269: Blowing Minds with Carey Smith: The Big Ass Fans Story! 🫏...

Entrepreneur Stories 4⃣ Inspiration

Millionaire Interviews Podcast & Sir Austin Peek

Careers, Business:careers, Business

4.7 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2024

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Carey Smith founded Big Ass Fans in 1999 and served as its Chief Big Ass until the company's sale in 2017. Under his guidance, Big Ass Fans grew an average of 30% a year, with offices across the globe. It made the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies 11 consecutive years — a feat achieved by only 34 others — and expanded from industrial products to include a line of chic, silent commercial fans. In less than two decades, he took the company from 0 to $250 million in revenue, without the help of investors. This Episode is Sponsored By: Jon Ostenson, Founder of FranBridge Consulting and Top 1% US Franchise Consultant is here to help you explore the world of non-food franchising opportunities today. Jon and his team are part of the largest brokerage in the US and have vetted the market thoroughly. FranBridge is hands down the premier source of the best opportunities in the non-food franchising world. You can hear more of Jon’s story and how he started FranBridge Consulting on Episode 250 of our podcast. Sign up for a free consultation call with Jon today at millionaire-interviews.com/franbridgeconsulting and receive a FREE copy of his new book Non-Food Franchising. Franbridge Consulting offers five more non-food franchise opportunities in 2024 that you can explore. FranBridge is hands down the premier source of the best opportunities in the non-food franchising world. You can hear more of Jon’s story and how he started FranBridge Consulting on Episode 250 of our podcast. Sign up for a free consultation call with Jon today at millionaire-interviews.com/franbridgeconsulting and receive a FREE copy of his new book Non-Food Franchising. Want to Support the Show? Well we'd love for you to join our Patreon Group! What's in it for you? Well you'll instantly get a scheduled call from Austin, where he'll help you with your current or future business... Sign-Up Now at millionaire-interviews.com/patreon. 😀😎😍 *** For Show Notes, Key Points, Contact Info, Resources Mentioned, & the Fabulous 4 Questions on this episode visit our website: Millionaire Interviews. ***

Transcript

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0:00.0	So we painted him on the side or her.
0:04.8	We had to change it to her because donkeys are incredibly well endowed and you just can't
0:09.4	take good pictures of them without doing some work.
0:12.4	That's what my wife says about me too.
0:14.4	Yeah, and I've heard that.
0:19.4	So not being the sharpest knives in the drawer, it took us a little bit of time to ship the name.
0:24.6	It took me 19 years to get from zero to 500 million.
0:29.6	I think that having done that, the secret is...
0:33.6	In order to be in business, we had to make money, but we weren't in business to make money.
0:40.0	I mean, there was more to it than that.
0:42.3	The intellectual rigor that it requires to start a business and run a business and grow a business,
0:49.3	it's quite involving and it's a cool venture.
0:52.3	It's the coolest thing in the world, as far as I know.
0:56.6	My name is James Carey Smith. I'm 67 years old, and I'm in Austin, Texas. And what's your
1:03.9	business? The business that we have here is a VC business, venture capital business. But you
1:10.5	weren't always a venture capital business, right?
1:12.7	Oh, that's correct. I had a fan company. We started Big As Fans in 1999 in Lexington, Kentucky,
1:21.5	sold that company after 19 years. So in December of 2017 to a private equity firm and took part of the staff
1:32.6	of the portion that was involved with business development and R&D with me, actually at the
1:39.2	behest of the PE firm. And most of the people involved there are relatively young. I think the average age here is
1:47.0	early 30s. And I asked them where they wanted to move because nobody wanted to stay in Lexington.
1:54.3	And the consensus was that we moved to Austin. And so we did.
	...

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