Mike Smerklo: Mr. Monkey and Me

Mike Smerklo is an experienced entrepreneur, investor, and business leader. Having bought and scaled a small business into a publicly traded company worth nearly a billion dollars in value, he has a deep understanding of the hard work, dedication and grit that truly powers successful entrepreneurship.

His book, Mr. Monkey and Me, is an anti-memoir that features practical tools and the “other stuff” you don’t normally learn in classrooms or business books, such as the mental hurdles you have to overcome, the risks you have to take, and the sacrifices and mistakes you’ll make to become a successful entrepreneur. Today, as the co-founder and managing director of Next Coast Ventures, Smerklo has backed more than 40 companies across two funds to help startup founders achieve their goals. He also sits on the board of Everlywell and Alert Media.

This Episode’s Heavy-hitter’s:

Mike grew up in inner-city Toledo, Ohio and was surrounded by a lot of negativity and addiction. At some point he made the conscious observation that there had to be something better in life, and started his journey to figuring out how to achieve that.

His first jobs out of college were with Ernst & Young and then Lehman Brothers as an accountant making $28k a year, which was more than anyone in his family had made in a year. He hated that job but learned the world of business and hard work during his time there.

Mike modeled his own entrepreneurial process after a Warren Buffet principle, which led him to buying a company and working to scale it. He did this because he didn’t have an idea at the time, but still wanted to run a business.

Running Next Coast Ventures as an operator himself, Mike is extremely careful to avoid micromanaging the actual operators of the companies because they’re the ones spending way more time focusing on their business.

The reason that Mike came up with the slightly cartoonish concept of naming his self-doubt as “Mr. Monkey” was to personify it. By personifying it, he was able to control it better by not taking it too seriously.

Check out all things Mike & his great book here: https://www.mikesmerklo.com/

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