July 11, 2022 • 18 mins
Chad Agate has over two decades of experience as a serial entrepreneur, tech innovator, and disciplined coach and mentor. He has started and exited four businesses and is currently CEO of Spinach Pay, a privately owned company focused on building innovative solutions in payment processing. Agate has achieved success and inspired others to follow their dreams. He has earned his stellar reputation through focused determination and relentless discipline. Most recently, USA Today recognized Agate as one of the top 10 entrepreneurs to watch.
Chapter Summaries
- 0:45 - Introducing Chad Agate
- 1:45 - Big Mistakes
- 4:01 - Life After Prison
- 6:31 - Lessons Learned
- 9:44 - Have a Strong Call to Action
- 12:48 - Next Business
- 14:30 - Morning Routine
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Key Takeaways
- Let's figure out what I need to do to stop feeling sorry for myself and change the situation.
- You're going to do something a lot of the times that either hasn't been done before, it's massive amounts of risk and we have to be optimistic. We have to believe we're going to be successful.
- A lot of people, for whatever reason, find themselves in the prison of their own mind. They go through painful divorces. Maybe they had difficult childhood…whether they're real prisons or prisons in their mind, breaking free and just realizing there are other people that maybe have it worse. And that there's a brilliant path forward is a great learning lesson for all of us.
- An entrepreneurial mindset is the belief that I can do this.
- Answer real questions that real people are asking, give them answers and create value and have a strong CTA, pull them through your sales funnels.
- As soon as you get after the tough stuff, the sooner you're going to achieve success
- So I start my day, every single day, I'm out of bed by 3:00 AM. I think that's the first opportunity for me to win when that alarm clock goes off, I'm up. Immediately, I start my training routine, then I tackled the most difficult task of the day, whatever that may be. And I'm usually able do that before anybody else is awake. Start with the hard things.
- Do this one important thing…Eat the frog. Do the tough thing first. So important.
- There’s no secret. It's grit, it's persistence. It's sticking to it and not giving up. It's being wanting to work harder than anyone seems thinks as rational. Just keep going.
- As soon as you get after the tough stuff, the sooner you're going to achieve success
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Greg Muzzillo (00:06):
Helloand welcome to Million Dollar Monday.
I'm your host, Greg Muzzillo,bringing you real successful
people with real useful advicefor people with big dreams.
I understand big dreams.
I turned an investment of$200and a lot of great advice from
some really successful peopleinto my big dream proforma.
(00:31):
That today is a half billiondollar company.
Well, hello and welcome.
I am very intrigued by my guesttoday who has lots of stories,
(00:51):
even though he is still a youngman, only in his forties, he has
life full of great experiences.
He's a serial entrepreneurstarting and exiting four
different businesses.
He's made some huge mistakesalong the way that he's going to
share with us.
He's done some incrediblethings, right that he's gonna
(01:12):
share with us, because at theend of the day Million Dollar
Money is about providing greatmotivation, great advice for
aspiring and existingentrepreneurs.
So please join me in welcomingChad Agate.
Chad, thanks for joining us.
Chad Agate (01:28):
Thanks a lot for having me here, Greg.
Greg Muzzillo (01:31):
All right.
So let's start at the bigmistake that kind of proceeded
all of your successes.
Let's just start there.
Talk to us about that one, Chad,because it really differentiates
you from every other guest I'vehad.
Chad Agate (01:45):
Sure.
Um, at about 19 years old,living in the south side of
Chicago, I was incarcerated fordistribution of narcotics, um,
and had the joys of spending, uh, being sentenced to five years
in a federal prison.
(02:06):
So it was a very, very difficulttime.
I would say a time where youspent a lot of time reflecting
and quite honestly for the firstpart of it feeling really sorry
for myself in things like how doyou end up in jail for selling
drugs?
Like what am I doing with mylife?
(02:27):
And then there was one day I wasflipping through feeling really
sorry for myself, flippingthrough a national geographic
magazine.
And I saw a photo of a guy insome east Asian country.
I really can't remember from thetop of my head, but he was naked
in socks.
(02:49):
And I was like, okay.
I thought my life was bad.
I could be that guy andlet's figure out what I need to
do to stop feeling sorry formyself.
Okay.
And change this situation.
Um, that was a very difficulttime.
I would say,
Greg Muzzillo (03:09):
You know, there's a lot of people listening, Chad
and I say, but for the grace ofGod, many of them, including me,
maybe could have spent some timein prison.
However, it doesn't reallymatter whether it's prison with
bars.
There's a lot of people who, forwhatever reason, find themselves
in the prison of their own mind,right.
(03:29):
They go through painfuldivorces.
Maybe they had difficultchildhood.
Maybe they were abused,whatever.
There's a lot of people thatlive inside of prisons, whether
they're real prisons or prisonsin their mind and breaking out,
breaking free and just realizingthere are other people that
maybe have it worse and thatthere's a brilliant path forward
, um, is a great learning lessonfor all of us.
(03:52):
So.
Alright, so then you get out ofprison and then did you go
straight onto college?
What followed
Chad Agate (04:00):
I did.
I went to university.
Okay.
And I said, you know, I'm goingto put this behind me.
This is not going to be thething that limits my life.
Right.
And it was, it was difficult.
You hear, you have this bigsmash to your ego, right.
When you try to get a job at agas station and they, you check
that box that says, yes, I'vebeen convicted of a felon.
(04:23):
So it quickly happened.
I was like, okay, I have nochoice.
I have to be an entrepreneurbecause I am not going to spend
my life living like this.
So I studied, I dedicated mytime to becoming the best human
being that I could be, um,studying, exercising, learning
(04:45):
my craft.
My craft was computer scienceprogramming, um, and got really,
really strong at that.
And yeah, after university, Istarted my first company, an
information security company,that was, uh, little after nine
11, focused on security audits,developing information and data
(05:06):
security solutions
Greg Muzzillo (05:09):
And how, right.
Right, right.
And, and how long did you runthat?
Uh, prior to exit
Chad Agate (05:13):
Sure.
That company we ran for aboutfive years, that was actually
one of our successful exits.
I had a partner at the time.
Uh, it was a successful exitzone and, you know, you're
riding that high on, I wasfeeling really, really good
about that business, um, whichmoved into my next business.
It was a not so successful exit.
(05:33):
And I think this would be one ofthose other big moments where
you're like, oh man.
After the fact, I was like, Ilearned a lot from this.
It was like a pretty bigfailure.
And that's then that one, um, Iprobably did everything.
There was a voiceover IP companyand I probably did everything
wrong that someone could do whenthey're raising money.
Greg Muzzillo (05:52):
what kind of business was it again?
Chad Agate (05:54):
A voiceover IP.
Okay.
So we basically were, we built aenterprise level, voiceover IP
soft switch.
Um, and then again, I learned alot about evangelical sales.
So like con this was beforevoiceover IP was very popular.
So I had to convince peoplefirst buy voiceover IP, then
(06:15):
once I convinced them how greatvoiceover IP was buy voiceover
IP from me.
And we were competing at a timewith companies like Cisco and
whatnot.
Greg Muzzillo (06:24):
All right.
So what were the big lessons youlearned?
What were the big things thatmaybe you did, right?
What were the big things thatyou learned never to do again?
Chad Agate (06:32):
Sure.
There was a, a couple of bigpoints and first I did
everything that you couldpossibly do wrong in a VC deal.
I gave up control of my board.
I gave the VCs a securityinterest in all of my
intellectual property iIn theevent of the bankruptcy.
They had sole right of refusalon our next round, just about
everything one can do wrong.
Um, I ended up missing my numberby a very small amount.
(06:54):
And for the longest time I waslike, this is wild but in the
event, I missed my number forvery small amount.
The VC firm ABC, the company, anassignment for the benefit of
creditors.
It's like bankruptcy light.
They then, because of that, theygot security interest of my
intellectual property.
And they were able to sell myintellectual property off to
someone for 30 million.
(07:15):
That was a very, very hardlesson learned for a very long
time.
I blamed the VC and then I tooka step back and I was like, you
know, if I was really, uh,missing a number by$10,000 a
year end, if I was doing a greatjob, I probably would've let it
go.
Let's take another look atmyself.
And what was I doing?
And quite frankly, Greg, I wasnot a nice person.
My employees hated me.
(07:37):
I just, I didn't carry myselfwell, I just tried to drive,
drive, drive, drive, drive,drive to success, no matter
what,
Greg Muzzillo (07:42):
You know, I think a wonderful lesson that you're
sort of mentioning here is thateverybody that's listening,
that's aspiring to be anentrepreneur, is gonna miss
their numbers.
And uh, so because everybodygoing into a deal's optimistic
and then the money people,whomever can be very brilliant
about getting you almost backingyou into numbers that they know
(08:07):
you're gonna miss and settingyou the entrepreneur up for
taking maximum advantage when,and if you do miss a number.
Chad Agate (08:16):
Yeah.
I would agree with that.
And I would say asentrepreneurs, you have to be a
little bit crazy and a littlebit optimistic, right?
Like, I say a little bit crazy.
You're going to do something alot of the times, it either
hasn't been done before, it'smassive amounts of risk in
putting that out there and wehave to be optimistic.
We have to believe we're goingto be successful.
Greg Muzzillo (08:36):
All right.
So 30 million did you not getany of it?
So you had intellectual propertyworth$30 million and you didn't
get any of it.
Chad Agate (08:46):
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Hard lesson learned.
Right.
Greg Muzzillo (08:49):
Ouch.
That would kind of feel likeknowing that you won the
lottery, but not being able tofind that ticket in your
Chad Agate (08:54):
Pocket.
yeah, yeah.
That was not pleasant
Greg Muzzillo (08:58):
Now.
Alright.
Chad Agate (09:00):
That actually led to one of those.
The next big learning, uh
Greg Muzzillo (09:03):
Oh, good
Chad Agate (09:04):
Please.
It was, it was that point whereI ended up feeling sorry for
myself.
Mm-hmm and blaminga lot of people.
Sure.
And it was like my VCs did thisand this is their fault.
And it led me to have a next biglesson.
Like the real big lesson learnedis like, look man, you wanna be
the boss?
(09:24):
You wanna be an entrepreneur,this isn't on anyone except for
you.
And that was a liberating momentliberating.
And I'm gonna to be honest,terrifying that having that
there's no one to blame andeverything is my fault.
Greg Muzzillo (09:39):
That's right.
What was the third business thatyou got into,
Chad Agate (09:44):
Uh, after that it was a, uh, marketing agency, ah,
I didn't do the, the, the sexyNew York style or LA style
marketing agency, again, I'mfrom the south side of Chicago.
So I went and worked withmid-market manufacturing and
wholesale distributioncompanies.
(10:05):
My focus was on digitalmarketing.
Mm-hmm inboundmarketing, teaching people.
How to essentially do that.
My sweet spot really wascompanies that were between that
50 million and 500 million inrevenue.
And I'll be honest, we just madeit so we could hit a home run
every single time.
Right.
This is like, we were doingtricks that today probably
(10:26):
wouldn't work back then if I wasin a high volume eCommerce, it
wouldn't work.
But with mid-marketmanufacturing and WDS, it was a
home run every single time.
Greg Muzzillo (10:37):
Why do you think some of those ideas wouldn't
work today?
Chad Agate (10:41):
Um, well some of them there's the way browsers
have worked, have changed a bit.
Um, as far as like some of thetracking codes, you see some of
this privacy legislation that'schanging now, some of these kind
of things.
Uh, and there's just so manypeople that are employing this
exact same tactics understood.
You strip down some of thebasics though.
A lot of the basics work, right?
(11:02):
Answer real questions that realpeople are asking, give out
answers and create value andhave a strong CTA get to pull
them through your sales funnels.
So some the core concepts, theywork, the techniques that you
have to adapt them.
Greg Muzzillo (11:15):
Yeah.
CTA call to action.
Chad Agate (11:17):
Call to action.
Exactly.
Sorry.
Yeah,
Greg Muzzillo (11:19):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So many people forget that it'sa huge point, you know, and you
just mentioned three letters,but so many people spend so much
money or effort on sales callsand advertising and social media
stuff.
And yet there's, there's neverlike a, so what do you want me
to do?
(11:39):
What is the call to action outof all of this, right?
Yes.
Chad Agate (11:42):
Yeah.
that's funny.
I still advise quite a fewpeople on their digital
marketing and inbound marketing.
And they'll forget what the pageis trying to do.
And I'm like, your sales page isjust trying to sell a sign up.
Why are you trying to sell everyproduct and service that you
offer?
And all you need is a sign uphere.
So let's keep it focused.
Get the sign up, get them pulledthrough clear calls for action.
Greg Muzzillo (12:05):
Yeah.
That's a mistake I've made.
I I'll bet that's a mistake.
A lot of people make a lot ofpeople wanna tell, wanna tell
the whole story and sell thewhole enchilada if you will, but
wait a minute, you only wantedpeople to like sign up for the
next step, whatever the nextstep is.
And that's what you gotta sell.
You gotta sell whatever thatnext step is.
That's one of those series ofsteps of getting people to where
(12:26):
we wanna go, but we don't wannasell where we want people to go
when we only want them to justget on the first rung or
whatever the rung is.
And I can still see that inadvertising today.
Right.
People just, yeah.
What's the call to action.
And how do you just market that?
Yeah.
Call to action.
Chad Agate (12:45):
Exactly.
Greg Muzzillo (12:47):
All right.
So you successfully sold thatand then you were onto another
Chad Agate (12:51):
Startup.
Yeah.
And this is where I'm at rightnow.
Um, with an online seller ofcannabis accessories in the
United States, Australia andEurope and cannabis itself in
Canada.
Um, and this has been a veryinteresting ride.
I'm gonna say that as anentrepreneur, um, some of my
(13:15):
exits I was never able to vestin peace as I like to call it.
Like you know, waiting out thevesting schedule.
I'm like, okay, this is startingto feel like a job.
It's time for me to go, and I'mgonna go do something else
through this one.
I said, you know, I'm gonnalearn as much as I can.
And I've gone through thisprocess of beginning to scale
into an over 500 million marketcap and really understanding how
(13:41):
does the large corporate worldwork?
How does it, how working withinvestment bankers?
What is that flow?
Like?
What is it like having multiplelegal councils and how does that
work?
How is it to deal with largescale regulatory and learned
quite a bit about this.
And I would say being part of apublicly traded company now as a
(14:02):
senior executive is veryexciting.
Very challenging.
Greg Muzzillo (14:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lots of pieces, parts, morepieces, parts than anything
you've probably ever done all atonce.
Right.
All that has to be done with allthose pieces parts.
I know we want to be a littlecareful about, because it is a
publicly held company.
So we wanna be sensitive to whatyou're able to say or not able
to say, you know, obviously wetalked a little bit about your
(14:30):
morning routine, you know as asuccessful entrepreneur, who's
been through the ups and downsof life, the ups and downs of
business.
Talk to us about your morningroutine and the importance of
that routine.
Chad Agate (14:45):
Sure.
I like to make sure that I dosomething, um, that's painful or
sucks every single day.
I think that we grow the mostthrough suffering.
Um, and I like to make myselfsuffer.
So I start my day, every singleday, I'm outta bed by 3:00 AM.
And I think that's the firstopportunity for me to win when
(15:07):
that alarm clock goes off.
I'm up.
If I sit there and try like, oh,I'm gonna snooze.
Then I've lost for the day.
And it messes up my entire day.
Right.
Um, immediately start mytraining routine.
And then after my trainingroutine, I tackle the most
difficult task of the day,whatever that may be.
And I'm usually able to do thatbefore anybody else is awake.
(15:31):
And getting done, start with thehard things.
First, that little bit hasactually moved my work, my
business further forward thanany other thing that I've ever
tried to do any quick tip, anycheat, right.
People ask, I need more time inthe day.
(15:51):
And I say, okay, make it.
And you can easily make itMarcus Aurelius did it Benjamin
Franklin did it, many, manygreat leaders do it.
You want more time in the day?
Give yourself more time, get upearly.
Greg Muzzillo (16:03):
Yeah.
And do that tough thing first.
Chad Agate (16:07):
Yeah.
Eat the frog.
Do the tough thing first.
It's so important.
Greg Muzzillo (16:11):
Humongously important.
Right?
Cause so many people postponedoing the tough thing.
No matter what the tough thingis, but that's not just during
the day it could be during theirweek.
It could be during the month.
It could be for really the restof their life.
When I talk to people, I say,when you're postponing, that
tough thing, whatever it is.
And we all know what it is.
(16:32):
Um, in my business, a lot oftimes it's just sales, sales
sucks.
And can we all admit it?
Like, you know, we talk to allthese other people and they make
it sound...
It's not, no sales suck beingrejected sucks.
So let's just get on with it andlet's get the suck part out of
the way, because what comesafter it, the relationships that
blossom from it, they're a lotof fun, but they're not gonna
(16:53):
happen if we don't get throughthe suck part first.
Right.
Chad Agate (16:55):
Exactly.
Because
Greg Muzzillo (16:56):
That is really what differentiates at the end
of the day.
That's what differentiates somany successful people from the
people who aren't is gettingafter the toughest parts.
Chad Agate (17:07):
That's exactly it.
Like a lot of people do ask,like, what is the secret?
How are you able to go frombeing incarcerated, to being so
successful?
Yeah.
And there's no secret, man.
It's grit.
It's persistence.
Yeah.
It's sticking to it and notgiving up.
It's wanting to work harder thananyone seems thinks is rational.
(17:29):
Just keep going.
Greg Muzzillo (17:31):
Yeah.
Those are huge words.
And I hope that the people thatare listening understand,
because I think sometimes peopleare looking for some kind of
magic sauce and you know itdoesn't take you long to be
scrolling through any kind ofsocial media or any kind of
entrepreneurial websites.
And a lot of people wanna beselling the secret sauce.
Chad Agate (17:54):
Yeah.
Greg Muzzillo (17:54):
Bottom line is there ain't no secret sauce.
Chad Agate (17:56):
No, when you're saying that it's reminding me of
all the times that I was doingresearch for my next idea, as
I'm sitting there scrollingthrough the web, looking at
these entrepreneurial quick tipsand you're like this isn't
research, I'm just wasting timeright now,
Greg Muzzillo (18:13):
Just postponing success.
I say you're just postponingsuccess.
Exactly.
As soon as you get, after thetough stuff, the sooner you're
going to achieve success andsuccess, you have achieved Chad.
I am so proud of you to be ableto share some of your
difficulties at a level so manypeople don't get that raw and
(18:34):
USA today has ranked you as oneof the top 10 entrepreneurs to
watch.
And there is no doubt in my mindwhy now you're an inspiration.
I appreciate your spending sometime with me, Chad, thank you.
Helloand welcome to Million Dollar Monday.
I'm your host, Greg Muzzillo,bringing you real successful
people with real useful advicefor people with big dreams.
I understand big dreams.
I turned an investment of$200and a lot of great advice from
some really successful peopleinto my big dream proforma.
(00:31):
That today is a half billiondollar company.
Well, hello and welcome.
I am very intrigued by my guesttoday who has lots of stories,
(00:51):
even though he is still a youngman, only in his forties, he has
life full of great experiences.
He's a serial entrepreneurstarting and exiting four
different businesses.
He's made some huge mistakesalong the way that he's going to
share with us.
He's done some incrediblethings, right that he's gonna
(01:12):
share with us, because at theend of the day Million Dollar
Money is about providing greatmotivation, great advice for
aspiring and existingentrepreneurs.
So please join me in welcomingChad Agate.
Chad, thanks for joining us.
Chad Agate (01:28):
Thanks a lot for having me here, Greg.
Greg Muzzillo (01:31):
All right.
So let's start at the bigmistake that kind of proceeded
all of your successes.
Let's just start there.
Talk to us about that one, Chad,because it really differentiates
you from every other guest I'vehad.
Chad Agate (01:45):
Sure.
Um, at about 19 years old,living in the south side of
Chicago, I was incarcerated fordistribution of narcotics, um,
and had the joys of spending, uh, being sentenced to five years
in a federal prison.
(02:06):
So it was a very, very difficulttime.
I would say a time where youspent a lot of time reflecting
and quite honestly for the firstpart of it feeling really sorry
for myself in things like how doyou end up in jail for selling
drugs?
Like what am I doing with mylife?
(02:27):
And then there was one day I wasflipping through feeling really
sorry for myself, flippingthrough a national geographic
magazine.
And I saw a photo of a guy insome east Asian country.
I really can't remember from thetop of my head, but he was naked
in socks.
(02:49):
And I was like, okay.
I thought my life was bad.
do to stop feeling sorry formyself.
Okay.
And change this situation.
Um, that was a very difficulttime.
I would say,
Greg Muzzillo (03:09):
You know, there's a lot of people listening, Chad
and I say, but for the grace ofGod, many of them, including me,
maybe could have spent some timein prison.
However, it doesn't reallymatter whether it's prison with
bars.
There's a lot of people who, forwhatever reason, find themselves
in the prison of their own mind,right.
(03:29):
They go through painfuldivorces.
Maybe they had difficultchildhood.
Maybe they were abused,whatever.
There's a lot of people thatlive inside of prisons, whether
they're real prisons or prisonsin their mind and breaking out,
breaking free and just realizingthere are other people that
maybe have it worse and thatthere's a brilliant path forward
, um, is a great learning lessonfor all of us.
(03:52):
So.
Alright, so then you get out ofprison and then did you go
straight onto college?
What followed
Chad Agate (04:00):
I did.
I went to university.
Okay.
And I said, you know, I'm goingto put this behind me.
This is not going to be thething that limits my life.
Right.
And it was, it was difficult.
You hear, you have this bigsmash to your ego, right.
When you try to get a job at agas station and they, you check
that box that says, yes, I'vebeen convicted of a felon.
(04:23):
So it quickly happened.
I was like, okay, I have nochoice.
I have to be an entrepreneurbecause I am not going to spend
my life living like this.
So I studied, I dedicated mytime to becoming the best human
being that I could be, um,studying, exercising, learning
(04:45):
my craft.
My craft was computer scienceprogramming, um, and got really,
really strong at that.
And yeah, after university, Istarted my first company, an
information security company,that was, uh, little after nine
11, focused on security audits,developing information and data
(05:06):
security solutions
Greg Muzzillo (05:09):
And how, right.
Right, right.
And, and how long did you runthat?
Uh, prior to exit
Chad Agate (05:13):
Sure.
That company we ran for aboutfive years, that was actually
one of our successful exits.
I had a partner at the time.
Uh, it was a successful exitzone and, you know, you're
riding that high on, I wasfeeling really, really good
about that business, um, whichmoved into my next business.
It was a not so successful exit.
(05:33):
And I think this would be one ofthose other big moments where
you're like, oh man.
After the fact, I was like, Ilearned a lot from this.
It was like a pretty bigfailure.
And that's then that one, um, Iprobably did everything.
There was a voiceover IP companyand I probably did everything
wrong that someone could do whenthey're raising money.
Greg Muzzillo (05:52):
what kind of business was it again?
Chad Agate (05:54):
A voiceover IP.
Okay.
So we basically were, we built aenterprise level, voiceover IP
soft switch.
Um, and then again, I learned alot about evangelical sales.
So like con this was beforevoiceover IP was very popular.
So I had to convince peoplefirst buy voiceover IP, then
(06:15):
once I convinced them how greatvoiceover IP was buy voiceover
IP from me.
And we were competing at a timewith companies like Cisco and
whatnot.
Greg Muzzillo (06:24):
All right.
So what were the big lessons youlearned?
What were the big things thatmaybe you did, right?
What were the big things thatyou learned never to do again?
Chad Agate (06:32):
Sure.
There was a, a couple of bigpoints and first I did
everything that you couldpossibly do wrong in a VC deal.
I gave up control of my board.
I gave the VCs a securityinterest in all of my
intellectual property iIn theevent of the bankruptcy.
They had sole right of refusalon our next round, just about
everything one can do wrong.
Um, I ended up missing my numberby a very small amount.
(06:54):
And for the longest time I waslike, this is wild but in the
event, I missed my number forvery small amount.
The VC firm ABC, the company, anassignment for the benefit of
creditors.
It's like bankruptcy light.
They then, because of that, theygot security interest of my
intellectual property.
And they were able to sell myintellectual property off to
someone for 30 million.
(07:15):
That was a very, very hardlesson learned for a very long
time.
I blamed the VC and then I tooka step back and I was like, you
know, if I was really, uh,missing a number by$10,000 a
year end, if I was doing a greatjob, I probably would've let it
go.
Let's take another look atmyself.
And what was I doing?
And quite frankly, Greg, I wasnot a nice person.
My employees hated me.
(07:37):
I just, I didn't carry myselfwell, I just tried to drive,
drive, drive, drive, drive,drive to success, no matter
what,
Greg Muzzillo (07:42):
You know, I think a wonderful lesson that you're
sort of mentioning here is thateverybody that's listening,
that's aspiring to be anentrepreneur, is gonna miss
their numbers.
And uh, so because everybodygoing into a deal's optimistic
and then the money people,whomever can be very brilliant
about getting you almost backingyou into numbers that they know
(08:07):
you're gonna miss and settingyou the entrepreneur up for
taking maximum advantage when,and if you do miss a number.
Chad Agate (08:16):
Yeah.
I would agree with that.
And I would say asentrepreneurs, you have to be a
little bit crazy and a littlebit optimistic, right?
Like, I say a little bit crazy.
You're going to do something alot of the times, it either
hasn't been done before, it'smassive amounts of risk in
putting that out there and wehave to be optimistic.
We have to believe we're goingto be successful.
Greg Muzzillo (08:36):
All right.
So 30 million did you not getany of it?
So you had intellectual propertyworth$30 million and you didn't
get any of it.
Chad Agate (08:46):
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Hard lesson learned.
Right.
Greg Muzzillo (08:49):
Ouch.
That would kind of feel likeknowing that you won the
lottery, but not being able tofind that ticket in your
Chad Agate (08:54):
Pocket.
That was not pleasant
Greg Muzzillo (08:58):
Now.
Alright.
Chad Agate (09:00):
That actually led to one of those.
The next big learning, uh
Greg Muzzillo (09:03):
Oh, good
Chad Agate (09:04):
Please.
It was, it was that point whereI ended up feeling sorry for
myself.
Mm-hmm
Sure.
And it was like my VCs did thisand this is their fault.
And it led me to have a next biglesson.
Like the real big lesson learnedis like, look man, you wanna be
the boss?
(09:24):
You wanna be an entrepreneur,this isn't on anyone except for
you.
And that was a liberating momentliberating.
And I'm gonna to be honest,terrifying that having that
there's no one to blame andeverything is my fault.
Greg Muzzillo (09:39):
That's right.
What was the third business thatyou got into,
Chad Agate (09:44):
Uh, after that it was a, uh, marketing agency, ah,
I didn't do the, the, the sexyNew York style or LA style
marketing agency, again, I'mfrom the south side of Chicago.
So I went and worked withmid-market manufacturing and
wholesale distributioncompanies.
(10:05):
My focus was on digitalmarketing.
Mm-hmm
How to essentially do that.
My sweet spot really wascompanies that were between that
50 million and 500 million inrevenue.
And I'll be honest, we just madeit so we could hit a home run
every single time.
Right.
This is like, we were doingtricks that today probably
(10:26):
wouldn't work back then if I wasin a high volume eCommerce, it
wouldn't work.
But with mid-marketmanufacturing and WDS, it was a
home run every single time.
Greg Muzzillo (10:37):
Why do you think some of those ideas wouldn't
work today?
Chad Agate (10:41):
Um, well some of them there's the way browsers
have worked, have changed a bit.
Um, as far as like some of thetracking codes, you see some of
this privacy legislation that'schanging now, some of these kind
of things.
Uh, and there's just so manypeople that are employing this
exact same tactics understood.
You strip down some of thebasics though.
A lot of the basics work, right?
(11:02):
Answer real questions that realpeople are asking, give out
answers and create value andhave a strong CTA get to pull
them through your sales funnels.
So some the core concepts, theywork, the techniques that you
have to adapt them.
Greg Muzzillo (11:15):
Yeah.
CTA call to action.
Chad Agate (11:17):
Call to action.
Exactly.
Sorry.
Yeah,
Greg Muzzillo (11:19):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So many people forget that it'sa huge point, you know, and you
just mentioned three letters,but so many people spend so much
money or effort on sales callsand advertising and social media
stuff.
And yet there's, there's neverlike a, so what do you want me
to do?
(11:39):
What is the call to action outof all of this, right?
Yes.
Chad Agate (11:42):
Yeah.
that's funny.
I still advise quite a fewpeople on their digital
marketing and inbound marketing.
And they'll forget what the pageis trying to do.
And I'm like, your sales page isjust trying to sell a sign up.
Why are you trying to sell everyproduct and service that you
offer?
And all you need is a sign uphere.
So let's keep it focused.
Get the sign up, get them pulledthrough clear calls for action.
Greg Muzzillo (12:05):
Yeah.
That's a mistake I've made.
I I'll bet that's a mistake.
A lot of people make a lot ofpeople wanna tell, wanna tell
the whole story and sell thewhole enchilada if you will, but
wait a minute, you only wantedpeople to like sign up for the
next step, whatever the nextstep is.
And that's what you gotta sell.
You gotta sell whatever thatnext step is.
That's one of those series ofsteps of getting people to where
(12:26):
we wanna go, but we don't wannasell where we want people to go
when we only want them to justget on the first rung or
whatever the rung is.
And I can still see that inadvertising today.
Right.
People just, yeah.
What's the call to action.
And how do you just market that?
Yeah.
Call to action.
Chad Agate (12:45):
Exactly.
Greg Muzzillo (12:47):
All right.
So you successfully sold thatand then you were onto another
Chad Agate (12:51):
Startup.
Yeah.
And this is where I'm at rightnow.
Um, with an online seller ofcannabis accessories in the
United States, Australia andEurope and cannabis itself in
Canada.
Um, and this has been a veryinteresting ride.
I'm gonna say that as anentrepreneur, um, some of my
(13:15):
exits I was never able to vestin peace as I like to call it.
Like you know, waiting out thevesting schedule.
I'm like, okay, this is startingto feel like a job.
It's time for me to go, and I'mgonna go do something else
through this one.
I said, you know, I'm gonnalearn as much as I can.
And I've gone through thisprocess of beginning to scale
into an over 500 million marketcap and really understanding how
(13:41):
does the large corporate worldwork?
How does it, how working withinvestment bankers?
What is that flow?
Like?
What is it like having multiplelegal councils and how does that
work?
How is it to deal with largescale regulatory and learned
quite a bit about this.
And I would say being part of apublicly traded company now as a
(14:02):
senior executive is veryexciting.
Very challenging.
Greg Muzzillo (14:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lots of pieces, parts, morepieces, parts than anything
you've probably ever done all atonce.
Right.
All that has to be done with allthose pieces parts.
I know we want to be a littlecareful about, because it is a
publicly held company.
So we wanna be sensitive to whatyou're able to say or not able
to say, you know, obviously wetalked a little bit about your
(14:30):
morning routine, you know as asuccessful entrepreneur, who's
been through the ups and downsof life, the ups and downs of
business.
Talk to us about your morningroutine and the importance of
that routine.
Chad Agate (14:45):
Sure.
I like to make sure that I dosomething, um, that's painful or
sucks every single day.
I think that we grow the mostthrough suffering.
Um, and I like to make myselfsuffer.
So I start my day, every singleday, I'm outta bed by 3:00 AM.
And I think that's the firstopportunity for me to win when
(15:07):
that alarm clock goes off.
I'm up.
If I sit there and try like, oh,I'm gonna snooze.
Then I've lost for the day.
And it messes up my entire day.
Right.
Um, immediately start mytraining routine.
And then after my trainingroutine, I tackle the most
difficult task of the day,whatever that may be.
And I'm usually able to do thatbefore anybody else is awake.
(15:31):
And getting done, start with thehard things.
First, that little bit hasactually moved my work, my
business further forward thanany other thing that I've ever
tried to do any quick tip, anycheat, right.
People ask, I need more time inthe day.
(15:51):
And I say, okay, make it.
And you can easily make itMarcus Aurelius did it Benjamin
Franklin did it, many, manygreat leaders do it.
You want more time in the day?
Give yourself more time, get upearly.
Greg Muzzillo (16:03):
Yeah.
And do that tough thing first.
Chad Agate (16:07):
Yeah.
Eat the frog.
Do the tough thing first.
It's so important.
Greg Muzzillo (16:11):
Humongously important.
Right?
Cause so many people postponedoing the tough thing.
No matter what the tough thingis, but that's not just during
the day it could be during theirweek.
It could be during the month.
It could be for really the restof their life.
When I talk to people, I say,when you're postponing, that
tough thing, whatever it is.
And we all know what it is.
(16:32):
Um, in my business, a lot oftimes it's just sales, sales
sucks.
And can we all admit it?
Like, you know, we talk to allthese other people and they make
it sound...
It's not, no sales suck beingrejected sucks.
So let's just get on with it andlet's get the suck part out of
the way, because what comesafter it, the relationships that
blossom from it, they're a lotof fun, but they're not gonna
(16:53):
happen if we don't get throughthe suck part first.
Right.
Chad Agate (16:55):
Exactly.
Because
Greg Muzzillo (16:56):
That is really what differentiates at the end
of the day.
That's what differentiates somany successful people from the
people who aren't is gettingafter the toughest parts.
Chad Agate (17:07):
That's exactly it.
Like a lot of people do ask,like, what is the secret?
How are you able to go frombeing incarcerated, to being so
successful?
Yeah.
And there's no secret, man.
It's grit.
It's persistence.
Yeah.
It's sticking to it and notgiving up.
It's wanting to work harder thananyone seems thinks is rational.
(17:29):
Just keep going.
Greg Muzzillo (17:31):
Yeah.
Those are huge words.
And I hope that the people thatare listening understand,
because I think sometimes peopleare looking for some kind of
magic sauce and you know itdoesn't take you long to be
scrolling through any kind ofsocial media or any kind of
entrepreneurial websites.
And a lot of people wanna beselling the secret sauce.
Chad Agate (17:54):
Yeah.
Greg Muzzillo (17:54):
Bottom line is there ain't no secret sauce.
Chad Agate (17:56):
No, when you're saying that it's reminding me of
all the times that I was doingresearch for my next idea, as
I'm sitting there scrollingthrough the web, looking at
these entrepreneurial quick tipsand you're like this isn't
research, I'm just wasting timeright now,
Greg Muzzillo (18:13):
Just postponing success.
I say you're just postponingsuccess.
Exactly.
As soon as you get, after thetough stuff, the sooner you're
going to achieve success andsuccess, you have achieved Chad.
I am so proud of you to be ableto share some of your
difficulties at a level so manypeople don't get that raw and
(18:34):
USA today has ranked you as oneof the top 10 entrepreneurs to
watch.
And there is no doubt in my mindwhy now you're an inspiration.
I appreciate your spending sometime with me, Chad, thank you.
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