Editor’s note: This article was first published in April 2013; Capasso’s age of 26, the number of companies he had founded and Nomi’s $3 million funding round are given as of that time.
There is an old saying that goes: “I haven’t failed 100 times; I’ve learned 100 ways not to do things.” The entrepreneur Corey Capasso lives up to that old saying and is an example of persistence, mindset, focus and drive. At just 26, Corey Capasso has already founded five companies, but let’s start at the beginning.
He had his first business idea at 18, when he founded his first business, which had to do with plastics. Capasso noticed that most people, when they hold a pen, tend to put it in their mouth, nibble it and suck on it. So he came up with the idea of a special fruit-flavoured plastic for pen caps. That idea never quite took off, but according to Capasso himself he did not have much time to get discouraged: instead of dwelling on his bad luck, he got busy thinking about his next business ideas.
Capasso went on to act on every idea that came into his head. It is estimated that he launched 15 companies between the ages of 18 and 26, and one of them, Spinback, was acquired by Buddy Media, which was in turn acquired by Salesforce in a $700 million deal.
Capasso explains how, even as a small entrepreneur with small companies, he managed to win over major clients from companies on the Fortune 500 list.
Persistence is his trademark, as it is for any good entrepreneur. He says that at times, to land clients, he has even had to follow them to the gym to try to do business, even if it meant doing it from the exercise bike next to the prospective client.
Today, Corey Capasso is in the news again after raising $3 million in a funding round for his latest company, Nomi, a marketing optimisation platform for physical stores that already has clients whose companies are worth 1,000 million.
What does this entrepreneur’s story teach us?
The first thing it shows, even if it sounds like a cliché, is that you have not failed until you stop trying. It doesn’t matter how many times you fall, but how much energy you get back up with. A war isn’t over until it’s over; except that in entrepreneurship, the war doesn’t end as long as you keep fighting.
Now let’s think for a moment about what an investor sees when deciding whether to invest in this young man. Basically, the investor knows that Capasso may succeed or may fail (there are no guarantees there), but they do have the guarantee that he will give every last drop of sweat to try to make his projects succeed. And that is no small guarantee.
Further reading
