fulfillment.