Virginia Tech alumnus pens different path

Mike Michalowicz recalls Feb. 14, 2008, arguably more vividly than any day in his life, even his wedding day and his children’s birthdays.

He remembers it with clarity not because of the special long-stemmed roses, assorted chocolates, or heart-shaped candy usually associated with the day.

Actually, this particular Valentine’s Day broke his heart.

On this day more than 16 years ago, Michalowicz ’93 – an entrepreneur who became a self-made millionaire in his early 30s – gathered his family and delivered some crushing news.

They were broke. His accountant had called earlier in the day and told him to start selling his remaining assets, including his home and cars.

“I'd been lying to my family by omission,” Michalowicz said. “I'd been telling my wife things were OK. Things like, ‘We're this close. We just need to land that big client.’ All those things, I actually believed them to be true.

“After I told them, my daughter said, ‘Daddy, can I still go horseback riding?’ To give context, it was a group session, $20 per kid. You do a group practice for half an hour, and I said, ‘You can't.’ I mean, we had literally nothing. She ran out of the room. I thought she was running away. She runs to her bedroom, grabs a piggy bank, and she ran back to me. She put it on the table and said, ‘Daddy, since you can’t provide for us. I'll start doing it.’”

Michalowicz paused for a moment after relaying this.

“I still get emotional,” he said. “That was my rock-bottom moment, and it became life changing.”

Michalowicz struggled with depression and insomnia for two years after that moment, but he loves life these days. The Virginia Tech graduate with degrees in finance and management science from the Pamplin College of Business is putting his business knowledge and past lessons learned to use in a creative way.

The 53-year-old lives in New Jersey has several business interests, but writing and talking about business serve as his passion. He takes entrepreneurship “down to the studs,” as he says, and passes along what he learned during his early years. In 2009, he published his first book, “The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur – The Tell-It-Like-It-Is Guide to Cleaning Up in Business, Even If You Are at the End of Your Roll.” The book focuses on how to start a company with little to no cash and limited experience.

Since then, he has launched a website, started a podcast, and published eight more books, building a small media business that thrives on educating in a subject area where he once struggled. He recently published his ninth book, one titled “All In – How Great Leaders Build Unstoppable Teams.”

“What happened to me became the seed for a whole new perspective on entrepreneurship,” Michalowicz said. “I really didn’t know anything about entrepreneurship. I loved the journey, but I didn’t get it. I decided to devote my life to investigating it and documenting it. And so, every book I've written, all the stuff I do now, I study entrepreneurship at the most fundamental core levels. We try out ideas, and once I know something's working consistently or see it working consistently, then that becomes a book idea and then I write it.”

Michalowicz never envisioned becoming a writer while going through those dark times. He initially leaned heavily on friends to bounce back, including some of his Virginia Tech classmates.

Greg Eckler ’94 was one of those. Eckler told Michalowicz that everything happening to him wasn’t the end, but the beginning of something new, with new insights, challenges, and vision.

“Being the rational one in the room or being grounded, that’s probably my specialty,” Eckler said. “It gives me the ability to communicate well or ask questions or just be able to dig into something. I tried to give Mike advice to help him on the right path, but not too much advice too quickly.

“I’m not sure I saw him being an author, but his failings in the past make him a better author because he can see what someone’s going through. If everyone lives in the shiny castle, you can’t relate to others and give them advice. That’s where I saw, in his journey, something bigger and the bigger is showing up – and there is even more bigger coming.”

Michalowicz started writing after another college friend told him to start keeping a journal. That friend encouraged Michalowicz to devote effort to writing in it, particularly during the somber times.

So Michalowicz started keeping a journal, and he found himself writing a lot about what he had failed to understand about entrepreneurship.

“I didn't really understand how to be profitable,” he said. “I've never been profitable selling a business, so how do you become profitable? I started doing the research and studying it.”

That led to him writing his first book, and then he decided to go one step further. He went out and spoke about what he was writing, using techniques that he learned in a public speaking class at Virginia Tech.

Michalowicz reached out to colleges and universities in the Northeast and specifically student-run, business-related clubs and organizations. He found that that the authenticity of his struggles went over well with his audiences.

“When most people speak about businesses or entrepreneurship, they say, ‘Oh, I've built businesses, and you haven't, students, so learn from me,’” Michalowicz said. “That's pandering. What really resonates is ‘I've struggled, and perhaps you can avoid the struggle, so let me tell you the quagmires and muck I've been in,’ so I tell those stories.”

Michalowicz believes that his life’s calling centers on eradicating what he terms “entrepreneur poverty.” The U.S. Department of Labor statistics reported in January that 70 percent of small business owners fail within 10 years of operation. Thus, business owners never achieve the financial freedom they seek, and many end up working for larger corporations because they can make more money.

Michalowicz said he feels compassionate to serve them because he understands their plight. He’s lived it, and he knows they lack the time, and in some cases, the money to educate themselves for a better chance at success in business.

His books offer that chance.

“What a book is, it’s the download of the author's brain usually packaged in a way that's so consumable,” Michalowicz said. “Instead of sitting and meeting with an author for two years and interviewing about everything they know, they’ve prepared the notes for you. It's the CliffsNotes of an author’s brain. So, when I started writing, I said, ‘I'm going to make my knowledge available without cost.’ Just go to your library and get it for nothing. That's the most accessible tool.”

Michalowicz and Eckler also have teamed to form The Prosper Group to help stuck businesses become profitable, sustainable, and healthy quickly. Many business owners know how to build a product, but struggle to manage a business, so Michalowicz and Eckler invest in resources to help, though no direct money.

Less than a year into this venture, they already are working with nine companies, using the strategies relayed by Michalowicz in his books.

“He’s always been in the front of the room,” Eckler said. “People look up to him. Even in college, we didn’t have most likely to succeed, but he would have been on there if we did. Whereas I’m more subtle and introverted, Mike has it all and he displays it all. … I’m excited for the impact we can make.”

Michalowicz plans on writing additional books, with the simple goal of serving people. There are more than 32 million small businesses in the United States, so an audience exists to learn from his perspectives.

For him, every day is now a true Valentine’s Day. He has rekindled his flame for business through writing.

“I feel like it's this really intimate form of deep connection when done right,” Michalowicz said. “That's what I love about it. This is the ultimate compliment: I’ve had people that come up to me and say, ‘You know, your book has changed my life.’ And the reality is they've changed their own life.

“The book is simply a recipe, but to even be a small part of that life shift, however they see it, is such a privilege. When I hear that, that's the ultimate outcome. It's unbelievable.”