Nick O’Hara has had the entrepreneurial bug since he was in high school. He launched his first company fixing broken iPhones when he was just 16 years old. O’Hara continued his entrepreneurial passion at Bryant University, and hasn’t looked back since.
Two failed startups after his iPhone business, O’Hara began to find success. One of those successful ventures, DirtByMail, which O’Hara started in college, sent an anonymous bag of dirt to someone the sender deemed to be a “dirtbag.” The idea caught on, earning roughly $4,000 per month in revenue. O’Hara and the company made it to the final auditions for ABC’s hit television show Shark Tank, and the company eventually got acquired in 2017.
O’Hara’s most recent startup, Canary, a music tech company connecting bars and musicians, raised money from angel investors and also signed on Aerosmith’s Tom Hamilton as an advisor. The company launched in Boston with a dozen venues and booked hundreds of gigs per month. Gigmor, a live music marketplace company, eventually acquired the company in late 2019.
Five companies later, O’Hara is still only 25. Currently, the serial entrepreneur is working as a software engineer at the Boston-based dog DNA startup Embark. Rhode Island Inno caught up with O’Hara to discuss his time at Bryant, as well as his advice for college entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs thinking about selling their businesses.
How did you end up at Bryant? What drew you to the school and what led you to join the school's entrepreneurship program?
I didn’t love my high school experience and so I never really applied myself academically or socially. My grades were subpar so I felt very fortunate to get accepted into Bryant. My immediate attraction to Bryant was from my older sister who went there and had great success academically and socially. Once I visited the campus, I really felt it was a place I could call home for the next four years. I was curious to explore the possibilities of entrepreneurship outside of my iPhone repair business, so I joined two of Bryant’s entrepreneurial clubs: Bryant Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization (CEO) and Bryant Ventures. CEO focused on bringing successful entrepreneurs to speak with students, while Bryant Ventures was hands-on with students who would actually start and grow their businesses. Both of those clubs, paired with meeting other students and being advised by professors, opened my eyes to the world of entrepreneurship.
What was the most influential entrepreneurship-related activity you did at Bryant and that helped you in your professional career?
I competed in almost every entrepreneurship competition Bryant had to offer. I won some and I lost some, but more importantly it taught me how to communicate my ideas to others and actively listen. When I was pitching investors, selling to bars, and pitching Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith, it was my ability to communicate and listen that helped me close those deals. The competitions at Bryant helped me hone those skills.
How can Rhode Island's college ecosystem do a better job of fostering entrepreneurship on campuses and the state as a whole? Is there anything specific you would like to see?
When I was at Bryant, I would have loved to see more collaboration across universities. There are talented individuals at Bryant, Brown, RISD, and the many other colleges in Rhode Island. It would be great to see clubs at Bryant like Ventures and CEO work with nearby schools. The key to being successful as an entrepreneur is being an independent learner. Universities in Rhode Island and other educational communities should always be pushing to teach students how to learn, not how to memorize and regurgitate information. There is no playbook for starting a successful business, you have to figure it out as you go.
What advice do you have for college entrepreneurs when launching a startup today?
Entrepreneurship is pretty simple: Build something that people want. You are in business to serve your customers, so focus on building the best product you can for them. If you do that, success will follow. Also, a lot of people get excited about raising money. Raising money sucks. It takes up a ton of time and takes you away from building your business. Not all businesses can avoid it but if you can avoid it, you should.
So, you've sold a few businesses. What advice do you have for first-time startup founders debating on whether or not it’s time to try and sell their business? Is it simply a matter of getting approached or can you make the conscious decision to go out and find a buyer?
There are a lot of factors that go into deciding to sell your business. Do you need to raise money and are you struggling to do so? Is the space becoming too crowded and you can’t compete? Are you ready for a change? Do you want to cash out? For DirtByMail, we graduated college and were busy with our full time jobs. We didn’t have the time to continue to operate and since the business couldn’t support us full time, we found a seller. For Canary, we were looking for a strategic partner to increase our distribution to venues. We had two companies interested in partnering, but both said the only partnership they would do is one where they acquired us. At the time, we were struggling to fundraise and I was exhausted from being a one-man team. The acquisition came at the perfect time. An acquisition that happens organically certainly requires less legwork upfront. However, if you feel confident it’s the right time to sell, put in the work and make it happen!
Bram Berkowitz is a contributing writer at Rhode Island Inno.
