Brad Pelo’s entrepreneurial journey is a testament to the power of vision, adaptability, and humility. From his roots in Montana to the global impact of ‘The Chosen’, Brad’s story offers valuable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs.

He is now co-producing the very popular show The Chosen, which was initially crowdfunded but now has more than 16,000 investors, including Derral Eves, Dallas Jenkins, and Earl Seals.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Surround yourself with knowledgeable individuals who can enrich your perspective and skillset.
• Your team is more than just employees; they are invaluable partners in building something remarkable.
• Be willing to pivot and adjust your approach in response to changing circumstances and market dynamics.
• Challenges are inevitable, but how you respond to them defines your journey.
• True entrepreneurs possess an innate drive and vision that fuels their journey.
• Your entrepreneurial legacy may take unexpected turns, but each step contributes to the broader narrative.
• Pursue ventures that align with your passions, as they have the potential to ignite groundbreaking ideas and transformative outcomes.

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About Brad Pelo:

Brad Pelo is an American businessman, entrepreneur, and co-founder and chief executive officer of i.TV, the company behind tvtag, a second screen app for iOS.

Pelo has founded or been a member of the founding team at a number of companies, including Folio Corporation, Ancestry.com, and NextPage. He also served on the board of directors of Tokyo-based D&M Holdings, the holding company for leading audio brands.

Pelo is also a movie producer and live event producer. He is the co-producer of the show The Chosen.

Connect with Brad Pelo:

• Linkedin
• Crunchbase
• RocketReach
• SignalHire

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty hello everyone and welcome to the dealmaker show. So today. We have a really incredible founder I mean he’s done it so many times that if I told you the number you know you’ll probably get diy I mean 8 times you know that he’s built companies is really remarkable and and many of them. You know, super successful companies and companies that. You’re going to be recognizing you know when you hear them on the show. You know again, we’re going to be talking about. Ah first mover advantage we’re going to be talking about dealing with a post closing. You know after you sell your company what happens when there’s a mismatch with a company that is buying you. Ah, we’re also going to be talking about crowdfunding as well. And and again you know like you’re gonna find this incredible and very remarkable his journey so without further ado I don’t want to make you all wait. Any longer. Let’s welcome. Our guest today Brad Pelo welcome to the show.

Brad Pelo: A landro so good to be with you. Thank you for inviting me.

Alejandro Cremades: So so Brad give us a little of a walk through memory lane. How was being born and raised in Montana.

Brad Pelo: Montana’s beautiful they call it big sky country and it’s where I go to disconnect kick off my shoes and and return to my roots. But yeah I I call myself a montanan. Went to school college in Utah brighaming university um, but before I even hit the college scene I had already ah founded. My first company.

Alejandro Cremades: And where where where does this like insane drive for entrepreneurship come from I mean it’s is. It’s really unbelievable.

Brad Pelo: That’s a good question and I’ve asked myself that question I think true entrepreneurs are born with a defective gene. Let’s just face it not everyone is born to be an entrepreneur. Um, and while I think you can learn entrepreneurial skills and people who have the gene certainly should develop it. Um, but I I would attribute it to 2 things as I’ve thought about 1 is um, my mother who from a very young age read me not Dr Sus but read me biographies of of builders business builders nation builders. So from a very young age I came to look up to the men and women who created things number 1 and number 2 frankly was necessity. Um I was raised in a large family I had 8 sisters and my father was a schoolteacher and. When I was nine years old I think we had a family meeting and dad said Brad you need to buy your own school clothes pay for your own school lunch if you need a bike you go earn the money for it and so I took that seriously and immediately started. You know, taking on. Jobs and by the time I was fifteen I’d created a fully incorporated company. Um that you know a few months later was featured in The New York Times actually my story as a teenage entrepreneur and it was the first time I even heard the word entrepreneur I could.

Brad Pelo: I didn’t even know how to pronounce it and a gentleman showed up at my doorstep I was then in high school living in Utah actually at the time and a stranger on my doorstep handed me the New York Times I had never seen a New York Times in my life and he handed it to me and he said he he had been on a trip and he picked up this. Newspaper and and read this article about me and wanted to meet me so he found found me in his local community and delivered that paper and and I opened it up and what is an entrepreneur even so that was my introduction to entrepreneurship and I think kind of my origin as to.

Alejandro Cremades: Wow Now in your case, you went to college and while in college you actually founded another company and this actually was one that ended up you know having a nice outcome. What were you guys doing there.

Brad Pelo: My drive for it.

Brad Pelo: Um, so um, this this was at the beginning of the pc revolution right? So you know the original apple twos and later Macintosh’s and Ibm Pcs and um. Had a friend who was kind of fixated on on what we would think of today is just Google the ability to search massive amounts of information from a computer but we were limited to floppy disks in those days a few of us had a hard drive vi sort and if we did it might be 5 ive megabytes um, so we began to develop a full-text search engine in college and out of that grew a company called folio and folio’s premise was with the advent of the cd -rom which came just a year or 2 after that. That you could put five hundred megabytes of data on a cd -rom and and yet what good is five hundred megabytes of data if you can’t search through it and use it as a resource so we introduced into the market. The idea of just ah, a digital book or a digital library. Um, and we work primarily with reference publishers. You could think of it as law publishers regulatory publishers governments large insurance institutions anyone that had a lot of text but a lot of policy a lot of opinion that they need to distribute.

Brad Pelo: And instead of using a book you could pop in a Cd -rom and quickly search for the content you’re after and that business really kind of blew up for us because we were the first to offer a search engine even though it was limited to just the Cd -rom at the time and.

Alejandro Cremades: Um.

Brad Pelo: And eventually began to compete with with what was then kind of the dominant online search engine a company called lexisnexus and and they at the time were delivering their so their search engine capabilities through. Private networks to businesses so you actually had to get a dedicated t one line they had custom terminals and you actually when you went to law school. For example, you took classes on how to learn the syntax of searching Lexius Nexus so it’s very proprietary and we were kind of coming at them from the side. Saying all you need to do is buy a c-rom pop it in any pc and search away so it it was very disruptive to their business and in the end they ended up acquiring us 7 years after our founding and and I moved my family and joined them in in trying to. Turn a legacy business into a future business for them at that point I would have been 29.

Alejandro Cremades: How old were you at this point.

Alejandro Cremades: Pay not bad for a 7 figure exit now in this case, it ended up being not what you had hoped for you know once the ah company was acquired the integration happens and you all of a sudden you know started blending with a culture and you found that there was a mismatch what happened there.

Brad Pelo: Um, well the the culture wasn’t so much of a mismatch as as it was that we realized once we got on the other side of the transaction that this company saw us less as an opportunity to catapult the entire industry um into. Open standard space search and retrieval. But instead we’re we’re looking at preserving their business so quick story that kind of represents that moment for me was in the first ninety days of joining the company. They asked me to come to Ohio their corporate headquarters. And to participate in a 3 hree -day executive retreat they had hired ah a big consulting company. You know the names of the big consulting companies to do a study on the future of search engines and full-text retrieval services for professionals and this retreat was meant to. Have the consultant present their findings and for the executive teams to kind of talk about what that means to our 5 year plan as a business and I sat there for those three days and realized I don’t share the worldview of either the consultant or the people sitting around me. Um, everything they’re talking about seems very incremental to me I do not think they they think the internet’s a thing and again this was pre-mosaic so it wasn’t actually much of a thing but but for a startup guy young guy who saw the world through the lens of disruption.

Brad Pelo: I realized that’s not how they saw the world. They were an old legacy company and they were simply looking at the world as to how long can we last doing this and incrementally growing. So here’s what happened you know I was a millionaire I didn’t need this job. And I certainly didn’t want to be stuck in a dinosaur company that wasn’t going to be disruptive and innovate and so on the flight back to my home in Utah um, I penned a fictional press release. Um and I wrote it in a way that you know it it would be believable I thought and it was. Ah, a joint press release between at and t and Microsoft and it it described an announcement wherein. They were saying at t is going to deliver commercial grade connectivity to businesses at large didn’t require the proprietary lines that that lexis ma had been using. And Microsoft was announcing. Um, what we would now think of as a browser it was sort of an an open service that would allow you to connect to any searchable data content via this at and t network um, so it’s taking the 2 key components that were proprietary to alexxa’s nexus. And it was saying these are going to be available to everybody so I wrote that press release and upon my my arrival back to my office in Utah um I print out the press release and just put it on my co-founder’s desk he was on another trip and when he came back a few days later.

Brad Pelo: He came in to me and he said did you see this draft press release from at and T and Microsoft and it hadn’t quite registered to me what he was talking about I said what do you mean? he said well these guys are going to completely disrupt our new parent company elections Nexus and and then I thought wait a minute. Kurt actually thinks this is a real press release and and and so I said no actually I wrote that press release that that isn’t a real one and and then I told him my story. How I’d written it out of frustration. But in that moment I thought you know what? let’s pretend. This is a real press release. So I actually doctored up my document put logos on the top put a big stamp that said draft I faxed it to myself from a friend at Microsoft who was supposedly leaking it to me for a former college roommate so look completely authentic and I then sent that. To my new boss leis nex is in Ohio Viafax and said hey Bruce just wants you to have a heads up that whole study. We just finished didn’t anticipate this move. Um and within an hour. He called me back and and he said. Oh thank you for sending this back. You are absolutely right. Our new study didn’t anticipate. This are you? Okay, if I fly out to Utah spend a day or 2 with you and Kurt and let’s talk about what our answer to this will be because the draft had a date on it. It was still a couple weeks out and he thought let’s get our story together so he flew out.

Brad Pelo: Didn’t tell him it was fake and for a whole day. We sat in a conference room and we drafted up what I believed would be the strategy when the internet actually happens and when browsers actually you’re launched and at the end of the day is nine o’clock at night he was leaning back in his chair just saying. Thank you. I think you saved my job because had this press release gone out. We would have been caught flat footed but I’m going to go back now to the Ceo and I’m going to present this new information. So as he’s getting ready to go to his hotel I said Bruce before you go I just want you to know one thing I wrote that press release. It’s fake. Um, and that didn’t compute for him and and he he said what do you mean? and I said and then I told him you know I’ve been frustrated by the process. You’ve been running I ran my own process you and I and we lived in a moment of reality. Um, and and he was stunned. He I’m not a liar and I don’t want to be but I full Bullface lied for a day about what was going on and he said at the end of about a 5 minute period of silence. He said you are fired I just cannot even believe I flew out here for you know a trick like this. Um. And I said that’s fine I knew that was a risk for me and I’m willing to take it and as so we got up to to leave the room for the night he stopped me and he said you know, actually no you you did the right thing it was courageous I wouldn’t have done it myself. But I think you’re right.

Brad Pelo: Think we’re not thinking as we should and so let’s go do this same prank within the organization and so the very next day he and I flew back to the corporate headquarters. We fax to head the press release to the Ceo we said can we meet with you right away when we get into town. He met with us. We didn’t take him through a. Ah, one day scenario was like 1 hour of living in this press release reality and at the end of the experience. We told him it was an exercise and he was upset that that was going to be a common theme as we do this? no one likes to be so you know Deceived. But at the end of the hour he said we need to do this throughout the organization and so for the next two weeks um I went department by department throughout this organization running into staff meetings with breaking news, a leaked press release and watching the organization react to that and. The result was I then was asked to lead the effort to move luxenceexus to the internet um to open systems over the next couple years. So so that’s an experience of when you get married as a founder into a new parent company.

Alejandro Cremades: No.

Brad Pelo: What’s it going to take to make sure that your visions are aligned and I know that’s an unusual story but that was mine.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s incredible now after this experience you ended up being part of the early days of ancestry dot com you know company that was recently acquired for four point seven billion you were there. The Ceo and a founding member. During the first time you know early days how how was it like there.

Brad Pelo: Well I came out of the lexius nexus experience where that business was built on a lot of public domain data I had a brother in law who who is my co-founder at ancestry. There were a couple other gentlemen as well. but but Paul Allen is his name and he. He called me up in Ohio and he said um I really think this family history genealogy thing could be another emerging area on the internet and and so I started to talk to him about what could be done with public domain data. 1 of the very first things that we acquired was what’s called the social security death index in the United States so it’s everybody who died you had a social security number and for $75 you could buy the entire database on big computer tapes so we bought it and we uploaded on a server. Um I negotiated the acquisition of a publishing company called ancestry publishing and it had a long legacy of but kind of being the leading publisher to genealogists so they had magazine they had reference books we took their reference books digitized them put them on servers. And in no time we began outpacing pornography servers as the early adopters for internet usage people searching out their ancestry. Um I was only there for the formative stage 6 of the first six months

Brad Pelo: and and I myself ah while part of that genesis effort decided that family history wasn’t really my passion at the time and the dynamics of of working with a family member. Um, weren’t something that I enjoyed so much I preferred him as my brother than I did my partner and so we decided to part ways six months later and I went and acquired a media company at the time in transitioned out of that business but no proud to have been a part of those early days but certainly. Wouldn’t take credit for the company that they’ve become.

Alejandro Cremades: Well eventually you um, obviously bought and and ran that media company but 1 of the companies that you ended up founding too. You know was a next page which ended up merging and and the result is proof point which is valued at over 10 billion today. What what were you guys doing there.

Brad Pelo: Well this is right during the height of the dotcom bubble. We think of it historically but where billions of dollars will be invested into everything internet and because of my early experience with Folio I became a believer that. And and Google had just begun to emerge. But I became a believer that that there would need to be cloud-based services that businesses would use to manage internal information to search through their own servers for documents. Um and and email archives et cetera. And so we raised a bunch of of money from venture capitalists. You know the likes of oak out of Connecticut was our lead Vc but we had Silicon Valley Vcs with us in the round as well raised $60000000 and kind of went at it when. With a big team. We did what everyone else was doing. We’re spending money like crazy in the race to to the internet and then the bubble happened and we were fortunate to still be sitting on cash I think we had about 20000000 in cash left over at that point but we also knew based on the implosion. That is it going to be longer road to a sustainable business and and so one of the things that became clear is that we didn’t know when capital would be available again in the private market from vcs and we also didn’t have customers yet for our new product.

Brad Pelo: And so we we took an interesting tack. Yes, there had to be some downsizing to bring costs under control so we could preserve cash but we asked ourself who’s the natural customer for this product and might we presell our solution to them. So we approached several big companies that were kind of knowledge worker focuseded companies because we we figured they’d be the early adopters. They had the most data serving and sitting on their servers and mckinsey the big consulting giant. They became our first customer and we didn’t even have a product. They had a concept so we pitched them on the concept and then pledged that we would build it if they would commit to being our first customer which was in in and of itself a big deal. Because that first transaction then would be a multimillion dollar annual license that that we felt like if we if we got them to take delivery then there would be many more people just like them who wanted that same product and they would be a great reference. Client. So for the next year plus actually it took us more in a year to build out the product but we used them as sort of the spec. Um, not. We weren’t building it in contracting fashion where you know.

Brad Pelo: They created the requirements documents and we simply fulfilled their needs. No. We generalized it. We made something that can be used by a lot of people but we made sure it would meet their needs and in that process we were able to deliver a final product to them that they not only paid for but continued to pay for. Served as our reference customer and and that business took off and and just a couple years after that we we merged with proofpoint who was a little larger than us but about like sized as pre- ipo. And and then proof point went public with us together I don’t know what that’s been fifteen years ago now or something but long time ago and now’s a thriving business. So so my my lesson learned there and I’ve I’ve shared this with other entrepreneurs. Is. We talk about mvps but in terms of product development. But but we ought to also think of the minimally viable customer in that process and the possibility of matching those 2 up very very early essentially with the customer as sponsor. Um, so it it was save the company move and and also allows you to have product market fit right out of the gate. Especially if you’re good at translating customer need to something that is more generally appealing to a broader market.

Alejandro Cremades: Now the the next day in rodeo that you did was with i.tv and today my question there for you is what what did you learn there about first mover advantage.

Brad Pelo: So ah, this is an interesting story because I I had envisioned that one day we would have digital devices digital flat screen devices something that we would think of as an ipad or iphone today. Um. And I had in mind the visual image of that very very early on long before they existed as devices and I mocked one up and digitally mocked one up and saved it as my wallpaper on my computer. Um, so every time I opened my computer I was reminded of this future device and ah and and it sort of begged the question. What would you do with a device like that. Um, and I began working with some engineers in stealth mode. Um. Ah, specking out to build the physical device because none existed at the time close thing to it would have been like digital picture frames that had started to emerge but nothing that was a smart device so we began specking out with with the thought that we would build that but we also began thinking about the services. That a customer would use on that device and so we were specing that out at the same time and I was actually in Las Vegas in the cs show um, kind of looking for potential oem devices or something that we might piggyback off of.

Brad Pelo: When Steve jobs on that same day first day at Cs announced the iphone and and I tuned into the announcement I went back to my hotel just to watch his announcement and I never returned to the to the show floor at cs I was so taken by what he was announcing. That I immediately knew we had to pivot we had to move from building a device to building out the services and 1 of the services that we had identified were what we would think of today as media delivery services. So we we built our in its first instance. Ah, digital television guide and when Ida Tv launched as an app when the app store first opened at Apple we were you know, featured multiple times by Apple on their on their storefront page. Ah they they promoted us in the press. They. Made us fans of their their conferences and and yet what we were experiencing was the advantage of kind of being first on a platform and first with the concept it sort of opened the eyes of people of well if I if I have. Um, a directory essentially a Tv guy on I phone. Why can’t I watch these shows from my phone and so then we began partnering with what were then the laggards even though they were emerging companies themselves so it was.

Brad Pelo: Netflix we we convinced them to let us integrate into their api the time they weren’t streaming anything. It was all a disk-based service but you could you could be in our app and i.tv see a show on television. Click on it. It would tell you where it was playing on your local service provider say comcast but it would all also say add to my Netflix queue and you could just click on that and it would integrate into the Netflix system and send you the disc if you wanted the next integration we did was with Tivo. Um. And the vcr company and and similar idea they didn’t have an app but we integrated into our service stability for you to say record that show or send me a reminder about that show and we essentially had a remote control then for your Tivo. Ah, we we partnered with movie tickets.com to integrate ticket purchasing into the system for events. Um, and then we started getting calls from the Tv providers themselves Directv and time warner cable and Comcast and. Um, and we started providing kind of white label solutions to the market based on what became a service in the and the services business. Um, and then when Twitter and other things kind of blew up around television. We we became what was thought of as the second screen of television.

Brad Pelo: Idea that you could be watching the super bowl and at the same time synchronized on your screen were advertisements and stats and replays around the show so that business was eventually inquired by Directv which took me to New York city for a few years but at the end of the day. The lesson learned was and and again I preach this to fellow entrepreneurs all the time if you hold too tightly to your idea without looking at that idea as as an opportunity to super serve a customer then you might hold on to your. Your own means to creating that solution rather than simply thinking. How can I participate in solving the problem so had I kind of stayed the course and built the digital device. It would have been a total failure because we know how ubiquitous our smart devices have become. But when I pivoted into the services business. So I could deliver a customer solution to those devices I became a first mover entrant and used that first position to then go overserve other people who needed to be come partners eventually.

Alejandro Cremades: And then the next one up is say the next one up is say what was the lesson learned we say.

Brad Pelo: In that ecosystem.

Brad Pelo: Ah, the lesson learned was get out of New York city during covid I say say was ah, actually short-lid business I um. Say would be today. What we think of as apps like Marco Polo asynchronous video chat and I built that company in New York City and then ended up merging just pre- pandemic with another company called radiant. And radiant was more of a digital studio and so instead of using asynchronous video as a private messaging service like Marco Pole we’re envisioning ipping an asynchronous platform for influencers and for um. Luminaries celebrities et cetera and so that business was just sort of emerging at the time covid hit and even though it would have been a perfect time for remote workers. Um it. It. It wasn’t ready for prime time. And the parent company that I merged with decided to stop investing because the other properties they owned in the media space were television and radio that were being significantly impacted by ad dollars at the time and they just said we’re not going to keep investing.

Brad Pelo: So the the story there is actually what happens when it all goes wrong because that was the circumstance I was in even though I’d been paid in the merger gratefully upfront with some good cash I now found myself without a business to build. And without customers to serve in the middle of the pandemic. So we left Manhattan went out west where we we could be closer to some of our family and it was there while literally working on twenty five acres of land out by park city Utah that I owned. That I was introduced to Dallas Jenkins who was the creator of a television show called the chosen and he and I started talking about ways that I could potentially serve in in helping him with his business which was growing out of a television show. That have been crowdfunded so back to your question alexandro you know what’s the lesson from say that the say that Lesson would be not only about you know the startup antics but you know when it all went bad when it all didn’t work out. Um you know. Just be available for something I call it the grace of god but you know something that I can apply myself to I can give my gifts to and that became the chosen.

Alejandro Cremades: So obviously at the time of the chosen. You know you were now you know with the experience of 3 feature films 7 years of a telecast so they chosen so tell us what are you guys doing at the chosen.

Brad Pelo: The chosen is really interesting. Let’s go back to my experience at nextpage proof point it was find that customer and use that customer superserve him in such a way that he not only. Finances your business but when you deliver the product to him. He becomes your advocate and that is the story of the chosen the chosen as a Tv series um did not have a studio to back it. It’s it’s the story of Jesus actually and you’d say well that story’s been told a thousand times which is true but never has it been told in a multi-season Tv series something that’s going to spread out over 7 seasons cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make and you’re not going to find a cable channel. Ah, streaming service at least in that day that was going to underwrite a project like that and yet Dollas Jenkins believed there was an underserved market. There was a market of people who wanted that story told in ah in a modern way using modern film techniques and amazing actors and. Storytelling structure that we were used to and other great hit television dramas that had never been done and so he went directly to the audience. He produced a short film that demonstrated his storytelling technique.

Brad Pelo: And he put that out on Youtube and then he just started hitting the socials and saying watch this short if you would like to see a Tv series made just like this using this storytelling technique then join me help help me fund this. And within about a 6 to nine month period he had raised over $10000000 largest crowdfunding project in history around any media property. So $10000000 to fund season. 1 of this show. And and then he took those funds made the season turned right right back around to those customers who were begging for that product and he delivered and and guess who became an army of advocates those 16000 people not because they were. Wanting a return on their investment even though I’m sure some of them did but because he had fulfilled the the promise ah his customer promise to them is if you if you will buy it I will give it and he did and now that show is in its fourth season. We just wrapped filming season. 4 now serve as president of the chosen and and that has been entirely funded by the audience entirely now this over the budgets. You know the first season was 10000000 the second season was eight third was 25000000 the fourth was 40000000 so you add it up.

Brad Pelo: You know that’s one ah $100000000 that has come from the audience to simply say keep providing this product to me so we’re in the unique position now that you know we we don’t have exclusivities to Studios And Networks we have a product that. We can deliver directly to the customer which is extremely unique.

Alejandro Cremades: So talk to us about the for the scope and size. You know what’s the audience and the reach and you know anything that you can you know share with us or ah around that.

Brad Pelo: Yeah, well as of today when we’re recording this podcast. The chosen is the number 1 television show on Amazon prime um, it’s it’s been in the top call it 7 Amazon properties over the last two months so Amazon just released season. 3 ah, July fifteen so very recently and and the reason I use that metric as an example is because that’s you know that’s just a general purpose watch Tv movies. You know documentaries on this platform. It’s now also season 1 is on Netflix. It’s also on peacock all 3 seasons. Um. And then around the world. It’s been translated thus far into over 50 languages dubbed in season one was dubbed into 11 languages by the end of this year we’ll have all 3 seasons dubbed into 50 languages and we. We have ah, we’ve delivered the show to at least one ah hundred and fifty million households worldwide at this point um and and those are just numbers. We can count. We don’t have access to Amazon’s numbers and you know, but where we can get the metrics. Um, we add those up and and the reach has been significant. So this is a show that has really kind of moved into a cultural moment and again even though the central character that shows Jesus Christ um this is this is not a show just for christians you know.

Brad Pelo: It is a christian show but it’s it’s a historical drama. You know you’re living the first century a d with the people that knew Jesus the romans you know Roman Occupied territory and his disciples and it’s the characters of these people being woven together. Same way any great tv drama would be delivered to the market. That’s what we do in this show. So it’s become very compelling. We’re super excited. We will deliver season 4 the first of the year and and then we have 3 more seasons beyond that.

Alejandro Cremades: Now Incredible. Obviously the um, the journey that you’ve had you know, incredible entrepreneurial journey to so imagine if I was to put you into a time machine and I bring you back in time maybe to that moment where your dad sat you down and said hey. You know it’s time to ah to get going and producing and that was when the ah engines you know for you turned you know on starting to figure out how to take care of yourself and how to really control your own Future. You know by building things Imagine if you had the opportunity of really having a sit down with that younger Brad. And being able to tell that younger Brad one piece of advice before launching a business. What would that be and why you know what? you know now.

Brad Pelo: Based on what I know now I would say that Brad because in our younger years we’re were were dreamers extraordinaire at least I was and I didn’t understand the cost. Of of getting the job done. It was almost as if I could dream it I could create it so what I would say is surround yourself with smart people. Smart defined as people who can complete you if you think of yourself as the product generator. And you only have one component. Let’s call it the user interface like that’s what I bring to the table I’m I’m the user interface well think of all the other components and services that need to come to the table in order to provide a solution instead of thinking of your employees or your team members as just people to get the task done for you. Think of them as your co-collaborors that are completing you so my leadership would be different I would I would no longer look at people as just objects players on a chessboard to kind of put into play for my benefit said I would think of them as augmentors I would say I’m incomplete. Actually can’t deliver to market a solution without having ah a super smart software architect who’s got the capacity to translate what’s in here in my user interface so speak to services and and it’s.

Brad Pelo: It’s easy and of course there’s some great stories about young teams that have accomplished a lot of great things but in in my case I was really fortunate to find some very seasoned mentors early in my career people. 2030 years older than me. Um. Who were open to the collaboration of a young 20 something ah and and then the kind of translation effort of taking practical business skills that they had. They didn’t have kind of the emerging technology skills that I did. And find a happy medium and that took time I wasn’t a very humble 20 something I was a pretty arrogant smarter than-body kind of guy so that message now to that twentysome would be to say be humble, be teachable. And recognize you’re incomplete and and humble enough to gather people inclusively instead of objectively so that would be number 1 the other thing I would add is don’t hold on too tight. Some of my businesses I feel like I held on too tight. Meaning I felt like no one else could do this job as as we were scaling and so I I held on to role position and authority way too long and it wasn’t until my third or fourth company that I realized no I’m actually a really great chairman of the board after I built a company.

Brad Pelo: And they’re really good operators. Um, and don’t be afraid of the fact that you built it and you might feel like it’s yours. But remember if you were fully augmented. It was a group of people who did it and so maybe your new role is really different than leading the company. And I found great satisfaction when I realized that I didn’t have to hang on so tight. So maybe that’s a counsel I’d give to a little later stage Brad but those are the first 2 things that come to mind.

Alejandro Cremades: I Love it So Brad for the people that are listening that will love to reach out and say hi is there any method to do so social media email. What are you? What? what? What do you? What would you say to them.

Brad Pelo: Yeah, I’m just I give you my email because I’m an older guy who doesn’t spend a lot of time on social media just frankly for time sake I have social media accounts and handleals. But if you reach out to me there. It’s going to be a while before I reply So just Brad at the Chosen Tv um. And feel free to reach out if I can blush your life or offer any perspective love to be helpful.

Alejandro Cremades: You see you know well Brad thank you so much for being on the dealmaker show today. It has been an honor to have you with us.

Brad Pelo: Thank you Aljandro! It’s been great to be with you.

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