Speaker: Carey Smith, Founding Contrarian, Unorthodox Ventures

Moderator: Danil Kislinskiy, Founder at Go Global World

Topics description: 

Every year, American entrepreneurs start more than half a million companies, but only 200 will ever reach $100 million in revenue. Even those who succeed will fail frequently along the way, and Carey knows firsthand what it takes to change promising to prosper. In fact, it was a failure that led him to start Big Ass Fans. He founded a prior company and spent more than a decade installing sprinklers on the roofs of industrial buildings to cool their interiors. The company never saw annual sales rise above $1.4 million, though. Carey will tell you how, at the time, he ignored warning signs and thought he should persevere just a little bit longer. Eventually, he used the company’s proceeds to start Big Ass Fans and offer an indoor solution to the sweltering heat in factories. He learned the valuable lesson that you can usually tell within a short time if an idea’s going to work. If it doesn't, make the conscious decision to fail fast. The right kind of entrepreneur will appreciate taking risks and writing off a few mistakes along the way. 

Carey will discuss how he tells employees, “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not working.” That’s because growth comes only from taking risks.

Bio: A career entrepreneur, Carey Smith founded Big Ass Fans in 1999 and served as its CEO, or Chief Big Ass as he preferred, for 18 years. While other companies made and lost their fortunes, Carey’s contrarian business practices and relentless pursuit of new markets and high-quality products led to sustained, rapid growth. By 2017, Carey had grown the fan and light manufacturer to nearly $300 million in annual revenue and more than a thousand employees. And he’d done it without any outside investors. Ready for a new challenge, he sold Big Ass Fans for $500 million. The company’s stock appreciation rights program paid out $50 million to more than 100 loyal employees who shared Carey’s work ethic with 15 becoming overnight millionaires. Following the sale, Carey founded Unorthodox Ventures, his Austin-based investment company that seeks to provide everything venture capitalists lacked when they approached him near daily at Big Ass Fans. Carey’s team consists of experts who help founders become serial entrepreneurs by providing support for everything from engineering and marketing to customer service and logistics. Learn more at unorthodoxventures.com.

Online conference agenda:

5 min - Danil Kislinskiy will talk about the Go Global World Initiative and will introduce the speaker

30 min - Speaker talks 

25 min - Q&A

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Unorthodox Ventures

https://unorthodoxventures.com

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IBConsulter

www.ibconsulter.com

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