In this special episode of The Inspired Stories Podcast, the tables are turned as Bashar Haddad, COO of SSI, steps in as guest host to interview our usual host, Anthony Codispoti. Anthony shares his personal and professional journey—from his entrepreneurial beginnings to launching The Inspired Stories Podcast.
✨ Key Takeaways from This Episode:
- Embracing discomfort and challenges as a path to growth
- Lessons from building and selling multiple businesses
- The importance of networking and giving value first
- How entrepreneurship is full of unexpected pivots and learning moments
🌟 Key People and Influences in Anthony’s Journey:
- His Father: A mentor and role model who demonstrated integrity and perseverance in business
- Brandon Smith: Early business partner in web development and entrepreneurship
- Mark Craig: Co-founder in the eyewear industry, bringing design and innovation
- Jeremy Weiss: Podcasting expert who helped inspire The Inspired Stories Podcast
- Friends & Business Partners: Those who shaped his views on risk-taking and success
👉 Tune in for an insightful and candid conversation about business, mindset, and the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE
Transcript
Intro: Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes how they’ve overcome adversity and explore current challenges they’re facing.
Anthony Codispoti: Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Kodespode. Today’s guest is, well, me. We are flipping the script today and one of my previous guests is going to interview me.
So the host today will be Bashar Haddad from SSI, which is a prime contractor for staffing in a variety of government and defense environments. He first proposed this idea a couple months ago, and I’ll admit that initially I was pretty hesitant. I’m much more comfortable asking questions than I am talking about myself. And after further reflection, I realized that this was exactly the reason I should do it. Growth comes from doing things that makes us uncomfortable.
So here we are. A little bit about me. I’m a married father, two boys, ages eight and 10. I live in Columbus, Ohio, graduated from Ohio State in 97. Started my first business that year. In fact, we had our first client presentation the day after I graduated. I’ve gone on to start, build and in some cases sell different businesses and different industries, each time taking what I learned in the previous venture to apply it in a new way to the next thing I did. Fast forward to 2024 when I started this podcast. In the first year alone, we’ve recorded well over a hundred episodes and we’re still having fun.
I don’t know what questions Bashar is going to ask me today, but we’ll find out together. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our proprietary programs.
Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible to find out if your company qualifies contact us today at addbackbenefitsagency.com. OK, now to our host today, the COO of SSI, Bashar Haddad. I appreciate you making the time to help share my story today. And with that, I’ll do my best to spend most of my time answering questions instead of asking All right. Well, first of all, Anthony,
Bashar Haddad: thank you very much for allowing me this opportunity. I had shared with you in the past that I’d love to start doing my own podcast, not necessarily what you do, but something different. And this is an opportunity for me to get my feet wet. So I certainly appreciate you allowing me to do this to kind of dig into your closet a little bit, find out a little bit more about you. I’m sure the listeners want to know more about Anthony as well. So without further ado, I have a couple of prepared questions that I wanted to ask you.
And then hopefully we’ll get into a nice conversation or rhythm and see where it goes from there. All right. So you already told us you’re married. You have two children, eight and 10. You live in Columbus, Ohio. Is that where you were born and raised?
Anthony Codispoti: So I was actually born in Monterey, California. My dad was stationed at an army base out there. And I was very young when we moved. All of his family was back in Northeast Ohio. So when I was just a couple of months old, we moved back to Canton, Ohio, which is where I grew up the age of 18. And 1992, I moved to Columbus to attend the Iowa State University and just fell in love with the city.
It’s sort of the right size for me. Canton was kind of a great city, wonderful place to grow up, a little small for me. I visit places like New York and Chicago, and I love visiting there, but they’re a little bit too hectic and busy for me. Columbus is sort of a nice mix where there’s a lot of stuff going on, but not too big and congested and kind of overwhelming.
Bashar Haddad: Very good. And your wife, she grew up and
Anthony Codispoti: she grew up in Northeast Ohio slash Western Pennsylvania. So kind of like Youngstown border, Youngstown, Ohio, and Sharon and Sharpsville, PA on the Western side. And she moved to Columbus. And she’s been doing this shortly before we met. Boy, I guess I should know what that date is.
You’re going to get me into trouble. Kind of like early to mid 2000s, she had graduated from college and she came down here for a job. And a mutual friend introduced us. And so she’s called Columbus home ever since then.
Bashar Haddad: Your wife asked me to ask that question to see if you actually remember.
Anthony Codispoti: Great. All right.
Bashar Haddad: So so I’ve had employees work for me in Monterey, California, at Defense Language Institute. And I’ve been there several times. Absolutely beautiful place. And you chose to leave Monterey to live in Ohio.
Anthony Codispoti: Well, the choice wasn’t mine to make. Two months old, I didn’t really have a whole lot of input. But yeah, my dad is a family guy first. And so I think it was kind of a little bit of a challenging decision for him to to sort of just make the decision to join the military right after he graduated dental school. And there was some consideration to stay in the military.
A lot of conversations that happened around there. But ultimately, he decided that he wanted his kids to grow up around grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. And so I certainly appreciate the family environment that we were able to grow up in. But yeah, I’ve been out to visit that part of the country a couple of times. And yeah, it’s hard to beat the weather out there.
Bashar Haddad: Yeah, I just as I mentioned to you, I just got back from San Diego yesterday. And it’s just beautiful every single day. So you say you started your podcast. In two thousand twenty four this year and you’ve already done a hundred episodes. Yeah. What what was what made you want to start a podcast?
Anthony Codispoti: So the idea first came to me. Gosh, this was probably more than 15 years ago. And back then, I don’t think I don’t even know if the word podcast was a thing. I don’t I don’t think there were podcast platforms. But there was one video interview show called Mixergy. The host was Andrew Warner. I think it’s still going strong today. And he interviewed founders of companies and told their stories.
And, you know, what they did to help make them successful and what was challenging, what tools they were using, shortcuts that they found. And the content to me was just enthralling. It was like somebody had made a television station just for me. You know, like I would enjoy occasionally watching things on National Geographic. Sometimes there’s a show on network television that interests me.
You know, I like watching but like every single interview that he did, I was on the edge of my seat, just soaking it all in. And at that same time, I had started a high end eyewear business. And we were we were making our own frames. There was a unique design element to them, which you’ll actually see.
I’m wearing a pair of them here called the Split Fit Temple. So the extra surface area gives more grip on the head. So, you know, they stay in place as you’re sort of being active. And it also distributes the weight more evenly.
So you don’t get those pressure points behind your ears. And so it was this this cool brand. It was like a mashup of both form and function, sport and style, you know, kind of these cool eye shapes, but with, you know, a truly functional element to it. And we were selling into high end eyewear shops. And so it’s kind of a like a close knit community, these like higher end shops. And, you know, we were trying to, you know, establish relationships with the stores, with the sales reps, with the distributors who are, you know, known for carrying these different brands that we would put ourselves in the same category with. And, you know, I was trying to think, how do we, you know, how do we kind of connect with more people in this space? And somehow the idea popped into my head that if I did a podcast, maybe this would be a way to connect with people in this space. It would be a way that I could give to them, you know, rather than calling up and just, hey, can I, you know, sell you some eyeglasses?
Sure. Or, you know, something like that. So, so I had the idea. I practiced it.
I, you know, with some with some friends. And then I sort of had the details worked out and I went to present it to my business partner and he was kind of like, I don’t know, seems like a whole lot of time spent on something that, you know, may not prove fruitful. And so, I mean, he wasn’t telling me I couldn’t do it. Like it wasn’t that kind of relationship. He was just like, if you’re going to do it, like you’re on your own, like, you know, and I kind of let that be like a wet blanket. And I’m like, yeah, I don’t know. I’m busy with other stuff.
So I let it sit on the shelf. Fast forward several years later, a friend of mine, who I want to give a shout out to, his name is Jeremy Weiss. He runs a business called Rise 25. And he actually helps people set up their own podcasts.
That’s like his business. He’s been interviewing and podcasting longer than pretty much anybody I know. In fact, he was Andrew Warner’s producer on that Mixer G show that I first met. And that’s, yeah, that’s that’s how we first met. And so I reconnected with Jeremy and he explained what his business was.
And, you know, this is his approach, you know, he helps other businesses set these up as a way to, you know, sort of for folks to grow their network. And I thought, see, I knew that that was a good idea all those years ago. I should have done it. And so I’m like, OK, you know, no more regrets looking in the rearview mirror for, you know, not having done this thing that I was interested in all those years ago. And so I started the podcast earlier this year and really for two reasons. You know, one is that I enjoy it. You know, these are the kinds of conversations that I seek out at dinner parties. Or, you know, if I’m in a social setting where I don’t know folks and, you know, my wife can always tell if if I’ve connected with somebody, she’ll see me across the room and I’m, you know, deep in conversation. And I’m, you know, I’ve got smiles on my face and, you know, talking and gesturing a lot. And then, you know, the other reason is it’s a nice way to to grow and support my network. You know, how do I get to meet other interesting people? Great ways to reach out and offer to give them a platform to help tell their story.
And one of the things that I started doing more recently, once the interview has concluded is, you know, I’ll ask my guests, hey, you know, and I’ll tell them exactly like, hey, I do this as a way to grow and support my network. Is there something I can do to help you? You know, is there something in your business that you’re stuck on?
Is there something that you’re on the lookout for? Is there an introduction that would be helpful? Maybe there’s somebody in my network that I can make an introduction to. And since I’ve added that, you know, component in, you know, I’ve been able to connect a lot of folks with the types of resources that they’re looking for and that feels really good.
Bashar Haddad: Case in point right here. Just so you know, folks, Anthony reached out to me a couple of weeks after he did my interview. Said, there’s someone I think you should meet.
Government contracting, you know, getting started, whatever. And if you ever get a chance to watch my interview, I told them, I’m always here to help people out. And so he’s already made that connection.
So that’s, I can tell you from experience, that’s 100% true. But do me a favor, because I’m watching you and you took off your glasses to show how they grip. Can you put that a little bit closer to the camera so people can actually see? See that? That’s pretty cool. Yeah. Antlers, man. Is it Christmas time?
Anthony Codispoti: I wish I could take credit for this. I had the best business partner ever. I sort of had sort of the seedling of an idea that I had this performance pair of frames at very lightweight and very comfortable, but the they weren’t very stylish. And so I went searching for somebody who could help me design a pair of glasses that would sort of fit what I was looking for, because I couldn’t find them. And he took sort of the seedling of an idea that I had. And, you know, created this design and others that go along with it and the branding and all the accessories that were just incredible. And I initially hired him as a as a contractor. And we just really hit it off so well that I’m like, hey, I would really love for you to be a part of this.
And so, yeah, so I’ve got to give credit to Mark Craig. So whatever happened to that business? So after growing it for a few years, I decided it was time for me to move on to another opportunity. And I exited the business and sold my portion to Mark. And Mark has kept it alive. It’s kind of been a side thing for him for a bit, because his his primary business had been designing eyewear for probably most of the brands that you’ve heard of. And so, you know, that was kind of the bread and butter.
And I don’t want to say anything out of turn, but there there may be a resurgence of some things coming around the corner. Mark and I have stayed in there.
Bashar Haddad: Very cool. If someone sees those glasses and they’re interested in them, how do they find them?
Anthony Codispoti: Activisteyewear.com. What is it? Activist. A-C-T-I-V-I-S-T. Eyewear.com. And I was a little hesitant on that name when we first got started, because it has like so it’s so charged like politically. And that was not our intent. It was more about like an active lifestyle and being like agents of change, doing things differently than they had been done. And, you know, we were a bit younger and our our eyes were as big as the saucers.
And we thought, you know, we could kind of help redefine this word, you know, in people’s minds. And it’s still a wonderful brand. Great quality. You know, one of the physical products that I’m most proud of ever having been involved with.
Bashar Haddad: That’s very cool. I myself have been through several different businesses. So, you know, I totally understand what you’re going through. I don’t know if it’s ADHD or what, but, you know, the business I’m in now, we just celebrated 22 years in business. This is the longest I’ve ever done anything. And how do you keep from getting bored? Well, the business that I’m, are you asking the questions or am I?
Anthony Codispoti: See, I told you I’d do my best.
Bashar Haddad: You know what? It’s always a new opportunity, always a new challenge. It’s not the same thing day in and day out. So that’s what keeps I love when my customers call me and tell me, hey, great job. Or they’re, I mean, that just makes my day because we’ve been there for backwards to keep our customers happy. But enough about me. Let’s talk about you. So you were in the eyeglass business.
You have, I would call it somewhat of an insurance company where you have insurance products, not your typical insurance products. I’ve heard the pitch. I think it’s kind of cool what you guys do. Do you want to talk about that at all? Just a little bit?
Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, maybe just briefly prefer not to make it the primary focus. But yeah, it’s a really innovative insurance product. It offers employees telehealth 24 sevens. That’s urgent primary care counseling and therapy. So access to a psychiatrist as well as counselors and therapists. There’s a list of 190 prescription medications that are also included. All those benefits as well as others like some lab screening, genomic screenings, access to a health coach.
They all come without any co-pays, co-insurances or deductibles. And there’s there’s some pretty innovative things done on the back end that allowed the whole product to be very fiscally efficient for both the employee and the employer.
Bashar Haddad: Yeah, I think it’s somewhat subsidized by the government. So therefore it’s not just a cost savings. You actually get a little bit of money back when you use the product. Correct?
Anthony Codispoti: Probably not accurate to say that it’s subsidized by the government. But yeah, there there’s some innovative things done on the back end that allow it to be really efficient. And those are things that, you know, for folks who are interested, I can certainly get into, you know, more on a one on one basis.
Bashar Haddad: And the last thing that I’ll say is when you did give us the pitch on this product, we wanted to use it. Unfortunately, most of our employees are overseas and it just doesn’t work for employees that are overseas. Obviously, 99% of the companies in the US, you know, their employees are here in the US and this product is is awesome.
Anthony Codispoti: Anyway, let’s go. Yeah, as I said in the kind of the sponsor intro there, it is certainly not for everybody and yours, your company was an example of that. I think, you know, we kind of got to that conclusion pretty quickly. But yeah, for those companies that it does work for, it’s a really nice and welcome benefit. Sure. It allows folks to give some some benefits to employees that, you know, maybe didn’t have access to them before. So let’s go back to the beginning.
Bashar Haddad: In your upbringing, who is who is the motivator in your life? Who is your biggest inspiration that got you to do all these different things? Because you obviously have a very entrepreneurial mind. Who is who is the person that you look back now and say, man, that person really had an impact on my life.
Anthony Codispoti: That’s a really easy question for me to answer. It’s my father. He’s we’re very similar people in a lot of ways. I grew up with a great role model, somebody who was highly entrepreneurial. I think I mentioned, you know, he graduated from dental school, went to military, came back and he started his own practice.
And while he had his dental practice and ran it very efficiently, he was also investing in starting, you know, being involved in a variety of other businesses. And so I got to grow up in that household seeing, you know, how he carried himself and how he operated. And I think, you know, it’s certainly in my genes, it’s innate in me. It’s not innate in all my siblings.
I would say I might be the only one who kind of, you know, has that entrepreneurial tendency. But being able to watch and observe him, especially as he navigated some really challenging times, you know, when businesses were not going well, when there were partnerships where, you know, he was taken advantage of and that caused a lot of strife and a lot of economic hardship and seeing how, you know, he didn’t run away from those. And he didn’t he didn’t run towards bankruptcy, which would have been the sensible or, you know, the certainly the much easier solution. He stepped up and, you know, and I’ve had people that he dealt with in these situations come to me and say what what your father did during those times was incredibly admirable.
99 percent of people wouldn’t do that. And so, you know, it’s kind of one thing for parents to sort of teach their kids through their words. And I think, you know, that’s certainly, you know, a way to do it. But one of the great things about being in the house that I was growing up, you know, having the father that I did is I also got to learn from his actions. You know, he the lessons that he taught us in in words and in parables lived out in the way that he carried himself through real life. Absolutely.
Bashar Haddad: You know, the old expression, do what I do, don’t do what I say or something along those lines where
Anthony Codispoti: do what I say, not what I do. But with and certainly some of that applies to my dad as well. You know, he would he would chew ice all the time and he’s a dentist and then he would yell at us for chewing ice because it cracks your teeth. But I think on the really important things about, you know, how to be a good human being, how to be honorable, how to be trustworthy, those were things where there were never competing messages. It was what he was saying is what he was doing in the living.
Bashar Haddad: Absolutely. And you said he was in the army.
Anthony Codispoti: He was in the army for two years. Yeah. He was.
Bashar Haddad: Is he still with us?
Anthony Codispoti: He is. Yes, very much so. That’s great. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. Well, make sure you tell him I said hello and thank you for your service. Thank you for your service.
Yeah, I did that. OK, so your dad, most people say their dad is their most inspiring individual in their lives. Go to college, meet your wife. What was your you said you started a.
Bashar Haddad: You had your first presentation immediately out of college. What was that business?
Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, so this was 1996, 97. You know, I was prepping for graduation. I got a bachelor’s in business and was trying to think of next steps. And I started applying for jobs and the things I was seeing, you know, they weren’t really exciting. I don’t know what I had in mind that I would be doing, but I don’t know.
None of them were like, oh, this would be amazing. And at the same time, a good friend and my roommate, Brandon Smith, was working on his doctoral program at Ohio State. And he was kind of doing the job search thing, too.
And like he also wasn’t super excited about what he was finding. And this was like very early days of the Internet. And Brandon had a very technical and creative mind, one of the smartest guys I’ve ever known, and we started to, you know, kind of half jokingly kick around this idea about starting a web design company.
And it went from a joke to something a little bit more serious. And so we had kind of the corporation set up and the logo and our own website and everything prior to graduation. And then with my dad’s help, who was our business partner as well, he set up our very first client meeting the day after graduation, which was with the Ohio Dental Association.
We did not end up getting that job, but it was, you know, a good start for us. And yeah, so this so it was called NetLogix. We started out just doing very basic websites, kind of what we called brochureware back then, you know, weren’t very interactive. It’s just you want to put a marketing piece up online.
We can help you do that. But then, you know, relatively quickly, we evolved into building, you know, some of the early web based applications that you would find online. And you have to keep in mind, like this was really early days. Like a lot of people we talked to didn’t really even understand what the internet was. I remember I would tell like family and friends, you know, we were building web pages and they didn’t understand what a wet page was.
And so, you know, it was like really having to, you know, explain what the internet is and how it might be useful to them. And so that was a business that we built up, probably had for about five or six years before we decided to exit. But yeah, that was the very first business that we started.
Bashar Haddad: So you wake up every single morning. You have your insurance business and your podcasts. What motivates you the most to wake up every morning? What are you excited about when you wake up?
Anthony Codispoti: Hmm. You know, I would say it’s different on different days, depending on what my calendar is. I most days I do have a podcast and a reschedule. And I always get excited about meeting somebody new and hearing their story, helping them tell their story and being able to learn from what they’ve gone through and see even for myself selfishly, like what can I take from their life experiences, their business lessons and apply to my own life. So any day that I’ve got a podcast interview, that’s something that I get excited for.
And then, you know, depending on what kind of client interactions that I have arranged for that day, you know, it’s the product that we talked about. It’s something that I’m very passionate about, really excited about, you know, believe really helps a lot of people. And so, you know, when there’s the opportunity to introduce it to folks or to, you know, how kind of take them through the onboarding process and put them in a position where they can, you know, offer this to their employees, that’s something that’s really satisfying. You know, I’ve got, you know, a number of clients who are thanking me profusely. You know, this is such a great opportunity. Like I really appreciate you, you know, helping us with this, making it available to us. And that feels really good. Sure. So I’d say, you know, there’s certainly, depending on the day, it’s the combination of those two things.
Bashar Haddad: Very good. So your podcast, where’s your broadcast? You have it on YouTube. I know that you have it on Spotify.
Anthony Codispoti: Yep. We put it on Apple podcast, Amazon music. There’s a couple of few other smaller platforms that I’m forgetting the names of now that I know my producer pushes them to as well. It’s also on our own website, inspiredstoriespodcast.com.
And yeah, so those are the big platforms that we push it to. And then, you know, some of the things that, that we do for the guest, you know, we, after the podcast goes live, we’ll send them kind of a little, almost like a little press packet. It’s got links to all the places where the episode was posted so that, you know, they can backlink to it or, you know, use it in any way that they want. We give them some collateral that’s easy to share on social media. There’s some quote cards, you know, where we pull out, you know, little snippets that were said during the interview, you know, kind of stylized them so that they’re easy to share on social media. We create an audiogram for them. So take like an audio and video clip from the, from the interview and, you know, put it in a format that’s easy also to share on social media. And then especially for those companies that have got some, you know, someone on their team that’s creative or they’re working with a creative agency, they get really excited that we make the full audio and video available to them to use for free.
I’ve heard from some folks that, you know, other podcasts that they’re on that there’s restrictions on how that content can be used. And I can certainly appreciate, you know, why some other platforms might do that. But for us, you know, for me, again, like a big reason I do this is to build, you know, to grow and support my own network. And so, you know, I’m always looking for how can I give to people. And so, hey, here’s the raw audio and video files. If you guys want to put this in some ads that you’re doing, if, you know, you want to slice it up and use in social media posts or, you know, blogs, newsletters, whatever it is, like you don’t have to ask any permission like this, this is free for you to use. Yeah.
Bashar Haddad: When it, when it comes to that, you were incredibly generous and open and forthcoming with all that when we did our interview. We haven’t utilized it yet because we haven’t had any market needs. But I haven’t saved in my emails that I can access at any time I need. Which platform do you use? Or which platform gets the most views out of all the places you put your videos?
Anthony Codispoti: I think it’s probably Spotify. Yeah. That’s the most popular one. And I don’t, I don’t know if that’s because that’s what my producer is pushing or promoting. I suspect that’s the case. Or if that’s maybe the most popular platform for people to listen on or, you know, some combination of the two. Okay.
Bashar Haddad: In all the things that you’ve done, what is your biggest regret or what business were you in that you regretted the most? Or what mistake do you, can you look back at and go, man, that’s the one thing I should have done differently?
Anthony Codispoti: Wow, I’ve got a long list of those things. Me too. But the first one that pops into my head is, so I mentioned that first business that we had, NetLogix. And while we were running that business, I came up with an idea for our own SAS, Software as a Service. And this was back before SAS was even a term. Back then we were calling them application service providers.
But I had an idea for something because we had a need internally. So we were using QuickBooks as our accounting software. And QuickBooks had this standalone time tracking application that you could install on a Windows machine and people could, you know, keep track of the time they spent for a client. You know, switch clients and start the timer and stop the timer.
And then at the end of the week, they could create an export file that we could easily import into QuickBooks and it made the billing really easy. The big problems with it were that it was very buggy. And so at least once a day, somebody’s Windows computer in our office crashed and you could hear the beeping sound that it made when it did it. And then two is, you know, we had programmers that were using Windows, but we had designers who were using Macs and there was no application available for folks on a Mac. So they had to manually keep track of their time or in a spreadsheet.
And then at the end of the week, they had to get access to somebody on a Windows machine so they could put their files in and then create the export file. And I’m like, there’s got to be a better way to do this. So we went looking for something that we could just buy or, you know, pay a monthly fee for that would, you know, solve the problem.
And we couldn’t find anything. But what we found were QuickBooks message boards where a lot of other people were complaining about the same issue. And I thought, well, we know how to build software. We know how to build web based software. We’ve been doing that for our clients now for a while. Let’s set this up as a side project. So when we’ve got downtime where we’re not working on clients, let’s build this thing for us to use internally first.
And I don’t know, let’s see if maybe we want to try to sell it to people after the fact. And so it took a little while to build to use internally. And it instantly solved, you know, all the problems that we were having. And, you know, now we had ideas for new features to add on to it that made it even more useful for us to use internally. And so then we’re like, OK, what would it take to actually make this into an application that we could sell to people?
And it wasn’t even entirely clear to us on what that might look like. Like now SAS is a very common way of selling software. You pay a monthly fee, oftentimes a monthly fee per user, you know, per license. But back then that wasn’t as common. And, you know, a lot of software was distributed on CD-ROMs and maybe you paid a one time fee and it also wasn’t very easy to take credit card payments online. Like we had to build our own mechanism to do that. And so we put it out there and we just started replying to people on the message boards to see, you know, if they would be interested. We got people signing up and giving us feedback. And it was such early days with credit card payments that some of our clients were actually mailing us checks every month to pay for the fee. And I thought, well, this is great, you know, nice little side business that it could have. And I had sort of visions and ideas about where to take it. Folks were asking about expense tracking. So we wanted to do that.
Folks wanted like more project management, which at that time, I don’t think existed at all in a web based format. I could be wrong. This was like 99, 2000.
So it’s possible that I’m misremembering things. But we already had, you know, a bit of a user base and an audience there. I think, you know, looking back, what I should have done was rather than treating this as a side project, as I, you know, worked on other main businesses along the way, I really should have invested my full attention in that. And really built out the feature set for it.
Bashar Haddad: So can I tell you something? We the software that we use in my company is called L-Tech. Okay. I don’t think this was even discussed on our interview. Dell Tech is probably the most well known government contractor accounting system. So we, if you do work with the department of defense, you get audited by DCAA, defense contract audit agency. Most of these guys are ex Dell Tech employees. So when they come in and they see Dell Tech, they already know how to navigate through it. You’re already, you know, 10 steps ahead of the next guy. And Dell Tech does everything from timekeeping, expenses and project based accounting. And they’re huge.
Anthony Codispoti: Huge. Could have been us. I mean, there’s a lot of really great platforms out there, even outside of the defense industry. Sure. And, you know, they’re doing things way beyond what my vision was, you know, over 20 years ago.
But yeah, I guess that’s probably one of the big ones. Because we were real early to the game. There was nobody doing anything like we were doing in that moment. Yeah. And so that’s that’s one big ship that kind of went past us. I mean, that was a nice little side business for a number of years before I sold it. But that’s one that, yeah, I should have spent a lot more time focusing on.
Bashar Haddad: So if that one is, I don’t want to say a disappointment, well, it’s a disappointment that you didn’t get to take it where it probably could have gone. What would you say your biggest successes? Don’t say marriage and kids. Everyone says that. But you know, why are you saying he’s going to say that? Is this wise or personally, what would you say you’re one of your greatest successes?
Anthony Codispoti: There’s two that come to mind. And so as I left the as I left netlogics, I joined a business that was already in existence. And I became a partner and selling beads and jewelry components like costume jewelry parts. And it was already a very successful business, but not run in a very structured and organized way. And, you know, my partner already had lots of great client relationships, lots of great vendor relationships.
He understood the space. And, you know, what I was kind of bringing in was, you know, understanding technology, like we’re going to build a website to allow people to purchase online. We, you know, introduced barcoding in our warehouse environment. You know, so we were about to, it used to take hours. In the rare event that we would get somebody call up and place an order, it would take us hours to fill it because these things were in these giant rubber made tins. And we had to sort through them and look for the right colors.
And is this blue or green or green blue or like there was just, you know, there weren’t product ID codes or any of that. And so, you know, I was able to kind of bring in some standardization to the ordering process so that we could order from a supplier without having to hop on a plane and go overseas to, you know, visit with them in person that a client, you know, a customer here in the States could do the same thing. You know, if they bought from us once, they knew that this was the, you know, M123 product and, you know, they could call up or get on the website and reorder that. And so we took what was already a very successful business, made it even more successful by layering in technology in a way that, you know, when I first told my partner and, you know, as well as some of his customers, like what my plans were for the business, they kind of smiled and laughed at me like, you know, that kind of stuff isn’t going to work in this type of industry.
Like, you know, young whippersnapper thinks he’s going to reinvent the world here. And so certainly I had my own doubts about, you know, whether this would work and whether people would buy these kinds of products online and whether they would respond well to, you know, the catalogs that we were creating and some of these systems of standardization. But it worked really well and people appreciated that we were kind of at the forefront of that because it made, you know, their lives a lot easier. So that’s one that I was really proud of. And then the second one is I started an organic tea brand.
And this came about through my own personal journey. I was, I’ve always been interested in sort of ways to optimize my own health. You know, how can I have the right level of energy, you know, sustain good moods, you know, could sleep at night. And so, you know, anytime I’d read about a supplement, I would try it out.
And most supplements, I would never notice a difference in the way that I felt. So I kind of had this supplement graveyard in my linen closet, things that I tried and, okay, I don’t need to try that again. But there was one thing that I tried.
And that was, it’s back up just a little bit. I was also at the same time trying to drink green tea. Because, you know, that’s very good for you, lots of antioxidants.
I didn’t really care for the flavor and drinking it, particularly on an empty stomach upset my stomach. And I forget if I had the idea, I think maybe a friend, you know, why don’t you just, you know, put the tea leaves at the same time was making these smoothies. And I was putting some of the supplements and different superfoods into the smoothies that I was trying.
They’re like, why don’t you throw the green tea leaves into the smoothie and see what that’s like. And I’m like, okay. And so I did that. And the flavor profile was very good, much better than for me drinking the green tea straight, didn’t upset my stomach. And then what I noticed was that my energy levels were ideal, rather than like a cup of coffee. And I used to love drinking coffee, love the flavor. But, you know, coffee kind of gives me like a big peak of energy and then a crash.
Yeah. And like now today, I can’t drink it at all. Like it makes me super jittery. But the nice thing that I sort of discovered by consuming the green tea the way that I did is that it got absorbed into my body more slowly. And green tea, in addition to having caffeine, lower amounts than coffee does, it also has this nice little sidecar called L-theanine, which is a calming agent. So for folks who, you know, might get a little bit jittery from other forms of caffeine, this is a nice substitute.
And so I noticed that it was just… Is this just founding green tea? Yeah, that’s right. Okay. Yeah. And so I noticed that when I would have one of these smoothies, I would have just this nice kind of sustained energy lift throughout the day.
No big peak or crash. I was more focused. I just, I felt more on. And, you know, when that happened the first day, I thought, well, most supplements I tried, I don’t notice a felt effect from.
Maybe this is like a placebo effect because, you know, nothing works like that. And so I kept doing it. And I kept experiencing the same feelings. And then, you know, I recommended it to some of my friends on my cure, try this, tell me what your experience is like.
And I was hearing similar reports coming back from people. And so a little bit of a securitist route as to, you know, how we got there. But at one point, I had a business partner and we decided to start this business selling what initially I was calling edible green tea. An idea that I thought that, you know, I had sort of stumbled on and discovered and later, you know, understood and learned that Asian cultures have been consuming matcha green tea powder for centuries.
And so, okay. But so then we were selling this matcha green tea powder. And our primary avenue to sell it at the time was Amazon, which at that time, most people still kind of considered to be like a book platform, right? Amazon started out.
I myself, I didn’t even realize that you could buy other products on there. But we were sort of early days to sell matcha. And we were sort of right place, right time, you know, doing a good job.
But like the stars just kind of aligned for us where the Amazon platform started taking off matcha started taking off in popularity in the US. We had a great quality product, the messaging, the marketing, the brand was great. And we were able to ride that to success and add some other really great quality organic tea products along the way. And so, that’s one I was also really proud of as well. So where did you make the tea?
Bashar Haddad: Did you buy it from overseas? Did you grow it here locally? I mean, where did you get the tea?
Anthony Codispoti: Yeah. So most tea is not grown in the States. It’s just, yeah, there are some exceptions, but by and large, most tea is overseas, depending on the type of tea. Like we, we eventually, we from, oh, I think it was Brazil. Was it Argentina? I think it was Brazil.
It’s been a while. But the green tea, the matcha was coming from Japan. We had started very early on with a Chinese supplier and it was really good quality.
But we wanted to improve the quality. And so we spent a time testing different tea samples from, from different farms around the world. And, you know, we were looking for the levels of catechins, the antioxidants, we were looking for levels of, you know, the alfionine and the caffeine. But I was mostly interested in levels of contaminants or heavy metals.
And so anytime we found a farm where those levels were raised, you know, that was something that we took out right away. And that was actually one of our strategies early on was, excuse me, you know, since we were going to be recommending to people that they consume this, that they ingest the whole leaf into their bodies, we wanted to make sure that we had the purest product out there. And so, you know, not only did we test the product, but, you know, we made those, those test results freely available to the public for anybody who wanted to see them.
And it, yeah, as it turned out, the best quality product that we found was from a great supplier in Japan who I got to be friends with and got to visit the farms and tour the production facility, which was a really neat experience.
Bashar Haddad: Very cool. So you’ve done so many different things. What’s on the horizon for Anthony? I like that question. Five years. Where do you plan on being?
Anthony Codispoti: I don’t know the answer to that in this moment, Bashar. I’m really enjoying the two primary things that I’m focused on now, the innovative insurance product that we’ve talked about, as well as the podcast. I always leave myself open to the infinite possibilities of the universe and, you know, what new conversations and new friendships, you know, what opportunities may unfold from that. But yeah, for right now, I’m enjoying what I’m doing and I try to take it one day at a time.
Bashar Haddad: All right. So I have two more questions for you. First one. What are your words of wisdom to anybody out there who either wants to start a podcast or maybe is getting the insurance business or any of the other businesses you were in? What is Anthony’s quote of the day?
Anthony Codispoti: Yeah. What would be my quote of the day? Business is hard. You know, I think be prepared for ups and downs. You know, I think one of the things that I try to highlight as I’m interviewing my guests is, you know, kind of helping people see that the path to success is almost never a straight and easy path, right? It’s filled with potholes. It’s filled with setbacks.
It’s filled with times where you were on the verge of bankruptcy or couldn’t make payroll or, you know, thought you were going to have to shut your doors because you lost a big client or there was a fire or an accounting scandal. You know, like there are all these curveballs that get thrown at you. And I think for some people when those curveballs come, they take it as a sign that, well, this wasn’t meant to be.
And that, you know, I should move on. Like it shouldn’t be this hard. If this was going to be successful, it should be easier. And, you know, I think the reality is that a lot of people don’t see from the outside looking into a company that is successful.
They don’t see like all that stress in the worry and the shenanigans that go on behind the scenes. And you’re laughing because you know it. You’ve lived it yourself.
You’ve got countless versions of that story yourself. So, you know, I would say, you know, go into it with the understanding that it’s going to be hard. I mean, a lot of the guests I talked to, they will actually, you know, say in their own words that had I known that it was going to be as difficult as it turned out to be, I probably would not have gotten started with it.
But, you know, once they were in it and, you know, their livelihood depended on it, they had employees’ livelihoods that depended on it, they were like, we’re just going to figure this out. And so understand, like, like go for it. Like, don’t sit on the sideline, go for it. Life is not meant to be a spectator sport.
You’re meant to get in the game. But understand that it’s going to be hard and there’s going to be setbacks. And I think one of the best things that you can do for yourself, you know, as you’re getting started and as you’re going through those tough times is not to go through them alone. Like, find a network of like-minded people who can support you.
Right? Because if you’re, say, married, you know, you’re married, you know, your spouse can be a great source of support. But, you know, if they’re not in business themselves or business-minded in that way, they may not really understand what you’re going through.
And they may not be able to pull from their own experiences and wisdom to, you know, be able to offer you advice. But if you can get into, you know, some kind of a mastermind group, a networking group, a trade association where, you know, you can share your stories and, you know, hear that you’re not alone, like that kind of communal support is really helpful. And, you know, being able to then, you know, ask for their advice and ask for their help. That’s something that I think human beings in general have a hard time doing is asking for help and entrepreneurs probably even more so because they want to be seen as the leaders and not somebody who needs help. But, you know, seek out that support because it’s going to be really helpful to you.
Bashar Haddad: You know, that’s, I couldn’t agree with you more. So many great leaders. You hear all the success stories. You don’t hear about all the failures, all the speed bumps along the way.
Everything they had to go through to get to that point. No one’s born knowing everything. And, you know, at a very young age, I learned to ask the right questions and ask as many questions as you want because that’s how you educate yourself. So, sit on the side. Well, I don’t want to look like an idiot by asking you questions.
Well, then you’re going to walk away not having the information that can be very vital to your success. So, last question, Anthony. What is something that you’d like to share with your audience that we haven’t touched on today? What do you want them to walk away knowing about Anthony that you’ve never shared before?
Anthony Codispoti: Well, it’s a big question. I don’t know that I’ve got a big answer to go along with it. Hmm. What’s a good parting thought here? And I feel like we were hitting on some really good stuff with that last question about, you know, life is not meant to be a spectator sport. Life is full of worry.
Let’s dive a little bit more into actually kind of the point that you were making there, that people don’t see like, you know, all the stuff that happens behind the scenes. You know, you see somebody who’s really successful. They’re living in a nice house. They’re driving a nice car.
You know, and I’ve heard a lot of people make this comment, oh, it must be nice. You know, like, you know, like this is somehow, you know, they pulled the lever at the casino and, you know, it just came up triple cherries for them. And, you know, it was just a stroke of luck. Like, you know, certainly there are exceptions, but, you know, most people who got there, they’ve had their own trail of hell to do it, you know.
There’s been a lot of struggle and strife along the way. So surround yourself with people who are smarter than you, who are where you want to be, rather than, you know, wearing your green coat of envy and being, you know, having a feeling of distaste towards them. You know, see how you can learn from them.
You know, off, see if there’s something that you can offer to them, give to them, so that you can spend more time with them and, you know, and learn the things that they’ve learned. You know, there’s a very common saying that if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room, you know, and there’s another one that says you’re the average of the company that you keep. So, you know, so step up your average, I think would be a good parting message for people, you know. Find a group of people that you can spend more quality time with that’s going to help you elevate your game.
Bashar Haddad: There you go. And that’s not really using people or whatever, but surround yourself with these people, you know. Get into their mix, success, beget success, you know.
Anthony Codispoti: And I’m glad that you mentioned that point, Bashar, because that’s really important. You know, I think human beings, not everyone, but a lot of human beings by nature are takers, right? Like we want to, you know, we want to take care of ourselves, you know, we got to take care of number one in our families. And so it’s like, oh, there’s a dollar bill, I’m going to, you know, take that dollar bill. But when you’re able to sort of, you know, turn that mindset into, you know, how can I give first, which is a big part of what the podcast has been about for me.
Yeah. How can I give to this person first? And that’s a really powerful way to start a relationship with somebody. And, you know, and then things can kind of evolve from there.
But I’m glad that you mentioned that point about it. You know, it’s not, you know, what can I take from this person or how can I leech onto them or take advantage of them? I think a really powerful way to start a relationship is how can I add value? And, you know, if you can add value to, you know, those people who can help elevate your game, I think good things will come from it.
Bashar Haddad: I couldn’t agree with you more. I don’t want to take up more time than you’ve allowed me. I can’t thank you enough for allowing me to do this. If you guys want to see the interview that Anthony did with me, just look up Bashar Haddad on YouTube and it’ll pop up. There’s not too many Bashar Haddad. Although Bashar Al-Assad is probably all over the news right now.
I’m Bashar Haddad. Anyway, Anthony, I wish you nothing but continued success. I certainly appreciate the time. And just like you want to be there for all the people you’ve interviewed, if there’s anything you ever need from me, just give me a call.
Anthony Codispoti: I appreciate that. Bashar, thanks for helping me tell my story today. I’m grateful for it. It’s my pleasure. I’ll let you sign off. Yeah, folks. That’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. So thanks for learning with us today.
REFERENCES
🔗 Connect with Anthony Codispoti:
- Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast
- LinkedIn: Anthony Codispoti
🎯 Special Thanks to Bashar Haddad & SSI:
- SSI – Leading government & defense staffing solutions
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