TMBA447: The Suburban Entrepreneur

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Dan and Ian return this week with another unique entrepreneurial origin story.

In fact, today’s guest has built a business in the last four years that has revenues in the low seven figures and he now employs five employees.

Part of the reason we like to share these origin stories on the show is that there’s a moment for every one of us when we really truly did not believe that we could achieve this sort of thing.

Allen Walton knows that feeling all too well. Allen is the founder of SpyGuy.com, an eCommerce business which sells covert surveillance technology. Allen grew up in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, and he still lives there today.

On today’s podcast, you’ll hear Allen share the story of how he grew SpyGuy.com to a seven-figure business, what happened when he cold-emailed Mark Cuban, and a whole lot more.

Transcript

Listen to this week’s show and learn:

  • How Allen struggled with an addiction to online gaming. (8:28)
  • Allen’s first forays into the surveillance industry and eCommerce. (13:41)
  • How Allen landed a job interview by sending a cold email to Mark Cuban. (24:48)
  • Why Allen decided to start SpyGuy.com and how he felt when he sold his first product. (31:49)
  • Some of Allen’s favorite books about entrepreneurship. (45:36)

Mentioned in the episode:

This week’s sponsor:

This week’s episode is brought to you by Weebly. Don’t let the lack of a big budget or technology skills get in the way of having not only a beautiful website, but a powerful one. If you’ve got a product idea and you want to share it with the world, check out Weebly.com. As a special offer to listeners of this show, you can visit Weebly.com/TMBA to get 15% off your first purchase.

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In the entrepreneurial world, it’s rarely questioned that “exiting” is the end goal of a smartly built business and a prestigious waypoint in a successful career.

In 2015, Dan Andrews and Ian Schoen sold their business for multi-seven figures, and although they don’t regret selling – there are many mistakes they made that were avoidable.

The book presents thought experiments designed to help you avoid similar mistakes.

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Thanks for listening to our show! We’ll be back next Thursday morning 8AM EST. Cheers, Dan & Ian

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