- I had tremendous resignation in three days later,
the CEO came to me off from $7 million.
- $7 million, 7 million, and I said no. - Oh, 'cause I promised a guy that I was starting the business with,
“and I regretted that from 2013 till about 2017.”
- Whoa, that's a long regret, yeah. - But as that kind of took hold, the business grew by giving people the opportunity to eat for themselves to grow. Through that process, we started out with success,
but the success of the business was all on the back of everybody happens to accept. - Dave Barrett is a driven, self-made insurance executive and entrepreneur, serving as president of Team RTP at CRC specialty.
He began his career in 2008 at SW Risk, rising from an entry-level role to becoming a top producer through his strong work ethic. - I realized I built him the pretty cool. I have a really valuable, yeah.
- Made it so valuable was the growth of the business from people from outside the industry. Other people had it replicated in the reason I replicated, 'cause my business was failing without doing it, because nobody ever will come work for me.
- That was the initial big failure that led to figuring out a system that led to the final massive success. (dramatic music) - It spans the goal, like a super high school,
internet helpers. (dramatic music) Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone. - It's not over, I'm telling how we're... - The living your legacy podcast
for those who live to leave a legacy. (dramatic music) (dramatic music) - Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast.
I'm your host again, Jason Langen, and we're down here at the Sunny Miami Beach, the new studios. And yeah, we had the privilege to have a conversation with some of the best entrepreneurs,
the disruptors, experts in so many different fields here, yeah, I kind of love my job, when I get to do these things, and we got a special guest here from Texas, and yeah, introduce yourself, what's your name
and what's your business, Dave? - Nice to meet you. - It's have you on the show, man. - Yeah, I have several businesses.
My first main business that I had success,
was an insurance business, wholesale specialty insurance. I was called Risk Transfer Partners. - Okay. - And then since then, I had to exit, I sold that business. - Nice.
- It was a good day, good day, good day. I still actually worked there on the president of the Dallas Operations of the company that bought me, he's called CRC Group. - Okay.
- And on the side, kind of, I've started several other businesses underneath the scale of Ventures Platform. That's the parent company that I fold on. My business is under. - All right.
- And right now we have, the ones we have operational under that platform right now, one's called Heat Wave Luxury Light Therapy. It's a retail red light sauna studio. - Gotcha.
- And we're developing a proprietary red light booth for that. So it's kind of there. Again, some name brand locally there in Frisco, Texas. - Nine. - And then once I get that booth,
then it should be a scalable business. We have a business call, I have a business called Crey or Ivana Creative Group. Just kind of a marketing company to tie a lot of the entities together, giving them a social presence, social media presence.
- All right. - And then I also have Ivana Wellness Leasing, which leases, you know, hide dollar aesthetic equipment to the med spine industry. - Yeah, yeah.
- So boom and it's boom. - Yeah, well yeah.
“You know, it's a, it's a rag-manid industry, right?”
No, there's not a lot of centralized capital. I mean, there's, and it's a very large unit. You got to 1.6 trillion dollar industry. - I'm not gonna make it. - No doubt on that, man.
- It's only that. Tell me, do you, tell me a wellness brand? - Tell me, tell you a wellness brand. Like what kind of wellness you talk about? - So, tell me a wellness,
tell me a, tell me a, tell me an aesthetic brand, a, a, a, a, a brand. - Laser away, my wife is a,
she's always going to laser away, right?
- Yeah. - And shout out yesterday, we had the, the perfect, was it the perfect dose, right? It's another, right? But I, I'm sitting here, you know,
my wife's kind of into that stuff. I also get to interview a few of people to have it, right? But if it was just me, like, I'd be like, - Yeah, exactly. - That business, that industry,
I think there's a lot of opportunity in it, right? - Yeah. - You know, selling beauty, everybody wants that. - No one's taken that Starbucks, kind of name brands, saying roll to it. - Yeah, yeah, that's a heavy roll.
- It's all, it is, it is. And it's just, a lot of, you know, independent people that were nurse practitioners and then kind of moved into the whole aesthetics industry, right? And so you got, I guess, two kind of directions
they go with it.
“Oh, one is kind of like injectable, specialist, right?”
And then another is kind of like, lasers. And I, I don't know, like all kinds of different machines that we'll have. The thing is, so on the lasers, the machines, the aesthetics, you know, and as you said,
in nurse practitioners, I want to start our own business. Those machines have cost you $2300,000. So yeah, some of the best. And a lot of the, you know, traditional lending won't come
Through and, you know, chase or bank of America
is gonna look at how long you've been in business. If they were, I gotta give you a long. Well, I look at that as that equipment is, - Well, it's also not $200,000, you know, like chase, you're getting at max, with good credit score,
they'll give you like 60, you know, $60,000.
“And so that's what I do is, I buy that equipment”
and I lease it to those startups or even several years in. Perfect, because the other part of it is even, you know, established that spot, that equipment changes out. You know, new jet, new generators come out of retail three, four, five years.
- Yeah. - All right, so if you don't want to be locked into an asset, you can lease it. - No, yeah, yeah, that's the, I mean,
I'm just getting that go and just put in my first equipment
out of the market there, and Q was three of this year. Like, side it about it though, I think it's like, I think it's a good concept that I should, you know, helps people help some businesses grow. - I can't believe those machines are like 200, 200,000.
- Yeah. - Like, which ones do you talk about? - Well, like, say the, well, one that's really good is the luminous Stella 22, that's their new, and you know, you can get those, and they're, you know, - And what is that like, they're red light therapy?
Like, I guess there's like, I mean, that's all kinds of stuff. - I can talk, I get that phrase, so the lasers are, they will do different, you know, they'll do the IPL facials, they'll do hair removal, they'll grow hair.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all stuff. - Tattoo, he's a pretty good guy, so he's different, like they're Stella, the luminous Stella 22, it has a view of what's called a fully loaded one, that's four different laser tips, right?
- Okay. - I don't actually do them myself, but they have a lot of different applications that that one machine can do. - Yeah. - And, yeah, it's an expensive machine, 'cause it's a quality machine, it's a kind of a dermatology
level machine that I want to get a least to, some of those to, and those and others to, that's boss, right? - Mm-hmm. - Because once they, men's spot gets that equipment, they have the clientele,
they can really provide a good service, there's margin, they're not equipment. - Yeah. - It's just one of those things, because they, a lot of them are getting going, they don't have two or three on a grand wide amount.
- Yeah. - And it's not like these things are going being lugged around, right? They're in a nice studio room, right? And they sit there and maybe they get used a few times a day. - Well, hopefully if you're more of a few times a day, right?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - I mean, if they're lucky, they're bringing in the customer, right? But then it's like, you know, let's say like, one of those companies, right? They can have, it's not like that machine's being used
every single time, because they have, they should have several machines, right? - And they have all the options, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, so they're like, that machine
can be something that brings people in the door. - Correct. - Correct. - Correct, and back. - And so like, what I'm trying to get to is that the life for that machine is going to be lasting, right?
I don't think the maintenance is going to be crazy.
“- Some of them come with where you have to like,”
do new tips and, you know, there's every procedure, every facial, you gotta have a new tip put on and so some of them don't, like the Stella does it, right? - Yeah, yeah. - That's what I looked at that it was just a good business
'cause, hey, any business that helps other businesses make money, right, if it's truly does, it's usually a good business that will make that business a lot of money.
Right, that's kind of the way I always look at it,
I can find something and any business I did, including the insurance one that I sold, if I could find ways to help other people make money, when I make money when they do, it's all about incentive. - Yeah, yeah.
- So then, when everybody's incentivized, properly, things can work out better that way, right? - Were there other industries that you were looking into before you settled in on the aesthetics industry? You kind of did your research and you're like, man,
this is also a boom-in, right? And then you kind of just chose. - I just sold my insurance company and I was in a process of starting a heat wave, red light sauna studio for my now x-y.
To give a purpose, you know, which you wanted to get something to do. - Those are also booming up all over the place. - Exactly, exactly.
“And so in the, I believe signed things have”
and find out some things that were divorced now, right? And so I have this lease and this red light sauna studio with a sign on it, but she doesn't want anything to do with it, and now she's split it. So I go and start looking at the business.
That's when it first kind of started really looking at,
I was doing a kind of pet project for her to begin with, and then I just said, wait, this is a really good industry, starting with the red light sauna. You know, most people don't realize there's a difference between infrared and red light.
- Yeah. - So they'll go into a wellness facility, a red light sauna facility, and they'll go get an infrared sauna, or they'll sit, and they'll say, or in those big infrared sauna boxes,
and we'll have a little panel red light down there, right? - Yeah. - You're not getting red light therapy with that. You know, 'cause it just like any light, it dissipates the farther it gets from the source.
- Gotcha. - So infrared is heat, red light is the actual, they're a puttic modality that can not, when the women use the base mask. - Yeah.
- And I wrinkle what it's doing is regenerating their cells, and that's light in its right on the face. - Yeah, so not, is all red light created equal arena? - Well, no, it's not, yeah, but it's, - 'Cause we got one of those face masks, you know?
- The base mask will work.
- Yeah, okay.
- 'Cause it's right, 'cause that red light is right there on you.
- Red light in itself is nothing. - It works on Freak and Meow, 'cause I've been putting that. - When they put that mask, and then the red light goes on, and then it's like, they turn the corner, it's like, "Oh, shit." - Yeah, okay, it's how we, but it really does work.
But I'll get into the science of it. Red light is a great therapy, so imagine if you do have a red light bed that has true FDA level red light therapy over your whole body. It's the same, it's the same philosophy,
it'll actually get you. - Yeah, it did some of those, like, we used to have, like, I lived in Vegas for two years, and then we went to one of the gyms, and then on the side, there was a studio with kind of,
it looks like those tandem machines, but it's like red light, you know? But you kind of are creating a new version of that. - Yes, so even those, some of those tanning machine looking beds, the red light when it comes from the light source,
maybe within the right dosage, 'cause it's actually dosage for red light. - Got it.
- Then they have a quarter inch thick plastic there,
and it's the eight inches away, but at the time, the red light hits your skin, the point of inflection, the irradiance is not, of a dosage that will give you any true therapy, right?
“And so that's what one of the things I found out”
when I got into that business, there is one bed on the market, it's called the body balance system, and that has FDA level red light. I have some in heatwave right now, you lay in it, it comes down and you're like a panini,
so that way that really is like, floats all over your body, right? - Okay. - It really works, I do it almost every morning, and I'm like, "All right, why end the frisco?"
It really works, but it doesn't get you hot. Like if infrared is what gets you hot, red light is what gives you the cellular regeneration. - Gotcha. - And there is not any that combined both,
that I'm aware of, and maybe there is that I don't know about. And so that's what I'm-- - But if there is, then they're kind of dumb, because you're doing research, you're on Google, you're on AI, and if it's not popping up,
when someone does research, and it's like, do you really exist, you know? - Yeah, yeah, and a lot of them will say they do, you know, infrared sauna with red light, but when you look at it, it's an infrared sauna,
and there's like one little red light panel in the way up here, right? - Gotcha. - That's not gonna do it, it's really what it is is the infrared sauna with a red light vibe.
So I'm developing one that will actually have true, controllable infrared heat, so you go super hot, sauna level hot, or a little bit, whatever temperature you like, and then the therapeutic chamber will actually have
high level red light dosage. If you've ever truly done red light. - Fair, therapeutic chamber, that sounds like when Darth Vader is going into his little chamber, and it lowers down, and he was really going into the therapeutic chamber.
- Oh, right, you did it, you did it, you did it, you did it. - We didn't know it. - He didn't even know that the doctor, yeah. - So, it was getting his spa treatment in there. - Yeah, exactly, next he's gonna get a facial,
a laser patient. - Exactly, that's how I got it, long started how I got it in the business. And so then I go, start, I just looked for opportunities, for certain things, and businesses,
but you know, for curing revenues, - Yeah, yeah, yeah, either MMR. - So on lucky x-y, for she didn't even know half of what you were trying to give her, right? So then you were looking, yeah, like, let me look at this,
say if I was driving it, oh. - Yeah, yeah, that's it, yes, I go on and on about that story. I really thought, let's dig into it, yeah. - Yeah, you want to get a couch out and have me lay me down and can really get, do a deep dive.
I'm just, I'm playing with you, I'm playing with you. But so yeah, serial entrepreneur, right? So I asked everyone on the show, like what, I mean, you've already told me a lot of things
“that you got cooking, but what else are you most excited about?”
- Most excited about it, you know, right now, my full main focus is my insurance career, right? The insurance business, I built a really cool business, you know, brought a lot of people along the way, and we sold that to that business,
called Rich Transfer Partners. And I sold that in March of 2025 to CRC Group.
And they're the third largest specialty wholesale in the country.
I'm not shy about to say it, it's a big heavy lip, but I want to try to be a part of some of that brings up to number one. - I didn't, so that was my main focus right now was building systems and structures within that business,
that can help advance that objective, right? - Yeah, that's, 'cause that's really what-- - So you talk about expanding the franchise and putting in the systems and structures so that you can just kind of copy-paste it
everywhere and people can just follow the blueprint, right? - Yeah, what was it with the insurance business is a little bit different than that, as far as, you know, we saw you have a franchiseable thing where you open in new locations.
That is more about giving people the opportunity and putting systems in place where they can produce and make a bunch of revenue. When I got into that business, I identified a, what I considered a broken and center structure,
the way that industry had been set up and still is, if you have one person at the head of the brokerage team,
“well, I got into the other day, it was usually a guy, right?”
And all the revenue and all this team underneath, there would be guys and gals called Inside Brokers or account managers underneath. All the revenue they would come in would get booked to that person
They would discretionarily bonus out
that their team beneath that, right?
“And so when I started, you know, my business,”
I left the broker goes at, I'm started my business in 2013. I thought all my friends were going to come work with me. - Right, and when I started business, cool broker to be great, didn't happen, you know, then the right away, it was like, Dave, you got five markets,
you don't have to read it. - Y'all saw in Jamaquire, no one came with him. - No one didn't, no one came with me. - So I realized I got a higher in train people from outside the industry, which I did,
like a group of four to begin with. And then I said, well, this is a cool, I've been five guys in around buying in some deals, a cool, this is not a business. Like, how do I scale this?
And that's when over trial and error failure and fixes, I came up with a kind of a system that would, incentivize the people I've trained, financially incentivize them to train people underneath them. And instead of the old way of, hey,
let me hire you and you work on my stuff and you're gonna stay there, and I don't want you to go out produce your own revenue, 'cause if you do, I, the senior, I lose one of my support staff. And I have no incentive, I have to net negative
for me to teach you how to go make your own money, right? And for that junior broker, there's no positive for them picking up the phone and making that sales calling, flying out to meet new clients, because any revenue they book, they're booking up
to the top person. - Yeah. - There was no incentive structure for either side to grow and develop more producers.
“And that's why I live with this, this doesn't make,”
and plus it's just not fair, right? Everybody should have the opportunity to go, if they're willing to go, grind, make calls, work, and build, they should get the rewards of that, right? And so-- - And we credit.
- Yeah, a hundred percent. - Yeah, it's just common sense of you incentivize human behavior, you know what you're gonna get where, if somebody's sitting there knows, they go make those sales calls,
they bind to deal of 10,000 commission. That is going under their name. And that person that is mentoring them the senior, if they're gonna get a piece of that, instead of wanting to keep them inside,
they're gonna wanna push them out and help them go get that and tell it, you know? And so it took a while to figure out the right way to do it, but over time, it kind of like took hold. And, you know, I started in 2013 and honestly regretted it.
I felt like I knew that I messed that up, I do it, I left a big, a big salary, big job. I turned down a big offer, the company I left, when I left, I turned my resignation in and three days later, the CEO came to me
off from me $7 million.
- $7 million, 7 million, and I said no.
- Oh!
“- 'Cause I promised the guy that I was starting the business with,”
and I regretted that from 2013 till about 2017. - Well, it's a longer grant, yeah. As that kind of took hold, then the business started scaling itself because the business grew by giving people the opportunity to eat for themselves to grow.
- Yeah. - And so that was what was awesome is through that process. We started having success, but the success of the business was all on the back of everybody having success. So everybody started making money, everybody started growing,
building careers, buying homes, starting families, all that cool stuff, and you know, we got to a point and 20, 24, where there's some things in the industry consolidation and mergers and acquisitions in the insurance industry, let me decide to put my business
on the market. - It was a little bit, but I first did it. I've been with you for the way that works. You hire a banker, which is really a sales person,
or they're a broker with sales your business basically.
And they came back and they put together what's called a SIM, a confidential information on them around on the K, which is your pitch deck for your business. I remember when they gave that to me,
I looked at it and I was the first time I realized I'd built in the pretty cool. I was really valuable. - Thank you. - And it was based upon, made it so valuable,
was the growth of the business from people from outside the industry. Other people had it replicated in the reason I replicated 'cause my business was spailing without doing it, because nobody able to come work for me.
So it was the initial big failure, led to figuring out a system that led to the final massive success. - All right. - When I sold it, we had a web offer's on the business.
- Hey. - Jesus. - I mean, we're a decent size, but not massive like the companies I were looking to buy us, but it was the revenue was good.
The margins were good, but the system was unique. - Yeah. - And that's when I said, you know, what are we gonna try to, what can, you know, I try to do, what can my team try to do at CRC now is try to utilize that system.
And they're CRC's way bigger than mine. CRC's a great company, and they're pushing forward, I mean, in a lot of different ways, and we can be a small part of that success, that that success, that growth,
like kind of sprinkling in a little bit different way of doing things. That's what we're trying to do. - And then get them through the red lights on us and now that, everything's exactly exactly. - That's the, how do people find you, man?
- My personal ID is at Dave Barrett scaled up. All my businesses that I'm operating are under scaled up ventures. That's a venture platform model that I started that
Is looking to find other unique ideas from people,
throughout the country that may need health connecting the dots.
And if it's the right idea, we kind of become partners on it. - Sure, so you have a focus. - Anything unique, you know, it can be a boring business, you know, but with a unique approach. That's what I look for.
“And I look for certain things in businesses that I think,”
make it scalable. And again, we're touring revenue, MMR, ARR, a low amount of non-insentifies employees. I think if you have employees that you pay somebody a hundred thousand dollars,
but if they don't have an option to make more, or make less, within six months, they're gonna be working to the floor.
They pay a million dollars and have the same outcome.
And so I want to, so employees that are non-insentifies, I don't mind having a lot of employees. I have a lot in my insurance business, but I don't want them to haven't sent up to do good, right? And then those are some unique things.
And then a business that can, you know, not just bring an income, but that kind of income that makes the business a high value asset. You know, 'cause that's the thing is, if you have a business that brings in a good amount of income,
but only does it if you're there every single day, you know, you really have a high paying job. But everybody wants to build something worth a lot of money. And hopefully be able to sell it for...
“Well, most small companies are just kind of building their own jobs, you know?”
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, you know, I'm fortunate if I don't need a build another job. Real money out. I would love to help people build generational wealth,
and value, and that's kind of cool. 'Cause I learned how to do that. I didn't go to school for it. I just kind of learned how to do it. Yeah, and this is on the 19th.
I figured it out, making a lot of mistakes. No, figured it out, you know. Exactly.
Never knew that that message from our parents would be,
you know, so kind of... True. Right? So, so much is. Well, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show.
Thank you for joining us. We're about to hop into your session. We're gonna get into the whole journey of it all, man. Yeah, wait. So, beyond success.
“And, yeah, if you want to hear about, you know,”
serial entrepreneurs that have made exits, and also, you know, they can't retire. To retire is to expire, right? And so that kind of passion of entrepreneurship is still kind of fueling him, right?
To grow, keep on going above and beyond, right? The website for the scaled up ventures. Scale up ventures. Perfect. That's the website.
All right, well, let's get into it. And thank you guys for joining us here. And we'll see you next time, everyone. Cheers. (upbeat music)
