Tough Love From an Entrepreneurial Curmudgeon

Carey Smith started fan-and-light maker Big Ass Fans in 1999 and sold it for $500 million in 2017. Today he runs Unorthodox Ventures, an investment firm focused on helping small companies with big potential.

Entrepreneurs are being hoodwinked and led astray by the very people who are supposed to be helping them. That’s my biggest takeaway two years after launching an investment company to take ideas and help turn them into long-term, successful brands.

Every week at Unorthodox Ventures, we meet smart men and women who have graduated from entrepreneurship programs at top schools but have never been taught the basics of manufacturing prototypes or testing products. They think that effective marketing begins and ends with Facebook. Because they’ve