Jonathon Perrelli is the Father to three young children, the co-founder of 7 companies; 5 were successful exits, 1 a total failure, and his 7th, LifeFuels is going very well. As as early-stage technology investor Jonathon founded Fortify Ventures in 2011 and has invested in over 40 early stage and emerging technology companies and currently serves on the Board of Directors for two of them; IntroHive and Talk Local. He is a founding Board Member for Virginia Tech’s Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, he serves as an Advisory Board Member to The Vinetta Project here in DC (currently the only male on the Vinetta Board), and previously he served as a Delegate to the United Nations Foundation Global Accelerator, and he was also one of the founding advisors to 1776.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
Elon Musk
Richard Branson
Oprah Winfrey
Ben Horowitz
Andreessen Horowitz
Tim Cook
When business started difficulties overcame:
I think I have always been an entrepreneur so it is tough to remember a time before that. The difficulties in starting this business we did something pretty crazy we actually required people to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) because we existed in stealth mode for over a year. And I have always told founders that it is a silly thing to be in stealth mode, you want to get the word out about what you are doing but we believed at life fuels that there is a pretty large play for us with intellectual property, so patents and trademarks and the likes…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
365 Dalai Lama: Daily Advice from the Heart Book by Dalai Lama
The Innovator’s Dilemma Book by Clayton M. Christensen
How to Win Friends and Influence People Book by Dale Carnegie
Crossing the Chasm Book by Geoffrey Moore
Malcolm Gladwell Books
The Tipping Point Book by Malcolm Gladwell
Outliers Book by Malcolm Gladwell
Steve Jobs Biography by Walter Isaacson
The 48 Laws of Power Book by Robert Greene
Non-Obvious: How To Think Different, Curate Ideas And Predict The Future Book by Rohit Bhargava
The Hard Thing About Hard Things Book by Ben Horowitz
Elegant Entrepreneur Book by Danielle Tate
Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days Book by Jessica Livingston
Favourite Quote:
“Defeat the fear of death and you welcome the death of fear.” G. Gordon Liddy
Recommended Online Resources:
Twitter
Chris Sacca What is Left lower Case Capital
Fred Wilson
Ben Horowitz
Paul Graham
Best Advice to other entrepreneurs:
5 Things I tell everyone especially companies I have invested in or entrepreneur I advice or people at out company:
- Don’t go it alone – success comes from an aggregate of individuals so be part of a team
…[Listen for More]
More About Jonathon Perrelli:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions” Claude Levi-Strauss
Other quotes from Jonathon Perrelli in the chat:
“Research is critical. Learn the business that you want to be in and adjacent business. While you are doing that learn the people to network with. It’s not about what you know and it’s not just about who you know, it about what you can get done with who you know.”
“so I think continuous learning whether it’s who the people are in the business or what the businesses are about that’s very important”
“Culture is not important its essential. It’s not just important its critical, its everything”
“just get rid of fear, don’t be afraid to fail, don’t be afraid to take risks, don’t be afraid to make mistakes or do things wrong
“the very best talent attracts the very best talent, so when you hire and inspire great people they are going to do the same and bring others”
I have this keen ability to sort of help others identify and embrace their super power. Whether it’s an engineer that is actually really extrovert and prefers to sell, well that person should be selling something incredibly technical to buyers that are technical, but it’s a skill that I actually discussed with Richard Branson, one of my favourite people on the planet from your neck of the woods, and last April I saw him on Necker Island, and I told him that this was my super power and he said that ‘you know, that’s interesting, because that is his as well.’ #00:00:36-Neil: Hello, it’s Neil Ball here, thank you so much for joining me today on the entrepreneur way. The entrepreneur way is about the entrepreneur’s journey. The vision, the mind-set, the commitment, the sacrifice, failures and successes. I am so excited to bring you our special guest today, Jonathan Perrelli. But before I introduce you to Jonathan, I have a quote for you from Claude Levi Strauss, that goes like this, ‘the scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions. The entrepreneur way asks the questions, so we all get the insight, inspiration and ideas to apply in our businesses. Jonathan welcome to the show, are you ready to share your version of the entrepreneur way with us? #00:01:57-4# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): I am indeed. #00:01:58-6# Neil: Thank you Jonathon Perrelli is the Father to three young children, the co-founder of 7 companies; 5 were successful exit’s, 1 a total failure, and his 7th, LifeFuels is going very well. As as early-stage technology investor Jonathon founded Fortify Ventures in 2011 and has invested in over 40 early stage and emerging technology companies and currently serves on the Board of Directors for two of them; IntroHive and Talk Local. He is a founding Board Member for Virginia Tech’s Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, he serves as an Advisory Board Member to The Vinetta Project here in DC (currently the only male on the Vinetta Board), and previously he served as a Delegate to the United Nations Foundation Global Accelerator, and he was also one of the founding advisors to 1776. Jonathan, can you provide us with some more insight into your business and personal life to allow us to get to know more about what you do and who you are? #00:03:11-1# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Sure, so I am a seven-time founder, I am a father of three children, I am glad that there are seven companies and three children and not the reverse. I am really a serial entrepreneur, an angel investor, a film-maker, we made a film a couple of years ago about start-ups, and have had an accelerator, now the first one in Washington DC, so entrepreneurship is my life and I enjoy it thoroughly, every aspect of it. #00:03:41-0# Neil: And how are you making money from being an entrepreneur right now? #00:03:45-9# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Well sometimes as entrepreneurs we spend money before we make money. I have been very fortunate to have sold a handful of companies over the years, and really it has been quite some time since I have been making money outside of the sale, after we had a sale last year of Secureforce, a company I started many years ago. But sometimes if the start-up fades, I have chosen to pay others by investing in the company and then wait until their company is profitable or until we raise a large amount of money or to be paid myself. #00:04:18-4# Neil: So do you start the companies, or do you invest in start-ups? Is there, how do you make money from what you do? Sorry, how do you actually get involved in the companies? #00:04:30-0# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Sure, so the getting involved in companies, started in 2010, 2011 very actively with four / five ventures where I went from being angel investor to having a venture fund. And some of those investments look to be performing quite well, there are a handful of them out of 40 that could pay back the fund in it’s entirety just by themselves and as an aggregate I think the fund will do incredibly well, there are some that are in the middle and a few that have actually fallen out, so those entrepreneurs have given up and we made small investments in those companies. But currently, I enjoy being an investor and I still am involved in some of those companies, but I went back to my roots being an entrepreneur, and two years ago started life-fuels which is a smart nutrition bottle company, we track input, what people consume, and we are now at 25 employees. We have raised just over three million dollars, and we are headed for quite a good year in 2016. #00:05:33-6# Neil: And can you just tell us a little bit more about this nutrition bottle you talked about. Did you call it smart bottle? #00:05:40-2# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Sure, smart nutrition bottle. So effectively, imagine an espresso or a .. but portable, we have five one-ounce fuel pods that sit in the top chamber of the bottle. And the bottle stores those. Dispenses what is inside of the fuel pods, which are vitamins, minerals, supplements, flavours, ultimately medicines, and then tracks what is dispensed, and that’s done through the bottle and in conjunction with an app. So there are three parts to the system, it’s a smart nutrition bottle that you carry with you. Fuel pods that you purchase, that are put into the top of the bottle and some of them last up to 25 servings, they are coffees/teas/vitamins etc. flavours and then the app which is also the market place and the app tracks what you consume. #00:06:38-8# Neil: Oh I see, so how do actually input, you tell the app what you have consumed? Do you do that through a phone or something? is that how you are doing that? # #00:06:43-1# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): So that is what is magical about it, you don’t tell it anything, the bottle tells the apps, so it’s all automatic. #00:06:50-0# Neil: What if you consume something outside of the bottle? How would it know about that? #00:06:53-2# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): So you will actually add that to the software for now we are focused on the fuel pods, but ultimately you will be able to swipe a granola bar, next to the bottle and it will know what you are consuming, and there are other ways we are tracking input as well, we would like to be the world leader in tracking what people consume. #00:07:12-8# Neil: Sounds very impressive, so who are you aiming this product at? Who are your main customers? #00:07:21-1# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): So we have actually signed on a couple of Olympians because performance athletes are incredibly interested in this space and effectively some of them have to by law or the sport that they are involved in, they have to track everything that they consume. CrossFit is a huge phenomenon, I know it’s getting big in the UK and in Europe and it’s been huge in the states for years. Cross fitters, yogis, athletes of all kinds want to be able to be smarter about what they consume, and have it more convenient you know the idea for this product came about years ago based on a family member that I had that was in need of nutritional support that they could not just get from food and it was not convenient for them to go out and seek and find a variety of forms of food they needed, supplements and vitamins, and what I found was I go into the gym had a gym bag full of large bins of powders and protein supplements, and many other things and I would buy vitamins and I would forget to take them. I found that problem was pretty common and realised when wearable technology came about, people actually caring about output, how many steps they take, their heart rate, and also competing with others. #00:08:31-6# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): When they cared about output, that was when we timed this and said ‘people are going to start caring about input, if they care that much about what they are doing, they should care about what’s energising them to do what they are doing.’ So we closed a loop on output with input. #00:08:47-3# Neil: Mmmm it sounds fantastic actually, I mean the concept of applying technology to something so fundamental, you never would have dreamt that someone would have done that, so it sounds awesome. So Jonathan, what do you enjoy most about what you do? #00:08:58-6# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Well I love creation, so whether it is cooking a meal, and doing it from scratch, if it fails, no problem, take a bite, dump it out, start again. There is a little less stress to creating a meal than there is to starting a company, but what I enjoy is making a difference and seeing people succeed. So for example, we went to the consumer electronics show as life fuels last month, and leading up to the show we thought we hope we are recognised, we hope we get the meetings we want, we hope anyone cares. And it ends up, just prior to the show we won a Product Innovation Award from CES and at the show we won a few other awards and my 20 year career and my COO Ethan, felt the same way, we have sold companies over the course of our careers but the best week we have ever had was that week. So I find that things like that, the validation we had and the timing of the market and every possible partner and healthcare … or retailer, distributorships that wanted to partner with us, that felt great, so I enjoy that part of the process very much. #00:10:13-6# Neil: And what is it that drives you? #00:10:16-6# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): That’s a really good question, you know I thought about that one a lot. Embracing my super power is what drives me and it’s interesting and this was discovered by others that I have known, and I was told this years ago, but ultimately it’s not flight or x-ray vision or anything you would think, that we would want to have, but I would have this keen ability to sort of help others identify and embrace their super power. Whether it’s an engineer that is really extrovert and prefers to sell, well that person should be selling something incredibly technical to buyers that are technical, but it’s a skill that I actually discussed with Richard Branson, one of my favourite people on the planet from your neck of the woods and last April saw him on Necker Island and I told him that this was my super power. And he said, ‘that’s interesting, because that is his as well’ and that made my day, that made my year I think, but that is one of the things that drives me, it’s helping people find what they are best at, and then providing them an opportunity or even a position to be able to embrace and exceed and excel at that. #00:11:26-4# Neil: Mmm that’s absolutely a great thing to want to do, and how do you relax when you are not working in your business? #00:11:37-7# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): So spending time with my three amazing children, and extended family, the kids are mostly relaxing, sometimes children can’t be but when they are not, I go in the hot tub, I exercise, I read, I love yoga and I love cooking, which I already mentioned, cooking really provides a happy place for me, it’s one that again allows for creation and allows to share with others, so I could see myself doing a lot of cooking in my future, I have less time for it now than I would like, but that is because I am running a growing company. #00:12:09-7# Neil: And I think you might have answered this question partially, but do you have any entrepreneurial role models? #00:12:12-6# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Yeh I do, most people I know talk about Zuckerberg from Facebook or Steve Jobs or Buffet. Elon Musk is on that comes to mind, a lot of people say that, I actually find that Richard Branson, who I mentioned, Oprah Winfrey, who I just have so much respect for, and you know I don’t know if you hear that a lot from men, but if you actually look into her background and how she got to where she is, it’s pretty fascinating. Ben Horovitz and Andrew Horovitz I read everything he writes, and then Tim Cook for a lot of different reasons, the shoes that he filled, following Steve Jobs. It is pretty incredible the job that he has done at Apple, right? I mean who can argue with that? So those are some of my role models. #00:13:02-5# Neil: Yeh I think a lot of people thought that when Steve Jobs had gone it would sort of all fall away, didn’t they? And it seems to have gone from strength to strength, so he has done very well. #00:13:12-2# #00:13:12-2# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Agreed. #00:13:12-2# Neil: Jonathan, can we talk about the time before you were an entrepreneur, and can you talk about some of the difficulties you had to overcome when you started your business? #00:13:23-7# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Sure, so I think I have always been an entrepreneur, so it’s tough to remember a time before that, but difficulties in starting this business, we did something pretty crazy Neil, we actually required people to sign a non-disclosure agreement, because we existed in stealth mode for over a year and I have always told founders that it is a silly thing to be in stealth mode, you want to get the word out about what you are doing, but we believed at life fuels that there is a pretty large play for us with intellectual properties. So Patens, trademarks and the like, a lot of things that are going to help defend and potentially help our business grow over the years, so we were in stealth mode for a while, and that was a very difficult thing to recruit individuals. Some of which joined without knowing exactly what we did, but they were just so excited about how excited we as a founding team were that they came on board and then when we shared with them what we did, then they sort of became part of the cult that we have at work. It’s a big part of our culture. #00:14:23-1# Neil: Yeh #00:14:23-1# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): And we also had a family members and investors that had to sign NDA, so that was a challenging part of starting the business. Would I do it the same way over again? I would if the technology were as important as we have, but I don’t recommend doing that. #00:14:40-0# Neil: So how do you sell a vision to somebody without telling them what the vision is and get them excited about working for you without telling them what they are going to do, that sounds fascinating. #00:14:52-2# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): You will have to ask a few of them, because they will have to tell you and it’s interesting when again, it’s a part of back to the super power thing when you have a vision and the vision is something that is so grand, that in my case, I was willing to leave the venture fund, the job I planned for my entire career to be a venture capitalist, I set aside, put on the back burner for the future. The fun one is closed, we will wait for a fun two. But for me to do that, friends of mine had been recruiting literally for years, one I had been recruiting for 17 years, who finally joined. You know I have tried at other companies, he was not ready but he was at this one. For those people to see me do that, and then see the people I already had on the team, they were at least incredibly interested to learn more, then we got them to sign an NDA and then when they saw what we were doing, it was a no-brainer for many of them but the younger ones that just signed up without knowing exactly what we were doing, kind of got caught up in the moment see what we were excited about. So yeh it was pretty fascinating back then and we continue to surprise and press ourselves at times with what we have accomplished and in very little time. So you will have to check out the site and tell us what you think. #00:16:02-9# Neil: Yeh you are very persuasive, and did you have any doubts that delayed you starting your business? #00:16:13-9# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): You know the trick to being successful in any business, or perhaps anything in life is timing and the doubts that I had for years, because I came up with concept for life-fuels in 2007, it was always about timing and it was too early back then and it would have cost thousands of dollars per bottle you know, now it’s under a $100 dollars. It will be less over time, but I have been getting better and better with timing with companies I have had, and I think this is the best time one I have ever had, but that was the doubt, the doubt was ‘will we be too early?’ and we knew we were not late, and so far it feels like the timing is pretty close to right. So that is very fortunate for us as a team. #00:16:56-1# Neil: And what mistakes did you make that slowed your journey? #00:17:01-1# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Well I think that is still to be determined, we are open to mistakes, in fact we embrace failure as a team, we used to have failure fridays, where we would get together, and happy hour style and you know, over a pint, we would talk about what we screwed up and who would win that week and that was when we were 8-10 people, now we are a couple of dozen, we are in different teams, and you know I think we embrace it a little bit differently. But it’s part of our culture, so we make those little mistakes, we have not made any major ones yet, I hope we don’t but the little ones we actually embrace. So it’s part of the journey, failure is absolute, it’s a certainty, I think you are going to fail. You just have to be open to it and it’s a big part of my philosophy, embracing failure, I know people talk about that a lot these days, a lot more than they used to. It used to be a west coast thing in the US, a silicon valley thing, but it’s something my parents taught me, it’s ok to fail, and I hope that I pass that on to my children as well. #00:18:02-7# Neil: I think there are quite a lot of people that just do not seem to accept that concept do they? They want success but cannot accept that it might be possible you might fail, but ultimately, success only comes if you are prepared to fail, doesn’t it? Because otherwise you would never achieve it, so it’s good to hear that, and what are some of the things you did before you started your business? that would be helpful tips to some of the listeners who have not yet taken the first step of the entrepreneur way? #0 #00:18:29-9# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Sure, so I think research is critical, learn the business that you want to be in and adjacent businesses and while you are doing that, learn the people to network with, it is not about what you know, and it is not just about who you know, it’s about what you can get done with who you know. So I think continuous learning, whether it is who the people are in the business, or what the businesses are about. That’s very important, in my case, I would share this with any entrepreneur and I have with many, planning as far in advance as possible is critical, you have to think ‘what is going to happen next quarter, next year? and in two years?’ so you are planning for that. And you know the ABC acronym of ‘always be closing’ is very important for sales people and for anyone in business, but I one which is ABR which is ‘always be recruiting’ I am constantly building the team, I have in my mind I have five or six people, I won’t even need to hire. We won’t need them on our team at life-fuels until mid or late next year, but I am already starting to recruit them, because I know they will have teams, that they will be able to bring with them, and I think that is an important thing for any leader, founder, ceo, to think about. #00:19:42-9# Neil: Mmmm and what I would like to do now is talk about the entrepreneurial journey a bit further on so when you have actually started the business I think. So do you think culture is important from the beginning in a business? #00:19:59-0# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): You know, it’s a funny answer, culture is not important, it’s essential. It’s not just important, it’s critical, it’s everything, I believe if you can have, I asked an entrepreneur recently, who said she was not sure about which way she wanted to go with her business. And I said, ‘will you be a solo practitioner working alone? will you be an employer that has minions?’ and she kind of laughed at that and chuckled, but that was more her style in the past and third, I said, ‘or will you be a cult leader?’ And it sounds odd because we have negative connotations with many cults, but the reality is, an early start up that has people as passionate about the company as anything else in their lives, it’s definitely a leg above others. So I think culture is critical to the success of any business and at life-fuels it is something you know, we take very seriously. #00:20:53-7# Neil: It’s a great answer. Knowing what you know now, is there anything that if you had known it when you started out would have helped you to shortcut the learning curve? #00:21:05-8# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Oh boy, yes indeed, I actually, instead of founding a number of cyber security companies and software companies, I would have rather now that I look back, had consumer hardware companies, because product physical tangible electronic product is complicated and we are very fortunate in our company at life-fuels that we have a number of advisors, consultants and employees who have done it before. I have certainly been a fan of the industry for many many years and I buy more gadgets than most people I know, but it’s different to be making them. So you know, looking back, I wish I had focused on hardware, rather than software for many years. #00:21:51-5# Neil: And how does gut feeling influence your decisions in your business? # #00:21:59-3# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): So we tease each other about this at work, and I started something, I think I said, ‘we are all animals in the jungle’ if you think about the survival of animals, they survive on gut instinct, it drives their behaviour, their every move, how they find food, shelter, mates, protection everything, and we are supposed to be humans, the most advanced animals of all. Yet, many of us do not focus on trusting our instinct, we either were not trained to do so, we never were forced to do it, but those of us that do leverage gut instinct I think thrive, where others just survive. So, I believe that the times I failed to trust my gut, were the times I made major mistakes. Or I missed opportunities, the times I have trusted my gut, it has least led me in the right direction, perhaps not exactly on the path, but we have to learn to trust our gut instincts and data is critical to success of any organisation, you have to be able to point to data, but when data matches your gut instinct, then you know you have the right path. #00:23:08-7# Neil: What advice would you give to fellow business owners that may be struggling in a business? Have you got any advice? #00:23:15-2# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): If they do not already have advisors, I would really urge them to find individuals who have done either what they are trying to do or something similar to what they have done before, because often times an entrepreneur thinks that there are three doors, perhaps five doors and you open each door and behind it is an answer or a problem, leading to some kind of solution. The truth is, there might be 15 or 20 doors, and you do not even know those doors exist and you might not because each door represents a year. So why not find someone who has been doing what you are doing or trying to for 15 or 20 years? to help you get to door number 15 and skip all the others because the only thing that works when you do not know the answer, and you do not even know the question, is experience. So a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with what am I supposed to be doing right now and if you are going to the office, and you are sitting in front of a computer, and you are drawing a blank, it’s time to ask for help. #00:24:18-2# Neil: That’s great advice again, life is made of constant change whether we like it or not, in fact many people say the only constant in life is change. Jonathan, how do you try to keep up with change? #00:24:29-6# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Well change comes in the form of information in many ways for me, so I read constantly. When I wake up, mid-day and in the evenings, and I think, I embrace change, we all do but at the same time I think it is important to balance all the change that we have stability in some areas of our lives, so the way that I deal with change is having some constants that I know exist, whether it is conscious or you know, or mostly subconscious. So for me, it’s important to thrive on change, and be a positive impact to others, to our customers you know for our products, partners, to our business, they are all experiencing the same change, so communicating, embracing change and also having some stability I think are probably the best ways I would deal with it. #00:25:18-6# Neil: You mentioned reading, what is your favourite book on entrepreneurialism, business, personal development, leadership, or motivation? and can you tell us why you have chosen it? #00:25:31-6# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): There are so many, the one that is on my desk right now, is daily advice from the heart by the Dali Lama. I believe that Karma is very very real, and the things I read do not always relate directly to the meeting I am about to have or the partner or customer I am about to talk to or the investor I am about to have a meeting with, but on an aggregate they always do. I have read, you name it, ‘The Innovators Dilemma’ ‘How to win friends and influence people’ by Dale Carnegie, one of the first business books I ever read. ‘Crossing the Chasm’ everything by Malcolm Gladwell, ‘The Tipping Point’ ‘Outliers’. I really enjoyed Steve Jobs. My ex-wife, who is a dear friend, introduced me to the 48 laws of power, unfortunately late in our marriage, and then there are some recent books that I think are great. Non-obvious is a book by Rohid Bargeva. It is effectively a book that if you were dropped on this planet and said, ‘I want to learn about business and technology, he updates it every year, a new edition every year, with trends, he declares and identifies and tracks trends, so it is a very very useful book. Ben Horovitz, his most recent one I read, ‘on vacation’ was the hard thing about hard things. A friend just launched the elegant entrepreneur, it’s a great book for women, and desire turning to business while they balance their lives, family lives, motherhood, being a wife, being a working mother. So many, a favourite actually, I recommend it to people all the time, it is founders at work, it is a stories of start-ups, kind of the early days, by Jessica Livingstone, that is a fantastic book that gives very specific insights and examples of what founders did in circumstances that many other founders will find themselves in. So I could go on and on about this. #00:27:32-3# Neil: Ha ha ha. Well you have plenty of favourites there, that is great. Everyone, when you have a busy life, listening to audio books is a great way to expand your knowledge in the time when you may be doing other things, such as driving or when you are at the gym. We have a special offer for you of a free audio book of your choosing, to choose your free audio book, go to www.freeaudiobookoffer.com. As long as you have not already signed up then you will qualify. Jonathan, what I would like to do is speculate a little bit about the future, what one thing would you do with your business if you knew that you could not fail? #0 #00:28:14-0# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): So if we could, I would like to put our smart nutrition bottle in the hands of as many people as possible. Millions of people and the reason I would like to do that, is I believe that very quickly within days, some within a week, they would see their lives improve, they would be feeling more energy, they would be healthier, getting sick less, happier, because their lives and the cells within their bodies are more enhanced and better balanced and I think that people ultimately will live happier and longer lives, because they are taking care of themselves. So the one thing I would do is take all of that risk, it would take a lot of capital, but just give our smart nutrition bottles away to people. I don’t think all of our investors or partners would like to hear that, but if I could do it, I would. #00:29:08-1# Neil: And what skill if you were excellent at it, would help you the most to double your business? #00:29:15-1# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): We pride ourselves a lot on hiring, it’s one of the things I think we have done best, but I am never satisfied with that. I would like to be much better, because at the end of the day, business and success in business is all about teams, isn’t it? It’s about how people work well together, we refer to something Ethan Gill, our CLO brought to us, which is repetitions we have some very heavy reps at times at the office, some are good, some are bad, but we learn from them. And I feel like the very best talent, attracts the very best talent. So when you hire and inspire great people, they are going to do the same and bring others. So the one thing I think we are good at, I want to be better at, and I think that would help increase our business and also make it a fantastic place to work as well. #00:30:09-0# Neil: And in five years from now, if a well-known business publication was publishing an article on your business, after talking to your customers and suppliers, what would you like it to say? #00:30:21-6# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Well I think that it would say something like, life-fuels has quickly, because that is a short amount of time right? changed the way in which individuals locate and purchase, consume and track food, beverages and medicines. And the company is helping millions of people live healthier, happier and longer lives. That would be great. #00:30:50-2# Neil: It’s now time for you to share three golden nuggets with us, so Jonathan what is your favourite quote and how have you applied it? #00:30:58-8# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Well Yoda has one that is similar about fear, but I have always lived by this one, defeat the fear of death, welcome the death of fear. And it was G Gordon Lidy who was involved in some scandalous activity with a former president Nixon back in the 60’s I believe or the 70’s, I was either a young lad or not alive yet, effectively just get rid of fear. Don’t be afraid to fail, don’t be afraid to take risks, don’t be afraid to make mistakes or do things wrong. You know, that is something that I try to live by, it’s also something that gets me into trouble at times. #00:31:39-7# Neil: And do you have any favourite online resources that you could share with us? #00:31:44-2# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Twitter provides for me daily brain-food, I love a lot of the folks that I follow, some of them I have become friends with and have never met them, I really respect and enjoy the blogs and a couple of investors, Fred Wilson, Chris Zaker and then anything that just as Ben Horovitz writes, anything like .. Paul Graham writes I am all over. #00:32:10-8# Neil: And what is your best advice to other entrepreneurs? #00:32:15-9# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): So five things I sort of tell everyone, especially companies I have invested in or entrepreneurs I advise, I provide advice for or people at our company. Number one, do not go it alone, success comes from an aggregate of individuals, so be part of a team. Second, ask a few great people a lot of questions, and listen very very carefully. Third, become a better version of yourself every day. The fourth one, learn your craft by existing totally within it. Allow yourself the freedom to dive deep and wide in your business and in your market, and then fifth, I may have mentioned this earlier, I am having deja vu. Help others, because Karma is very very real. #00:33:06-3# Neil: Everyone, if you did not manage to get a note of Johnathan’s favourite resource, or his favourite book, then you can find the links on Jonathan’s show notes page, just go to theentrepreneurway.com and search for Jonathan or Jonathan Perrelli in the search box. Jonathan, is there anything else you would like to add about your business? #00:33:25-2# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Well you know, I have spent 8 years now, I’m sorry, this is the 9th year, preparing to bring this product to market, and I am so excited about the fact that we have a product that will ultimately help people to have more energy, to live healthier, to live happier, and it’s interesting how many people are embracing and moving forward with partnerships and endorsements and distributorship relationships with our company. So I would just urge you, it would be all over the US this year, I hope we are in the UK soon enough, and when we are Neil, I will certainly send you one of our smart nutrition bottles, so you can get a handle on it yourself. #00:34:05-8# Neil: That would be great. Jonathan, thank you for coming on the show, I think you have helped so many people with some of your advice, you have given so much great advice on the time you have been on here so thank you so much. #00:34:19-8# Jonathon Perrelli CEO and Co-Founder of LifeFuels (lifefuels.co): Thank you for the opportunity, and I look forward to chatting with you again. #00:34:22-4# Neil: You are welcome, thank you.Transcript of Jonathon Perrelli's Podcast
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