Start With A Win - Candy Valentino: Why 91% of Businesses Fail

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

In this mastermind episode of Start With a Win, bestselling author and trailblazing entrepreneur Candy Valentino joins Adam Contos in sharing a raw and riveting journey - from humble beginnings in a trailer to building and selling multiple thriving businesses. With hard-earned wisdom and unapologetic honesty, Candy breaks down the myths of modern entrepreneurship, challenges the glamorized “four-hour workweek” mindset, and reveals the truth about discipline, sacrifice, and resilience. If you’re ready to confront the real road to success - and unlock practical insights to elevate your financial future - this episode will shake your perspective and spark your ambition.Candy Valentino is a highly sought-after expert in business leadership, finance and investing. Candy was born in a trailer on government assistance, but went on to build, scale and exit companies in service, retail, manufacturing and real estate investing. Her 26 years of business and finance experience, coupled with the way she breaks down and teaches complex business and finance topics, has earned her notable speaking engagements, viral video content, national media placement, and international recognition. She is the author of Wealth Habits, an instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller, and The 9% Edge.00:00 Intro02:30 This is here for you too… 04:20 We have the ability to be hungry because we are this…08:50 What should you look for as an entrepreneur? 12:06 Key factor that will make a business fail!16:35 This habit you weren’t taught is keeping you stuck! 21:02 Make friends with this.23:40 Shocking statement, need to relisten a few times to this! 26:15 If I can control this…it will set up my day, week and even month.https://www.candyvalentino.com/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCigB0JiMAnkyrN5auGcsVVAhttps://www.facebook.com/candyvalentinoofficial/https://www.instagram.com/candyvalentino/https://www.linkedin.com/in/candyvalentino/Book: https://9percentedge.com/===========================Subscribe and Listen to the Start With a Win Podcast HERE:📱 ===========================YT ➡︎ https://www.youtube.com/@AdamContosCEOApple ➡︎ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/start-with-a-win/id1438598347Spotify ➡︎ https://open.spotify.com/show/4w1qmb90KZOKoisbwj6cqT===========================Connect with Adam:===========================Website ➡︎ https://adamcontos.com/Facebook  ➡︎ https://facebook.com/AdamContosCEOTwitter  ➡︎ https://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOInstagram  ➡︎ https://instagram.com/adamcontosceo/#adamcontos #startwithawin #leadershipfactory

We've gotten really weak on discipline. We've gotten really weak on consistency. We've gotten really weak on hard work because somehow social media has demonized it. So it's important for listeners to know that a lot of the money habits that you weren't taught, that you caught in your environment along your life are probably the things that are keeping you stuck

where you are right now. And if you wanna elevate that level of life now. And if you want to elevate that level of life that you have, you need to elevate your financial acumen. And the scary thing is, is people don't understand it. The beautiful thing is that it's available to all of us. Welcome to Start With a Win, where we unpack leadership, personal growth and development, and how to build a better business. Let's go. Why do 91% of businesses fail? Today we talk about that on Start With a Win. Coming to you from Area 15 Ventures and Start With a Win headquarters,

it's Adam Kontos with Start With a Win. Well, today we're diving deep with someone who embodies the spirit of business success. I'm thrilled to introduce to you Candy Valentino, a Wall Street Journal bestselling author and a total powerhouse in the business investment world. Here's the thing, Candy didn't start with a silver spoon.

She started her first business at 19 with no degree, no corporate background and no money. Yes, you heard that right. She has since built and sold multiple successful businesses in various industries. She's a real estate investor and also a philanthropist. We're talking about someone who has actually done it, overcoming incredible odds. This is going to be a masterclass.

So get ready to learn some real world strategies to elevate your business and your life. Candy, welcome to start with a win. Adam, thanks so much for having me. Awesome. You have a really interesting backstory, growing up in a trailer, a tough childhood, growing up with essentially nothing, you know, except for,

and I shouldn't say nothing because I didn't grow up with a lot of material items either, but you had so much more insight and you turned that into something amazing. So I want to dive into how people can create great wealth, how can people create a great lifestyle future, things like that, with the proper steps and the proper knowledge.

And you've done so much to help a lot of people down this road, but take us back to the early days. How did you get to where you're at today? Where did you start from and where are you at today? Yeah. So first off, I want everyone listening. Cause I think sometimes when we hear the word wealth and we hear money, sometimes people start to put up walls, right? Maybe they have some, some pre-conceived conditions or notions or thoughts that they have about money. And sometimes that'll make them filter out the information. So I just wanna preface this first.

It doesn't matter what your current situation is. It doesn't matter where you came from. It doesn't matter your background, your family, or whatever decisions that you made that got you to this place, wealth is here for you too. So I wanna start with that. And oftentimes what it really depends on is the thoughts that we have in our mind. Now, I believe that

money mindset is important, but it's really one piece. What I don't like is the people that only focus on this, right? So if we just sat on our couch and said, we're going to be rich and recite some affirmations, it's going to happen. I believe that's a bunch of BS. So I like to tell you the actual practical things that you can do. And these are things that I've done. Because basically what you said in the beginning, I grew up in a trailer to teenage parents. My dad was a mechanic. My mom cleaned houses.

I just watched two people try to figure life out. And when you grow up in that environment, you're just doing a lot of surviving. There's no intention of how to raise a child. We were all pretty much growing up together. And so from zero to about 10 years old, you know, we were in and out of government assistance until my dad could kind of get his feet in starting his first small business.

So when he was 24, he had the last $200 in his pocket. And he decided after he got fired, now he has a five-year-old, imagine, right? 24 years old, five-year- old, you get fired from your job. He starts his own auto mechanic shop, basically out of desperation of just trying to make it work. The business that he wanted to start in this building cost $400 a month.

He had $200 literally to his name. And he said, let me sweep it up, let me clean up the place and work off the rest. Talk about leverage. So a lot of times when we start with nothing, we have the ability to be really hungry because we have leverage to get it done. And so I saw hard work and how you can pretty much

do anything if you're willing to do whatever it takes. And I think in today's world, we've gotten really weak on discipline. We've gotten really weak on consistency. We've gotten really weak on consistency. We've gotten really weak on hard work because somehow social media has demonized it. You're supposed to wake up at the beach every day and love what you do.

That's not my experience. I'm sure there's people out there that have done it. But when I started my first business in 19 with no college degree, no corporate background and a six week run rate with an SBA loan, I had six weeks to figure it out, or like my dad, I was gonna be out of money. So that leverage gives you the ability to show up,

like show up when no one's looking, show up when the cameras are off, show up when you don't know what to do, and just be willing to figure it out. And so that's been my journey, starting my very first business when I was 19, starting numerous companies since then, helping other people scale their companies.

And now that I've exited a few times and retired a few times, I now have the ability to just talk about it, which is a much easier thing than when you're actually in the trenches doing it. There you go. So what was that first business at 19? What did you start? I started a spa back in the late 90s when they weren't very popular. Wow.

Because in order to go to college, it was going to take four years. I had a scholarship based off of my SAT scores. Well, I'm like, that's going to take four years. So four years, I'm going to be paying someone else. I'm not making any money. So then I was like, all right, what can I do? And so I started looking into recession-proof businesses. What businesses survived through the depression?

Believe it or not, hair salons was one of those fields. So I was like, well, what does that take? And literally it was just one question after another. Oh, I can do this in six months, start a spa. There's none of them around in like 150 miles. Let's try that. And that was literally the information that I pitched to a bunch of college professors

at St. Vincent College to get an SBA loan. I walk in 19 briefcase, black suit, I still wear black suits, walk in with a black suit and my briefcase and say, I have this great idea. There's these things in New York City and I think women will love them in this area too. What do you say? And so they bought it. And thankfully it was because of the fact that the SBA was trying to give women loans back

then because you figure this was only about eight to nine years after women could even get their own business account without a man's signature. So it was a crazier time back then. The barrier to entry now has never been lower, but that also means that you have the ability to really stand out. You know, a lot of people are taking the easy way out in business. They're leveraging a lot of digital. They're removing the humanity behind connecting with your customers and connecting with your audience. And so I think that even though the barrier of entry has never been lower,

it's really the opportunity for you to stand out ahead of your competitors. Oh yeah. It's interesting to listen to you because I mean, you and I both grew up during the same time frame here. And being an entrepreneur back then was not cool. It was not. It meant you couldn't work for anybody else. And Ad being 19 and a female, I mean, people would walk in to my first brick and mortar location and was like, hi, I'm here for the owner. Where's the owner? And I'm like, you know, me and they'd be like, Oh, is it your husband's life? No, I'm not married. You know, like, and it was just one

of those things that you had to overcome. Totally different world to your point now. Oh, yeah. And, and by the way, for everybody listening to this, and we have a ton of different demographics, those of you that are let's, let's say you're over 45 folks, or over 40 for that matter. Let's just call it over 40 at this point. The reality is, our parents wanted to get a job with a retirement or a pension or something like that.

And that's what we were led to believe. But ultimately, I started a couple of businesses when I was in my early 20s. And really what it came down to was more than what we thought was needed. It was a lot of hard work and consistency and dedication. Somehow today we think we can be an influencer or we can do something and work.

It's the four hour work week or whatever it is. Give me your take on that. I mean, is that what truly life should, what we should expect from running a business if we want to be an entrepreneur? Or what should we look forward to in order to find success? Candy, what do you think about that? So I think if you go into starting a business,

because you're going to have some epicuric schedule or life, you're setting yourself up to fail. Starting a business, and I wish more people would be honest, but the honesty and the reality of it isn't sexy. So it's not clickbait on social media. And so I always feel like my job is to remove the veil, if you will, this delusional veil that has been created because we've glamorized entrepreneurship. And I remember thinking, I don't remember being all

that glamorous from 19 to 39. I mean, even that 20 year journey of just trying to figure out how to acquire customers and how to make payroll when my friends were out party and in celebrating, right? Like I was trying to figure out how to like balance inventory of a brick and mortar was a disaster. By being willing to do what other people won't now. You get the ability later to do what people can't even imagine. And that's what I'm doing now. So although

that journey was super hard and confusing, and there were so many moments where I was starting additional locations or a different business and I'm thinking, what am I doing? That's really just part of it. And so I think for people that are going into it to have a four hour work week, I think you're going into it to fail. I think you really should go into it because it's something that calls you. Now, I also don't glamorize it that I think everyone should be an entrepreneur. There are a lot of people that can have a better quality of life. They could actually still invest a lot of money by being a number two, a number five, or having a solid day job. Like not everyone is cut out for it. Now everyone can do it if they wanted to, but I really don't think it's something that everyone should do unless you want that different level of life. Now, obviously you can

make a lot more money if you figure it out, but there's also a lot more risk. And I don't think anybody talks about that. They glamorize the upside of it, but they don't talk about the risk element that 91% of all businesses fail. That's why my book, The 9% Edge, 9% succeed after their 10 years. So if 91% of all businesses fail, you have to really be intentional in the beginning of your business to set it up so that it can be successful and sustain success because anyone can be successful for a small period of time. It takes a totally different skill set to sustain success long-term. Right. And you mentioned recession proof as well as, you know, we'll say business cycle proof, things of that nature. Because every business goes through different highs

and lows. And some people start a business when it's at a peak for that particular business model. And then they're spending as much as they're bringing in, things like that. I've known a lot of people that get that way. Next thing you know, you're like, wow, this person's super successful.

Then they're calling you up going, hey, can I borrow 10 grand? I got to pay my rent this month, and things aren't working for us. So that's obviously a key lesson that a lot of people learn in business. But what were some of the other initial key lessons that you learned in starting your multiple businesses,

making the exits, what have you? Drop some of that wisdom on us for entrepreneurs that are listening to this. So one of the things I didn't realize I did until after I did it was I was very intentional in the beginning. And now that I've done research on 17,000 entrepreneurs and 2000 small businesses in the United States, we now know that one of the key factors that the lack of intention will make businesses fail. I lucked out in doing that. And here's why. I watched my dad work nonstop from six in the morning till 10 o'clock at

night and I got dropped off at his garage every single day. So I got basically grew up inside of a small business working with customers, answering the phone, typing on a typewriter. And so for me, I saw that my dad missed out on so much. There was no doing family dinners or family anything for that matter. We just worked together. That was the way we spent time. And so I said, if I'm going to do a business, I want to do this differently. I want to have life. I want to be able to travel. I want to be able to do stuff. And so I was like, I'm going to only do this for 20 years. And at the time, I had heard that less than one half of 1% of female founded companies were ever acquired.

And so rather than being like, oh my gosh, this is never going to work. I was like, what do I need to do to be part of that 0.5% and how do I need to set my business up in the beginning in order to exit? That was the first thing that because of my experience of what I didn't want, it was what I started to intentionally do, which was to set a business up to be acquired so that it didn't live and breathe on me. And this is what we call the self-employed sabotage. I talk about it in the book. So many people think that they're starting a business. What they actually did was acquire a job, a job that they have to show up for, a job that they have to be involved every single day.

That's not actually a business. A business is a machine that can generate revenue so that you can build wealth and have what everyone truly wants, which is time freedom. Oftentimes business owners don't get that and they wake up three, five, 10 years down the road and go, oh my gosh, I have to show up to this beast. I'm not going to make any money. So what I did very intentionally in the beginning was I started with seven employees. That big loan that I got from the SBA, that's really what it paid for was payroll for seven

employees until I could start to really understand how to acquire customers. So starting with intention of what you're building is really the foundational principle. And I always use this analogy. I know you said you have a lot of realtors. So there's probably people that understand construction, right? Realtors are super sharp at picking up all kinds of stuff. So when you're in a building a home, you have to lay the foundation, right? We have all of these codes to prevent you from laying a slab, building a ranch, and

then halfway through the build, you decide to build a three-story. That's not going to happen, right? Because they're going to stop you. Unfortunately, in entrepreneurship, nobody stops you. There's no codes. You just make it up as you go. So oftentimes, people lay a slab to build a ranch, and they end up trying to stack two, and three, and four stories on that same foundation. The very boring part, we have to lay the foundation of what it is that we're going to build. And secondly, the number one reason that all businesses fail, that 91% is all due to finances, not understanding money, not understanding sales, customer acquisition cost, really knowing the profit that they're making.

So understanding how to set up the foundation of what you wanna build. And then secondly, is being obsessive about your numbers. Again, I was a math nerd. So this just worked out to my advantage. I wanted to know accounting and taxes, and I would ask my CPA endless questions. I would wanna know exactly what people were doing

to acquire customers and how much they were spending. And so a lot of those expensive lessons came too. Like for example, I thought when I was about 25, I invested six figures. Now this is a lot back then, six figures into billboard campaigns. And I remember thinking, I invested six figures, we brought in 500 grand off of that campaign.

Like, this is awesome. We just need to keep doing that. What I was not figuring out, again, this is embarrassing to admit, but I was 25 years old, that $100,000 spent to acquire $500,000 in revenue, I was at a net even, if not slightly a loss, at an 18% profit margin on those products and services, right? So I remember thinking, well, wait a minute,

what if I just spend this much money? Will I just get this much more? But I didn't have the gap figured out right. So that was an expensive lesson to learn, gross and net are two entirely different things. So it's important for listeners to know that a lot of the money habits that you weren't taught, that you caught in your environment along your life

are probably the things that are keeping you stuck where you are right now. And if you want to elevate that level of life that you have, you need to elevate your financial acumen. And the scary thing is, is people don't understand it. But the beautiful thing is that it's available to all of us. It's just a language that we haven't developed yet. I love that.

It's so important. Candy said it, you got to know your numbers. And that is truly one of the first things that any consultant that walks into a business asks the owner is, tell me your numbers. Show me your financial statements. And she's right. Nine times out of 10, the owner's like, well,

we brought in this much last month, and we brought in this much the month before. So here's our run rate. And we're like, no, time out. Because there's a big difference between what you make and what you keep. And a lot of times, what you make is great. And what you keep is in the red.

It's negative. And people just don't realize it so many times until the day that they're going to write that check, they're going to pay their rent, they're going to make payroll, whatever, and those checks are bouncing. And then I think it also makes business complicated. So if anyone is, whether you're an early stage entrepreneur or you're just maybe a small team or a solo entrepreneur,

if you want to get really good at business, if you want to make data driven decisions so that you don't always feel like you're throwing something against the wall to see what sticks. The solution to that feeling is your numbers. So the solution to not knowing like, can I invest in that property? Can I invest in this person? How much money am I making? Can I acquire something else?

Can I buy another business to build this up? If you can't answer those, it's really because you haven't been disciplined to understanding your numbers. Now I do consulting, right? That's the first thing I wanna know is, where's last year, where's last quarter, where's last month?

What's your customer acquisition costs? Like, if you don't know these things, now there's an education process that has to happen because of those 91% of businesses fail, 99.7% of them are all a money related issue. And people think that sales are going to solve all of your problems, but really sales is kind of the vanity metrics. You want profit. That's what's going to give you your sanity.

And most people don't understand the difference between, well That's what's going to give you your sanity. And most people don't understand the difference between, well, I'm just going to go get more sales. If you're not translating that profit to your bottom line, the business isn't sustainable. And if you ever want to pull cash out of that business to establish additional cash flowing assets or different revenue verticals, you now have no idea what's going on. So if you haven't done it, guess what? You're part of a very large majority of entrepreneurs. But one of the things I talk about in the book is it's called the state of the union.

And that's what I think everyone should do. If you've never done this, the only way that you do it is by starting. This is what I did way back in the day. I would print out all my QuickBooks reports, my profit and loss, my balance sheet, and my cash flow. Just start with those three things and just go take two hours in your calendar. Pull out your phone right now. As you're listening to this, you can put Adam and I on pause, pull out your phone, set two hour date with yourself, go to your favorite place, coffee shop, bar. I don't care where you'd like to go. Go sit by yourself and take those reports with you. If you have a POS or a CRM, do the same time

period. Don't overthink it. Don't say, candy, what am I going to do with these things? Don't even worry about that. I just want you to develop the habit of printing those reports, going and sitting and starting to review them. I did this exercise one year ago with someone who was bleeding money out of their bottom line. And I said, I don't want to, I don't want to explain them all to you. I just want you to start with this fast forward one year. She had lost over a million dollars. She was bleeding money monthly.

We now got to a place where she was at least in the black and otherwise she was five months from bankruptcy, all because she just started to understand the numbers. And so anyone listening, run your state of the union meeting. I have it in my book. If you for free, it's on my website, tells you exactly what to do step by step and start to understand the data that's in your business so that you know what levers to pull so that you can grow it more efficiently and make more money doing so. I love that.

I, I have a little saying that I use with the entrepreneurs in my life, and that's make friends with accountability. Because I mean, what's accountability? Everybody's like, they think it's judgment. They think somebody's going to judge them because their numbers don't look good. So they don't want to look at those numbers because they feel bad.

But the reality is accountability is just accounting for what occurred and recognizing that. Because we can't fix it if we don't know it. That's the reality of the whole situation. So Candy, your book is an amazing, amazing game plan for dealing with these things, but you also have an actionable piece to this. Tell us about both the book and the actionable piece that you've come up with to help people through this. Yeah, so when I was approached by my publisher

to write a book, my hesitation is I did not want to put more ideas out. Truly, I know it sounds crazy, but I truly believe that ideas don't change our life. It's the implementation and execution of the idea that does. And so I'm like, the only way I'm going to do this is if I can do it in my own voice and it's highly practical.

It's not theory, it's not taking you down this like beautiful path of like, oh, I wanna see what happened to this person that was in debt. It's literally like, here's what you do. And so the nine percentage is all of the work, my 26 years experience, plus I did an 18 month research project on 17,000 entrepreneurs

and 2000 businesses to see what exactly makes businesses successful. plus I did an 18-month research project on 17,000 entrepreneurs and 2,000 businesses to see what exactly makes businesses successful. Because if we know why they fail, can we also reverse engineer how they succeed? And the answer is yes. So the book talks all about that. It talks how to acquire more customers, how to make more profit, and how to create more freedom in the process. And then the implementation guide, which they've called a planner, the

9% edge planner takes you through daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly. It's a 90, it's a 90 day guide to your most successful quarter yet. And it takes you through exactly what to focus on. It reminds you to do the state of the union. It starts to teach you about your business metrics. And every quarter we want to monitor a different metrics, whether that's your AOV, your average order value, whether that is your buying frequency, depending on the business, whether that's your retention or your lifetime customer value.

We take you through each of those in a very easy down to earth way. And Adam, to your point, this is what a lot of people do. They judge themselves, right? They judge themselves. I'm not where I should be. Then they have shame. And then that shame is actually what prevents us from getting to where we want to go. But having radical honesty and radical acceptance and radical forgiveness that you didn't know what you didn't know, and you're doing the best with the information you have,

we only can forgive that version of us and then choose again to make new decisions because those decisions are what's going to create new behaviors. Those behaviors create those new habits and those new habits is what's going to create your new reality. So develop the habit to understand your finances, develop the habit to make sure that you forget whatever the heck got you here. It's not what got you here. It's what you do next. And I think that's the most important part for listeners to remember.

Amazing. Candy, you have so much value to deliver to these people. Where can they find you online and on social media? CandyValentino.com and everywhere on social, X, Instagram, you name it. And then of course, the books are at Amazon or anywhere books are sold, your local independent as well. Awesome. And I see you have the audio book as well.

Yes. The wealth habits book I read in my own voice. And then after I did that, I'm like, I'll never do that again. So 9% edge is half in mine, half in somebody else's. But I think that the 9% ed book and implementation, if you haven't done this, I literally do it with you. We also have like QR codes. You get to watch videos where I explain it and stuff.

It's my most fun thing to do because the eye opening that comes from entrepreneurs understanding their numbers, man, they become like heat seeking missiles towards their next level of success. I love it. And truly for everybody listening, the difference between somebody who, and Candy mentioned it, this 9% that truly survive of the businesses, a lot of those people get into that owner operator space

and they just can't break out of it. They basically bought a paycheck by starting a business because they didn't wanna work for somebody else, but the stress, it's a lot. And it's a different kind of stress than having an employer. But the reality is, I mean, you want to feel that hustle and grand culture, go own a business and be an owner operator.

But with Candy's process, you can go from owner operator to owner and truly start scaling your business because you understand these different concepts behind it. So key points here, make sure you check out the 9% edge. Candy has some great material out there. Check her out online, social media. She's on all of them, has super high quality websites and videos.

So Candy, I do have a question I ask all the amazing leaders on the show. And you exhibited a ton of leadership over your different businesses. But we all have to lead ourselves first. And we wake up every morning, and we have to do something to get going. How do you start your day with a win?

So I believe that there are a lot of things that happen to us that we can't control. And so every day, the one thing that I feel, if I can control my focus the second I wake up, that's what will not only set up my day, but one thing that I feel, if I can control my focus, the second I wake up, that's what will not only set up my day, but my week, my month and the interactions that I have with people in a winning situation. So the very first thing I do, I have this little phrase, I've done it for forever and ever that before my feet hit the floor, I find five things I'm grateful for.

And it could be the sunrise over the ocean, my sheets on my bed, the dog laying side me, whatever it may be. But I always start my day in gratitude because I truly believe that there is a link between when we are grateful for what we have, we are able to draw in more of that. And I think that the people that have the most amount of money in the world, and they are the most unhappy people, it's because they've really shifted their focus away from what matters. So I start my day every day in prayer and with gratitude. And that's how I start my day with a win. Awesome. Everybody make sure you check out candy at candyvalentino.com. Also get a copy of the 9% edge. Go through the process. Unfortunately, a lot of people that buy business books, they don't go through the process in the book.

They just absorb the information. This is actionable. So please take action with it. Candy, we appreciate you so much for all that you do and all the wisdom that you're spreading. And thank you for starting with a win. Thanks, Adam. Thanks for watching!