Jad Kantari’s biggest fear is dying average. Ever since he was a boy growing up in Lebanon, he had lofty goals of becoming a professional soccer player or becoming a massively successful businessman. He’s always wanted to leave his print on the world, and still to this day will not stop until he is able to. Although he was unsure of his path as a boy, one thing was for certain: He would do whatever it took to follow his dreams.
Kantari eventually realized that pro soccer wouldn’t be an option, so he decided to follow in his uncle’s footsteps and become a successful businessman. Even when he realized that his dream would be unlikely in Lebanon’s bad economy, he still didn’t shut the idea down. Instead, as a testament to his relentless mindset and ambition, he decided to leave everything he knew behind and move to America to attend college and become successful in business.
After graduating from USC with a degree in civil engineering and working as an engineer, he began to try his hand in digital entrepreneurship with flipping items online and ecommerce. It wasn’t serious initially, but Kantari soon realized how powerful ecommerce was and began putting his full focus into it. Even though he racked up credit card debt experimenting with Facebook ads to make his first store a success, nothing would be able to stop him from finding success.
Spending hours tweaking his store, his ads, educating himself and building relationships within the industry, Kantari began to see his venture become profitable. Had he given in, he would have been left with nothing but credit card debt and wasted time. But because he knew that failure was the only way to truly experience success, he kept pushing and worked harder than ever before.
His success began building exponentially. His stores began generating six figures in revenue month after month, and eventually reached a point of achieving eight figures in revenue in six months’ time. Kantari’s team has grown to 25 people, and he’s able to live the life he used to dream about without worrying about a price tag or taking time off from his job.
He says that entrepreneurship was something that came naturally to him since he was a kid, as he never saw himself following the crowd and doing everyday stuff. He wanted to be different, stick out from the pack, and be special for the rest of his life. It’s safe to say that every decision he’s made up to this point in his life has allowed him to do just that.
