Chrissy McDannell: This Serial Entrepreneur Uses Her Fearless Mindset To Do The Thing In Everything She Do

I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.

Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the things they want to make all their wildest dreams come true. Join us as we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. So today's guest is one of my closest friends. She's a serial entrepreneur, has an adventurous side. She travels the world and has been known to ride motorcycles, skydive, and even run marathons. She's a contributor to humanity and is a community leader. Our guest has encouraged me, motivated me, and pushed me more times than I can count. She always seems to find a way to catapult me out of my comfort zone. You know what the other really cool thing is about surrounding yourself with amazing people is that you get introduced to amazing people. She even introduced me to my boyfriend last year. I love how she reframes fear, and this helps her with her fearless spirit. Years ago, when I asked her to speak to my daughter's Girl Scout troop about entrepreneurship without even batting an eye, she said yes and gave the most unbelievable presentation. She's someone that does the thing with everything she does. She started, built, acquired, and sold over 20 businesses. On one occasion, she flew to Paris to meet Richard Branson when she donated $100,000 to his charity after selling one of her businesses. Her gracious heart always finds a way to give back to others. And as the founder and principal at the Magnolia firm, our guest now helps other female entrepreneurs achieve their perfect exits. I love how hard she charges, but also how slow she can go. I've witnessed her in the middle of closing a crazy, huge deal, operating on the highest possible level a human can operate on, yet only minutes later, we'll go for a walk and she'll stop and actually smell the flowers, be entertained by some cute bunnies hopping around, and experience sheer joy watching the family of ducks we always see. Today's guest is the epitome of doing the thing. It's my pleasure to introduce my friend and mentor, Chrissy McDaniel.

Hey, Stacy. How's it going? I am good. I'm so excited to have you on. I'm glad to be on. Thanks. So this is going to be fun. I don't know if I've ever had like a good friend of mine interview me. So let's bring it on.

I know, that's what I was just thinking. I'm like, oh, this is going to be really cool. So, yeah, so for the listeners, if.

You don't mind just kind of sharing.

A little bit about your background just so they kind of get an idea of who you are and what you're doing and all the good stuff.

Oh boy. Okay. I'm like, how far do. How far back do I go? So let's see here. I have been. I started my first company in 2003, so I'm dating myself out the gate. But I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. Like even as a little kid. As a little girl, I sold candy bars out of my backpack and I charged admission for circus that I put on in my garage with my friends and always trying to figure out ways to make money. My dad was a business owner, so I think that had a big part of it to do with it. He was more of like self employed, you know, one man show doing H vac heating, air conditioning, so general contractor. And you know, once I got old enough at age 11, he put me on the phones to answer the phones for his company. As an 11 year old, I got to play secretary and book appointments and dispatch him out to jobs. So I don't know, I just always love doing this stuff. It's so funny. It's like a hobby for me or a sport. I just love business. So I was lucky enough to start and sell a bunch of my own companies. And then up until recently, just last year, which you played a big role in that. So thank you. I know we really. I always said I wanted to start my own down the road. I saw myself forming a boutique M and a advisory firm or a business brokerage firm. I always, for the last maybe, I don't know, five years, thought, oh, I could help other people sell their companies because I've done it a bunch on my own without using a broker. I only used a business broker on my very first deal, Cleanology. Because I was still in my 20s, I didn't know how to sell a company. So yeah, I just kept like building companies, selling companies, acquiring companies. It was just such like an amazing sport. It was my entire life for so many years. And then, yeah, just, yeah, me and you, you know, last year you just kept pushing me to say I could do this, you know, now for other people. And yeah, friends had Me helped them sell their companies. Last year, a couple girlfriends of mine and I was like, well, let's make it official. So now I launched the. My most recent venture and I'm not going to say my last because I keep. I said that with Kindred, my last. My software company. I said that was my last startup. I guess Magnolia Firm is technically a startup brokerage firm. So I think this is going to be my last hurrah, I guess essentially, who knows? I'm not going to say that anymore. People never believe me when I say it's my last company.

I think it's because you get so excited about what you're doing that it's like you're not almost like future tripping into other stuff. You're focusing on what you're doing right now. So it feels like it's going to be the last one because of the level of passion and, you know, an intensity that you put into it.

Yeah, I think you're right. That must be what it is. We'll go with that. We'll go with that. I'm not crazy. So. Yes. So that kind of brings us to the present day. And yeah, so we launched in. Officially launched the brokerage Firm October of 2021 and so made it official. And then, you know, and you're in that same mastermind group, you know that. The mastermind group. And I've been in for over a decade and all you guys know me so well and I told all you gu, you know, everybody in there, hey, I just, I just want to be the only person doing the transactions. I'm going to keep it intimate, boutique. It's just me. And then now here I am already bringing on other licensed brokers underneath me into the firm. So yeah, that's, that's kind of the way I roll. I don't know, I just see kind of gaps in the marketplace, I guess in different industries and you know, and see like what could be done better and could we help that industry and make a difference? And I feel like that business brokers in general don't have a great reputation, unfortunately. And the industry is extremely dated. Their processes are dated. The way things have always been done doesn't necessarily need to be the way to be done in the future. Transactions don't need to take six to eight months. Our average right now from the day we take a listing to the day we close for Q4 for the end of last year, we closed five transactions in December. Our average close date was 77 days when industry average was 188. So we're like flying and you saw me, you know, how chaotic it was. So crazy. November, December, you know, but it was fun. I loved every second of it. So, yeah, you just got to do the thing.

Yeah. And it's so unbelievable, you know, that you're doing this right now with helping people sell their businesses because you have this insight that most people, business brokers don't have. You know, where you've built and sold, and I forgot to mention, you had that other spa where you bought it and sold it. So you've done both build and sold and bought and sold successfully. And so you've been able to almost know what the pains are that your, your buyer is going to go through. And then also, you know, through our circle of friends, we have a lot of friends that have sold businesses and seeing their pains. And it's almost like you built this thing to answer everyone's painful moments, you know, which is. It's been really amazing to see it transform to what it is now.

Thanks. No, it's been a fun ride, that's for sure. Never a boring day.

What do you think's been the biggest thing throughout all the businesses that you started and then sold? How did you get yourself to even do that? I know you had the childhood background with, you know, I mean, the circus and the garages. I don't know if I heard that story yet.

That's supposed to.

That's really cool. And, you know, being able to, like, work for your dad at a young age and things like that.

But, like, how did you actually have.

The confidence to be able to even just get started? Maybe even the first one, if we go there.

Gosh, I'm half Italian, so maybe that's where the confidence comes from. The confidence, borderline arrogance. I don't know. I'm just naturally confident, especially if I just. Yeah, just go for it. But I don't know where that. Well, my father was always that way too, so he never second guessed himself. He always went for it. I think he set this, like, amazing example of that and was such a hard worker and, like, never missed a day of work ever, ever, ever. And he was always at, you know, out the door at 7am for work. And so I have to give a lot of credit to him just having that as an example for myself. Yeah, he never. Yeah, he just had a ton of confidence, so I think I inherited that. Thank God. So, yeah, I mean, I just go for it. Yeah, that's so cool.

I actually haven't had confidence as one of the, you know, I'm trying to dissect this formula for how people do the thing and started as a book concept of, okay, this is the book I'm going to write. And then I decided, based on what the editor said, was to interview people, explore the concepts more, just to make sure, you know, there's more, because there's more to unpack in terms of the concepts that I've used to do the thing that other people use. And actually, confidence, that's a new one. And it's funny, as you were talking and saying about you selling your own businesses without a broker, I mean, that's some freaking serious confidence that you would need to do that because most people would be insecure, you know, about doing that. I'm wondering, though, do you think it's all genetics or is there anything that maybe you did that got you to be more confident? Any kind of muscle that you had to use to be able to do that?

Gosh, just like entrepreneurship. And this is, you know, the great debate is entrepreneurship. You know, are you born an entrepreneur or can you be made an entrepreneur? I do think all my close, close friends that are, you know, yourself included, like, stone cold, like, entrepreneur since you were born. Right. And that's why we get along so great. So I think that entrepreneurship, I think you're born with that innate ability to be an entrepreneur. You know, you're creative and you're willing to take risk. And so same with confidence. I don't. I think it's very hard to learn confidence. I think a lot of times you're just born with it, unfortunately. And I know some people aren't going to want to hear that. Yeah, I'm just fearless. You said it earlier. I race motorcycles and I'm a skydive. And I just, you know, even as a little kid, like, I'm just have this, like, no fear attitude, which again, I think just, you know, you're brought up maybe in certain environments that foster that or you're modeling it off your parents. You don't see your parents. You see your parents are very confident and they're fearless and they go for it. And so do you, because you don't know any different. I will say this, too. Ignorance is definitely bliss. So much, you know, kind of like Steve Jobs says, you look backwards to connect the dots. And there are so many instances where I'm like, thank God I was so ignorant and didn't know better. Right? Because it worked out so much better. But in hindsight, if I would have known better, better probably wouldn't have done certain things at all. Right? So, yeah, just like having, you know, a lot of people think you have to have, you know, an advisor or a business broker or investment banker, like, sell your. Your small business for you. And that's not true at all. You could sell your own business. It's your business. And plus, you built it from scratch. So, you know, I think that was my aha moment. As Oprah would say. It's like, I'm like, wait a minute. If I built my own such an amazing, amazing company on my own from scratch, why, like, what kind of person, business person am I if I can't even sell the business I just built from scratch myself? And that was the big with Eco Chateau when I did that transaction, because that was a big transaction. And everybody was like, you have to get a business broker. This is such a big, big, complicated deal, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But again, I was ignorant. So I just like, whatever, I'll do it on my own. And it all worked out, and I got more than any other broker had quoted me. Anyways, I'm glad I did it on my own. But, yeah, confidence. I think that doing the thing. Confidence is high up on there. So in your business career so far.

What do you think's been the hardest thing for you?

That's so funny. I always love a challenge. I'm a girl that loves a challenge. And, you know, I was building these, you know, here in San Diego. Build a company, sell it, build Excel at all different industries. So kind of across the spectrum of industries. But I would say the last one, my software company, Kindred, by far. That was so, like I said earlier in the interview, that was going to be my last, final hurrah. It's just like, okay, let me do the most challenging, biggest company I ever could do, and that'll be my final. That'll be my, like, then I'll drop the mic, you know, so I'm like, let me do, like, in. Of course, building a tech company is super cool and everybody wants to do it and super trending. This was 2000. This would have been 2018. So. And I just come out of Eco Chateau and that big accent you mentioned, that Richard Branson, all the stuff that I wanted to do and then some happen magically. So, like, okay, I need the next challenge. Let me just go as big as I possibly can. A global technology platform. I don't think you could go any bigger than that. So that was Kindred. So it was a real estate software platform for Co living industry, but done on a global level. So people, you know, digital nomads could use the software. They could find, you know, co living either nightly stays or long term stays anywhere in the world by using Kindred's directory. And then we just spread. We even decided, oh, let's build a PMS system like a management software platform for all these co living operators around the world. It was like crazy the undertaking I did, you know, I enrolled two amazing technical co founders. So the three of us started Kindred August 2018. We got into Techstars by November 2018 for their 2019 cohort in Europe. I moved over to Europe immediately. 2019, so only about five months into the company. It was like a whirlwind crazy like to not know anything about tech and to be just within four months get into one of the top accelerated programs in the world next to Y Combinator. So got into techstars. I didn't know much about tech, so massive learning curve, but again I was up for the challenge. And I, you know, loved, love to learn, but it was a massive learning curve for me. And 18 hour days, seven days a week, like raising capital. I didn't know what VC even stood for. Venture capitalist. I didn't even know what that meant. How do you raise money? What's the cap rate? All this, I mean it was insane. The amount of learning. Living in a different country for 5 months had a huge 8 figure 7 or what was it? Yeah, 10 figure acquisition, 10 months in offer letter. A company out of Germany. So that was insane. And that was only 10 months in and we were pre revenue. It was just a wild time. So it was like those two years were a freaking blur and the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. And and then did it kept it going for like another year. We were trying to find somebody. I needed to sell the business. I didn't want to keep raising money. We weren't hitting revenue quite yet. We would have to raise, you know, additional capital. And I kind of had this internal number of what I didn't want to go over as far as investing and starting launching the company. And we had surpassed that number a little bit. So I was like, okay. But I didn't want to shut down. So you know, 2020 Covid. And it had nothing to do with COVID But no matter what, I was going to just need to wrap it up by the end of that year. And then luckily, kind of at the 11th hour, this amazing company and I'm friends with them and they're amazing guys. I love their company out of Los Angeles, Co House. They ended up acquiring Kindred in October 2021. So I kind of held it an extra eight months. I just was paying the burn rate out of pocket. Like this was. I just couldn't shut it. And you know me and you had tons of walks and talks of like that by far in my life was the hardest decision. I literally couldn't make the decision and I just kept keep like holding onto the company until somebody finally bought it. I just could not shut the company down. Like couldn't. It's crazy like physically could not do it. I kept making setting deadlines for myself like okay, on August 7, 2021, that's our three year anniversary. If it's not sold by then or someone can't take it over from me then you know, I'm shutting it down. You know that I held it another couple months. So anyways, yeah, so luckily it all worked out. October is sold to Co House. Actually was just on the phone with the guys yesterday so I'm really excited to see what they do with it. They're super busy on the real estate development side. So it's going to be about Q3 of this year, 2022 when they finally get like kind of a tech team back onto the software to develop it further and to push it live. So it's a little ways out but it'll be fun to kind of watch from the sidelines and. Sorry, that was a very long way of explaining that. Yes. Hardest, hardest time of my life by and so hard. I had health problems at the same time which honestly I probably think because of the amounts of stress I was under is what caused the health problems. I guess, wager to guess. But I don't regret doing it in the first place. So crazy because now I'm back in the small business game and it's fun and I love it but the challenge isn't it there as much as it was with with building a tech company. So I'm glad. I think I always would have regretted not doing it. I guess I'll end with that. Those words of advice is like I for me personally I never regret something I did. I would regret not doing something right in hindsight. Like I don't want to be on my deathbed and say chrissy, why don't you just try? You know, why didn't you go into tech? So I don't regret doing it. I just should have quit a year earlier as well. Instead of going three years, I should have Went the two years and if it wasn't working, wasn't working, pull the plug and be okay with that. I think maybe my ego is getting involved or I have no idea. I just couldn't just to this day, I don't know why I couldn't shut down, but it worked out.

Yeah, it's been amazing to watch that process and also the level of learning that you're able to do in such a short amount of time. Between the learning all about software and like you said, learning all about investing, investment and raising and all that stuff, it was unbelievable just to see how much knowledge, you know, you got from that. And I'm also wondering if you could share with the listeners, what do you think your biggest learnings were from that experience?

Just if you're done, you're done. Like if it's not working, I guess I'm just not a quitter. And that was my 10th company and you know, I never failed before in 18 years. So it was just a hard pill for me to personally swallow. But I think, I mean, just like, yeah, people have to be okay. Like if it's not working and you set a deadline and a deadline comes and still not working, you have to be okay pulling the plug because again, and other business owners I've talked to too, they held on too long. So like the longer you're just, it's missed opportunity cost, you know, could I have started something else sooner? You know, a year earlier, who knows? Everything happens for a reason and it happened how it's supposed to happen. But yeah, so my advice would be definitely don't quit. I think in this day and age, people throw up their hands so quickly, like too quickly, but just knowing when it's right to pull the plug. But I will say this too. This is another learning lesson is that the sellers, the women I'm helping now, a lot of them have tech companies. A lot of them are exiting one to launch their next. A lot of them are raising in the middle of raising capital on their new venture. So all that knowledge I got from being in that world for all those you talk for those three years actually helps me help my sellers. So that's another little bonus that I didn't. All the pain I went through, at least now it's really easy for me to relate to the sellers I'm working with. Right. Because I was in that world. Just like they are now raising capital for their tech company. So that's kind of cool.

Yeah. And that is such a gift for them because you literally had you know, live that pain. So, yeah, I love the way you worded that with relating more than anyone else could, you know, in the industry you're in right now, where you're helping people sell their businesses. Thanks for sharing that. That's some really powerful, powerful stuff.

So if you had advice to give.

Everyone on doing the thing, what do you think it would be?

Oh, this is a good one. I thought about this before our interview. Like, if it didn't. And I catch myself now. Before, I never cared what people thought ever, ever. Especially in the beginning days. But I think with social media now, it's like everybody is like kind of showing off, like every little thing they're doing and how great they are. So then you're starting to condition yourself to care what other people think. So you're going to post something and you're going to see how many likes you got. Maybe you didn't get that many likes on your business. Post on LinkedIn or whatever it is, or on Instagram. If it didn't matter. My piece of advice is if it didn't matter what other people thought, what if it didn't matter what other people thought, what would your decision be? And again, I've caught myself on really big decisions. You know, why? You know, if nobody cares, if it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks or cares about, then it doesn't matter, you know, you should just do it. What matters is what you think about it and what you care about. So, yeah, just not caring what other people think, I think would be number one. It's very hard. I think as humans, just innately we want to be accepted. We're tribal beings and so we want, you know, we care what other people think. We don't want to be kicked out of the tribe. We don't want to be by ourselves. But in hindsight, like my most successful businesses, I was kind of like, you know, head down, blinders I wasn't on. So I've stayed off social media. You know, I was just working, working, working in my own little world, building these companies and then, and then kind of would look up after the fact that. But I never cared what people thought because I was just doing my thing. But again, social media is a lot more prevalent now than it was back, you know, that many years ago. So I would say try not to care what other people think. The other piece of advice I love, love, love giving to people, and I actually told somebody recently is the same, like biological chemicals and what happens physically in your body when you feel fear or anxiety or scared is super similar. And again, I'm not going to explain, not a scientist or doctor, I'm not going to be able to explain it correctly. On what happens in your body when you have those feelings versus having excitement. Right. So when you're super excited about something, it could come, you know, your heart starts racing and you know, it's very similar to being afraid or anxious or scared. So I just love teaching people that. I mean, I was in line, we were auditioning for Shark Tank. The people in line with me were like shaking and petrified and like, I'm so nervous. I'm so nervous. They were like freaking out and I genuinely was like super excited. I wasn't nervous. And I was trying to explain that to them. Just like, honestly, just get freaking excited right now. Like get excited to talk to them, to audition. Like, it literally is the exact same feeling that's going to be coursing through your body.

So.

I love that.

And you had mentioned that to my daughter's Girl Scout troop when you spoke for them. And it's like really stuck with me over the years because I think that's so important to be able to reframe in the moment how you're feeling because it helps you basically get through whatever that is so much easier and to do the same.

Totally. And my biggest advice to everybody listening and I tell every seller we work with is your business is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. That is it. That is a Christy McDowell quote. You can write that wherever you want. I don't. Again, it's like, oh, it's a multiple of EBITDA and it's this and it's that. No, it is, it's what your business is worth what someone's willing to pay for it. That is it like argument done. And people, they still want to argue it, you know, because you never know the value that, that you know, if someone's acquiring your company and doing a roll up, you don't know the future value of that, of what that business is going to do for their company and the future future. And they have, they know, right? So they come in knowing, oh my God, if I buy that company at this price, etc. Etc. So and then there's a, you know, some people are emotional about purchasing a certain type of business for different reasons. So there's so many. Anyways, I just always say that it's just your business is worth like someone's willing to pay for it at the end of the day.

Okay, so is there anything that I didn't ask you that.

You wish I did. I think just people just going for it. I don't care what other people think. Do what you love. You know, it takes work. Again, I'm going against what other people, other experts, other, you know, there's no magical, you know, everybody that I know that's super successful busted their ass to get there. And nowadays I just see people coming into entrepreneurship that don't work as hard at all and then they're frustrated when it's not working for them, but they're, they're seeing. When you see success stories, you're not seeing, seeing like the, you know, 20 years prior, I mean, you know too, right? They're just seeing like the fancy car and that you don't have to work as much anymore and you're taking all these cool trips around the world but they never saw the 18 hour days. And so I think just making sure everybody fully understands the insane amount of work it definitely takes. And again that's if you want a certain result. Right. Versus Yeah, I think what's being sold in this day and age of social media that it's like super easy and just buy my eighteen hundred dollar course and I'll teach you how to be an entrepreneur overnight and you don't work at all. I don't know. I'm just saying, especially lately I've seen some new entrepreneurs where it's not working for them, but they literally start their day at like 11am and they're done by 4 and I'm kind of like, I'm like, I don't know if you could build a company that way. But again, I think people listening that have built companies from the ground up are probably giggling a little bit because they know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, definitely.

I know it seems so easy when.

You look on the outside, but when you actually know what the work was like, it's a whole nother, a whole nother thing. It's such an honor to have you on here and I love hearing your stories and you are such an amazing human being all around, both business and personal. I would love you to share where people can find out about you in case they're wanting to see more.

Yes. So I gave up. One of the best things I ever did was I gave up social. I gave up Instagram and Facebook back in November 2019. I did it for six months because I was in Kindred, working 18 hour days. Craziness. And I was like, okay, let me get focused and not be on social media. Because it was such like a time suck. But that was November 2019. Never went back since. Even if you go to my Instagram, I think it says that on there that you know, you can contact me on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn, that's the best, best way to reach out. Connect the Magnolia firms. It's themagnoliafirm Co if you wanna check out our fun website. And we're helping people sell their businesses, one of the biggest transactions of their life. And it's super exciting. It's always fun to be on that journey alongside of some amazing business owners. And we always have amazing buyers by the company. So I get to see kind of both sides of the transaction and, and work all the way through that. So yeah, I would say LinkedIn, you're welcome to reach out. And then soon I'm going to have another YouTube show coming soon. We're still naming it but and so you'll see me back on, on, on YouTube and on podcast, talking, talking about businesses, selling businesses, all that fun stuff. I kind of miss you guys know. Well, you already know, but a lot of people know I had that, the Cool Living Coach show. So you can watch old episodes if you want to see me on there. But otherwise we're gonna have a new show coming up soon.

Yeah, I love, I love you. I love that podcast. The Co Living Kids show. Well, both video and podcast.

It was hard to do a weekly show for three years straight and then. But now I kind of missed it.

So.

So I'll be. I don't know if we're going to do weekly or not, but we'll be back on soon.

That's awesome.

Well, thanks so much for joining. Awesome. Okay, cool.

Thanks for listening to this. The do the Thing podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show, but even more, we hope you'll be inspired to do the thing. Do you have a burning question on Doing the thing that you'd like answered? How about an inspiring do the thing story of your own that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear all about it. Just leave us a voice message at dothing callcast co or email us elk hello@dothethingpodcast.com.