The Masterminders | TheMasterminders.com SEO Meetup

This episode of the James Dooley Podcast captures a deep, behind-the-scenes discussion between James Dooley and Jaume Ros, centred on an exclusive VIP SEO Mastermind held in Vietnam and organised by Kasra Dash. Jaume shares his firsthand experience of how high-level masterminds operate, explaining the small-group format where experienced SEO operators, agency owners, SaaS founders, and link specialists openly dissect real business and SEO challenges. The conversation highlights why these invite-only environments unlock insights that aren’t shared publicly, from advanced link building and automation to programmatic SEO and large-scale team management. James Dooley reflects on the calibre of attendees and explains why in-person masterminds outperform traditional conferences, as small groups allow assumptions to be challenged, misinformation to be corrected, and real causation to be separated from surface-level correlation. Together, they underline how exposure to elite operators—some running nine-figure businesses and teams of hundreds—forces participants to rethink efficiency, delegation, and scale. The episode positions SEO masterminds as a catalyst for strategic clarity, accelerated learning, and business growth, showing why curated rooms consistently outperform online content and stage-driven events.

Creators and Guests

Host

James Dooley

James Dooley is a UK entrepreneur.

What is James Dooley Podcast?

James Dooley is a Manchester-based entrepreneur, investor, and SEO strategist. James Dooley founded FatRank and PromoSEO, two UK performance marketing agencies that deliver no-win-no-fee lead generation and digital growth systems for ambitious businesses. James Dooley positions himself as an Investorpreneur who invests in UK companies with high growth potential because he believes lead generation is the root of all business success.

The James Dooley Podcast explores the mindset, methods, and mechanics of modern entrepreneurship. James Dooley interviews leading marketers, founders, and innovators to reveal the strategies driving online dominance and business scalability. Each episode unpacks the reality of building a business without mentorship, showing how systems, data, and lead flow replace luck and guesswork.

James Dooley shares hard-earned lessons from scaling digital assets and managing SEO teams across more than 650 industries. James Dooley teaches how to convert leads into long-term revenue through brand positioning, technical SEO, and automation. James Dooley built his career on rank and rent, digital real estate, and performance-based marketing because these models align incentive with outcome.

After turning down dozens of podcast invitations, James Dooley now embraces the platform to share his insights on investorpreneurship, lead generation, AI-driven marketing, and reputation management. James Dooley frequently collaborates with elite entrepreneurs to discuss frameworks for scaling businesses, building authority, and mastering search.

James Dooley is also an expert in online reputation management (ORM), having built and rehabilitated corporate brands across the UK. His approach combines SEO precision, brand engineering, and social proof loops to influence both Google’s Knowledge Graph and public perception.

To feature James Dooley on your podcast or event, connect via social media. James Dooley regularly joins business panels and networking sessions to discuss entrepreneurship, brand growth, and the evolving future of SEO.

Jaume Ros:
I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve always wondered what these VIP SEO masterminds are actually like. Last week I was in Vietnam and got invited to one run by Kasra Dash—who most of you will already know from the SEO space and his YouTube channel.

Kasra put together a VIP SEO Mastermind with some serious names attending: Koray, Julian Goldie, Jacky Chow, Kyle Roof, and others. He invited me along to experience it firsthand, so I want to break down what these events are really like, whether they’re worth attending, and share some takeaways from the people who were there.

Jaume Ros:
If you’ve never been to one of these before, here’s how it usually works. You spend a full day in small groups—around six or seven people per table. Since it’s an SEO mastermind, everyone is involved in SEO, but from very different angles.

In my group, there were people selling links, someone who owned a link marketplace (Link House out of Poland), agency owners, SaaS founders, and people deep into product and data tools.

You go around in a circle, and each person gets about 30 minutes to talk through one specific business or SEO problem. Everyone in the group contributes based on real experience—not theory—to help solve it.

Jaume Ros:
What makes these events powerful is the calibre of people in the room. In my group alone, there was someone doing nine figures in revenue across multiple businesses.

Every issue I brought up, he’d already been through—and gave me incredibly practical advice.

I personally asked about one of my new projects, Clicks, a beginner-friendly SEO data tool, and got honest feedback on growth strategies and positioning. Coincidentally, someone else in the group owned a very similar SaaS product in the site audit space, and he explained why it’s both a great and terrible business—which was eye-opening.

I also connected with someone who specialises in backlinks for SaaS businesses, which was perfect timing and something I’ll be moving forward with.

Jaume Ros:
Before we get into the individual takeaways from some of the bigger names, I just want to say—these events are absolutely worth it.

It might sound like an ad, but they’re one of the few places where people openly talk about what’s actually working, how much money they’re making, and which strategies don’t show up on Twitter or YouTube.

You hear advanced link building tactics, automation workflows, and programmatic SEO strategies that just don’t get shared publicly. I’d also recommend events run by Kasra specifically—he’s extremely well connected and knows how to curate the right rooms.

Jaume Ros:
So why should people attend masterminds like this?

James Dooley:
For me, it’s all about perspective. When you’re stuck inside your own SEO bubble, you can get trapped by your own thinking.

When you sit around a table with six or eight other experienced people, problems that felt massive suddenly shrink. Multiple perspectives unlock solutions quickly. I came in with a specific issue and had it resolved almost immediately.

There’s also real value in being vulnerable—sharing what’s not working—and getting honest feedback from people you actually respect.

A lot of the attendees are doing extremely advanced work: programmatic SEO, scripting, automation—very high-level execution. Being around that standard forces you to level up.

Jaume Ros:
What did you think overall?

James Dooley:
Honestly, it was very high level. It was invite-only, which meant the quality of people was exceptional.

There wasn’t just deep knowledge in SEO and digital marketing, but also serious business experience. Some attendees have scaled teams of 300–350 staff and sustained that for years.

That brings a different type of insight—around leadership, staff training, motivation, and operational headaches you just don’t get from surface-level conversations.

Jaume Ros:
Why do you think this type of knowledge only really comes out in small, private, in-person groups?

James Dooley:
Because on stage, you can’t really challenge ideas. If someone says something questionable during a talk, calling it out publicly looks disrespectful.

But in private masterminds, you can challenge assumptions. Someone might say, “This strategy works,” and you can ask, “Have you tested X, Y, and Z?”

A lot of misinformation isn’t malicious—it’s people confusing correlation with causation. In mastermind settings, you can drill down into what actually worked, pull in experts from specific areas, and isolate the real drivers of success.

That depth just doesn’t happen at conferences.

Jaume Ros:
Anything else that stood out?

James Dooley:
What really hit home was seeing the scale some people are operating at—the revenue, the team structures, the hiring systems.

You think your setup is efficient until you talk to these people and realise there are ten things you could optimise immediately.

The takeaway for me was understanding how elite operators scale—how they recruit, train, delegate, and function as a unit to push brands to £10m, £50m, £100m+.

That level of transparency is rare, and it’s why masterminds like this are so valuable.

Jaume Ros:
Thanks for your time—and thanks for organising such an incredible event.

James Dooley:
Anytime. And yeah—you’ll definitely be at the next one.

Jaume Ros:
I’ll be there.