Nate Lind – Founder, Legendary Beard Company

Mr. Lind has been an entrepreneur for over 15 years. His specialty is taking ideas and making them a reality with a focus on executing the strategy to quickly get startups to profitability. Mr. Lind has had successful businesses in real estate flipping single family homes and building mortgage servicing platforms.

He also has marketed millions of dollars of consumer products using performance internet marketing techniques and subsequently developed a subscription billing analytics system.

Mr. Lind has had an interesting blend of corporate experience. There was a period where he was a hotly desired consultant after the housing bust in 2008 to Fortune 100 financial service companies. At another point, Mr. Lind was a Vice President at Bank of America designing and changing processes that allowed homeowners a more streamlined ability to get refinanced or their loan modified.

What are your favorite books?

I like a combination of business, motivation, productivity and sales books. On the flipside I also love Sci/Fi and Fantasy books. I’m currently reading The Hobbit to my two sons who love to hop around the room while the soundtrack to the movie is playing and I or my wife read about the adventures of Bilbo and the Dwarves’ attempt to retake the Lonely Mountain. I’m a big fan of R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt books, Raymond E. Feist and George RR Martin.

What’s your favorite T.V. show?

Game of Thrones without a doubt. HODOR!

What are your aspirations in life?

My single biggest desire is to provide financial security to my family. I was raised in a large family and it was difficult on a single income to provide for the niceties that some of my friends had, so I was driven at an early age to compete and achieve financial reward by willpower, strategy and strong work ethic.

What’s one thing you’ve learned since you started your career?

That for the successful: failure is only feedback. Failure does not stop the successful, instead, it motivates them. Failure inspires innovation. The greatest achievements in civilization were built upon the countless numbers of failures it took to get there. Failure is just a pit stop on the journey of the successful.

What’s your biggest pet peeve?

I’m a pretty tame guy but I do get riled up when someone tells me I don’t know what I’m talking about. Here’s a story from my youth that still drives me today: My family was a military family so we moved around a lot. In 3rd grade we moved to a suburb of St. Louis which was a difficult transition for me.

I didn’t adapt to the unique math curriculum very well and frustrated the teachers to the point where I was put into special education classes in 4th grade. The teachers couldn’t figure me out because I showed incredible aptitude in certain areas and not in others. They eventually gave me an IQ test and I scored a 136 and blew them away.

After this, I was finally free from the special ed classes and back into the normal rotation. Once I started reading fiction and engaged my imagination (or imagiNathan as I like to call it) my grades really improved and I no longer had problems with learning.