Turning a complaint into millions.

thank you thank you thank you

many moons ago i was born in a tiny tiny

country

but beautiful country named saint lucia

was born of very young

parents and if you know about growing up

in tiny countries or developing

countries you know that many people

celebrate the diy lifestyle and that’s

the

do-it-yourself lifestyle so in our

country

my dad made his own toys as a kid

people build their own houses and the

most important part about this talk

is people cut their own hair

so i’m growing up in my house and my

dad’s really old school

my dad is the guy that needs to do

everything himself he’s not going to pay

for a barber

he’s the guy that’s going to cut your

hair my dad had only

one hairstyle and it was the buzz cut

the buzz cut was him just buzzing my

hair down and that was

unfavorable so for 13 years i was

getting this buzz cut

and i hated it so going down the line

i grew up i got to 13 years old

and i was sick of these haircuts and i

said you know what

i’m gonna cut my own hair because i

didn’t have any money my dad wasn’t

going to send me the barber

and i decided to cut my own hair well

i’m 13 years old and you could imagine

with a clipper

and a 13 year old cutting their own hair

it’s not a good situation

i ended up cutting my hair and i had

cheetah spots on my head

bad spots all over it was horrible

so this comes to my first part of the

presentation

the problem statement and you know what

when you have a problem it’s time to

solve it so

what i ended up doing was i kept cutting

my hair and messing up and i realized

that there was a problem

and i realized that my dad was giving me

bad haircuts

and then i realized that i couldn’t cut

my hair perfectly

see the problem was i couldn’t get the

perfect lineup

or hairline on my hair so what i ended

up doing was cutting up some plastic

templates in my house

from dish detergent bottles to folders

and i ended up making these templates to

put against my head

so i could run the clipper or the razor

and they wouldn’t give me

any bald spots so i ended up making a

prototype

actually this is one of my first

prototypes that i used as a kid for many

years

so what i say to you at the beginning

of this presentation is always

write down your problems my problems

were my dad was cutting my hair

i can’t cut my hair i can’t cut my hair

perfectly

write down those problems because you

can solve them at a different time

i have an inventor book i write down all

my problem statements

in an inventor book grab your phone

write down a problem when you have it

and then you can solve it whether you’re

sitting on the toilet or in the bath

i come up with inventions in my sleep so

i solved my problem 15 years went by and

i used this tool every other week

before job interviews before dates you

know

growing up you were trying to be cool

you were trying to go on dates you were

trying to

have the great clothes but you had to

have the the great haircut

at the same time so 15 years went by

and you know i didn’t really think i had

anything it was just a little tool that

sat on

in my bathroom and it wasn’t anything to

me

so one day i didn’t want to do a chore

and my wife got mad at me and she told

me

you never finish what you start

and you know what it hit me harder than

i’m lazy or content

and i never finish what i start it

actually

hit me as if i wasn’t actually doing

things for my life or reaching for my

goals

and my friend andy enriquez he says you

never show up

my friend andy enriquez says show up for

your life and i felt like i wasn’t

showing up for my life i wasn’t taking

that jump

so i did the chore because i didn’t want

to get in trouble with my wife

and then i went to my inventor book and

i said you know what maybe i should go

to a patent attorney

and show them my inventions now i’ll

show you

the first page of my book and the second

page of my book

was that little plastic template tool

that i used for 15 years and was by my

sink

and i didn’t really think i had anything

i ended up patenting this

this product uh what a patent is

is basically you saving your invention

so that no one else can copy you and if

they copy you

they either have to settle or you can

sue them

it’s intellectual property intellectual

properties your rights

your inventions your innovation so

i went and i patented this product i was

dead broke i mean i used up

all my money my my get bank accounts

were on

e i didn’t know what to do the first

thing i said was

i need to raise some money all right so

what i ended up doing was bringing this

prototype to all these pitch

competitions

and i’m standing in front of a crowd

like you guys and i’m here like

ah the cut buddy it’s gonna save

everyone it’s gonna cut your hair

you’re gonna do it by yourself who wants

to go with me who wants to invest

and i remember doing these pitch

competitions and just hearing crickets

in the crowd just like the silence that

i hear right now

no one really believed in my product

because everyone wanted the sexy things

like the

new apps or artificial intelligence they

were like the cut buddy

a hair template no technology so

no one invested in my product i had to

bootstrap my own business

because no one wanted to give me money

and what is bootstrapping

bootstrapping is basically holding

yourself up by the bootstrap

and investing in your own company until

you’re profitable so i used my own money

to manufacture my products now remember

i was already broke from these patterns

now i am super broke if i make any

mistake

and if this doesn’t work out i am

homeless

my back is against the wall it’s

robodope like ali

i have to fight and punch against the

corner

so the only thing i knew when i got my

products

was to grab my product and do these

youtube videos

so i have this cool rap music

[Music]

and i’m cutting my hair and i’m feeling

cool it’s like buy the cut buddy

it can edge up your hair easily and you

know what i’m starting to get

two to five sales a day it’s not bad

maybe i could pay off some of my student

loans

but i started seeing these notifications

on my youtube video

and they’re popping up one of them said

that guy got a five head a five head

humans have four heads what does he mean

a five head

someone else said he has a mcdonald’s

arch line on his head

like mcdonald’s arch line on my head

someone said that i look like a dragon

ball z

character and if anybody knows anime

hair

dragon ball z and all other anime

cartoons

are very animated with their foreheads

the one that really got me which was

very clever

was someone said i was ahead of my class

and they put head in quotations

do you guys know what was happening at

that time

i was selling a hairline product for

cutting your hairline

and i was going bald yes

i’m bald now so people were roasting me

they were mean they were critical it

hurt me so bad

i was just depressed i remember being in

my bed

almost crying and my wife rubbing my

back saying it was gonna be okay

i was ready to give up things were going

downhill for me

and just a few days later i got the most

important email

of my life and it was a veteran with

disabilities

and this veteran said i take medication

and my handshake because my handshake i

can’t

cut my hair perfectly so i bought your

product

and with your product i can steady my

hand

and cut my hair perfectly and i’d like

to thank you for making

such a beautiful product so that people

with disabilities can have nice haircuts

too

and given the fact that i was ready to

give up

and i got an email like this it really

lit the fire

in my stomach because i realized that it

wasn’t just me trying to get rich on

this

patent or this invention it was really

about

solving people’s problems that was my

mission

it was to create confidence through a

fresh haircut

i started looking at my reviews and it

was veterans

it was service members and active

military duties

it was the salon artist who was trying

to learn

how to do the edge up it was the mother

with two autistic children these are

real reviews i was reading

so what i realized it was time for me to

back up

and research what my target markets were

and i realized with doing that is i

could identify

influencers that can carry the product

and talk about the product

so i exited myself as the model because

my hair was going away

i know i’m handsome and everything but

that hairline wasn’t looking good

so i went on youtube and i found these

influencers with great hairlines great

personality

great great engagement these influencers

were micro influencers so they weren’t

expensive

so what i offered them was a commission

on each sale

i gave them a coupon code so they could

give to the customer

and that created just a community of

beneficial relationships so the customer

was getting 10

off the influencer was getting 10 on the

sale

and i was getting the sale at the end of

the day

remember my sales were these measly two

to five sales a day

when people were roasting me these

influencers boosted my sales to 50 sales

a day

100 sales a day 400

sales a day i’m in my garage packing

packages like crazy running to the post

office

and the post office workers were saying

what’s up mr cut buddy

i felt famous and on march 5th

2016 11 30

7 and 27 seconds am

my phone started going bus bus bus bus

bus ding ding ding ding ding ding ding

ding

and i just didn’t know what was going on

i thought it was my galaxy just

overheating and i looked and there were

just a bunch of notifications

there were sales i’d gone viral that day

with one of my influencers

10 million views on one video

thousands of sales in just a few hours

i was rich things were amazing i was

successful

i mean it was successful to a point that

paypal

froze my account and thought i was money

laundering

that’s how crazy it was gq wrote about

us black enterprise wrote about us

npr how i built this made a cartoon

about us

and they even put the mcdonald’s arch

line on my hairline to show my struggles

things were going so great that even

shark tank contacted me

and gave me the break of my lifetime

where i was able to go

onto shark tank and get a deal from my

idol damon john who had been wearing his

clothes as a 13 year old

fubu which he invented and i was using

the prototype of

my product so it’s full circle

i ended up with my idol and that was all

because i decided to write down my

problem

solve my problem by coming up with a

solution

with a simple invention then protecting

my idea with a patent

and then launching it bootstrap wise

alright so this led me and my partners

to have a licensing deal and what

licensing is

is when you have a patent and you have a

protected product because

you are an inventor a big corporation

is interested in your product and ends

up giving you royalties

to rent your idea and put it in all the

retail stores

so now you can go to tens of thousands

of stores and get my product

and now i get to sit back and retire and

live on a little truffle farm in

pittsboro

and now i’m happy you know

but you know what when when i really

think about it

and i’m gonna go a little bit off script

here is

am i am i really happy at the end of the

day

yeah i’m very successful the products

booming

things are going great but am i happy

you know when you go to class right

as a like a third grader and they tell

you draw the

image of happiness at art class

and you draw the mother the father

uh the little daughter holding the

parents in and

the son holding the other parents hand

and then even the dog and the cat are

holding their hands too and there’s a

nice green lawn

and then there’s a big house behind them

there’s a nice car

and then there’s a beautiful yellow sun

just happiness on the whole family

you know what i did i never wrote down

or drew

or defined what my happiness was before

i started this journey

i never actually wrote down what were my

tangible and intangible things that i

wanted

so maybe i wanted a modest home maybe i

wanted a family

maybe but i wanted a dog in a nice yard

maybe i wanted a lamborghini

i never wrote those things down so i was

chasing a magical creature

i was trying to impress something that

didn’t exist

throughout the times i i launched my

invention

i should have celebrated the time when i

went viral

i should have celebrated when i went on

shark tank and got a deal on national tv

i should have celebrated but i didn’t

because i didn’t never

i didn’t ever define what my happiness

was

so this whole time i was depressed and

unhappy

so what i challenge you to do is write

down your problems

protect your idea but most importantly

before you do these things i want you to

define your happiness

so that every time something great

happens in your life

you celebrate like there’s no tomorrow

because at the end of the day

your happiness is most important your

mental health

is most important i want to see

everybody here solve their problems

and be happy thank you