MagicFooFooDust Is Built For Operators Who Are Ready To Move Beyond Vanity Metrics And Build For Substance
What began as a coincidence quickly turned into an inside joke.
Two men named David, both married to women named Stephanie, found themselves sharing a dinner table. Every mention of “David” or “Steph” led to confusion, laughter, and chaotic group texts. It was lighthearted and memorable, but beneath the humor was something rarer. There was an immediate, unforced chemistry that did not feel manufactured or performative. There was no posturing and no pitching, just honest conversation and an ease that usually takes years to develop.
That accidental meeting marked the beginning of a friendship between David Shteif and David Schwartz, one rooted not in networking, but in alignment.
Both were seasoned operators with little left to prove and a shared intolerance for empty promises. From the beginning, trust came first. Business followed later.
Shteif brought more than two decades of experience in digital marketing, business growth, and the legal industry, including founding companies that scaled, exited, and even reached the New York Stock Exchange. His philosophy consistently favored systems over shortcuts, relationships over hype, and clarity over buzzwords. Schwartz, equally experienced, shared those same values.
Together, they recognized a pattern they had seen repeatedly across industries. Most businesses do not fail because of bad ideas. They fail because of weak systems and misaligned partnerships.
From that realization, MagicFooFooDust was born. Shteif serves as Chief Executive Officer and Schwartz is the Chief Media Officer and Chief Revenue Officer. Together, the Davids combine decades of experience with an unwavering passion to create opportunities for the next generation of entrepreneurs. As co-founders, they believe in doing things differently.
The name came from a sarcastic inside joke about the industry’s obsession with “one-trick” solutions and miracle fixes. It stuck precisely because it rejected the illusion it referenced. There was no magic involved, only effort, testing, honesty, and time. Ideas were treated as experiments rather than identities. If something worked, it stayed. If it did not, it changed.
“What drives me today isn’t just building businesses; it’s creating impact,” Shteif said. “I share the knowledge I’ve gained over decades with my team. Watching them apply strategies I introduce and seeing the results speak louder than words is what keeps me motivated.”
Despite the playful name, MagicFooFooDust operates as a serious incubator and accelerator for experienced founders who know how to execute but feel constrained by infrastructure, capital, or scale. The firm provides operational systems that include technology, marketing, CRM platforms, capital pathways, and ongoing support. The goal is to allow founders to focus on what they do best without wasting time reinventing the wheel.
Several companies incubated under the MagicFooFooDust umbrella have already been acquired or backed by private equity. Others continue to grow independently within the same framework.
Clients tend to notice the difference quickly. Conversations feel grounded and straightforward. There are no sales scripts, no false certainty, and no pressure to close. Instead, there is honesty about risk, data, and what improvement actually requires.
Clients often remark, “You actually care,” not as praise, but as an observation.
For Shteif, caring is not a tactic. It is empathy earned from having his own reputation, payroll, and future on the line.
That philosophy extends naturally into the Davids’ other ventures, including Direct Legal Marketing and Coverage Hub Marketing, both incubated under the MagicFooFooDust model. They operate under a MFFD umbrella.
In the legal industry, where growth has long been driven by transactional lead generation and vanity metrics, Direct Legal Marketing took a different approach. Rather than relying on third-party vendors or chasing raw volume, the firm built and operates its own proprietary media infrastructure. The system is designed to identify high-value cases, including motor vehicle accidents, catastrophic injuries, medical malpractice, and mass torts, before competitors even know they exist.
“We don’t generate leads,” Shteif said. “We built a data-driven system that finds the highest quality cases.”
With more than 20 years of experience scaling digital companies from startup to IPO, including work tied to public markets, the team does not guess at growth strategies. Success is measured in signed retainers, compensable cases, revenue generated, and market share captured.
That focus has resonated with law firms working in personal injury and mass tort litigation, including Johnson & Johnson talc cases, Camp Lejeune claims, and rideshare abuse litigation. Growth, in this model, is built around long-term partnerships rather than short-term wins.
“We’ve been a bit quiet at Direct Legal Marketing, not due to a slowdown, but because we’ve been focused on building,” Shteif and Schwartz explained in a recent LinkedIn post. “In our role of generating signed retainers for Mass Tort and MVA firms, we prioritize delivering compensable cases consistently over chasing shiny objects. This standard compels us to grow the right way, with the right people, systems, and operators behind the scenes.”
That commitment recently led to a major leadership addition with the appointment of Toni Marie Williams as chief marketing officer. Formerly with TSEG, Williams is widely respected in the mass tort space for her operational discipline and ability to scale campaigns that deliver real outcomes.
Her expertise spans performance marketing, media team development, and campaign execution at scale, with a focus on what law firms actually care about.
“You can train skills,” Shteif said. “You can’t train someone to care.”
That belief shapes hiring across the incubator’s portfolio. Teams are built around curiosity, accountability, and ownership. The focus is on people who stay late to solve problems, speak up when something feels wrong, and treat client outcomes as personal responsibilities.
Clients feel it. Not in slogans or decks, but in small decisions that compound over time.
Behind it all, the Stephanies were never background characters. They provided balance and perspective, along with a constant reminder that success without relationships is hollow. Ambition, in this model, is meant to fit into a full life, not consume it.
Today, “the Davids” has become shorthand for a way of working that values direct answers, long-term thinking, real partnership, and a sense of humor when complexity inevitably arises.
MagicFooFooDust continues to grow deliberately, resisting the urge to oversell what is still being refined. Credibility, after all, is earned over time. There is still no magic dust. There are only systems built carefully, teams built intentionally, and people willing to keep showing up when the work gets uncomfortable.
Sometimes, the best things really do start with a coincidence.
