January 23, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode of From Crisis to Justice, Parag Amin sits down with Anthony Franco, a serial entrepreneur who has launched six companies across industries like tech, AI, manufacturing, and consumer goods—and successfully exited two to public companies.
Anthony also landed a deal on Shark Tank with Kevin O’Leary, proving his expertise in turning ideas into thriving businesses.
Anthony doesn’t just talk theory—he shares hard-earned lessons from his 20+ years of building and scaling businesses. This conversation is packed with actionable insights on everything from overcoming founder ego to the real challenges of delegation and decision-making.
Key takeaways include:
- Overcoming Founder Ego: Why control and micromanagement hold businesses back from scaling.
- Mastering Delegation: How to treat delegation like a craft and build a team you trust.
- Balancing Data and Gut Instincts: When to rely on intuition and when to let data guide your decisions.
- Scaling with Purpose: How to pivot early, often, and smartly to navigate challenges and opportunities.
- Shark Tank Lessons: What Anthony learned about leveraging social proof and trust to grow a business.
This episode is a must-listen for business owners, founders, and entrepreneurs looking for real-world advice on scaling smarter, avoiding common pitfalls, and staying true to their vision.
Learn more about Anthony Franco:
Website: http://www.howtofounder.com
Learn more about Parag Amin:
Business Law Firm: https://lawpla.com
Personal Website: https://paraglamin.com
Follow Parag:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paragaminesq
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawplapc
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, I'm Parag Amin.
Welcome to my podcast.
From Crisis to Justice.
As a lawyer and entrepreneur, I'mpassionate about helping small business
owners successfully navigate situationsthat can kill a business.
As a kid, I watched my dad's dreamsof being an entrepreneur were destroyed
by an unethical businessman, and I don'twant that to happen to you or your family.
(00:22):
That's why I started my law firm.
I want to protect and defend businessowners and their legacies from crisis.
Welcome to From Crisis to Justice.
Hello, everybody,
and welcome back to From Crisisto Justice.
I am joined by a very special guest today,Anthony Franco.
(00:47):
Anthony has a long history
of building, selling,
scaling, successful businesses.
He's a founder, builder and dealmaker
with over 20 years of experienceturning ideas into thriving businesses.
He's founded six companiesacross industries like tech,
manufacturing, A.I.,consumer goods and digital marketing.
(01:12):
He's had exits that include salesto two public companies.
He's even landed a shark tankdeal with Mr.
Wonderful himself.
Thank you so much, Anthony,for being on today.
Of course.Thanks for having me. Listen, so
I am really excited to dive
into some of these tools, tips and tacticsthat you've picked up over the years.
(01:33):
So what do you think is
a secret that business
owners most commonly overlook
that keeps them from scaling,
from scaling?
Usually it's ego.
So the the thing that that
(01:54):
the thing that prohibits
a business from scalingis typically the founder
and the founder needing to have controlall over every aspect of a business.
The companies that scale scalebecause the founder
is really good at delegation
and really good at allowing peoplewith constraints
(02:17):
to make their own mistakesand to build their own like
ground, their own fiefdom,if you will, within the organization.
So I think it's
it comes down to ego and controlis what keeps most companies from scaling.
Yeah, that's a great point.
But I mean, let me ask you this.
The counterpoint to that
is, look, I've tried to delegate,I've given it to people and
(02:39):
it gets messed up or is done
incorrectly, and then it comes backand then I've got to do it or redo it.
And that'swhat keeps me from wanting to delegate.
And so maybe that's an aspect ofwhat is the proper way of delegating.
But what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I mean, look, I suffer from thislike I struggle with this.
I typically like to exit a businessbefore I have to worry about scaling
(03:02):
for this exact reason, because deprivation
is painful.
So, yes, you're right.
They will not do it as well as you and it.
But if scaling is important, then,
you know,the largest company, scaled was 150 folks.
It was fairly large.
And dealing with delegating to leadersis one thing.
(03:25):
Delegating to leaders you have to delegateto manage middle management.
It's really hard.
Like things just get lost in translation
and you literally become a microlike not a micromanager, but you become
you're managing problemsthat don't feel like big problems.
They're just people problems.
So it sucks.
(03:47):
You're absolutely right.
I can't argue that that
if scale what your goal is,
you have to treat delegation like a craft.
You have to treat it.
You have to just get good at it.
And the only way to get goodis to practice.
Yeah, obviously read books and, and,and you know, read things
like good to greater
(04:08):
and had added my meetingsand how to delegate but
you just have to kind of do it
and expect that you're going to fail at itfor the first year.
It's how you navigate how you how
you can lead through delegation.
Yeah, I love that.
And so tell us a little bitabout your journey into this
(04:28):
and learning about thisand maybe even some of the hard knocks
and the hard lessons he learned too,to help the listeners shortcut
the path that you've traversedthe hard way.
Yeah.
So there's a there's a piece of it that,
you know, you can tell somebodyhow cold the water is,
but until they jump in, they don't,
you know, they can believe you or not,if it gets cold.
(04:50):
But when they jump in, it's like, Oh,he didn't tell me was this cold.
And that's really kind ofwhat entrepreneurship is.
It's like, you know,
you can you can give people mental modelsto think about things.
That's kind of like I read a podcast. It'skind of what that podcast is about.
It's like when you have an employeesteal from you, here's how you handle it.
(05:10):
But until you get up against it
and actually do it,
there's no bettereducator than experience it with failure.
So there's there's a piece of itthat you just have to be good
with the factthat you're going to write into things
that you've never run into before,and you're going to have to navigate those
and you're probably going to suck at itthe first couple of times.
(05:32):
That's okay. That's part of the process.
Yeah, and
what tip do you have for somebodywho might be struggling through something
right now for the first timeand they're not sure how to deal with it?
They feel like they'redrowning in the cold water.
It hits, and as soon as it hits,you lose your breath and you know,
you're just terrified.
What do you think abouthow do you try that water?
(05:55):
Well, that'sfirst of all, you're not alone.
I think I think that I thinkthe underscore underscore here is
you're not alone.
There's other foundersthat are going through similar things.
And it's a very common feelingof being underwater as an entrepreneur.
So the tip, the hack is go surroundyourself with other entrepreneurs,
go to meetups, go to go find athis ditch group or a peer group
(06:19):
to join, to havethese regular have regular conversations
with other founders.
There is entrepreneurshipis incredibly lonely,
and the only people that are going to getyou are other entrepreneurs.
So. So go find a group and it doesn'thave to be formal like this.
It could just be go find a meet upand then start striking friendships up
(06:42):
with other entrepreneurs.
But that's that's the hackthe hack has to go is to not do it alone.
You can't do it with your spouse,can't do it with employees.
You can onlyyou can only have these conversations
other entrepreneurs can do as investors.
It's only under entrepreneurs.
Yeah, don't do it with investors, I guess.
No, no.
(07:03):
Now, of course,worst advice you get is from investors.
Period.
Yeah.
I mean, there's a reasonthat they're investing with you
instead of just running it on their own,right?
Yeah. You're a lawyer, right?
So imagine.
And I came to you, and I'm chargedwith murder, and I'm innocent,
and I hire you as my lawyer.
And you sit down and you say, All right,so what's your defense speak?
And I'm like, What?What do you mean, What should
(07:24):
if you're the lawyer,you should tell me what, Right.
If you're asking for a lawyer, right.
It's like, No, you tell me.
It makes me very nervous.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly right.
Aspect of when somebody asks a question,you know,
you can answer them honestly about,Hey, look, this is how business is doing.
But the reality is
they fully expect you to have the strategyfigured out exactly right.
(07:45):
And it makes it nervous.
If they feel like you don't havea strategy or the right strategy,
you know, But but I do thinkto your point, I completely agree with it.
But I think there's somethingalso very important
that people should be aware of,which is like you can
you can surround yourself with people,
they can give you advice,they can give you tips.
But at the end of the day,the work must be done.
(08:07):
And many times, yes,
it's youin the work and it's you in that fear.
It's you with whatever challenges
you've got that you've got to faceand you've got to go through them.
You know, of course, you've got a team
many times or sometimes you're alone.
But the reality is, at the end of the day,whether it's you or a team,
(08:29):
if you're leading the team,you're still making the decisions
and you have to be willingto face those fears and overcome them
to be able to get to the other side.
There really is no other way.
Yeah.
And also the, you know, the flipside to the flip side of failure,
we talked about the ego being thatI think the number one reason is big
(08:50):
too involved in the businessand having to manage every detail.
The the biggest failures I've seen.
So there's there's more failuresbecause of ego,
but the biggest failuresI've seen were where the the
the founder or founding team abdicatedtheir responsibility to their investors.
They basically did
what their investors told them to do,thinking that that's what the job was.
(09:12):
So to to your point,
your job is to decide the direction
based on all the informationbecause you're in the business deeper
and more strategically than anybody else
externally in the businessand anybody internally in the business.
So you can't abdicate your responsibilityof being the decider,
(09:35):
which I hate that term,but you know what I mean.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Yeah.
I mean, ultimately the buck stops with youand there's a lot of chatter around you.
There's a lot of staticand you got to be able
to hear the right messageout of all of it, of
this is the right move,this is what we're doing.
And to be able to communicatewith that with the team.
Do you agree? And. Yes.
(09:56):
And it's perfectly fineto not like ideally you make it
you make a decision with dataand rationale and a strategy.
But there are timeswhere you don't have any of that
and you have to make a gut call.
And the gut call just feels right
now you're going to be wrong50% of the time anyway.
(10:19):
But but there are timeswhere you have to kind of
go against what people are telling you
because you feel just if your intuitionis telling you otherwise.
Yeah, I think that's right.
You know, it's an interesting point.
Like when it comes
to going with your gut, my thought is,
as long as you'renot going in the face of data
(10:40):
and you're not going in the faceof something that clearly indicates
that this is the wrong decision,it's one being made out of ego
or some kind of blindness.
Yes, but it is truly likethis is a judgment call to 5050.
Nobody really knows the right answer.
Then at that point you might as welltrust your gut, go with it.
And yeah, you know, the data will tell youto go against your gut.
(11:03):
And and you said you underscored somethingthat's really important
if you're making the callbecause it feeds your ego
that then you're making the wrong call.
It's got to hurt.
It's likely a better decisionif it hurts you somehow to make it.
But if it hurts your ego, it probably isa better call than if these are ego.
(11:26):
But sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt,
but I think it was importantto underscore that.
No, I appreciate that.Yeah, and I agree with that.
I mean, you know, there's an aspect of
I heard this quoteby a guy named Ratan Tata.
He's an Indian entrepreneurand built one of the largest
vehicle companies in India
and then eventually branched outinto other areas of business.
(11:47):
And he said,you know, the main part of my job
and of course I'm paraphrasing here,but he said
the main part of my jobisn't to make the right decision,
it's to make that I just it'sto make the decisions that I made.
Right.
And so there's there'sa big aspect to that.
Now, let me ask you this. When you
when you love that quote, by the way.
(12:08):
Yeah, I love that.
Yeah. It's so good, right?
Because yeah, I think it instillsit is the essence of what leadership
and entrepreneurship is,is that like you make judgment calls
with imperfect data and
you'vejust got to find a way to make it work.
So let me ask you this.
When when you have data that conflictswith what your gut is telling you,
(12:32):
what do you go withand why and does that change?
Do you sometimes go with the dataand sometimes go with your gut?
Yeah.
So with data conflicts with my gut, I go,
If I had the luxury,I don't make the decision.
I wait
and Itry to gather more input and feedback
and try to validate oneor one or the other.
(12:56):
Sometimes you don't have
the luxury of waiting.
And I guess I would go.
It depends.
Again, it depends on the critical nessof the decision.
If if it's a if it's a decisionthat could kill the company
and I have to go with the data.
(13:18):
And if it's a decision
that maybe can help you branchinto, it's a if it's a growth
decision, you're making a decisionto grow in a certain area.
The data is telling you this wayand your gut
telling you this waythat I would probably go with my gut.
Yeah, that's a good way to describe it.
And, you know, it's it's interestingand kind of funny that you mentioned that.
Well, if it's something that could killthe company, going to go with the data
(13:41):
because it overlaps into what I do,
which is being a lawyer helping businessowners in business disputes.
And I'll tell you, there's something knownas the business judgment rule, meaning
as the owner of the business,you don't have to get it right
100% of the time or even necessarilymore than 50% of the time.
You just have to have a good, rationalbasis for having made the decision.
(14:02):
And if you're making decisionsthat, let's say, kill a company
and the justification for itis, well, I have this data on the one
hand, and I had thisgut feeling on the other hand,
and I went with my gutand it just happened to be wrong.
That's going to be very hard to justifyfrom a business judgment rule perspective
versus is, look,the data said this, my gut said this,
(14:24):
but I still went with the databecause that's what the data said
and showed much easierto be able to justify it.
Justify to who do you justify to yourself?
Does it feel right?
That's right.
You know, so I think it'll be harderto justify to yourself if it goes wrong.
Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
It's one of those where it's like,I knew I should have trusted myself,
(14:47):
but I'm just saying, from whether
it's justifying it to an investoror or to court,
you know, at the end of the day,that that's what it comes down to.
And, and that's that'sone of the hardest things about, at least
I think of being an entrepreneur, isyou're expected to know the answers
despite not having perfect
data, despite not having
(15:08):
everything you necessarily need to know.
I mean, there's this whole aspectof especially now with data
and the speed at which it moves.
If you wait until you've got 100%of the data, a lot of times
you're making a decision too late, right?
Yeah, I don't know if you expected to.
So if if somebody tells you, tellsyou you're expected to know
the answers,you're talking to the wrong person.
(15:30):
I don't think you need to haveall the answers.
You need to have a framework to godiscover the answers.
So so, you know,
really simple example.
When a business is trying to figure outhow to go to market, right?
You have ayou have a product idea you think you have
you have some early customer validation.
(15:50):
Now you have to decidehow you go to market.
There is no there is no playbookon how to go to market.
They're just not.
And if you had you sayyou have everything, figure it out.
I'm going to call B.S. on you like, no,you don't.
You have no, you don't havethe first indication of what
search terms are going to work or whatcustomer messaging is going to work.
But you you at least have to go into itwith a framework like, here's
(16:11):
how I'm going to find that stuff outand get the next day or the next week.
Right.
Or figure outor have a measurement mechanism
to figure out what you got wrongso you can tweak it for the next step,
for the next week and the next week.
So you have to have this mindsetthat you're going to fail
and you just have to talkthose failures up into smaller
into smaller failures and then haveincremental wins over the way. So
(16:35):
as long as you're honest about that,which investors,
employees, your self, other leaders,you're fine.
You're like, we're going to go this wayand we're really going to go down
this path for this longbecause I'm not sure about this path.
And here's what I hope to at least learnfrom going down that direction.
Yeah, it's a great point.
And it then raises this question,which is at what point do you decide
(17:01):
to pivot or do you decide thatsomething isn't working or it's a failure?
And how far do you take that experimentbefore you make a bigger decision
such as this is this is the existential,existential question for founders.
When do youwould you persevere versus pivot?
I don't think anybody reallyhas the answer to that.
(17:27):
I really it's really the it's like it'slike asking what the meaning of life is.
It's like
nobody has that answer. So
I wish there was a better wayto frame it, too, because you're right,
you know, for some founders,when do you pivot?
Is when you are making that decision tomortgage your house to keep things going.
(17:51):
It's probably a good time to pivot
when when
you know, it's why you carved upbigger problems in smaller chunks.
So so you can do these micro candidatesinstead of these major pivots.
So at the point where you're like,the business isn't working,
we've spent $5 million into it,we can't get revenue.
(18:14):
It's kind of too late.
Like you've delayed the decisionand haven't made the right, you know,
navigational decisions along the way.
So it's pivot early and oftenand in in minor
and minor degrees, not major degrees.
Yeah, I mean, that's a great point.
I mean, I think part of this is like youlook at some of these companies that
(18:34):
are enormously successful,
that lost money for yearsor even decades, like,
for example, Amazon, Amazon, Uber.
And there are these running jokes of,you know, how much
how much more money you're going to losenext year than you lost this year.
And there was a steadfast determination
(18:55):
in both founders in terms of, well,
know this, this is going to be profitable,this is going to be good.
And whether it was JeffBezos talking about, well, we're margin
positive on every transaction,we really see the growth here.
And ultimatelywe will end up being a profitable company.
This is the way of the future.
And so he could kind of seethrough time of this is the way
(19:17):
and it will link up with the presentto help skyrocket sales
even if the companyright now is not profitable.
Yeah,
this is kind of where venturecapitalist ruins ruin entrepreneurship.
So you know what is a point?
1% of all startups get venture capital.
(19:39):
Venture capital's hypothesis is one inten is going to be one in 100.
It's going to be successful.
They want you to take big risks
down a path.
And and so that that blind
focus on the end goal
and the part of this strategyis to lose money for years,
(20:04):
because at the end it's about scaleand you're making a penny off
of every transaction at a certain scale.
It does convert to a profitable business.
That's what venture capital is for.
You shouldn't do thatin a bootstrap business.
A bootstrap business,
You should be thinking about cashflowing every month, every day.
So it just depends on on,
(20:26):
you know, what your goalwith the business, you know,
the founding principle of the businessis it to go big and go home then?
Yeah,that circumstance laser focus on the goal
and if it fails, well 99 do fail.
So that's fine.
We're just one of the 99 and venturecapitalists are kind of used to that.
They're like, yeah, you know,keep going after that, that goal.
(20:48):
But if you're bootstrapped,
you can't you simply can't run a businesslike that for very long, right?
I agree with that. Yeah.
There's there are lopsided incentivesand it is a very different business model.
I'm a firm believer in a bootstrapwhen you can and me to
capital it's got its placethat it does encourage a lot of
bad behavior arguably yeah
unnecessary risk taking and bad behavior
(21:12):
in and on that like
at some pointyou're like you're going to be forced
into bad behavior as a company
because in order to get in orderto get those three come evaluations,
you have to start doing thingsthat you could argue are not good for
capitalism, where you're going to have toyou know, you want regulatory capture
(21:34):
and rent seekingand and eliminating competition.
Like those thingsare not good for capitalism.
So there's certain there's certaincertain circumstances where venture
capital is good,but most of the time it's not
so that raises an interesting questionand how do you define capitalism
and what is good or notgood for capitalism?
(21:56):
But I'm a pure,
pure market capitalismwithout not allowing monopolies.
So I think that there is a point at which
a company gets so big.
It's I mean, look, my favorite story on
this is what the oil companies didto public transit in L.A.
(22:21):
They shut down all the trolleysthey shut down.
They bought the trolley systemand shut them down.
Was it good for the shareholdersof the oil company?
Yeah.
Was it bad for the people of L.A.?
Absolutely. It was terrible, though.
I'm not a politician, so I wouldn't knowhow to craft a law around that.
And those could get really I mean, you'rethe lawyer, you tell me how you do this,
(22:43):
but that is betweenwhat's good for everybody.
What impeding capitalistic progress.
There's a balance to be struck there.
I don't know what
I don't know what the exact rightbalance is, but there is one to be strong.
Yeah, You know, and yeah,it's an interesting point because
you and Ishare a similar view on capitalism.
I think
(23:03):
I'm personally
against a lot of governmentoverreaching in materialism,
but I think that at certain point it isit is important and necessary because
the world is not perfectand you don't have perfect actors
in a lot of times there's
there's a very dark side to capitalismand you have people being poisoned, people
being hurt all in the name of profits,which is absolutely wrong.
(23:25):
And you would expect the peoplerunning these companies or making
these decisions would have more ethicsand moral fortitude
to make the right decision.
But many times they don't.
So the way I look at it islook at the end of the day, are you
are you creating value for the peopleyou service by the actions you're doing?
So, for example,I mean, taking the trolleys in Los Angeles
(23:47):
that whether it's oiland or the tire companies that came in and
they tookthem out so that people would drive more,
I mean, who's that really creatingvalue for?
You know, ultimately it'smaybe the shareholders of those, but is it
better for the greater good of humanityby removing public transit
(24:09):
that lets people get around,that helps reduce pollution?
I think the answer to that would be no.
Yeah, I think I think it comes down towhat's the government's responsibility
in that instead of look,instead of regulating the oil companies
tax incentivized public transport.
Yeah, that's what flip it around, right?
Just make it more economically profitableto start, Just start public transport,
(24:32):
make it more economically viable to
to buy a whole foodrather than processed food.
Right.
Instead of subsidizing
instead of subsidizing processed foodthat's subsidized vegetables.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like locally grown, right?
So so it's justI think it's just about where
the incentives let's make sure thatthe incentives align with public good.
That's where I'm at of capitalism.
(24:53):
Yeah.
And it's interestingbecause the tax code in many ways,
I know that there's argumentsagainst this,
but it's supposed to be structuredin that manner.
Is it supposed to be? Yeah.
It gets convoluted by lobbyists who makea lot of money to try to convoluted looks.
Speaking of
capitalism and venture capital,
let's talk a little bit about your timeon Shark Tank and the deal with Mr.
(25:16):
Wonderful out of that come to be.
Yeah. So
deep downI think secretly everybody wishes
they could be in Shark Tank either to turndown a deal or to get a deal right.
I want to be the guy that gets on thereand tells Mr.
Wonderful to go f himself. Right?
Ah, I can't wait to be a sharkbecause I need the money to raise.
(25:37):
So it's always just kind of beena personal goal to be on that show
just because it'sjust as a life experience.
So I tried out quite a bit
with with my with my business,with my AMC squares business, and
it finally got on.
I was an absolute nervous wreck
(25:59):
and I wasn't nervous.
Everybody asked,what was it like sitting in front of,
you know, four billionairesor five billionaires?
But that wasn't what made me nervous.
What made me nervous were the camerasis looking like a fool in front of
tens of millions of people.
So yeah, so so it wasit was quite an experience.
Luckily, it turned out to bea very positive experience for me.
(26:20):
I could have.
It's a coin flipwhether or not you're cast as the villain
or the fool or the hero.
But yeah, it wasit was really good experience.
I got to deal with Kevin O'Leary.
He's actually a really good guyand not supposed to say that,
but he's he's,he really loves his entrepreneurs.
And yeah,it's, it's, it was once in a lifetime.
(26:44):
It was just it's almost indescribablewhat it's like to be there.
Yeah. And so
maybe tell us a little bit moreabout the product and then what
Kevin O'Leary was able to helpyou do with scaling.
Yeah. So
(27:05):
and so the product we went up
and we made,we invented reusable sticky notes.
So sold primarily on Amazon and
Kevin O'Leary was,I was very clear in what my objective was.
So let me flip it to I know a lot of sharkshark tech entrepreneurs
(27:26):
that have had bad experienceswith their sharks.
And it wasn't because,you know, Laurie or Cuban or Kevin
or any of them were didn'tfulfill on their promises is because
I think the astronaut went into itwith the wrong expectation.
They're not coming into change your business or operationalize
your business or tell youhow to run your business again.
(27:47):
That job is yours and yours alone.
Their job is to help youwith social reach.
That's how I went into it.
I wanted Kevin to help us with productlaunches.
We launch a new product.
I want Kevin to tweet itor to do an Instagram
reel for us,or we're raising more capital.
You know, go out and help evangelize that.
He was brilliant at that.
He was a is is an amazing
(28:10):
influencer, for lack of a better word.
So what he was great atand what what any shark
should be really goodat is helping you evangelize the business.
But their money'snot going to change your business.
Their operational prowessis not going to really help your business.
Maybe some introductions into retailers
might help you, but
(28:31):
fundamentally, it's just about the the
you know, the the social trust value
you get for getting a deal on Shark Tankas well as the social reach of your shark.
Those are the two big takeaways from it.
Yeah,that's fascinating and very insightful
because I would have assumedthe same thing that you're mentioning,
that a lot of people who get itwrong assume, which is that
(28:54):
they're there to help operate,operationalize and scale your business.
So let me ask you this.
The advantage then,if you're saying that the advantage,
maybe the biggest advantage,maybe the sole advantage
is their social clout and reach, wouldn't
it be cheaper rather than giving upthe percentage of your company
in exchange for that,wouldn't it be cheaper to simply pay
(29:16):
because a lot of themyou can pay to promote your item, right?
Including Kevin O'Leary,which I see all kinds of ads,
whether it's for accountingor all kinds of stuff
popping up on my social mediathat he's he's promoting.
So what's the well, he's he's ownershe has ownership in those businesses
though.
(29:36):
Yeah Kevin O'Leary is not an
I mean
I'm going to imagine to get KevinI don't know this for sure
but I'm going to imagine to getKevin O'Leary to pitch your business.
It's a half million dollarsplus equity, a lot of business,
a lot of most searching companiesthat go on don't have that kind of capital
to hire, that kind of influencer.
(29:57):
And in his quest into BL
whether they like
influencer marketing,paid influencer marketing
as very questionable returns,
I have not met many folks
that are happy with the paid influencermarketing that they've done.
The difference with sharks is that
(30:18):
you have credibility because this personhas looked into your business
and put money into it.
Therefore they vettedyou as an entrepreneur and as So it's
not just their word, it's their it'sthe implied trust that that this
you have somebody that's
looked under the covers and saidyeah this is a good person to back.
(30:39):
Yeah, that makes sense.
It's like a stamp of approvalfrom somebody who's
who should knowwhat they're doing in business.
It's proof. It's social proof,right. Okay.
And so what kind of I mean,what kind of things
did you learn from that dealwith Kevin O'Leary and Shark Tank
that you think the entrepreneurswould benefit from?
Yeah, I think
(31:00):
look,
trying out
let's let's talk about whether or notit makes sense to try out for Shark Tank.
Right.
So 40,000 companies a year
try out for Shark Tank
1800, make it to vetting where they do
where theywhere they call you back, half of those.
(31:23):
So now about 900
make it to like true background checks
and you know, get to the second and thirdround of auditions.
They fly 180 people
out to film 120 actually film
80 air
(31:45):
40. You get a deal.
20 close a deal.
So the odds are not likeif you're going for capital,
if you're doing this because you need itin order to be successful, don't do it.
It's it's it's a huge time suckand the odds are just not in your favor.
It's like point 5% or something like that.
(32:06):
So, you know,
my advice would be
you got to go into itfor the right reasons and treat it
not as the savior of your business,but hey, this would be really good for us.
But we're going towe're going to make it with or without it.
And I think that's the that's theI think that might be the
the fundamental takeaway.
Any one thing that you do, it can't bethe white knight in your business.
(32:30):
You've got to be you have to have
contingency
plans and contingency plansfor your contingency plans
in order to really make it,
because nothing is going to pan outthe way you think it is.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Saying I have is
what's the plan A without the plan beingwhat's a plan B without a plan C?
Yeah,and I think this is where Venture gets you
(32:53):
gets twistedis I think even Cuban has said
if you have a B plan, then
you're not going to make it.
I think it's a terrible way of looking at.
So I think what he's saying is,
you know, you know, this whole burnthe boats mentality is like,
you know, the story.
I think it's Genghis Khan,like he wrote his ships up to the shore.
(33:16):
His troops do conquer,
conquer a nation,and he would burn the boats behind them.
So they didn't have any other plan.
But but to conquer the nation, that'sgreat for nation conquering potentially.
But terrible idea for your business.
Terrible idea for entrepreneurs,
because the
likelihood of you succeeding is so smallthat you need to have big plans
(33:39):
for everything that you're doing forevery strategy, including the business.
Yeah, I agree. It's terrible advice.
Yeah, because it also assumesa lot of things and it sounds nice.
It sounds good.
Oh well, burn the books and never retreat.
But the reality is, some of the mostsuccessful companies we've all heard of
started from pivots, everythingfrom like Listerine, mouthwash to Viagra.
(34:03):
I mean, these things were originally meantfor something completely different.
Absolutely right.
Yeah.
My ideawas that blood pressure medication, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
And Listerine was to clean floors. So.
So it's it's an interesting pivot.
Somebody said, hey, you know what?Let's take it off the floor.
Let me just swish it aroundin my mouth, see if it works
(34:26):
or not.
I guess that's very funny.
Yeah.
So, so yeah, I think, you know, there'sa lot of shortsightedness with that quote.
I mean, I do understand
what the essence of it is,which is, look, don't plan on failure,
plan for success, and commit your energyon focusing on the success.
So I do agree with that.
(34:47):
But I think I agree with that, too.
This this aspect of, well, don't worryabout any kind of contingency planning.
That's pure lunacy. Yes, I agree.
So let me ask you, when it comes to
entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship,
what have you found, maybe even throughyour own experience or talking to others
(35:07):
or some of the core skills
that they need to be successfulentrepreneurs
of the
look, great entrepreneurs are delusional.
They they
despite the odds,they think they're going to be successful.
So so we just got off topic.
(35:30):
We just got done talking with,you know, contingency plans
that should be hard for you, like,it should be something that you have to be
very purposeful aboutbecause you think you get it
when you think your ideasare going to work.
So you have to have this right about thiscorrect balance of optimism
and complete paranoiathat you're going to fail, though.
(35:53):
So that balance is is
not for everybody.
The other thing that you have to the otherskill, this is very high level, right?
You're looking for tactics.
And the truth is tactics.
There is no archetype
that means that you're going to bea successful entrepreneur.
(36:15):
It doesn't work.
But but the
one thing that everybody,every entrepreneur has successful
more successful than not,is this embrace of failure,
this embrace that,that everything that you're going to do,
everything that you think is going towork is it?
And you just have to kind of embracethat and look for failures and
(36:35):
look how to modify behavior to mitigate,to reduce the number of failures.
And that's hard.
That that'sbecause you're basically asking for ego,
kind of continuous ego heads.
So, you know,I wish I had something more tactical,
like I'm trying to think of somethingthat would be
(36:56):
a takeaway. But really, that's what it is.
It's just this embrace of you're wrong.
Look for ways to be wrong
and look to learn at everyat every course.
The other thingyou have to have is curiosity.
You have to have this mindset ofI yeah, this constant
like I wonder how this thing works and goand try to figure it out for yourself.
(37:19):
Like that's a key trait, a servant heart.
I find entrepreneurs that have servant
arts tend to do better,especially when it's a people,
when there's people involved,when you need employees
and you have to be you.
The other thing that I thinkis a big mistake that founders make
(37:39):
is not being in the weedson the on the pencil and balance sheet.
Like you've got to bevery financially focused
and know where every dollar is goingand know how every dollar is coming in.
I wish I had more, better, more deeper,
refined tactics, but those are the placesthey see people fail and succeed.
(38:00):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's rational,you know, it's
you know, I do appreciate thatbecause the reality is that that is
the type of real advice that I think isis many times lacking meaning.
It might not soundlofty or majestic in some way, but
it really is just the truth that these arethe hard skills that people need.
(38:23):
What do you think about.
Well, if I do that,entrepreneurship is a blue collar job.
Go on.
You're getting your hands dirty.
You're you're doing thingsthat you wouldn't do as an employee.
You're putting yourself out to be shamed,
to look foolish.
(38:47):
You need to be willing to godo any job in the company.
And and so it's work.
It's not strategy.
It's workwhich is associated with with blue collar.
So I you know,
either literally or metaphorically
(39:08):
you're notthose should be getting calluses on
if you're doing it right.
That's what I mean by blue collar.
Yeah I agree with that.
I think
there is a misconceptionabout what entrepreneurship is,
that it's very hands off that peoplejust sit around and do nothing.
And I want to be the boss,but I want to be the boss.
Yeah, I really like you.
(39:28):
I want to tell people what to do.
I'll be an entrepreneur because I'm goodat telling people what to do.
It's like,No, that's not what it looks like.
And that way I don't have to do anythingright.
So. Right.
Yeah.
Paper that if I'm doing, if I have to dowork that I'm not doing my job
and that that's notwhat entrepreneurship is at all.
No has to be the willingness to pick upand look after all the stuff,
the whole kingdom, the whole ship,the whole the whole business.
(39:52):
And many times it's stepping into it.
When you thought you were out of it,you got to do it and fix something
that's broken or mendsomething that's broken and
then find the next
thing that you got tothen then go and repair.
So I totally agree.
So if only if people
want to find you,
(40:13):
where can they find you on social mediaor if they've got questions
about scaling their own business,how how do they contact you?
Yeah.
So just reach out to me on LinkedInat Anthony Frank goes to my handle.
Anthony Frank on LinkedIn, my podcast
is How to.
So just go to how to founder AECOM
(40:34):
and and we streamlive on on LinkedIn and YouTube
but also we're available on Appleand Spotify and, and all the others.
So that's where you find thehow to founder dot com or on LinkedIn.
Awesome.
Well Anthony I very much appreciateyou joining me and the listeners today
and sharing some of your wisdom with us.
(40:54):
I hope it was helpful.
Yeah, it was helpful, very insightful.
And to the listeners,if you found this helpful or insightful,
pleasemake sure that you like and subscribe
so you can hear more great contentfrom brilliant people like Anthony.
And thank you for joining me today
and joining us todayand I look forward to seeing you all next.
(41:14):
Thanks.
Thank you. All.
Hi, I'm Parag Amin.
Welcome to my podcast.
From Crisis to Justice.
As a lawyer and entrepreneur, I'mpassionate about helping small business
owners successfully navigate situationsthat can kill a business.
As a kid, I watched my dad's dreamsof being an entrepreneur were destroyed
by an unethical businessman, and I don'twant that to happen to you or your family.
(00:22):
That's why I started my law firm.
I want to protect and defend businessowners and their legacies from crisis.
Welcome to From Crisis to Justice.
Hello, everybody,
and welcome back to From Crisisto Justice.
I am joined by a very special guest today,Anthony Franco.
(00:47):
Anthony has a long history
of building, selling,
scaling, successful businesses.
He's a founder, builder and dealmaker
with over 20 years of experienceturning ideas into thriving businesses.
He's founded six companiesacross industries like tech,
manufacturing, A.I.,consumer goods and digital marketing.
(01:12):
He's had exits that include salesto two public companies.
He's even landed a shark tankdeal with Mr.
Wonderful himself.
Thank you so much, Anthony,for being on today.
Of course.Thanks for having me. Listen, so
I am really excited to dive
into some of these tools, tips and tacticsthat you've picked up over the years.
(01:33):
So what do you think is
a secret that business
owners most commonly overlook
that keeps them from scaling,
from scaling?
Usually it's ego.
So the the thing that that
(01:54):
the thing that prohibits
a business from scalingis typically the founder
and the founder needing to have controlall over every aspect of a business.
The companies that scale scalebecause the founder
is really good at delegation
and really good at allowing peoplewith constraints
(02:17):
to make their own mistakesand to build their own like
ground, their own fiefdom,if you will, within the organization.
So I think it's
it comes down to ego and controlis what keeps most companies from scaling.
Yeah, that's a great point.
But I mean, let me ask you this.
The counterpoint to that
is, look, I've tried to delegate,I've given it to people and
(02:39):
it gets messed up or is done
incorrectly, and then it comes backand then I've got to do it or redo it.
And that'swhat keeps me from wanting to delegate.
And so maybe that's an aspect ofwhat is the proper way of delegating.
But what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I mean, look, I suffer from thislike I struggle with this.
I typically like to exit a businessbefore I have to worry about scaling
(03:02):
for this exact reason, because deprivation
is painful.
So, yes, you're right.
They will not do it as well as you and it.
But if scaling is important, then,
you know,the largest company, scaled was 150 folks.
It was fairly large.
And dealing with delegating to leadersis one thing.
(03:25):
Delegating to leaders you have to delegateto manage middle management.
It's really hard.
Like things just get lost in translation
and you literally become a microlike not a micromanager, but you become
you're managing problemsthat don't feel like big problems.
They're just people problems.
So it sucks.
(03:47):
You're absolutely right.
I can't argue that that
if scale what your goal is,
you have to treat delegation like a craft.
You have to treat it.
You have to just get good at it.
And the only way to get goodis to practice.
Yeah, obviously read books and, and,and you know, read things
like good to greater
(04:08):
and had added my meetingsand how to delegate but
you just have to kind of do it
and expect that you're going to fail at itfor the first year.
It's how you navigate how you how
you can lead through delegation.
Yeah, I love that.
And so tell us a little bitabout your journey into this
(04:28):
and learning about thisand maybe even some of the hard knocks
and the hard lessons he learned too,to help the listeners shortcut
the path that you've traversedthe hard way.
Yeah.
So there's a there's a piece of it that,
you know, you can tell somebodyhow cold the water is,
but until they jump in, they don't,
you know, they can believe you or not,if it gets cold.
(04:50):
But when they jump in, it's like, Oh,he didn't tell me was this cold.
And that's really kind ofwhat entrepreneurship is.
It's like, you know,
you can you can give people mental modelsto think about things.
That's kind of like I read a podcast. It'skind of what that podcast is about.
It's like when you have an employeesteal from you, here's how you handle it.
(05:10):
But until you get up against it
and actually do it,
there's no bettereducator than experience it with failure.
So there's there's a piece of itthat you just have to be good
with the factthat you're going to write into things
that you've never run into before,and you're going to have to navigate those
and you're probably going to suck at itthe first couple of times.
(05:32):
That's okay. That's part of the process.
Yeah, and
what tip do you have for somebodywho might be struggling through something
right now for the first timeand they're not sure how to deal with it?
They feel like they'redrowning in the cold water.
It hits, and as soon as it hits,you lose your breath and you know,
you're just terrified.
What do you think abouthow do you try that water?
(05:55):
Well, that'sfirst of all, you're not alone.
I think I think that I thinkthe underscore underscore here is
you're not alone.
There's other foundersthat are going through similar things.
And it's a very common feelingof being underwater as an entrepreneur.
So the tip, the hack is go surroundyourself with other entrepreneurs,
go to meetups, go to go find athis ditch group or a peer group
(06:19):
to join, to havethese regular have regular conversations
with other founders.
There is entrepreneurshipis incredibly lonely,
and the only people that are going to getyou are other entrepreneurs.
So. So go find a group and it doesn'thave to be formal like this.
It could just be go find a meet upand then start striking friendships up
(06:42):
with other entrepreneurs.
But that's that's the hackthe hack has to go is to not do it alone.
You can't do it with your spouse,can't do it with employees.
You can onlyyou can only have these conversations
other entrepreneurs can do as investors.
It's only under entrepreneurs.
Yeah, don't do it with investors, I guess.
No, no.
(07:03):
Now, of course,worst advice you get is from investors.
Period.
Yeah.
I mean, there's a reasonthat they're investing with you
instead of just running it on their own,right?
Yeah. You're a lawyer, right?
So imagine.
And I came to you, and I'm chargedwith murder, and I'm innocent,
and I hire you as my lawyer.
And you sit down and you say, All right,so what's your defense speak?
And I'm like, What?What do you mean, What should
(07:24):
if you're the lawyer,you should tell me what, Right.
If you're asking for a lawyer, right.
It's like, No, you tell me.
It makes me very nervous.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly right.
Aspect of when somebody asks a question,you know,
you can answer them honestly about,Hey, look, this is how business is doing.
But the reality is
they fully expect you to have the strategyfigured out exactly right.
(07:45):
And it makes it nervous.
If they feel like you don't havea strategy or the right strategy,
you know, But but I do thinkto your point, I completely agree with it.
But I think there's somethingalso very important
that people should be aware of,which is like you can
you can surround yourself with people,
they can give you advice,they can give you tips.
But at the end of the day,the work must be done.
(08:07):
And many times, yes,
it's youin the work and it's you in that fear.
It's you with whatever challenges
you've got that you've got to faceand you've got to go through them.
You know, of course, you've got a team
many times or sometimes you're alone.
But the reality is, at the end of the day,whether it's you or a team,
(08:29):
if you're leading the team,you're still making the decisions
and you have to be willingto face those fears and overcome them
to be able to get to the other side.
There really is no other way.
Yeah.
And also the, you know, the flipside to the flip side of failure,
we talked about the ego being thatI think the number one reason is big
(08:50):
too involved in the businessand having to manage every detail.
The the biggest failures I've seen.
So there's there's more failuresbecause of ego,
but the biggest failuresI've seen were where the the
the founder or founding team abdicatedtheir responsibility to their investors.
They basically did
what their investors told them to do,thinking that that's what the job was.
(09:12):
So to to your point,
your job is to decide the direction
based on all the informationbecause you're in the business deeper
and more strategically than anybody else
externally in the businessand anybody internally in the business.
So you can't abdicate your responsibilityof being the decider,
(09:35):
which I hate that term,but you know what I mean.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Yeah.
I mean, ultimately the buck stops with youand there's a lot of chatter around you.
There's a lot of staticand you got to be able
to hear the right messageout of all of it, of
this is the right move,this is what we're doing.
And to be able to communicatewith that with the team.
Do you agree? And. Yes.
(09:56):
And it's perfectly fineto not like ideally you make it
you make a decision with dataand rationale and a strategy.
But there are timeswhere you don't have any of that
and you have to make a gut call.
And the gut call just feels right
now you're going to be wrong50% of the time anyway.
(10:19):
But but there are timeswhere you have to kind of
go against what people are telling you
because you feel just if your intuitionis telling you otherwise.
Yeah, I think that's right.
You know, it's an interesting point.
Like when it comes
to going with your gut, my thought is,
as long as you'renot going in the face of data
(10:40):
and you're not going in the faceof something that clearly indicates
that this is the wrong decision,it's one being made out of ego
or some kind of blindness.
Yes, but it is truly likethis is a judgment call to 5050.
Nobody really knows the right answer.
Then at that point you might as welltrust your gut, go with it.
And yeah, you know, the data will tell youto go against your gut.
(11:03):
And and you said you underscored somethingthat's really important
if you're making the callbecause it feeds your ego
that then you're making the wrong call.
It's got to hurt.
It's likely a better decisionif it hurts you somehow to make it.
But if it hurts your ego, it probably isa better call than if these are ego.
(11:26):
But sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt,
but I think it was importantto underscore that.
No, I appreciate that.Yeah, and I agree with that.
I mean, you know, there's an aspect of
I heard this quoteby a guy named Ratan Tata.
He's an Indian entrepreneurand built one of the largest
vehicle companies in India
and then eventually branched outinto other areas of business.
(11:47):
And he said,you know, the main part of my job
and of course I'm paraphrasing here,but he said
the main part of my jobisn't to make the right decision,
it's to make that I just it'sto make the decisions that I made.
Right.
And so there's there'sa big aspect to that.
Now, let me ask you this. When you
when you love that quote, by the way.
(12:08):
Yeah, I love that.
Yeah. It's so good, right?
Because yeah, I think it instillsit is the essence of what leadership
and entrepreneurship is,is that like you make judgment calls
with imperfect data and
you'vejust got to find a way to make it work.
So let me ask you this.
When when you have data that conflictswith what your gut is telling you,
(12:32):
what do you go withand why and does that change?
Do you sometimes go with the dataand sometimes go with your gut?
Yeah.
So with data conflicts with my gut, I go,
If I had the luxury,I don't make the decision.
I wait
and Itry to gather more input and feedback
and try to validate oneor one or the other.
(12:56):
Sometimes you don't have
the luxury of waiting.
And I guess I would go.
It depends.
Again, it depends on the critical nessof the decision.
If if it's a if it's a decisionthat could kill the company
and I have to go with the data.
(13:18):
And if it's a decision
that maybe can help you branchinto, it's a if it's a growth
decision, you're making a decisionto grow in a certain area.
The data is telling you this wayand your gut
telling you this waythat I would probably go with my gut.
Yeah, that's a good way to describe it.
And, you know, it's it's interestingand kind of funny that you mentioned that.
Well, if it's something that could killthe company, going to go with the data
(13:41):
because it overlaps into what I do,
which is being a lawyer helping businessowners in business disputes.
And I'll tell you, there's something knownas the business judgment rule, meaning
as the owner of the business,you don't have to get it right
100% of the time or even necessarilymore than 50% of the time.
You just have to have a good, rationalbasis for having made the decision.
(14:02):
And if you're making decisionsthat, let's say, kill a company
and the justification for itis, well, I have this data on the one
hand, and I had thisgut feeling on the other hand,
and I went with my gutand it just happened to be wrong.
That's going to be very hard to justifyfrom a business judgment rule perspective
versus is, look,the data said this, my gut said this,
(14:24):
but I still went with the databecause that's what the data said
and showed much easierto be able to justify it.
Justify to who do you justify to yourself?
Does it feel right?
That's right.
You know, so I think it'll be harderto justify to yourself if it goes wrong.
Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
It's one of those where it's like,I knew I should have trusted myself,
(14:47):
but I'm just saying, from whether
it's justifying it to an investoror or to court,
you know, at the end of the day,that that's what it comes down to.
And, and that's that'sone of the hardest things about, at least
I think of being an entrepreneur, isyou're expected to know the answers
despite not having perfect
data, despite not having
(15:08):
everything you necessarily need to know.
I mean, there's this whole aspectof especially now with data
and the speed at which it moves.
If you wait until you've got 100%of the data, a lot of times
you're making a decision too late, right?
Yeah, I don't know if you expected to.
So if if somebody tells you, tellsyou you're expected to know
the answers,you're talking to the wrong person.
(15:30):
I don't think you need to haveall the answers.
You need to have a framework to godiscover the answers.
So so, you know,
really simple example.
When a business is trying to figure outhow to go to market, right?
You have ayou have a product idea you think you have
you have some early customer validation.
(15:50):
Now you have to decidehow you go to market.
There is no there is no playbookon how to go to market.
They're just not.
And if you had you sayyou have everything, figure it out.
I'm going to call B.S. on you like, no,you don't.
You have no, you don't havethe first indication of what
search terms are going to work or whatcustomer messaging is going to work.
But you you at least have to go into itwith a framework like, here's
(16:11):
how I'm going to find that stuff outand get the next day or the next week.
Right.
Or figure outor have a measurement mechanism
to figure out what you got wrongso you can tweak it for the next step,
for the next week and the next week.
So you have to have this mindsetthat you're going to fail
and you just have to talkthose failures up into smaller
into smaller failures and then haveincremental wins over the way. So
(16:35):
as long as you're honest about that,which investors,
employees, your self, other leaders,you're fine.
You're like, we're going to go this wayand we're really going to go down
this path for this longbecause I'm not sure about this path.
And here's what I hope to at least learnfrom going down that direction.
Yeah, it's a great point.
And it then raises this question,which is at what point do you decide
(17:01):
to pivot or do you decide thatsomething isn't working or it's a failure?
And how far do you take that experimentbefore you make a bigger decision
such as this is this is the existential,existential question for founders.
When do youwould you persevere versus pivot?
I don't think anybody reallyhas the answer to that.
(17:27):
I really it's really the it's like it'slike asking what the meaning of life is.
It's like
nobody has that answer. So
I wish there was a better wayto frame it, too, because you're right,
you know, for some founders,when do you pivot?
Is when you are making that decision tomortgage your house to keep things going.
(17:51):
It's probably a good time to pivot
when when
you know, it's why you carved upbigger problems in smaller chunks.
So so you can do these micro candidatesinstead of these major pivots.
So at the point where you're like,the business isn't working,
we've spent $5 million into it,we can't get revenue.
(18:14):
It's kind of too late.
Like you've delayed the decisionand haven't made the right, you know,
navigational decisions along the way.
So it's pivot early and oftenand in in minor
and minor degrees, not major degrees.
Yeah, I mean, that's a great point.
I mean, I think part of this is like youlook at some of these companies that
(18:34):
are enormously successful,
that lost money for yearsor even decades, like,
for example, Amazon, Amazon, Uber.
And there are these running jokes of,you know, how much
how much more money you're going to losenext year than you lost this year.
And there was a steadfast determination
(18:55):
in both founders in terms of, well,
know this, this is going to be profitable,this is going to be good.
And whether it was JeffBezos talking about, well, we're margin
positive on every transaction,we really see the growth here.
And ultimatelywe will end up being a profitable company.
This is the way of the future.
And so he could kind of seethrough time of this is the way
(19:17):
and it will link up with the presentto help skyrocket sales
even if the companyright now is not profitable.
Yeah,
this is kind of where venturecapitalist ruins ruin entrepreneurship.
So you know what is a point?
1% of all startups get venture capital.
(19:39):
Venture capital's hypothesis is one inten is going to be one in 100.
It's going to be successful.
They want you to take big risks
down a path.
And and so that that blind
focus on the end goal
and the part of this strategyis to lose money for years,
(20:04):
because at the end it's about scaleand you're making a penny off
of every transaction at a certain scale.
It does convert to a profitable business.
That's what venture capital is for.
You shouldn't do thatin a bootstrap business.
A bootstrap business,
You should be thinking about cashflowing every month, every day.
So it just depends on on,
(20:26):
you know, what your goalwith the business, you know,
the founding principle of the businessis it to go big and go home then?
Yeah,that circumstance laser focus on the goal
and if it fails, well 99 do fail.
So that's fine.
We're just one of the 99 and venturecapitalists are kind of used to that.
They're like, yeah, you know,keep going after that, that goal.
(20:48):
But if you're bootstrapped,
you can't you simply can't run a businesslike that for very long, right?
I agree with that. Yeah.
There's there are lopsided incentivesand it is a very different business model.
I'm a firm believer in a bootstrapwhen you can and me to
capital it's got its placethat it does encourage a lot of
bad behavior arguably yeah
unnecessary risk taking and bad behavior
(21:12):
in and on that like
at some pointyou're like you're going to be forced
into bad behavior as a company
because in order to get in orderto get those three come evaluations,
you have to start doing thingsthat you could argue are not good for
capitalism, where you're going to have toyou know, you want regulatory capture
(21:34):
and rent seekingand and eliminating competition.
Like those thingsare not good for capitalism.
So there's certain there's certaincertain circumstances where venture
capital is good,but most of the time it's not
so that raises an interesting questionand how do you define capitalism
and what is good or notgood for capitalism?
(21:56):
But I'm a pure,
pure market capitalismwithout not allowing monopolies.
So I think that there is a point at which
a company gets so big.
It's I mean, look, my favorite story on
this is what the oil companies didto public transit in L.A.
(22:21):
They shut down all the trolleysthey shut down.
They bought the trolley systemand shut them down.
Was it good for the shareholdersof the oil company?
Yeah.
Was it bad for the people of L.A.?
Absolutely. It was terrible, though.
I'm not a politician, so I wouldn't knowhow to craft a law around that.
And those could get really I mean, you'rethe lawyer, you tell me how you do this,
(22:43):
but that is betweenwhat's good for everybody.
What impeding capitalistic progress.
There's a balance to be struck there.
I don't know what
I don't know what the exact rightbalance is, but there is one to be strong.
Yeah, You know, and yeah,it's an interesting point because
you and Ishare a similar view on capitalism.
I think
(23:03):
I'm personally
against a lot of governmentoverreaching in materialism,
but I think that at certain point it isit is important and necessary because
the world is not perfectand you don't have perfect actors
in a lot of times there's
there's a very dark side to capitalismand you have people being poisoned, people
being hurt all in the name of profits,which is absolutely wrong.
(23:25):
And you would expect the peoplerunning these companies or making
these decisions would have more ethicsand moral fortitude
to make the right decision.
But many times they don't.
So the way I look at it islook at the end of the day, are you
are you creating value for the peopleyou service by the actions you're doing?
So, for example,I mean, taking the trolleys in Los Angeles
(23:47):
that whether it's oiland or the tire companies that came in and
they tookthem out so that people would drive more,
I mean, who's that really creatingvalue for?
You know, ultimately it'smaybe the shareholders of those, but is it
better for the greater good of humanityby removing public transit
(24:09):
that lets people get around,that helps reduce pollution?
I think the answer to that would be no.
Yeah, I think I think it comes down towhat's the government's responsibility
in that instead of look,instead of regulating the oil companies
tax incentivized public transport.
Yeah, that's what flip it around, right?
Just make it more economically profitableto start, Just start public transport,
(24:32):
make it more economically viable to
to buy a whole foodrather than processed food.
Right.
Instead of subsidizing
instead of subsidizing processed foodthat's subsidized vegetables.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like locally grown, right?
So so it's justI think it's just about where
the incentives let's make sure thatthe incentives align with public good.
That's where I'm at of capitalism.
(24:53):
Yeah.
And it's interestingbecause the tax code in many ways,
I know that there's argumentsagainst this,
but it's supposed to be structuredin that manner.
Is it supposed to be? Yeah.
It gets convoluted by lobbyists who makea lot of money to try to convoluted looks.
Speaking of
capitalism and venture capital,
let's talk a little bit about your timeon Shark Tank and the deal with Mr.
(25:16):
Wonderful out of that come to be.
Yeah. So
deep downI think secretly everybody wishes
they could be in Shark Tank either to turndown a deal or to get a deal right.
I want to be the guy that gets on thereand tells Mr.
Wonderful to go f himself. Right?
Ah, I can't wait to be a sharkbecause I need the money to raise.
(25:37):
So it's always just kind of beena personal goal to be on that show
just because it'sjust as a life experience.
So I tried out quite a bit
with with my with my business,with my AMC squares business, and
it finally got on.
I was an absolute nervous wreck
(25:59):
and I wasn't nervous.
Everybody asked,what was it like sitting in front of,
you know, four billionairesor five billionaires?
But that wasn't what made me nervous.
What made me nervous were the camerasis looking like a fool in front of
tens of millions of people.
So yeah, so so it wasit was quite an experience.
Luckily, it turned out to bea very positive experience for me.
(26:20):
I could have.
It's a coin flipwhether or not you're cast as the villain
or the fool or the hero.
But yeah, it wasit was really good experience.
I got to deal with Kevin O'Leary.
He's actually a really good guyand not supposed to say that,
but he's he's,he really loves his entrepreneurs.
And yeah,it's, it's, it was once in a lifetime.
(26:44):
It was just it's almost indescribablewhat it's like to be there.
Yeah. And so
maybe tell us a little bit moreabout the product and then what
Kevin O'Leary was able to helpyou do with scaling.
Yeah. So
(27:05):
and so the product we went up
and we made,we invented reusable sticky notes.
So sold primarily on Amazon and
Kevin O'Leary was,I was very clear in what my objective was.
So let me flip it to I know a lot of sharkshark tech entrepreneurs
(27:26):
that have had bad experienceswith their sharks.
And it wasn't because,you know, Laurie or Cuban or Kevin
or any of them were didn'tfulfill on their promises is because
I think the astronaut went into itwith the wrong expectation.
They're not coming into change your business or operationalize
your business or tell youhow to run your business again.
(27:47):
That job is yours and yours alone.
Their job is to help youwith social reach.
That's how I went into it.
I wanted Kevin to help us with productlaunches.
We launch a new product.
I want Kevin to tweet itor to do an Instagram
reel for us,or we're raising more capital.
You know, go out and help evangelize that.
He was brilliant at that.
He was a is is an amazing
(28:10):
influencer, for lack of a better word.
So what he was great atand what what any shark
should be really goodat is helping you evangelize the business.
But their money'snot going to change your business.
Their operational prowessis not going to really help your business.
Maybe some introductions into retailers
might help you, but
(28:31):
fundamentally, it's just about the the
you know, the the social trust value
you get for getting a deal on Shark Tankas well as the social reach of your shark.
Those are the two big takeaways from it.
Yeah,that's fascinating and very insightful
because I would have assumedthe same thing that you're mentioning,
that a lot of people who get itwrong assume, which is that
(28:54):
they're there to help operate,operationalize and scale your business.
So let me ask you this.
The advantage then,if you're saying that the advantage,
maybe the biggest advantage,maybe the sole advantage
is their social clout and reach, wouldn't
it be cheaper rather than giving upthe percentage of your company
in exchange for that,wouldn't it be cheaper to simply pay
(29:16):
because a lot of themyou can pay to promote your item, right?
Including Kevin O'Leary,which I see all kinds of ads,
whether it's for accountingor all kinds of stuff
popping up on my social mediathat he's he's promoting.
So what's the well, he's he's ownershe has ownership in those businesses
though.
(29:36):
Yeah Kevin O'Leary is not an
I mean
I'm going to imagine to get KevinI don't know this for sure
but I'm going to imagine to getKevin O'Leary to pitch your business.
It's a half million dollarsplus equity, a lot of business,
a lot of most searching companiesthat go on don't have that kind of capital
to hire, that kind of influencer.
(29:57):
And in his quest into BL
whether they like
influencer marketing,paid influencer marketing
as very questionable returns,
I have not met many folks
that are happy with the paid influencermarketing that they've done.
The difference with sharks is that
(30:18):
you have credibility because this personhas looked into your business
and put money into it.
Therefore they vettedyou as an entrepreneur and as So it's
not just their word, it's their it'sthe implied trust that that this
you have somebody that's
looked under the covers and saidyeah this is a good person to back.
(30:39):
Yeah, that makes sense.
It's like a stamp of approvalfrom somebody who's
who should knowwhat they're doing in business.
It's proof. It's social proof,right. Okay.
And so what kind of I mean,what kind of things
did you learn from that dealwith Kevin O'Leary and Shark Tank
that you think the entrepreneurswould benefit from?
Yeah, I think
(31:00):
look,
trying out
let's let's talk about whether or notit makes sense to try out for Shark Tank.
Right.
So 40,000 companies a year
try out for Shark Tank
1800, make it to vetting where they do
where theywhere they call you back, half of those.
(31:23):
So now about 900
make it to like true background checks
and you know, get to the second and thirdround of auditions.
They fly 180 people
out to film 120 actually film
80 air
(31:45):
40. You get a deal.
20 close a deal.
So the odds are not likeif you're going for capital,
if you're doing this because you need itin order to be successful, don't do it.
It's it's it's a huge time suckand the odds are just not in your favor.
It's like point 5% or something like that.
(32:06):
So, you know,
my advice would be
you got to go into itfor the right reasons and treat it
not as the savior of your business,but hey, this would be really good for us.
But we're going towe're going to make it with or without it.
And I think that's the that's theI think that might be the
the fundamental takeaway.
Any one thing that you do, it can't bethe white knight in your business.
(32:30):
You've got to be you have to have
contingency
plans and contingency plansfor your contingency plans
in order to really make it,
because nothing is going to pan outthe way you think it is.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Saying I have is
what's the plan A without the plan beingwhat's a plan B without a plan C?
Yeah,and I think this is where Venture gets you
(32:53):
gets twistedis I think even Cuban has said
if you have a B plan, then
you're not going to make it.
I think it's a terrible way of looking at.
So I think what he's saying is,
you know, you know, this whole burnthe boats mentality is like,
you know, the story.
I think it's Genghis Khan,like he wrote his ships up to the shore.
(33:16):
His troops do conquer,
conquer a nation,and he would burn the boats behind them.
So they didn't have any other plan.
But but to conquer the nation, that'sgreat for nation conquering potentially.
But terrible idea for your business.
Terrible idea for entrepreneurs,
because the
likelihood of you succeeding is so smallthat you need to have big plans
(33:39):
for everything that you're doing forevery strategy, including the business.
Yeah, I agree. It's terrible advice.
Yeah, because it also assumesa lot of things and it sounds nice.
It sounds good.
Oh well, burn the books and never retreat.
But the reality is, some of the mostsuccessful companies we've all heard of
started from pivots, everythingfrom like Listerine, mouthwash to Viagra.
(34:03):
I mean, these things were originally meantfor something completely different.
Absolutely right.
Yeah.
My ideawas that blood pressure medication, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
And Listerine was to clean floors. So.
So it's it's an interesting pivot.
Somebody said, hey, you know what?Let's take it off the floor.
Let me just swish it aroundin my mouth, see if it works
(34:26):
or not.
I guess that's very funny.
Yeah.
So, so yeah, I think, you know, there'sa lot of shortsightedness with that quote.
I mean, I do understand
what the essence of it is,which is, look, don't plan on failure,
plan for success, and commit your energyon focusing on the success.
So I do agree with that.
(34:47):
But I think I agree with that, too.
This this aspect of, well, don't worryabout any kind of contingency planning.
That's pure lunacy. Yes, I agree.
So let me ask you, when it comes to
entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship,
what have you found, maybe even throughyour own experience or talking to others
(35:07):
or some of the core skills
that they need to be successfulentrepreneurs
of the
look, great entrepreneurs are delusional.
They they
despite the odds,they think they're going to be successful.
So so we just got off topic.
(35:30):
We just got done talking with,you know, contingency plans
that should be hard for you, like,it should be something that you have to be
very purposeful aboutbecause you think you get it
when you think your ideasare going to work.
So you have to have this right about thiscorrect balance of optimism
and complete paranoiathat you're going to fail, though.
(35:53):
So that balance is is
not for everybody.
The other thing that you have to the otherskill, this is very high level, right?
You're looking for tactics.
And the truth is tactics.
There is no archetype
that means that you're going to bea successful entrepreneur.
(36:15):
It doesn't work.
But but the
one thing that everybody,every entrepreneur has successful
more successful than not,is this embrace of failure,
this embrace that,that everything that you're going to do,
everything that you think is going towork is it?
And you just have to kind of embracethat and look for failures and
(36:35):
look how to modify behavior to mitigate,to reduce the number of failures.
And that's hard.
That that'sbecause you're basically asking for ego,
kind of continuous ego heads.
So, you know,I wish I had something more tactical,
like I'm trying to think of somethingthat would be
(36:56):
a takeaway. But really, that's what it is.
It's just this embrace of you're wrong.
Look for ways to be wrong
and look to learn at everyat every course.
The other thingyou have to have is curiosity.
You have to have this mindset ofI yeah, this constant
like I wonder how this thing works and goand try to figure it out for yourself.
(37:19):
Like that's a key trait, a servant heart.
I find entrepreneurs that have servant
arts tend to do better,especially when it's a people,
when there's people involved,when you need employees
and you have to be you.
The other thing that I thinkis a big mistake that founders make
(37:39):
is not being in the weedson the on the pencil and balance sheet.
Like you've got to bevery financially focused
and know where every dollar is goingand know how every dollar is coming in.
I wish I had more, better, more deeper,
refined tactics, but those are the placesthey see people fail and succeed.
(38:00):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's rational,you know, it's
you know, I do appreciate thatbecause the reality is that that is
the type of real advice that I think isis many times lacking meaning.
It might not soundlofty or majestic in some way, but
it really is just the truth that these arethe hard skills that people need.
(38:23):
What do you think about.
Well, if I do that,entrepreneurship is a blue collar job.
Go on.
You're getting your hands dirty.
You're you're doing thingsthat you wouldn't do as an employee.
You're putting yourself out to be shamed,
to look foolish.
(38:47):
You need to be willing to godo any job in the company.
And and so it's work.
It's not strategy.
It's workwhich is associated with with blue collar.
So I you know,
either literally or metaphorically
(39:08):
you're notthose should be getting calluses on
if you're doing it right.
That's what I mean by blue collar.
Yeah I agree with that.
I think
there is a misconceptionabout what entrepreneurship is,
that it's very hands off that peoplejust sit around and do nothing.
And I want to be the boss,but I want to be the boss.
Yeah, I really like you.
(39:28):
I want to tell people what to do.
I'll be an entrepreneur because I'm goodat telling people what to do.
It's like,No, that's not what it looks like.
And that way I don't have to do anythingright.
So. Right.
Yeah.
Paper that if I'm doing, if I have to dowork that I'm not doing my job
and that that's notwhat entrepreneurship is at all.
No has to be the willingness to pick upand look after all the stuff,
the whole kingdom, the whole ship,the whole the whole business.
(39:52):
And many times it's stepping into it.
When you thought you were out of it,you got to do it and fix something
that's broken or mendsomething that's broken and
then find the next
thing that you got tothen then go and repair.
So I totally agree.
So if only if people
want to find you,
(40:13):
where can they find you on social mediaor if they've got questions
about scaling their own business,how how do they contact you?
Yeah.
So just reach out to me on LinkedInat Anthony Frank goes to my handle.
Anthony Frank on LinkedIn, my podcast
is How to.
So just go to how to founder AECOM
(40:34):
and and we streamlive on on LinkedIn and YouTube
but also we're available on Appleand Spotify and, and all the others.
So that's where you find thehow to founder dot com or on LinkedIn.
Awesome.
Well Anthony I very much appreciateyou joining me and the listeners today
and sharing some of your wisdom with us.
(40:54):
I hope it was helpful.
Yeah, it was helpful, very insightful.
And to the listeners,if you found this helpful or insightful,
pleasemake sure that you like and subscribe
so you can hear more great contentfrom brilliant people like Anthony.
And thank you for joining me today
and joining us todayand I look forward to seeing you all next.
(41:14):
Thanks.
Thank you. All.
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