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Entrepreneur Unleashed
Entrepreneur Unleashed focuses on sharing with the audience the struggles of the podcast guests throughout their entrepreneurial journey. As entrepreneurs, we always learn the biggest lessons from our lowest points, both personally and professionally. This is an amazing opportunity for the podcast guest to share his or her story and at the same time, it gives an immense amount of value to our listeners as they will have the chance to listen to the pitfalls of other entrepreneurs and learn vicariously of their past challenges.
Entrepreneur Unleashed
From Lemonade Stands to Billion Dollar Businesses ⎮ Tony Delgado
In this Entrepreneur Unleashed podcast episode, Edward Collins interviewed Tony Delgado. Tony is the CEO and founder of Disrupt and the CEO and co-founder of Latino Wall Street, a mission to create financial literacy in the Latin community. Growing up in poverty, Tony was exposed to the lack of financial education in school at an early age. He started businesses like a lemonade stand, car wash, and selling Super Bowl tickets, and eventually transported these skills online to selling items on eBay and Amazon.
He also discussed how important it is to invest in yourself and always prioritize your family over work.
Don't miss out on this insightful conversation!
Tune in now and start unleashing your entrepreneurial potential!
Connect with Tony:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonydelgado/
Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/latinowallst/
Websites:
https://latinowallstreet.com/
https://disruptmagazine.com/Join Our Group for Private Q&As with me: https://uplevelentrepreneur.com/joinuplevel
If you're like me, you're always looking for ways to grow your business—but what if I told you there was one thing that could help you get to your next level?
I offer web classes on how to Own Nothing But Control Everything. The secrets that millionaires use to stay protected, pay the least taxes possible and keep growing their wealth. If you're interested in learning more about this opportunity, go to: https://thefinancialfreedomblueprint.com/
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This is the podcast interview with Tony Delgado take one only one take. Let's have fun.
Tony Delgado:What's up disrupt nation. My name is Tony Delgado, and you're watching entrepreneur unleashed.
Edward Collins:Welcome back to another episode. My name is Edward Collins, I'm your host for entrepreneur unleashed. And as you know, if you've been following me at any length, I believe that the best way to shortcut your journey of success is to learn vicariously from others who have been through what you're going through now and made it through to the other side. I'm joined in the studio today by Tony Delgado, we're going to be getting into a lot of a lot of really good stuff, and I don't want to delay it any further. Let's just get started. Tony, thank you so much, so much for being here.
Tony Delgado:Thanks for having me, man,
Edward Collins:man, like, so I know a lot about you. We're friends, but the audience may not. So would you mind just telling us maybe like a 92nd version of who you are and what you're doing right now.
Unknown:So sure, my name is Tony Delgado, I'm the CEO and founder of Disrupt. I'm also the CEO and co founder of Latino Wall Street, a mission to create financial literacy in the Latin community and have an impact on the 400 million Latinos all around the world. That sounds fancy, it sounds super fancy. Okay, but, but I grew up super humble grew up on Section Eight father wasn't around single mother. And I don't want to necessarily say that I, I grew up poor, but I definitely grew up around poverty. Okay. So I realized from a really young age, that whatever was being taught in the school system about money wasn't the truth. I didn't know what the truth was. But I knew that the truth was really being taught there, right. And in fifth grade, we had a teacher who was teaching math and decided to introduce the stock market into his curriculum, fifth grade in fifth grade. And he was telling us to buy Amazon when the shares were under $1 at that point.
Edward Collins:If only right. Oh, yeah.
Tony Delgado:So but what he was doing was very disruptive. What
Unknown:Yeah, like, Fifth , Third grade? Sixth grade? Yeah. he was doing was not on the curriculum, it was on on the on Around there. Like for middle school, I was asking, how much the menu. So I learned from a really young age that they weren't going to teach us about money in school. I remember doing a lot of simple math and figuring out that like, hey, how are the teachers making? Right, and then doing the mathematics much does a teacher make? Like that was like my first question grade, and saying, Okay, how can I become a millionaire, right. And so that was something that I fixated on when I was really young, too, is like, How can I become a millionaire? And so I was like, Okay, well, million dollars this month, right? And I was really good at math. And there's 365 days a year. So then I remember the first number that I came up with is like, that's about $3,000 a day. Yeah. So I was like, I have to make 3000. How do I make $3,000 a day? Because if I do that, then I can.
Edward Collins:I can't believe you did that at such a young age.
Unknown:So that was sort of my goal before I went into high school was how do I make $3,000 a day? So I started all these different types of crazy businesses. I had a lemonade stand. I had a carwash, I would host Super Bowl parties and sell tickets to my friends. So everybody else is having a free birthday parties. I was like, No, there's a cover charge. I love this. And so I was always really fascinated and infatuated with entrepreneurship. And that led me down a path of many different activities, both legal and illegal entrepreneurship. I did all sorts of weird, crazy stuff. Um, but I was really blessed because I was one of the first people in my community to have access to the internet. Right. So at that time, we're talking about the 90s, internet's kind of a new thing, the whole dial up thing. Yeah, the dial up. Very fringe, right. People are not it's like for nerds and weird people, right? Everybody's not on the internet. And we had the President Bill Clinton and Al Gore come to our school at various times throughout my youth. And one of the initiatives they did was they gave everyone computers, right. But I was actually really lucky that I didn't need the computer because I already had one. My mother was a computer programmer. So I had an MS DOS computer when I was in second grade, and I learned the command line. So I was like using a computer with no mouse, No keyboard, definitely no tick tock. No. I'm like typing in commands. And so I had the access to the internet at a really young age. And then I started selling stuff on like eBay and Amazon. So that was my first kind of touch into entrepreneurship was like just selling stuff online.
Edward Collins:Wow. Well, actually, your touch was probably like lemonade stand carwash, and all that sort of stuff too. But when we're talking about like the digital age, quote, unquote In the 90s, yeah, you you jumped right in with just understanding how one understanding the the fact that if you wanted something you had to go out and get it. Right. And then figuring out how to add value to whoever it was was, if it's a product or service or whatever it was you were doing. That's, that's amazing. You did that. So at such a young age, I think that's probably why we're friends because I have a very similar background.
Tony Delgado:Yeah, it's entrepreneurship in your DNA. Exactly. Right.
Edward Collins:Yeah. When you look at that experience, I you touched on something I can't let us like, gloss over, like the whole, not necessarily kosher environment with regard to what you were doing when you were youth. Did that derail you at all or just inspire you? Like, tell me about what, like the challenges that you were engaged in when you're a kid?
Unknown:Okay, so like, when I grew up, there was no Gary Vee. Right? Right. There was no Instagram and Tiktok entrepreneurship wasn't even a word basically. And so who do we look up to? Right? We looked up to rappers and music artists and all these things. So when you turn on the media, well, what do you see on TV at that time? Yeah, MTV and BT and stuff. You see rappers talking about selling drugs, robbing people, and killing people and doing all these crazy sorts of things. And I grew up in the inner city. And it's kind of interesting, my life has a lot of different where did you grow up against? buckets? So I grew up right outside of Manhattan, in New Jersey, okay, West, New York, Newark, Union City. All these areas that are right outside of Manhattan. And since I was a kid, I used to go to Manhattan. So I would take the PATH train to New York, and I'm, you know, not even in high school yet. And I'm hanging out in New York, right? Yeah. And so in New York, there's, there's a big culture of drugs. Yeah, there's a big culture of all sorts of crazy things that we got into as, as young people. And like I said, like, we were hosting parties, and basically created like, our own version of a speakeasy at some point. And, and definitely, like selling marijuana in high school, and all sorts of like, really crazy things that we did, were young, and then like, my life had all these different chapters, right? So if I was gonna write a story about my life would have to be different books and different movies, because I had a lot of different phases. And in every single phase of my life, I was willing to reinvent myself and give up whatever identity I had initially created interest, right. So like I mentioned, like, in my early early youth, I grew up in the inner city. And then around the time of high school, I moved to the suburbs. Okay, so I went from being like, one of the richest kids are the are the most privileged kids in the inner city, right? So one of the brokest kids in the suburbs? Yeah, right. And every single time that I would make these different jumps, right, I would essentially have to reinvent myself. By the time I was graduating from high school, I had gone to approximately 12 different schools, it was basically like every other Oh, my goodness, I was either getting kicked out of a school, right, right thing, or getting into a private school, getting kicked out, going back to public school, getting selected to go to the Honors Program of the public school, then getting kicked out of the Honors Program at the public schools, I was bouncing around a lot. And so in each one of those different chapters of my life, I had to reinvent myself, right. And, you know, crime and doing things that were illegal and breaking the rules. That was a normal part of everyday life. Like I had friends that were in gangs, I had friends, I had friends that were worse than me, like, whatever I was doing was pretty bad. But like, whatever they were doing, were 10 times bad. And then I started to learn that just by knowing these people, just by being associated with them, I can get a lot of trouble. Yeah, um, one of the first times that I got arrested, I was a teenager, and we were just walking around the neighborhood. But since some of the people I was with had just committed a crime, right. Everybody else, we're all getting locked up. And so eventually, those charges were dropped. But it's still not a great time after time after time, we're getting in trouble for a lot of it was for like marijuana and like petty things, trespassing, all sorts of ridiculous things. But I learned that being guilty by association was a huge thing. And so I learned that okay, I need to change my circle, I need to find a different inner circle to be surrounded by because if I don't change the people around my environment, well then they're gonna, they're gonna pull me down, right? So yeah, so when I was a teenager, I started out like selling loose cigarettes. Then I sold marijuana for a little while, and then I kept getting in trouble. And I remember seeing all the bills pile up for like, the lawyers and the and the bale and all this stuff. And then I was simultaneously running these businesses online. And I was like, these businesses online are way more profitable, I'm making way more money. And I don't have to look over my shoulder. So I made a decision really early on that I had to draw a line and a clear distinction. And I decided to embrace more legitimate forms of entrepreneurship, not really out of an ethical thing. It's so funny because I was quasi political. And I was doing all this research into the way the money system worked, the legality around marijuana, how it was, became criminalized all these things, and I had sort of a self righteous indignation, that I thought, you know, we shouldn't be legal. So since it shouldn't be legal, then I'm just going to sell it anyway and break the law. Right. And it took me becoming an adult to realize that just because something should be illegal, if it is illegal, I need to respect the laws of the land. And and you know, and wait for history to catch up. If we look now, weed has been legalized in New Jersey and a bunch of other states. But I was 10 years or 20 years ahead of that curve, right. But I did dissertations. I was dropping essays in high school, and college about why we should be legalized, why the media is controlled by a few handful of organizations and how there's puppets pulling the puppet strings like I was, and maybe the the essay might have been on like George Washington, and then I dropped a dissertation on Clear Channel or something for Black Rock. But so I from an early age, I had access to the internet, everybody didn't. And from an early age, I was always questioning things. So I was always raising my hand and say, the teacher said something, I was like, Hey, listen, I looked up on Google, or maybe Yahoo, or excite back then. And then they said something else. So I was always questioning authority. But as I matured, I learned that hey, just because things aren't the way they should I still need to respect the law of the land, right? If not, I'm gonna get smacked. There's consequences.
Edward Collins:You could recognize that even though you had a different opinion as to what should or shouldn't be allowed. Because it wasn't, you didn't want to deal with the consequences. So you made a choice that turned out financially, even better..
Tony Delgado:so like, if you wanted to have a marijuana business, right? You can move to California, or Colorado, where it's legal go move there, where are Amsterdam back then, right? Because there wasn't that many places, but go move to a place where it's legal and do the business there. But if you're going to operate, the risks not worth it. Yeah, it's not worth it. And they're gonna make sure it's not worth it.
Edward Collins:Exactly. Now, what I find so interesting, though, is that you have the ability, again, at such a young age, to be willing to just abandon who you were in the moment to become who you want it to be. You have the ability to say this was my life before, but I don't want that life anymore. And just literally leave it behind, do something different. Not a lot of people have that skill set, or at least they struggle with it right? If you look at individuals who are looking to hit milestones of success, they you you touched on it a bit. Like if you're surrounding yourself with people who aren't they're not in that mindset, they sort of pull you down, right? Yeah, absolutely. You were willing to like break free of that. Was there anything that inspired you to do that? Or was that just innate?
Tony Delgado:Well, I mean, I think just getting kicked out of so many schools, maybe it was a habit of just reinventing myself because I was getting shipped around from school to school. But definitely my mother and my upbringing, that she always laughed, he's like, Oh, I wonder where you got that rebellious spirit from because she was very rebellious from the 60s that era of you know, hippie, and, and protesting and all that fun, crazy stuff. But I just I knew that I always wanted more. I you know, I watched my mother struggle. I watched my my family struggle. And again, like we were by no means poor, but we were always just sort of getting by. And I knew that I was destined for greatness, I knew that I was destined for more, I knew that I had so much more to give. So at each level of my life, whether it was going from, you know, one of my first jobs was working at McDonald's, right? I remember I lied on the job application, and you had to be 16 to work there. And I lied and changed my date of birth. I was only 15. Right? And, and I remember just saving up like, just enough money that I needed to then go and start a business, right and and then leaving, I worked there for about a month and I was like, Okay, I have enough money now. I'm gonna stop doing this. But then that was always my, my measuring stick in the beginning was okay. If I work at McDonald's, or I also worked like factory jobs to when I was younger, like, you're gonna pay me $5 an hour. If I can learn how to make $5 An hour without without them, yeah, you know, then I'm in a good spot, right. And then the 30,000 a year, Mark became another benchmark when I was really young, it's like, okay, the schools, if I go to college, and I get a degree, and I go become a teacher, I'm gonna make 30 to$40,000 a year. So if I can learn to make 30 or $40,000 a month, well. That's way better, right. And I was willing to let go of the, the habits and the things that at that point, were comfortable. And then I think I also had the benefit of hanging out with a lot of people older than me, I was always bigger and just size wise, and then also a little bit more mature. So like, I took a senior girl to the prom when I was in eighth grade or freshman year, something crazy like that. And so I was always hanging out with the older kids. And so I could see in real time where my life would end up if I continued down that path. Right. So I had friends who committed suicide, I had friends that killed each other. And one kid shot, the other one wants to do an 18 years and the other one's not here anymore. And his mother had to grab them from from the doorstep, right? So I was able to see in real time where my life was gonna end up if I continue down that path. So I knew that I had to switch paths, or I was gonna get stuck there. So I moved out of my mom's house at a at an early age. And I started a store that was one of the first businesses that I started, I started a retail clothing store. And then I took a lot of the products that I was selling online, and I put them into the store. And at that point, I was like, Oh you need a store. It's kind of funny. As an entrepreneur, he did like a brick and mortar. But I was like, Yeah, I need to have a brick and mortar. That's a real business. I need to have a real business. Right. That's what I thought. Yeah. And then only we knew better. Yeah. If only we knew better, right. But I was still doing things online. And and at a certain point, I realized I was actually making more money from, from the online and in person. But I still wanted to have the in person thing for credibility or Yeah, so I got kicked out of college, I went to college. And something. the same thing I was bringing friends, I was bringing the friends from my old neighborhood, right into onto the campus, bringing them to the parties, they're getting in trouble. They're starting fights and starting problems. And then I'm getting in trouble because I broke them on campus, right? So I ended up getting kicked out of college because of that. And I didn't want to tell my mom, I was scared. I was so scared to tell her I didn't want to let her down. And I moved in with a friend I started renting a room paying half the rent, and selling stuff on eBay and Amazon. So for like a year. She didn't know she thinks I'm in college. And I'm selling stuff out of eBay and Amazon and my friend's house, right and rented a room from them. And then eventually, obviously, I had to tell her, but yeah, it was it was crazy. I mean, I always knew that whatever path that I was on, wasn't the right path. And then I was never scared to course correct. So my whole life have just been course correcting. And then I taught myself to code. God Yeah. Because back then you had to if you want to do stuff on the internet, yeah. Yeah, do it yourself. There was no Shopify, like these things didn't exist. So I didn't teach myself to code. Because I wouldn't be a coder. Right? I just taught myself out of necessity. The same thing with entrepreneurship, right? I didn't know what entrepreneurship was. There was no Google headquarters on the East Coast. You're from the east, from Jersey. So there was no Silicon Valley on that side, or the cool activity with startup and tech, that will happen in California. And then in 2015, I went to a conference in Silicon Valley. And I remember the tickets were like,$1,000. At that point, I thought that was like more money than God to go to a two day event. And plus the hotel and airfare and all those things. So I went, and my whole mind opened up because I get out of the plane and I see billboards for WordPress. And I was like, Wordpress, buys billboards, what the hell's going on, and slack and all these tech companies are like everywhere, and it really opened my mind to what was possible. And I met people that worked in Microsoft, and Amazon and all these big companies. And it really opened my mind. And then every single time that I took a jump and I invested in myself, it gave me more and more tools. The next year, I paid$10,000 to go to a coding boot camp. And that was one of the best investments of my life, not necessarily I was I learned how to code because I already knew how to code, right? But it gave me all these experiences. I networked with everyone. I was at the top of the class. At the end of the class, they offered me a job to be an instructor. And everyone that I met there, didn't know how to code. Like, that's why they joined. I had been coding for 10 years. But I knew I wanted to take my career, my life to the next level. So I invested $10,000 into this program. And then I started going to hackathons winning hackathons, we won all these awards for like coding and building these apps and prototyping stuff. And again, it was opening up my mind to the next level of hey, what's next? What's next, what's next. And then throughout the course of of all these years, I was moving to different cities. Wherever the opportunity was, whether it was a job or whether it was business, I would move to different cities where people didn't know me, right. So I didn't stay in the city where I went to high school, I didn't stay in the city where I grew up. I was always going to different places, wherever the opportunity was. And then I ended up working with an entrepreneur named Gerard Adams. At that point in his life, he had just sold his company for$50 million. And he was on the brink of taking that money and trying to give back to the entrepreneurial community. And he started a tech accelerator where we were basically investing like as angel investors into small minority owned businesses in the community. So I came on board as a CTO, and I always joke and I say, I wasn't the CTO of one business. I was the CTO of many, because all these companies are coming in. They're like, what do we do? How do we code it? How do we build it? That was a really fun experience. And again, I learned a lot. And to circle back to my childhood, when I was really young, I read a Entrepreneur Magazine article about an African American multimillionaire, and at that time, that was like a big deal. They had a cover, and they're like this guy, look at him. He's amazing. He's making all this money. And so I read the article. And what he had done is he worked in Taco Bell as a manager for 15 years, learned everything about the food service business, and then applied that and started his chicken franchise, all throughout Texas, and has all these locations all throughout Texas. Wow. And so the main takeaway from that story was every single time he had a job, like for those 15 years, and Taco Bell, it was an education. He wasn't just collecting a paycheck. He was saying, I Okay, I'm here. I'm at Taco Bell. Yeah. What can I learn from this? Maybe you didn't have a plan. But what can I learn from being here? What can I take away from being in that situation?
Edward Collins:Is a plan like you're doing it with intent, right? Yeah. So so many people show up to their, their nine to five, and they just show up to get the paycheck, not necessarily to learn and to improve themselves and dedicate themselves to skills development, whatever it may be, whether you have an end goal in mind or not, that day should be a goal.
Tony Delgado:Because at the end of the day, you're going to spend the money, yeah, whatever small amount of money, you're getting paid for a job that's going to be spent, what's not going to go away is the experience of who you get to become while you're there. Every single experience that I've had, whether it's getting in trouble as a kid, whether it's a working day laborer or jobs, whether it was working in corporate in an IT environment, whether it was you know, getting in trouble online for business, I had online getting cease and desist from from people all around the internet. Every single time these things were happening. They were never happening to me. They were happening for me, right? Like Tony Robbins says, and I was thinking, okay, what can I learn from being in this situation? So like, for example, I had a job in corporate IT. We were, it was in my early 20s. We were climbing through corporate buildings and running cat five cable and running Wi Fi cables, and installing printers and cameras and old phone systems and all the things that make a business work, right. And so a lot of people would clock out from that job at five o'clock, they would leave like 449. They're like, boom, I'm out. And I used to stay sometimes all night, working, learning, working with the owner and like learning from him as a sponge. So every single time that I've had an opportunity to work with someone for someone, that opportunity is hey, what can I learn from the situation? Who do I get to become
Edward Collins:Exxactly one of the things that there is a theme throughout what we've just talked about, that I think is important for a lot of people to learn. You would invest in yourself all along the way, whether that was $1,000 to go to the first conference, whether it was $10,000 to go to the boot camp or whatever it was you were willing to invest not just dollars, but also your time. And I think that that is an interesting thing. because when I look at the individuals who've hit milestones of success, every one of them has invested in themselves, they've put effort and energy to put time in. And there is something remarkable the people who actually pay they pay attention, right? You're paying to be there. But you're like, when you got off the plane, you're noticing this billboard, that billboard, you're absorbing everything. And that would not have happened if you weren't willing to invest in yourself. Do you recognize that amongst the peers that you hang out with now, like the business owners that that you have access to? Like? Is that a theme that you're witnessing as well?
Tony Delgado:Yeah, it's almost like you're going to the casino with your life. And you're gonna put all your chips on the table, right. And, you know, when I went to the coding bootcamp was very similar. You know, not only that I invest the money, but I invested the time. And I remember at the time, I had a few close friends that we would go out on the weekends and go drinking and hanging out to the night clubs and stuff like that. And I remember calling them and saying, Hey, listen, I just invested 10,000 for this program. There's a class on Saturday that I can't miss. And they're gonna give me a whole bunch of homework. So you didn't come and we can have coffee on a Sunday morning. But besides that, you're not gonna save me for six months, I'm gonna go learn whatever it is that I need to learn with this $10,000 program and get the most out of it. Right. And so I lost a lot of friends along the way. And it's, it's so interesting, because a lot of my friends and peers, they haven't evolved, they haven't changed who they are. And so I'm a different person, right? I'm unrecognizable from the person that I was 20 years ago. And when they interact with me, they interact with me as if I'm the person from 20 years ago, and like, no, that guy's dead doesn't exist. He doesn't exist. I can tell you stories about him. Like I'm sharing some stories with you now. But when I wake up in the morning, I don't that's not who I am. I don't even think about that stuff. Right. And so one of the things that I've seen is, like you said, in my peers that they haven't they maybe they haven't progressed for whatever reason, they're not willing to invest even $10 into a book and sitting there and reading it. Right. You can get you know, you have Russell Brunson his books back there. Right. Yeah, so Russell Brunson is books, you can spend$10 on a book, and learn the skills to make millions and millions of dollars. But people read the books you and I witnessed.
Edward Collins:Our network now is filled with people who do that. But we're, again, I think we have a very similar background like I I definitely can witness individuals that have my past past that would spend their weekends escaping from the life they have, rather than spend an investor weekends to build the life they want. Right? So you're working this nine to five environment and you're constantly struggling, struggling, struggling. But the reality is, we have to do is a little bit more a little bit more to change yourself to learn some new skill set to add value. Because money follows value creation. If you go out into the universe and you create value for others, you that money is the natural byproduct of that. And so few of us in this higher planet, actually recognize that and we're part of that 1% Crazy as Russell talks about where we're the 1% Crazy will do the things that most won't to live the life that most will never, I love when you look at when you look at where you are now like so we transitioned from challenging environment, but constantly constantly improving. You opened up the store, you were then selling things online and bringing the things into a brick and mortar. You made it you made a transition right from there. What was the next step? Like what was it like you're learning all this stuff? You're getting into corporate America, you do all these different types of jobs? How did you transition into where you are now? Like, what what was that like?
Tony Delgado:So we started doing consulting and so I've honestly been doing consulting so I was a little kid. And I used to just knock on local businesses doors and like build websites for like 500 bucks I just knock Hey, do you need a website? Like I know how to do websites? Yeah. And so I've been doing consulting off and on throughout all of the course my entire life. And actually the partnership with Gerard Adams at founders at the at the angel investing company that started out as a consulting gig, I came to him and we were like, hey, like here's an invoice. Then it turned into a partnership and we got equity in the venture and and it was it was good. We we ended up working with all these crazy people Gary Vee and Grant Cardone and all these badasses. But but that started out as being consultants and us working kind of like hired guns, right? But I knew that if I stayed a hired gun, there was a cap, I can get to six figures as a hired gun. But to get to seven and eight, it's gonna be really hard to do that. I'm just doing consulting. So we He started our entrepreneurial movement in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. So, at that time I was working for Gerard, we were making all sorts of impact in Newark, New Jersey, working with entrepreneurs, minority owned businesses. And then we were selling these massive events. So like, the biggest event that I did while we were together, was at the Red Bull Arena in New Jersey. And we had Eric Thomas et the hip hop preacher there, and it was great, like hundreds of people really kick as badass event, all these cool speakers. So from there, and that's 2016. So in 2016, I kind of sold the blueprint for influencer creation, because at that point in time I did the game. Yeah, Gary Vee was new. Yeah, he just got got out of full environment launch of selling wine or whatever the hell yeah,
Edward Collins:So that story. Is that right? Right. Yeah, right
Tony Delgado:up the street in Jersey or Jersey Boys? Yeah. Gary Vee. I remember watching his early vlogs. And I saw like, the Lincoln Tunnel and stuff. But um, but yeah, so when Gary Vee was just coming out, Gerard had just sold his company. He has $50 million. And he's like, I want to build a personal brand, basically. So before that, he doesn't really have a personal brand. So I witnessed and also helped him build his personal brand kind of in the early years. So I saw this blueprint of online influence and personal brands. And like her Mozi talks about this, right? Like you look at like, Caitlyn Jenner, or what's what's the daughter? the one daughter of the Kardashian daughter Oh,
Edward Collins:Kim Kardashian.
Tony Delgado:the little sister, Kylie, Kylie. So Kylie as an example she launches a cosmetic line becomes a billion dollar brand. Rihanna the same thing launches the cosmetic line becomes a billion dollar brand. The Rock launches it tequila becomes a billion dollar brand. So Puff Daddy, right? Did he want just a rock becomes a billion dollar brand. Jay Z launched as a champagne becomes a dollar brand. So why is that happening? It's not happening because the liquor or the cosmetics are ridiculous. Should they control? Well, yeah, it's the brand, right? Um, so at this Advent, where Gary V's implementing his brand, Tom Bill, you came and spoke on our stage, before he was doing anything. He had just sold his company. Just so quest and he came in, spoken our brand on our stage and started building his brand. So I'm witnessing all these brands coming created began being created. And I knew that personal brands were the one hack that I didn't fully understand that I wasn't fully able to leverage at that point in time. And you know, the Internet was was really slow. When I first got started, right, like online video, like what we're doing now. It was hard to do that, because it was really hard for video to get downloaded. Like phones were really slow things were three G two G. Yeah, like you were lucky if Wi Fi even worked, right. And as the phone started getting faster now we had Instagram stories. We had Instagram lives, Facebook Lives, right zoom calls, all these technologies, we kind of take them for granted now. But just the internet being fast enough. And the phones and the technology, being fast enough to support video has now created this new era where people like Joe Rogan are getting 100 million dollar contracts for a podcast, right? So I'm witnessing this these things happening. And then when Hurricane Maria struck the island of Puerto Rico and 27 teams, I found a problem that was bigger than myself. So I went down to Puerto Rico to do humanitarian work. And then we started an entrepreneurial movement in Puerto Rico. And what I noticed was, you know, largest blackout in American history, we had 3 million people without food or clean drinking water or electricity, right, really, really bad circumstances. But the people that got affected the most were the people with no money and no resources. If you had money, you get on a plane, either you had JetBlue money or you had fuck you money, right? You could get on a plane and like go somewhere else, go to your family in Florida or New York and hang out until the coast was clear. Or you had so much money that hey, I can rebuild my house. I can buy backup generators. I can fuel my home with solar panels or with other other things. And it was really the people with no money and no research. That guy had the worst. And it occurred to me, we went down with a few entrepreneurs to do humanitarian work. We've given out solar panel lights, food, water supplies, and we weren't a big nonprofit. We're just a bunch of crazy entrepreneurs that I got on a plane on JetBlue and wanted to do it right. And we're on the top of a mountain we're in a province. It looked like we're in like the jungles of Brazil or something. We're in the middle of nowhere, and we're giving water to a family that since their house is in the middle of nowhere like they were the last to get turned back on right and All of a sudden I get a FaceTime call. And I pick up the phone it works. So even though we don't have electricity, even though we don't have running water, they have the same Wi Fi the same internet connection as me. So that's when it dawned on me that the access to information, it is the great equalizer, right? I was going down there, I was still working, I was still making money. I was still servicing my clients, I was still running my business, right. And it was really the access to information. They had the Wi Fi, they had the internet, they just didn't know how to use it to make money.
Edward Collins:Wow. So that that entrepreneurial journey then NPR, like you, what was the the impetus of the company? Like what was the goal of the company that you were building?
Tony Delgado:So we took some inspiration from some of the great changemakers of our lifetimes. So at that point, I was going to personal development seminars in New York City. And we were studying some of the big changemakers. So we were studying Martin Luther King, we were studying Gandhi, and we were looking at these really great leaders. And what we noticed, what we learned in the seminar that I attended, was that all of these people were not elected, right? They were they were not chosen, they chose their mission. Right. So nobody voted for Martin Luther King, right, Martin Luther King decided I'm gonna select the African American community. Now they're my problem. They're my responsibility. I take responsibility for them. Right. Gandhi, the same thing. He wasn't elected leader, he took responsibility for India, right. And with India, it's 3 billion people with a bee that lived there. I looked at Puerto Rico, there's only 3 million people. So I was like, Okay, I'm being a punk if I can't take responsibility for 3 million people on the island where my family comes from, right. So I decided to take responsibility for the 3 million people in Puerto Rico. And, and to move down there and then to start this entrepreneurial movement called the shop. So we started hosting events, seminars, and workshops in Puerto Rico, getting college kids bussing in college kids and giving them free access to the information, and then just selling tickets to everyone else from around the world. Okay, so we started hosting entrepreneurial conferences down there. And then I met my wife, okay. And then COVID happened, maybe about a year after I met my wife. And when I met my wife, she is not from Puerto Rico. She's from Peru. And she was talking to Latin women online. Right? So she's talking to Latin women online. Uh, huh. I'm talking to Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico. And then when we came together, we created Latino Wall Street. Yes. And then my mission expanded from the 3 million people in Puerto Rico, to the 400 million Latinos, all around the world. And so we created our financial literacy movement called Latino Wall Street. And we are on a mission to create financial freedom for the 400 million Latinos around the world. I love it.
Edward Collins:I love it. Let's dive into the financial literacy component because I I'm very passionate about that. I think that that's one of the major things that we as a society have fallen short on, is teaching people just even the basic how to write a check exactly. So like, how do you identify for you and for the community, you start? How do you identify? What is the most critical things for people to learn? And then how do you organize it for them to learn it?
Tony Delgado:So I mean, if you don't have a plan, then you're basically planning to fail. Right? That's what they all say. So the first thing that I think it's important for people to realize is that you have to have a plan, right? Mostly people that I know that grow up, that I grew up with, they don't have a plan for their finances, they don't have a plan for their retirement don't plan for anything for anything. Yeah, but definitely not their money, right. And they don't understand money. They don't understand how it works. When we show people that they can invest their money and have it grow, they're they're amazed. They're like, wow, what I didn't know that this was even a thing of interest. Yeah, seriously. So our educational programs, we start with planning, and then we also start with, like, finance 101. So we have a program finance 101. We go through budget, we go through like all the kind of the basics that they probably should have taught you in school, but they didn't. Yeah. And then we teach a whole bunch of different investing and trading strategies. We bring in experts. So we have gotten some of the most influential people in the world. Now, a lot of those people unfortunately, don't speak Spanish, right? We were talking about this off camera. Yeah. So what we do is we'll bring on interpreters and do translations when we do bring on cool experts. But we also have a team of native Spanish speakers from around the world who bring this education and then you know that education looks different, depending on where you are in the world, right? The platforms and the systems and the laws in the US are different than they are internationally. So we have different experts depending on where people are, etc. But we run programs both online and In person, while we were doing a lot of in person stuff with both movements before COVID, when COVID happened, it was kind of a blessing in disguise because it brought everything online. And then it really expanded our reach. So since COVID, we were able to reach over 20 million people online through social media. And then out of that we've had over 100,000 come through our curriculum on our platform.
Edward Collins:So are you spending more time now on on Latina Wall Street or want to disrupt? Or is it really a marriage of those two entities?
Tony Delgado:Um, it's a little bit of a marriage of those two, we do spend a lot of time on on Latino Wall Street, just because it's Spanish speaking. And that's kind of been the mission. So disrupt, actually turned into an online magazine, kind of almost by accident. Okay, so this is a funny story. I've told that at some other broadcast, but basically, disrupt started out as a digital marketing agency. So I was just doing consulting. Like I said, I was like a hired gun exact. So that was my brand for a while. And it was just my Hired Gun consulting brand. And then I started, before we started the seminars, I started a blog, right, so every website has a blog. Yeah. So I would feature my clients on my blog, right? That would be like the first step like a client works with me and like I do a write up and kind of drop a press release on my blog gives them a backlink gives me a little SEO juice. So the blog started out as just my website. And then I had other friends who had clients that they want it to get featured, right. And in the beginning, I was publishing the articles for them. But eventually, I was like, Listen, guys, I'm just gonna give you contributor accounts. And like you guys submit the articles. So it went from that to now we have over 2000 contributors. Oh, my God, and the magazine gets like millions of views. I'm like, yeah. And then we have like a little subscription model that's built in. So generates all this passive income. And it's kind of like this. Oh, its own little monster that kind of lives online. So if you got into DM that you want to get in disrupt magazine and New York Times, and Forbes, like, yeah, those guys are probably my contributors. But, but yeah, so this magazine that started out was just my blog for my stuff, my articles, my clients, right, run into kind of grown into its own its own cool thing.
Edward Collins:Do you have that organized as a separate company?
Tony Delgado:Yeah, so it's a separate project. It's It's its own company. It's actually incorporated as a nonprofit in Puerto Rico. Okay. So it's a nonprofit in Puerto Rico. And then we do seminars once a year. So once a year, we'll do the big seminars. And then we'll do special master classes. Like I said, we'll bring in experts, we have the podcast. So we've interviewed Grant Cardone, we've interviewed Dean Graziosi, and Les Brown, and a bunch of really cool people in English. And then a lot of times we'll interview those people in English for the disrupt platform. And we'll have some of that stuff translated, and then distribute it to Latino Wall Street in Spanish.
Edward Collins:Wow. I love the story. When you look at at the next steps then for you, because you're spending so much time truly transforming people's lives like what's next, like because you've already had a huge impact. What do you see the next two to five years looking like for you?
Tony Delgado:Well, I mean, you you mentioned that, you know, we're transforming people's lives. And it's all comes back to the first conference that I went to, right. Like, if I didn't go to that conference, I don't know what the hell what happened with my life. Right? Right. I met the founder of Twitch, he had just sold his company for a billion dollars. And he looks into the audience, and he tells us, hey, all you guys that know how to code. When you get back to Ohio, New York, New Jersey, wherever you're from, I want you to go make some more money. Right? So it's like, if that guy didn't say that, to me from the audience 10 years ago, wherever it was, I don't know where my life will be now, right? Um, so it's really definitely like that reincarnation of us trying to give back and do for others what was done for us. As far as the next few years, I mean, we're now growing into financial services and some more consulting and growing that part of the business. So I'm really excited for that. I think Latinos are a community that have not been spoken to enough underserved Yeah, dramatically. So the fact that we're able to bridge that gap and, and, you know, not to throw shade on anyone else in our industry, but I think some of the people who have been speaking to them are probably doing so from a place that's a little bit more lifestyle focused and a little bit too much showing off for for my tastes. Anyway, I've seen a lot of provocative tours. In the Latin space, a lot of people you know, you see him online with a rented Lambo and selling based on lifestyle. So I'm really proud that we've built a brand that's really focused around education. Yeah, authentic and focused around education, and then bringing that education also into the school system. So that's another core belief of both companies is that we want to be able to augment the existing education system, so not like disrupt But the whole educated throw it out and throw away the key. That's what supplemented supplemented. How do we add workshops? How do we add new curriculums? How do we train teachers to kind of bring this up like my teacher did for me in fifth grade, right. And so I think that's how we kind of make inroads is getting more integrated into the existing educational system so we can have a bigger impact.
Edward Collins:Yeah, it's almost a double edged sword those going to the teachers and teaching them the financial literacy. Yeah, then they learn that maybe it's not the 30 to$40,000 a year job. When you look at the things that have been most impactful to you, then what would you say is the thing, like, by far that's moved the needle for you making the making it possible for you to make the decisions that you're making day in and day out? Like? What is it that that really drives Tony?
Tony Delgado:Um, I think the biggest thing for me is just been mentors and investing in myself, right, like, so many people are hard headed in this life. And I'm like, You're hard headed, but you're broke, right? Like, if you don't have the results that you want, you need to be able to like, give up your belief system and adopt a new one. And just try it on. Just try it out. If it doesn't work, you can always let go of it and grab a new one. But people get so so set in their ways. And you know, myself included, but whenever I noticed myself that I'm stuck in a cycle, I tried to snap out of it, and just get myself in front of a new mentor, a new podcast, read a new book, and being willing to change my belief system and not get stuck in the rut of mediocrity. And there's levels to mediocrity, right? Like right now, for me. seven figures is feeling fucking mediocre. And I'm like, Okay, how are we getting the nine.
Edward Collins:So much better? Well, they not yet for me, but a definitely better as well. So
Tony Delgado:so that's what the financial services business, we're doing a partnership with someone to provide those services. So I wanted to their office, and I was like, Listen, I don't need to learn how to make millions. I'm already doing that. So please don't try to impress me with millions. How do we make hundreds of millions like that's the conversation that I want to be having gentleman because, you know, and so it kind of becomes like a hamster wheel in a way because it's like you're making money just for the sake of making money. And that's why I think it's really important to make sure that you give back and that you have some sort of philanthropic part, connected to your business. So we do a bunch of cool things. We've given out laptops to people in Puerto Rico that didn't have them cell phones, with unlimited cell phone service. We've partnered with Feeding America, Tony Robbins, nonprofit to provide meals. So every single time that we do these big seminars, now, we learn this from him, he does these big online seminars, and he charges for tickets. And when people buy tickets, he donates some of that to feed people around the world. So now we're on a mission to feed a million people around the world. So I think that's probably the thing that continues to drive me is like, How can I now give back like, all my basic needs are met, I have a great quality life. And now it's like, how can I give back to the people on my team? How can I develop them? And how can I develop the future leaders? You know, I used to have this desire to become a politician. And then I saw Donald Trump and all the crazy stuff that's happening in our political atmosphere. And I was like, wow, whatever I do, half the country is gonna hate me. They're gonna go after my family. I was like, I don't want to do that. But what if we empower and create the future leaders Exactly. And have a create extreme leadership in extreme integrity into the future leaders so that the next generation of politicians and community leaders have extreme integrity, and are equipped with those skills. So that's when my light bulb switched and said, instead of thinking that I'm the Messiah, and I'm going to change it all alone, not one person could change it all alone. But what if we create an impact that has ripple effects throughout our generations? So we think that our movement is, is at least one small drop into doing that you know, of
Edward Collins:it. When you look at them, that being the driving factor for you, and where you envision you going from here? What do you think the biggest challenge is for you to get there and like what's what, what do you need to be able to break through in order to make that happen?
Tony Delgado:So it's so funny, because when you turn on Tik Tok or Instagram, right, what do you see? You see the girl, or the guy that's half naked, and not saying too much, maybe just dancing to a song on Tik Tok. And that's the person that has all the views, and all the attentions, and then even if you're successful talking about business or finance, those people have, you know, 10% of the views if they're lucky, and 10% of the attention. So a big part of our mission and our movement is to make entrepreneurship cool, right? Make business and financial literacy. Cool. Because up until now, a lot of those things have not been cool, right? People turn on the TV and they're like, well, that guy doesn't look like me. So I'm not even gonna get into this stuff. Right? So we've made a huge effort to make this stuff cool too. Make it accessible. We've done that through a lot of influencer collaborations and partnerships. So we'll, we'll partner with people in the music industry. We had a Latin, multiple Latin Grammy artists at our last event in Puerto Rico last year at our big annual conference where we bring people out, we'll do Instagram lives with people in the entertainment industry and sort of mainstream and kind of bring this stuff in and make it mainstream. And it's so interesting, because the people that are in that industry, their front row, yes, we didn't know. But like, Wait, how do I save money on taxes? How do I grow my business? How do I put money away from my kids, right? So they're like, front row and really into it. So we've done a lot of partnerships and things of that nature, to try to just get the message out there. Because a lot of people they turn on the TV, and they look and they're like, Hey, this isn't cool. Maybe this isn't for me. So and I think before you know, we've had definitely a wave with Gary Vee, we talked about the last five or 10 years where it's, it's getting cooler. But still, when you look up a lot of the subjects 401k Golf 401k on YouTube, a lot of content is really bland. It's really dense, the contents there it exists, but it's really dense. So that's why I love what you're doing. Like you're making stuff really cool, too, with the sets and the music and you know, making it entertaining, right? Right. Because if it's not an insanely, then people aren't going to pay attention.
Edward Collins:Totally get that because, again, I'm on let's say a similar mission. Like I want people to really just understand this stuff. Because if you put the power into their hands with knowledge that they can actually apply to their life, the world changes, right? You're only you're only captive until you can afford to get out of the jail, right? Yeah, at the end of the day, that's where we are and you don't notice the fence around you. You can't get you can't you can't escape. Notice the fence around you. So I want to give that information away in a way that's consumable. That captures people's attention so that they can say, Okay, I'm gonna give this guy 60 seconds of my life, maybe, maybe it's informational. But then they can click to the next thing. And then that the next thing and I try to create the content that compounds on itself. One of the things that I really like doing with with my guests, I like taking us on almost like a thought exercise. Would you mind going down that path?
Tony Delgado:I'm not going to hypnotize me now?
Edward Collins:No, but I do want you to imagine for a moment that you have the ability to go back in time. Okay. And you can visit with a younger version of you. And you're able to share one piece of wisdom with that younger version of you. Who would you be going back to like, what age like what was circumstances like at that point in time? And what would that one piece of information be? What What wisdom would you share?
Tony Delgado:Yeah, I mean, I think I probably, you know, I always say that I don't want to change my life, because I'm happy at the men that I've become, right. And I do feel that all the trials and tribulations that I've been through, whether it was like growing up without a father in the household, or getting in trouble with the law, right, like, all of those things shaped the man who I am today, right? Like, when I went to jail, I read books, right? So when people are like, do you wish you didn't go to jail? I was like, No, you read books, I read your likes, that changed my life. So like, No, I just sat there and just read books. And when I came home, people were saying, Oh, my God, it's like you went to college? Right? Um, so I don't know if I wouldn't necessarily change anything. But if I had to give myself some advice, and maybe go back, I would probably go back to, you know, when I was in high school, trying to figure these things out. And I probably would have tried to get myself out of my hometown earlier. Okay. I think the sooner I didn't really escape my hometown, I think until like my mid 20s I think the sooner that people can get out of their hometown right you have all these friends who are really not your friends. So the advice that I have for my younger self is like those people whoever those people are, they're not your friends. I literally had friends that I was in kindergarten in grade school with literally slap stabbed me in the back. Oh my god, that figurative Yeah, literally with a knife trying to stab me in the back. Thankfully, he missed, but he stabbed my jacket. But so I would go back and probably tell myself right before I got into high school, like a those friends that you think are your friends, those are not your friends. Like, there's there's and there's no one else to impress? Right, right. I think when when we're young adolescents, especially boys, right? Like young men, we feel like we have to press we have to have something to prove and X, Y and Z. And really the only person that you have to prove anything to is the man in the mirror.
Edward Collins:Absolutely. Wow, I love that. But there's a second part to this thought exercise. Okay. I want you to imagine for a moment that a future version of Tony has come back into this moment with us. And he's sharing a piece of practical wisdom with you. What does he share?
Tony Delgado:So, I mean, I've just had a son recently. So I think a future version of He is probably going to tell me to make sure that I continue to prioritize my family and not get work in the way. You know, as entrepreneurs, we're always working. And, you know, my son cries when we grab our phones, he hates it as soon as you grab the phone. So So I think, you know, if a future self is good, you know, they say on your deathbed, you're probably not going to wish that he made more money, you probably going to wish that you had more memories. So, so yeah, if I think if the 99 year old version of myself, he's probably going to say, you know, wealth is good, but make sure you're also focused on your health and focus on the health of your relationships and your family. Okay.
Edward Collins:So two versions of Tony has have gotten some wisdom, right, the younger version, and the current version, I don't want the audience to feel left out. So if you had one piece of practical wisdom to share with the audience, what would that be?
Tony Delgado:For the audience, I mean, don't be scared to invest into yourself. You know, I remember demonizing demonizing money, we have this, we have this belief that money is evil, right? They teach it to us in school, they say it in church on movies, TV route, money is evil. Money is the root of all evil, right. And one of the most useful mindset shifts for me has been the realization that money is a tool, right? And just like a hammer, you can use a hammer to hit people over the head, that's a bad way to use a hammer, you can use it to build a house, it's great way to use a hammer. So money is a tool money is not evil, and and money is actually a transfer of energy. And once I realized this, I actually learned this from like a yogi not like a rich guy who is like a spiritual dude. And he was telling me how like money is actually energy and value. And his belief is that it is impossible for you to pay for something and not receive value in exchange. Yes, it's like a value exchange. And so once you reframe it, and you realize that money is this tool, money is an exchange of value and an exchange of energy, then you realize that the people with the most money are just simply the people providing the most value. And once you have that mindset shift, then you're not going to feel bad about making money, because you're gonna be like, Wow, that means that's proof. That's evidence that I'm providing value to the world. So that's why I'm a big believer in capitalism, because capitalism is voting with your dollars, right. And those are the businesses that are going to succeed. So there was one thing for your audience to just realize and embrace is that money is not evil. Money is actually a great tool that you can use to impact a lot of change. And you know, when I was trying to do philanthropic stuff, we needed money to do it. Oh, yeah. So the more money that you have the bigger impact that you can have on people's lives.
Edward Collins:Wow. Money is not the most important thing in the world. But it impacts everything that is. Absolutely. Tony, I I've gotten a lot of value out of this conversation I know that the audience has to and if they wanted to get in touch with you like after this episode, like what would be the best way for them to reach out to you to find more? Find out more about your community and what you're doing.
Tony Delgado:Yeah, sure. So you can follow me on Instagram, Tony Delgado, you can also hit us up on Instagram, the company, Latino Wall Street or disrupt magazine.com Latino wall. street.com. We're there. And here we are hosting events all the time. We got an event coming up in Miami if you speak Spanish, so we'd love to see you there. And yeah, tune in.
Edward Collins:Awesome. Tony, thank you so much for being here, being so authentic, and be willing to just share from your heart because like I know, like I've learned a lot. I know you and I learned a lot about you and your story. So I've gotten tremendous value out of this. I just want to sincerely thank you for coming.
Tony Delgado:Thank you for having me, guys.
Edward Collins:This has been another episode of entrepreneur unleashed. I know 1,000% You've gotten huge value out of this man's story. What I'm going to implore you to do is don't put it to waste put it to use, go out there change your life for the better because quite literally, you are the author, the director and the main character in your story, and you have the ability to rewrite it if it's not going your way. I wish you well on your journey guys ever Collins signing off. Bye for now, guys. Awesome, man. Amazing.