Episode Summary
Maggie + Mike interview Ronnie Farzad from Spark Cooperative, an innovation consultancy specializing in strategic new product development. Ronnie is one of the 3 founders of Spark and he walks us through his career journey, the best advice he’s ever received from mentors, and of course we dig into his personal finances a bit. This is one of our longest podcasts ever, but we really enjoyed our conversation with Ronnie and so we just let it keep going!
Episode Notes
Ronnie starts off by sharing his career journey and walking through some of the decisions he made along the way, including going to business school where he met Mike! He talks about all of the people who have helped him along his journey, and how important it is to use our networks and ask for help and advice when we need it. Ronnie spent many years working in consulting, the cruise industry, PR/marketing, and more, before he decided to jump into the world of entrepreneurship and start Spark Cooperative with two of his former co-workers and friends.
Ronnie and his family have a more laid back approach to their personal finances and he explains how that looks for his family. We also talk about paying off your mortgage, using financial planners, emotions and how they impact your personal finance decisions, and more.
Ronnie shares his thoughts on magic, patterns, inflection points, privilege, and much more:
- The process of communicating with his wife along the way and importance of communication.
- Some of the best advice he received from a mentor: (1) Get a handle on your financials. (2) Services are great, but own some intellectual property. (3) Think about what your blue ocean is, what you can do better than anyone else.
- You don’t want to be paid for your time, you want to be paid for your expertise.
- It pays to take care of people and be there for people. Be caring for people and be there for when you don’t need anything in return.
- How he was raised and how hard-working his parents are.
- If partners can’t agree, it turns into a partner-shit, instead of a partnership.
- Privilege and how much of it he sees around him. As he works with larger and larger players his eyes are open to all of the privilege that money brings with it. No one teaches those without that privilege how to play in that world, from negotiating to preparing your terms in a way where you won’t get taken advantage of.
- You shouldn’t be selling into a crisis. You should instead be asking where you can help, and then helping.
- As covid is impacting their business, they are focusing on over-servicing their clients.
- The little comforts we’re all finding during the pandemic. It’s OK to eat a tub of ice cream every night if that’s what you need right now.
- Don’t be scared of entrepreneurship. Learn about it and explore it if you’re curious. There’s financial freedom to be gained in there if you do it right.
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Show References
Spark – Ronnie’s company