Heroes in Business - Mike Fata, Owner CEO Fata & Associates, Multiple 9 figure exits, Podcast “Founder to Mentor,” Author

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

Mike Fata, Owner CEO Fata & Associates, Multiple 9 figure exits, Podcast “Founder to Mentor,” Author is interviewed by David Cogan of Eliances entrepreneur community and host of the Heroes Show.  

welcome back to alliances heroes where heroes in business align to be part of our super community and find out more about alliances visit www.alliances.com all right well welcome back to the show again super excited so much is always. And again, it's our viewers and our listeners that make the motivation and allow us to continue to do this. As you know, we're on AMFM and a number of other outlets. Thank you too for the past feedback. We continue to have one I had on the MMA fighter, Shamrock, Frank Shamrock. In fact, he's going to be at our next grand table. So make sure that you continue to watch and listen to Alliances, the only place where entrepreneurs align.

Well, I'm super excited today. All right, are you ready for this? We have Mike Fata on our show. Now, he's the owner and CEO of Fata and Associates, multiple, not one, not five, nine figure exits, podcast founder to mentor. And if that wasn't enough, author, grow 12 unconventional lessons for becoming an unstoppable entrepreneur. You can reach him at mikefata.ca. Once again, that's mikefata.ca. And of course, we'll have our website at eliances.com, E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com.

Okay, Mike, so let's get right into it. Multiple nine-figure exits? Yeah, thanks for having me, David. Yeah, 25 years now as an entrepreneur, and I've been successful with three nine-figure exits, 132 million, 419 million, and 125 million. All right. What's the secret stream where you've tied all these together? What is that golden nugget of how you were able to do it and what carried across all of them? Yeah. I'm tying my personal passions to my business. I'm very passionate about health. After losing over 100 pounds and regaining my health, I got super interested in health and health food and then started a couple

health food companies and grew those businesses to world class. So I think the glue is the passion, but we built it on quality, world class quality. And when you make something of significant quality and had a large sales and a large consumer following. We were fortunate enough that companies saw opportunity with that and acquired the businesses. I mean, hard to believe, again, at the age of 18. I mean, you look amazing. At the age of 18, though, you weighed 300 pounds. Yeah, I fell prey to fast food and ate just way too much McDonald's. And yeah, at 18 years old, found myself at 300 pounds and now I'm about 185 pounds.

So I've kept off the weight over the last 25 years. Congratulations. I use your products, ones that you've developed, Manitoba Harvest. I just recently went grocery store and bought the Hemp Hearts. Yeah. Hemp Hearts is a phenomenal product now, sold know, sold in about 20,000 stores, um, about a hundred million dollars a year in business. And, uh, you know, just a great source of plant-based protein and essential fatty acids. Well, when I see him personally, whenever you sign the package, so, uh, talk to us about your, your personal journey,

kind of like, again, the whole, how did you go though from again that that 300 pounds like what was the shift of or the light uh that you saw which is okay i'm gonna shift i'm not gonna do this anymore i was i was literally sick and tired of being sick and tired being 300 pounds is not easy physically felt exhausted and and um it just felt horrible and one day i woke up and i was like i I'm tired of doing that. And thankfully I had an older brother that, um, was already working out. And so he took me to the gym and we started to exercise and I started to research and try different foods, but ultimately changed my whole lifestyle to more of a natural foods lifestyle and a healthy lifestyle. And I've, I've just kept that up over the last 25 years i feel like a different person i am a different person but i know that i'm not there's

nothing really special about me i know that anyone can do it if you make if you focus on the positive change in a lifestyle change you can change every aspect of your physical health but the industries the businesses that you built and you grow those are so competitive than that what kind of secrets can you share as far as i mean to enter something that uh you know where the ginormous right these huge companies in there will do anything to almost crush you from stopping you to be able to even sell it how did you overcome it how are you able to do it you know one of the secrets and i talk about this in in my book, is building community. We build products for ourselves.

We should, you know, for a good founder product fit. I made hemp hearts because I wanted them in my own kitchen. And then I went to my friends and family. And then I developed a community of like-minded, healthy consumers and literally took the time one-on-one to introduce them to our product and why they want to incorporate hemp into their lifestyle and how to easily incorporate it like diet and recipes. And, you know, over 20 years, you could build one-on-one customers. We had a million customers by the time that I exited the business. So all about building community. I'm a big believer in make friends first, do business second. Phenomenal. Again, we have with us Mike Fata, owner and CEO of Fata and Associates, multiple nine-figure exits, podcast founder to mentor and author of Grow 12 Unconventional Lessons for Becoming an Unstoppable Entrepreneur. You're watching, listening to me, David Kogan,

host of the Alliance's Hero Show. As you know, it's the only place where entrepreneurs align. You can go to eliances.com. Make sure you go to Mike's website at mikefata.ca, M-I-K-E-F-A-T-A-N-C-E-S dot com. Make sure you go to Mike's website at Mike Fata dot C-A-M-I-K-E-F-A-T-A dot C-A. So, boy, the experience that you've had. I mean, have you ever thought about doing now number four? I mean, you're on a roll. Why stop at three? Yeah, well, I do. You know, I'm a recovering entrepreneur, so I'm not sure that I'm fit to operate a business just right now, but I do like supporting other founders. And so I have nine companies in my portfolio that I'm invested in and active in about half of those companies as a board member, as an investor, as an advisor to the founders. And so I like to help. I can see Midday Squares, I'm proudly wearing the hat, is a company that will

be nine figures in revenue and have a multiple nine-figure exit themselves. And just trying to build world-class, even if I'm not operating it myself. Great. And for those of you that are watching right now too, you could see Mike here, good, healthy looking guy. He's wearing a hat here. What's it say on the hat? We can't quite see it. Midday Squares. Midday Squares is a functional chocolate company that is now four years old in business and is already past $20 million in revenue. Just a wonderful product. Refrigerated chocolate, kind of like a protein bar meets a chocolate bar.

Tastes great, functional, and just delicious and now available all over Canada and the US. Fantastic. So I know one of the things that you follow is having the best day ever, but being able to have that every day, is that possible? And if so, how can we all have it? Yeah, I'm a big believer in the best day ever every day. The thing is, everyone's best day ever is different. So it starts really with a mindfulness practice, because if you don't have a plan, you're never going to get to your best day ever. And for sure, you're not going to do it consistently. But actually scoping out, how do you want to live your day?

You know, what kind of work do you want to work on? How much sleep do you need to be successful in yourself? What, how's your diet and your exercise regime and like have a plan to that and then start living that plan. I think when, when, uh, people actually start to put their best day ever plan together, they're going to realize maybe they're far away from it. Maybe they're working a job that they don't want, or maybe they want to start that business that they yet to have. Um, but have. But if you're clear on what makes your best day ever and you start doing the work, I guarantee you that you will get to

that. And then, yeah, I think you can live your best day ever every day. Great. And again, your podcast really is as founder to mentor. I mean, so you, you know, did you have mentors when you were prior to being a founder? I had great mentors in my life and I credit it to really the success that I've had. People just showing me what good look like. And so I want to show others what good looks like and specifically how to grow both personally and professionally. So the founders that I bring on the show share their story of success and many founders that have been just as successful as I have in their career and they want to give back and share their story and help others. So what do you look for in a mentee?

Someone that's ready and willing to grow. I shared my story of just literally being sick and tired of being sick and tired and I was ready. You could tell people that are ready to grow and that's the thing that excites me the most. I've had now founders that I've mentored for over 10 years, and they were a startup business, just getting into business. And now they're operating an eight-figure company, like a $10 million plus in revenue company. And so it's wonderful to be able to help shape and guide some of these entrepreneurs and watch them grow personally and professionally. Excellent. Let's talk a little bit about your book too. Again,

you're the author of Grow 12 Unconventional Lessons for Becoming an Unstoppable Entrepreneur. So we've got 12 different unconventional lessons. What are maybe one or two of those that just somebody would just go, what? How is that? Yeah, I think we're speaking around some of them, but I'm a big believer in finding your own personal passion. And that's different for everybody. Some people get stuck into the conventional way, like you're supposed to go to school, and then you're supposed to get a career kind of job and then meet the person that you love and raise a family. And the reality is the far majority of us are not living the conventional path.

And so I'm a big believer in like finding your own personal passion and hopefully aligning your personal passion with your business or whether you're working in a job or you start a company, align that. So, you know, use the example of if you like sports and you're into golf, like organize your profession around golf and you're going to be successful every day of your life. Also, when you start out and you get into your business or your career, build community. And you can build community by giving back and volunteering your time. I've done 25 years of volunteer work and I know how much of the part

of my success that's been because when you have a community of people that want to support you, you're unstoppable as an entrepreneur. Those are a couple of the lessons, but it's basically things that I've learned throughout my career, building a business from zero to a hundred million dollars, recreating myself personally and my health. And I want to share that with others. Fantastic. Excellent, excellent, excellent information. So we've got time for one more. And I think this question, and this is very important in that is, is what advice do you have for children and how they can make a difference in the world around them as you have? But more importantly, how do you see it being best and whether it's parents

that are listening now or kind of, you know, young children and that, that are watching or listening of, of being able to find like what your passion is. Cause it's, you've mentioned that as being the key, but how do you find it? Yeah, it's, it's, I found it's very much like expanding your palate. How do you expand your palate? You have to try a number of different foods. And especially for kids. It's important for kids to try olives and try different sauces and try different exotic foods and find ones they like. Well, your passion is different.

Some people don't know what their passion is yet. That's okay. Try different things on. it is yes that's okay try different things on but i can tell you when you write on something that you do whether you're paid or not and you feel like you want to do it for the rest of your life that's what you're passionate about you should dig into that both from a personal growth and and also professionally is is there an opportunity there for you to make money and have a have a living on either a business or working in that field. Excellent. Well, Mike, you're an inspiration to so many.

You continue to provide mentorship and entrepreneur lessons to those looking to become stronger in their craft. That's a hero. Mike Fata can be reached at owner, and he's the owner and CEO of Fata and Associates, multiple nine-figure exits, of founder to mentor author of grow 12 unconventional lessons for becoming an unstoppable entrepreneur make sure you go to mikefata.ca this has been david cogan with the alliances hero show make sure you go to alliances.com e-l-i-a-n-S dot com. The only place where entrepreneurs align.