Frederick Cary

Gabriel Flores  0:00  

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the shades of entrepreneurship. This is your host, Mr. Gabriel Flores. Today I am here with Fred prairie. Carrie. Sorry, Fred Carrie, from idea pros, CEO and founder, Fred, how are we doing?

Frederick Cary  0:18  

I am doing awesome. Thanks for having me on.

Gabriel Flores  0:20  

You know, it was kind of funny. We're talking right before we got on here, you know about we have, I'm doing two different recordings. Because we always seem to have to do some edits in a podcast. And I've just started out I really have to do an edit. So Fred, first, tell us where are you calling in from and give us a little background? Who is Fred?

Frederick Cary  0:43  

Yeah, well, thank you. Background go to Fred Carry News on Google. And you'll see too many stories about me. Car why, but I am in La Jolla, which is a part of San Diego, California, looking out over the ocean right now, over your head. And it's a beautiful day here in sunny California. I started an entrepreneurial journey a long, long time ago, and have built up 10 Different companies from the ground up. And a couple of them have gone public, a couple others acquired by public companies still have a private company that's doing close to a billion dollars a year now. And I started idea pros just a few years ago to really help the 550,000 new entrepreneurs that are hatched every single month in the United States alone.

Gabriel Flores  1:34  

So one incredible stat and first and foremost, but before we get to that statistic, let's give the audience what is idea pros? How the concept get created in what is it?

Frederick Cary  1:47  

Yeah, you know, a few years ago, I was sitting there thinking about whether I should stop working, or whether I should work harder than I ever have in my life. I didn't know that was the second half of that sentence. But I chose the latter one. And I did so because my statistic I was talking about 550,000 new entrepreneurs every month in the United States, which is almost double our birth rate, by the way. Most of them don't have anywhere to go. The average entrepreneur is not somebody that popped out of Uber or Facebook or, or somebody that built something up before, the average person that decides to become an entrepreneur, is somewhere between 30 and 50. They have their own career, they've reached middle management or upper management, and they really hate their lives. They they're not fulfilled, and they get up. And they've been thinking about the same idea for weeks or months or in some cases, years. And so I decided they needed a solution. And so with IDEA pros, literally, when we first started it, we only did full partnerships with people. And that is you come in with an idea, you help subsidize what it's going to take to turn it into a product and accompany the launch. And we do everything, all the work all the way through guide you teach you how to be an entrepreneur, and really build this out. So it's an amazing thing. For us. We've had 100,000 applications in the last two years, and I'll take him 400 people. So now this year, I've introduced a whole lot of free or very inexpensive products as well to try to help everybody learn how to be better, because the number one reason for failures for entrepreneurial companies is not money. It's that you build something that nobody wants. And it's an embarrassing thing that that's number one. But are companies designed to make that not happen?

Gabriel Flores  3:51  

You know, it's funny, you mentioned that I'm so you know, before Fred and I got into conversation I mentioned I was at work, I work in healthcare. And literally this afternoon, I was having a conversation with our health care entrepreneurship department. Because there's so often where our providers will create come up with an idea or device that they're like, this is the groundbreaking thing because it works for them. But it doesn't work for the masses. Yeah, exactly. So now let's begin beginning idea pros how you started this idea. How did you finance it? Did you just kind of grassroots effort? Did you do some venture capital?

Frederick Cary  4:28  

Yeah, no, this was bootstrapped until now, by the way, we're getting ready to do our first funding on kick on a Kickstarter on start engine, which is the equity based crowdfunding, we're getting ready to launch that. In the next two or three weeks. We're raising $5 million to project us to the next level. We have a lot of things we do and we don't have the cash flow to be able to pull them all off. But I from day one, bootstrap this with my own capital. which is by the way 87% of entrepreneurial businesses are built, using your own capital, selling your house, getting a second mortgage, selling the car, one of the kids, whatever you got to whatever, you got to get rid of it and make it happen.

Gabriel Flores  5:14  

So let's talk about before idea. Pros. You mentioned this, this is not your first business, what was your first entrepreneurial experience?

Frederick Cary  5:23  

Well, the very first thing I did was in the food business, in fact, some people said, I've gone from, from Tyco chips to computer chips in my career. And, and the first the first thing was, I had a home excuse me, I was living in South Florida. I had a girlfriend in San Diego, and I'd come and visit and every time I visited, it was amazing tacos and burritos and and the East Coast. They weren't there yet. And so I saw that Taco Bell was creating a big presence. And we thought that I thought that over time, they'd want to come to the East Coast, so why not build a whole bunch of things for them to come gobble up. And so I worked with the guy that had the money, and I was 2223. And we built in three years, we built about 70 stores. And sure enough, three years later, Taco Bell came knocking on the door and and took them all over. That was the very first one I did. And that was again in my 20s.

Gabriel Flores  6:31  

You know, it's incredible. But I think that is a testament to the entrepreneurial mindset is having the foresight, I, for example, up in Alaska, Alaska, the state of Alaska actually have limited alcohol license up there. And so when the Alaska actually came out with their alcohol license, a gentleman went and purchased, you know, a bunch of these alcohol licenses. And sure enough, one day, Costco comes calling, hey, we want to build in Fairbanks, Alaska, but we can't because we don't want to sell alcohol, but we need an alcohol license. This gentleman's like, well, here you go, you know, whatever, whatever his dollar amount was, you know, was able to, but I think again, that's that foresight, you know, the entrepreneurial foresight. Now, what other businesses outside of you continue to progress. So you sell, you sold all these Taco Bells than what?

Frederick Cary  7:22  

We went into concert promotion, had a company that did live concerts or around the eastern United States. I did that for a few years, then I became an attorney by accident. I gotcha. Well, I was gonna say, that's another show. But But basically, when I was managing bands, there was two attorneys that were fighting with me for three months over a contract management contract. And at the end, they said, We gotta meet your lawyer, he's real tough as hell. And I said, That's me, I have no, this is me. And basically, they said, I'll tell you what, if you want to go get a license, become a lawyer, we'll make you a partner today, we'll give you a third of everything we make, and you can start working with us and go to law school. And so I did. And I became a lawyer. And I did that for 10 years. And then I got into technology in the late 90s. In the late, late 90s. I built like five different companies.

Gabriel Flores  8:30  

So you just decided, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to go to law school, and become a lawyer based off of having this experience with this band at that time.

Frederick Cary  8:40  

Yeah, it's worse than that. Because when I, when I said, Yes, I only had six years, six months of community college, and you need to have a degree to be able to get into law school. And so I don't know if you know what clapping is, but it's college level efficiency, but I forget what it is. But you can you can go there. And you can take a test on any course. And if you pass it at a certain rate, they'll give you full credit for that course. I in in a period of three weeks, I got two and a half, three and a half years of school in three weeks by clipping the entire program, which usually people do that for one class or two. So I was able to do that I'm able to get a degree in three weeks and then get into law school and, and the rest is history. I was very successful at a career I did not care for

Gabriel Flores  9:36  

how how important was you know all of these diverse experiences in like helping you be successful as an entrepreneur.

Frederick Cary  9:49  

There's one thing in fact, we talked about it just a couple of nights ago. Interesting story of another guy with a couple of 100 million dollar plus exits. He was talking about it, he had $100 million exit and a $300 million exit. The second one was with lending tree. And he's now still president of the division in lending tree that that acquired and perseverance was the word that he used. And it's a word that I used two months ago on, I have my Instagram page official, Fred Carrey. I use that word there, that's what you have to have, you have to have perseverance and the more dark waters you navigate and get through them successfully, the more you realize, this is all about determination and hanging in there and always looking for the opportunity and taking it. You know, my career is very diverse, I went from, from tacos to entertainment, I did finance, e commerce, software, hardware, really all over the board. The one thing in common was I was looking for a hole, I was looking for a market that had a hole in it that needed to be filled. And if you can do that, and you can be persistent and persevere through the ups and downs that everybody has as an entrepreneur, then you're going to make it so that's what I learned. Diversity doesn't matter because the structure is the same. You get from A to Z by following certain criteria. And you'll find your way there even though you have to take 50 Right and left turns that you weren't expecting to take

Gabriel Flores  11:28  

what what you say has been easy about being an entrepreneur, you kind of mentioned your primarily focuses, Where's where's the need? Let me target those needs. One, how do you find those needs, right. And then what what has been easy or difficult about finding those needs.

Frederick Cary  11:50  

The difficult part of finding the need in the marketplace, in the beginning was that I was very focused on me. And what I thought was a cool idea and what I thought would work what I thought everybody wanted, or what I thought my mom would want, because she'd say, ready, that's a great idea, you should do that. But don't take advice from your mom, or from yourself, take advice from your customers or your future customers, you know, so the hardest part was understanding that that need didn't equate to my need equated to figuring out what the market wants. And being able, by the way to pivot, even if you think you got it, and then your feedback from your customers tell you something else. That's the hard part, figuring out how to do that. And the easy part is the equal sign at the other side of that equation, that once you figure that out, you're going to be a lot more successful, you're going to have a lot more opportunity, because of the fact that you're getting what they want, you're positioning it in a way that they want to have it. And therefore those customers become the loyal advocates of your brand. And that's what makes it easy.

Gabriel Flores  13:08  

You know, as you're kind of discussing what makes it easy, you're also kind of defining, you know, how do how do you become successful? So what does it take to be successful business, or successful business owner to say?

Frederick Cary  13:24  

Oh, you got to always push yourself, you got to the same guy that was talking about a couple nights ago to all my partners, I have 300 companies that I own 30% of that we've helped the entrepreneur built. And this guy was two exits, hundreds of millions of dollars, no investment from anybody else. So he and his brother got all that money. And Uncle Sam, what he talked about is during that whole process, there were countless nights, where he wouldn't be laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, bawling his eyes out. Because he didn't know where he was. He didn't know where he was going. He he doubted himself, he found some way to get up in the morning and try again. And we all go through these really horrible times I do that now. Myself, I've had all these successes, there are fires, can you imagine with 300 startups fires multiple times, every single day, and I wake up nights as well without the crying, but I should. And that's why as an entrepreneur, that's what you have to realize to be successful is you have to work your way through the doubt. And he said the other night, if you could go back to your younger self and say something to your younger self, what would it be? And he said, have more confidence. You're in this because you can do it. And if things aren't going right, don't blame yourself, figure out how to make them right. And if you can develop that self confidence and keep it with you You're gonna go a lot further.

Gabriel Flores  15:01  

You know, it's funny you say that because I was talking to my wife earlier and go into this moment of that. self doubt, right? Where I'm like, Man, I wish I would have done a lot of these things before. Because now I kind of feel like I'm working backwards a lot of times. And I'm like, I'm trailing behind. What would you say? Have you ever had those moments of self doubt?

Frederick Cary  15:27  

Yeah, yeah. And again, I don't want to keep plugging my pre Instagram page. But I said that on there a few days ago. You can't change your past, but you can change your future. And you can change your future by forgetting the past and forgetting about what you should have done. When you should have done it, why you didn't do it, then what would be different? Had you done it? Forget about all that stuff, because that didn't happen. And it's not going to happen. If you're wasting your time thinking about it. If you take that wasted time, and instead, focus on what did I learn? And how am I going to how am I going to implement that into my future? That's when you're going to do a lot better start being future thinking, because that's the only thing you can change is your future.

Gabriel Flores  16:16  

Yeah, I remember one time I saw this, quote, worrying works, because all the things I worry about never happen.

Frederick Cary  16:25  

You know, that's a great, great quote. And so you will know my favorite quote, please. Alright, and you guys, everybody listen to this one, because I think it was Mark Twain that said it. He said, I'm sorry, I wrote you such a long letter. I didn't have time to write a short one. And, and the whole thing is get to the point, you know, get your facts going, make it short, make it direct, be concise, get your message across and stop rambling.

Gabriel Flores  16:57  

You know, Mark Twain has some phenomenal quotes. Because when I was speaking to my mentor earlier this week, and he reminded me he's like, you know, every good decision came from a bad decision, or every good exactly, every good experience comes from bad decision, you know, so

Frederick Cary  17:11  

yeah, he also said, don't believe everything you see on the internet

Gabriel Flores  17:19  

was future site. Now, you know what, speaking of thoughts and ideas, you know, ideas, pros kind of helps people get along, move their ideas, how does an entrepreneur turn their idea into a business?

Frederick Cary  17:34  

Well, that's the whole reason I started idea pros, because it's really, really hard to do that. And a lot of people. Let me backtrack. Everybody has an idea. And almost everybody has a pretty good idea. But hardly anybody does anything about it. Right? Most people wake up in the morning. Well, that was a great idea, go back to sleep the next night. And it never happens. The people that turn their ideas into something, are the people that can't go to sleep at night, because the ideas knowing at them, can't stop talking about it around people. And over time, they find a way. And when they do that, you have to be really careful that you get the right solid advice that you need. In by the way, idea proz.com forward slash blog is amazing page. It's the best blog page I've ever seen, I had a little to do with it. Other than the fact that I was talking, I was talking all the time on on the shows I do. And they took it and created a blog out of it, which literally has just about everything you could want to know as an entrepreneur, about how to start a business, how to take your idea of do something with it, how to get financing, you know what to do about launching why you should not get a patent before you do a bunch of other things, literally everything. So the best way to take an idea and turn it into a product and a company is that really do your homework, understand what it takes to be an entrepreneur, what it takes to really launch your business and how to be successful at it. You can get all that information by the way on our page.

Gabriel Flores  19:11  

In fact, for those listening you'll also be able to get this information on the newsletter another plug for myself, right subscribe to the newsletter now. And one second. Give me one second. I'll be right back. I think I hear my kid crying upstairs coming Tuesday All right.

Frederick Cary  19:54  

Hey, Nick, this is Fred. I'm in the middle of a podcast by so you called twice I wanted to do delayed

Unknown Speaker  20:15  

yeah

Unknown Speaker  20:25  

yeah

Frederick Cary  20:34  

okay

oh sweet okay good

Unknown Speaker  20:54  

okay

Frederick Cary  20:58  

okay awesome thanks so much bye bye

Unknown Speaker  21:47  

okay

Gabriel Flores  22:10  

alright sorry about that we're gonna get the kid kid is crying so she's down here with me I think she's she's been running the flu so

Frederick Cary  22:19  

oh no no worries you know I was of all my accomplishments my biggest one has been raising two daughters on my own

Gabriel Flores  22:28  

man being a girl dad has got it's, it's, I feel privileged to be part of the girl dad now. Now how important so I go for it.

Frederick Cary  22:37  

I was gonna say the one holiday that to me has become the most special over the years is Mother's Day. Because they give me cards, they tell me how I've been both for them how amazing it is. So, you know, every dad can get a Father's Day card, but I love it getting a Mother's Day card. Pretty awesome.

Gabriel Flores  22:57  

I bet yeah, that's like a different level. Awesome. Yes. So you know, we've been mentioned the turning all of these ideas into businesses. But how important you know is the naming and branding and positioning of that idea.

Frederick Cary  23:15  

How important is naming and branding? If you hung out next to me for one day, you'd walk away going, Wow, that's really important. And it's the one thing that you can't trust your customers with. Think about it this way. We think about some of the best brands in the world. Imagine me coming up on the stage years ago, in my little black T shirt, in my skinny black pants and saying to an audience of 1000 consumers. Hey guys, I'm starting this new company. I want to compete against IBM General Dynamics, digital equipment, Microsoft, and I want to call my company, Apple. How many people have 1000 people would raise their hands and say that's a great buggin idea. Let's hope I can swear on your show. Okay, you know, that's great. Nobody out 1000 people, people who start heckling, laughing joking about it? Or how about showing up in Great Britain and saying, I want to start an airline and call it virgin? What? Right and yet those brands are so powerful because they're different from the rest. They stand out because it's a what what do they say moment, and the brands that distinguish themselves by being different, really stand out and really are memorable. And so when you think of a name for your company, and there's a second part to this, but when you think of a name for your company, think of something that is memorable and it It creates something in the mind of the person who sees it or hears it, it creates vision in there. Because those are the things we remember better through our vision than than we do like reading something on a piece of paper, right? Something that has a visual impact on us, that we can reference will remember over and over, oh, Virgin, yeah, that's the airline, I hope we don't crash this is that the first time flying? No virgin became known as this is new, we are different. You we've you've never flown this way before, right? You're the Virgin in this equation, and became such a powerful brand. In fact, he's got a book out now, Branson has a book out now that I want to get a hold of because he talks about all these different journeys. I think by the time he was 33, he had 53 companies in a bunch of different sectors. So all under the Virgin brand. So naming is critically important. The second thing, though, is you need to understand that your brand is not your name, your brand is your essence, your brand is how people perceive you. And so you and I can sit and talk for half an hour. And you know, I have two daughters, and I know you have at least one. And we know something about each other in our careers in our lives, and that we both need glasses. You can't know that about a company, right? So the persona of a company is their brand. And if everybody if you guys listening, you guys, and gals that use guys indiscriminately, if you're listening, and you think, you know, somebody hates your guts, they hate your guts because of the persona that they see in you, which may not be you at all. And as an organization, you have to be careful to project what you want people to see. And you have to be consistent. So in the Apple example, if I say to you, hey, tomorrow, I just heard Apple is coming out with a new electric toothbrush. Every one of us is going to know exactly what that toothbrush is going to do. It's going to be sleek is going to have cool colors is going to be really solid, except the glass part will break it, it'll be it'll be tuned into Wi Fi. And you'll be able to tell how well you're brushing what you're missing. Maybe when you should go to the dentist's again, there'll be all these cool things, not because we know what they're going to build, but because we know what they stand for. And so when you do your name, when you do your positioning, when you do your branding, consistency, create that persona and live it.

Gabriel Flores  27:33  

Yeah. Now what about what about for Fred? What's, what's the 510? You know, what's, what's the exit strategy? What Where does Fred call it a career?

Frederick Cary  27:45  

Well, I promised my daughters I'd retire by the time I hit 90. For me, you know, they say you spend your first half of your career building your resume. And the second half, building your legacy. And I'm in that that part of my career. So I don't know that it ends. Because right now, I'm helping hundreds, if not 1000s, of entrepreneurs, certainly we've had 100,000 applications. And I know, there are many, many people to help. And so my goal for the rest of my life, is to change the lives of 10,000 people impactfully enough that they in turn will go change the lives of 1000. And then those 1000 will change the lives of 100. If I can accomplish that, that's a billion people. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of calculators that, yeah, it's a lot of people. So that's my goal. And so retirement really isn't on the horizon. In fact, everybody's gonna think I'm an idiot, I don't have a retirement plan. I don't save money for retirement. Why would I take the money that I can use today to grow my business to grow my career? And, by the way, don't take this as financial advice anyway? What but why would I take the stuff that I can build now and leave it for when I'm old and feeble? You know, hopefully, I've grown good enough daughters that if that ever happens, they'll take care of. Hopefully, they're not listening

Gabriel Flores  29:20  

now and you got my wheels turning, you know, thinking about legacy and impact. You know, I've been healthcare for over 23 years as I think many people listening know this. And so I'm really kind of looking at what do I want to do beyond my healthcare career? And selfishly, I get to interview these amazing entrepreneurs like you, Fred and get some insight into what what does successful entrepreneurship look like? What what does it take to be a successful entrepreneur? You know, essentially I'm getting a lot of advice, right? I'm getting a lot of free advice. Now what what is some advice like what's that one nugget of advice you would give an entrepreneur or some aspiring entrepreneur that maybe is going to bring it maybe wants to come to you, but what What what is that one thing you would say, Hey, here's one, here's a golden nugget, you should definitely take with you.

Frederick Cary  30:10  

The golden nugget is only going to be for a small fraction of your audience. Because what I'm about to say is pretty painful, you're never going to be successful, not in your mind, you're never will have done enough, you will never have grown enough, you will never have accomplished everything you're setting out to accomplish, it will not happen. And so to be able to be what outside people think of success, you have to be able to tolerate the pain of waking up every day, knowing that you can try harder, you can do more, you gave it 110% Yesterday, but you got another 10% in you. So the the nugget I can take and give to everybody is that don't do this, unless you're prepared for the fire, you're going from a 40 hour job where you're getting a regular paycheck to being able to work for 80 hours for free, you'll be able to in a year or two, maybe you have enough money to buy ramen, you know, things don't happen overnight. And that's part of the problem, by the way with our new entrepreneurs. And I don't want to sound like an old father, grandfather or whatever. But everything's in our face all day long with social media, and all these people pretending to be successful on Instagram and Tiktok. And, you know, here's my Lamborghini, Ferrari, my home, all of which were rented for a day for a photoshoot, we had these unreasonable expectations, that we have a 10 year plan, and we can fulfill it in a year or less. And we can't, right so to my golden nugget in a more positive way, is understand what your long term goals are. But focus on the tasks that you have to do today. So that you're looking down and making sure you take a step forward one step after another, looking up once in a while to know that you're getting closer and closer to those ultimate goals. But understanding that it's a journey and being willing to take that journey as long as it takes

Gabriel Flores  32:14  

well said and you know what I you know, folks that listening know my story. I crash and burn trying to do a clothing line, you know, as some apparel, I went back to school, and it's because my business acuity level was very low. And I wanted to get better. I wanted to get smarter. And I'm certainly would say this podcast as a as a soft takeoff. Right? I'm trying to get acclimated. But I'm also, you know, again, selfishly being able to listen to these stories and kind of get some ideas. I'm like, Oh, what do I want to do? You know, but yeah, I think, you know, I've talked about I've never felt in my day, my life, I've either learned or I succeeded. And it's true, because you can't allow these moments of difficulties, as you pointed out to be kind of the end all be all right, we have to utilize these moments of learning opportunities. And yes, do not try to judge yourself on that perfectly curated Instagram account that is, you know, perfection I talked about often perfection is impossible to obtain. And those are just, you know, perfectly curated accounts that that were aren't true. They're not accurate. And that's, that's just the truth, right? Cuz there there are there are individuals that it's not easy. It's a struggle. I'm telling you right now, I've been doing this for two years. And I'm like, Man, this is just a podcast I'm doing on the side imagining having 300 You know, small businesses report up to you. Yeah,

Frederick Cary  33:36  

yeah. Yeah, it's not easy. But you know what, it's the only way the world changes. The people that do this, the people that are crazy enough to do this are the people that that change the world. And so whether you want to change your world or the world, you just have to be ready to fight and wake up and fight every day.

Gabriel Flores  33:53  

America was built on the back of small businesses, baby.

Frederick Cary  33:57  

Yep, I think 97% of businesses and 97% of the driving forces in the US are small businesses. Employment everything else.

Gabriel Flores  34:08  

Yep. Yep. Now Fred, is there anything you How can folks can actually get a hold of you if their website I know you kind of mentioned it earlier, but go ahead and given us some information, your website, your social channels, so they have some information?

Frederick Cary  34:20  

Yeah, so first of all, if you want to reach out to me directly, in my executive assistants don't like this at all. But Fred at Idea proz.com Reach out to me I'll, I'll answer and I'll give you my advice. If that's what you're looking for. I'll tell you, Hey, fuck you, too, if that's what you're gonna write to me. So, other than that, www dot idea proz.com. On there. As I said, we have that blog page, which talks about what we do. There's an application page, but to sign up as a full partner. You do have to have capital to partner with us, but there's all sorts of smaller packages. If you go on Instagram at official Fred Carey car why I have a link tree on there, click on that. You'll see there's some free material there. There's also which I highly recommend not because I did it, but because I think it's very powerful. There is a video courses on purpose driven entrepreneurship, that no bullet points, no script, no nothing I just talked about all the elements of things that you're gonna have to consider as an entrepreneur and starting your own business. It's a couple $100 If you use a code, I think it's IG 100 becomes $147. If you don't like it, write to Fred and I'll give you your money back. And it's also on their validation package where you can take your idea, like you said, How does somebody know if they have a good idea, you can take your idea and for about 1000 bucks, we'll do everything would do complete market analysis, competitive analysis, market size, market growth, market opportunity, who your who your likely customers are helped you create a pitch deck so you can go raise the capital now that you know everything you need to know about that idea to actually get money to turn it into something.

Gabriel Flores  36:11  

And again, folks, for those that listening, if you didn't catch all that all of this information, I'll actually make sure I get that discount code and have it on the newsletter again, another plug of reason, you should subscribe to the newsletter. Visit the shades of e.com to subscribe to the newsletter. You can also follow the shades of E on all the social sites at the shades of E for those that are listening. Thank you again, Fred. Awesome conversation. I'm definitely gonna have a conversation with you after we get off of this. All right, well, those folks listening thank you so much. Thank you for listening and have a great night.