Fireside Chat with Brian J Esposito, Founder & CEO of Esposito Intellectual Enterprises, LLC

Brian brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to any team with his drive, ethics, and passion for connecting executives around the globe. He ensures the company has a strategic pipeline of revenues, partners, and profitability. We had a chance to interview him. Enjoy reading about his experience.

Fireside Chat with Brian J Esposito, Founder & CEO of Esposito Intellectual Enterprises, LLC

What motivated you to start Esposito Intellectual Enterprises, LLC? How did the idea come about?

Esposito Intellectual Enterprises, LLC (EIE) has been an ever-evolving model since the late ’90s. From my early teens, I was not only always creating value and building businesses but was establishing quite an extensive global list of contacts and relationships across many different industries. I had no idea what I was doing or the structure I was creating, but I knew how to quickly address the market and bring a product, service, platform, solution, or piece of technology to support that demand.

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What I did wrong for many years was that I allowed other people, companies, and entities to use my brain, time, resources, and access to help those situations become very substantial. I was left waiting for what I was rightfully owed. It was not until 2016 when I was involved in a car accident, that truly changed the trajectory of my life. A drunk driver hit me head-on that not only forced me to focus on my health but completely change my entire business model. I always say how grateful I am for that woman to hit me as she could have killed someone, as I am still here, so I will gladly take the hit, and more importantly, that moment on my journey was the jolt I needed change everything.

I realized I was the glue that kept all these companies and opportunities alive, and when I was ripped out of the equation, my entire world fell apart. I did not have the right people, professional services, or support system around me, and it was time to clean house, rebuild, and protect the inner circle. It has taken me 5+ years to create the present-day model that has 75+ entities within it, 150+ joint ventures from around the world, and operating in over 25 different industries with a presence in over 25 countries.

What do you attribute your success to? Is there a trait you have or a person who helped you along the way?

I attribute the current success, which, again, from my personal experience, can end and be taken away at any moment, my ability to survive, pivot, connect with the right people and opportunities, and navigate with the right level of emotions during that process. Patience, calmness, and passion are crucial to an entrepreneur’s journey and ensure that you surround yourself with the right people and operate within a small inner circle. I now have processes that keep people from infiltrating my world and causing harm. Having excellent legal, accounting, compliance, and even a private security arm helps ensure EIE is insulated from harm’s way. However, I am very grateful when someone of a poor caliber finds a way to impact me and my world negatively. They showed me a vulnerability or weakness that I need to address and quickly correct.

Your psyche needs to know how to react to issues. Your health is your wealth, and if you allow other people’s actions to cause you to worry, anxiety, or even health issues, you need to quickly begin to work on yourself and overcome those situations with gratitude and learn from them.

When times get tough, what would you say motivates you to keep going? To not hit the snooze button and to keep fighting for your goals.

When times get tough, that’s when I shine. That means there are opportunities out in the world, and assets, businesses, and projects are at a heavy discount. In this environment, I can quickly do what I do best and create partnerships, mergers, and unique opportunities that save those businesses or IP and the investors, stakeholders, and hopefully the employees.

Employees are one of the most important players to succeed in business. What do you look for in an employee?

Well, I have been through hell, as well as phenomenal times with employees over the last 20 years. There is, unfortunately, no guaranteed lifelong method here. I look for passionate, motivated, eager, and driven people to work alongside.

What are the three best pieces of advice that you would give to anyone starting a business? What do they need to know from the very beginning?

You need to properly develop a realistic valuation of your business, especially when you go out to raise capital. Spend the money and have a proper valuation done from a credited accounting firm. You need to treat points of equity like oxygen, do not give them away freely, every ½ a point of equity needs to be treated with the utmost respect and distributed properly to those parties adding value and/or supplying resources.

Secondly, surround yourself with a very strong but small inner circle and create an advisory board to help you succeed, gain entry into the market, and support your efforts. Find executives in the industry that you are entering into, build a relationship with them through platforms like LinkedIn, emailing, or calling, and tell them how honored you would be to join your advisory board to help make this happen company success a reality.

Lastly, generate revenues and positive earnings. It would be best if you found ways to make money quickly. Being a company that is caught in a valuation/fundraising trap is exhausting, in my mind, not a successful model, and will ultimately find the founder(s) quickly diluted out of their own company. In today’s market, if you were generating revenues or had projected revenues in the near term, you could borrow money basically for nothing and fuel your company without having to give up any precious equity.