We recently connected with Dale Majors and have shared our conversation below.

Dale, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

I’m the fourth of nine kids, and my parents were both very supportive. When I was in 6th grade I wanted to build a half pipe in my backyard, my 7th grade summer I saved up $500 dollars to build one and my Dad lent me the other 500 in prepaid allowance so we could make it happen. 8 feet high, 34 feet long, and 12 feet wide.

The next summer he paid me $100 to build the loft in our new tuff shed.

But more impressively, and really funny when it comes to showing how supportive my parents were, specifically my mom was a story from Kindergarten.

There were dirt jumps behind our neighborhood and people would dump deer heads there after their hunt. I REALLY wanted to take a deer head to show and tell, I was insistent. My mom drove me over there in the station wagon and we loaded a dear head in the back.

The next day, I’m sure as she suspected there were flies all over it as it sat in a bucket outside. My mom kindly wrote a note letting my teacher know that I couldn’t being my show and tell in person, but that I had a deer head.

My parents were very supportive.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started selling bike parts on Ebay in 1999 and parlayed those sales in to a business called Bikewagon that we scaled to 10M in revenue and sold in 2015.

My wife Brittany and I have six kids and our family hobby is bicycle touring. We’ve toured over 6,000 miles as a family, and most recently we rode from the mediterranean to the North Sea, a 3 months long bike tour that covered 1,850 miles, we cooked and camped along the way. We’ve ridden across France twice, and have done various tours in the states as well.

In 2020 I bought the brand Grand Trunk with my brother and other business partner, then we added Alite Designs to our portfolio in 2021.

In 2022 I bought a 24k sq. foot office building that I converted to a shared workspace called Builder Studios.

Since selling Bikewagon, I’ve also run 17 cohorts of 8-10 entrepreneurs through a 4 month long self development program I created to help entrepreneurs build systems and routines that help them stay aligned with what matters most.

My purpose is to promote and inspire family travel, including my efforts on my YouTube channel Venture Anyway, my real life goal of being a YouTuber:) I also champion entrepreneurship through my efforts at Builder Studios, as well as through running entrepreneur peer groups.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

After selling my first company I quickly realized, like 2 weeks later, that I really needed a clear purpose and I felt a bit lost without my main gig of the past 12 years. It helped me realize the importance of separating your identity from your business.

You can be a winner, but not be winning. You can be winning, but not presently be a winner. It’s more about your daily efforts and consistent focus.

After a year or two of soul searching I realized where I wanted to focus my career and efforts long term, and committed to not attaching my identify so closely to future businesses.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I remember listening to a consultant who was calling out a manager in a company I was also consulting. She had insisted that he was not showing enough patience to his subordinate, and how the position of power he had as a manager made it so he had to be even more patient and understanding in how he yielded his power.

It was a reminder to me, and a lesson that when we wield the power to either write checks, or cut people out of our businesses, we have to have an extra level of understand and empathy, and err on the side of mercy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ventureanyway.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dalemajors/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw0LV9w5XN6nVKQIBPmsuaA

Image Credits

Dale Majors