Dane Chapin has been an entrepreneur since he was 11 years old. Now, he is the CEO of Zephyr Partners Real Estate, Health Savings Associates, and USAopoly, and has learned how to bide his time and talent balancing a multitude of mediums. Chapin spoke to the Business Management and Ownership class on April 23, where he explained his history, successes, and the difficulties he encountered as an entrepreneur.
Chapin started out with a paper route as a kid, and moved onto taking and developing candid pictures of his neighbors, only to sell the prints for a dollar each. He then started a business to re-string tennis rackets, which paid $6 an hour. “I got to do it on my own time, so I was working around my own schedule and still getting paid,” said Chapin. He moved onto teaching tennis as a student at UCLA. “I had a specialized skill that was in high demand,” said Chapin, “I was paid twenty five dollars an hour. But, that was thirty years ago. Today, it would be about seventy or eighty dollars an hour. I was the rich kid in school, but not because I had rich parents.”
Chapin’s entrepreneurial spirit never went away, and with a seed investment of $100,000, he and his sister created a business (with a license from Hasbro) to make themed board games, including Simpson’s clue and Beatles Monopoly. This year alone, USAopoly is projected to make $25 million dollars. “I’d rather make more money than less money, wouldn’t you?” Chapin remarked when asked why he joined the business world as an entrepreneur.
But, with high reward came high risk. “After starting USAopoly, there were a few years that killed me,” said Chapin. Even in the health insurance business has proved to be a risky business for him. “We covered Bed, Bath & Beyond, and when they went out of business they still owed us half a million dollars. But, they couldn’t pay it because they were bankrupt,” said Chapin.
Even with the risk, he has remained a successful entrepreneur by working hard and staying vigilant. “I found out that the people who are most successful in business are the ones that make the most phone calls. Tenacity and persistence, those are the two most important things,” said Chapin. He also stressed the importance of working hard. Even though it may be tough, he advised that the way to become successful is to keep priorities straight and make the correct choices to achieve personal goals. “I may have missed out on some fun and parties in college, but at the end of the day it’s worked out for me,” said Chapin.
Chapin now spends most of his time growing his real estate business, but manages to juggle each of his businesses by working with people who are just as passionate as he is. “I am surrounded by smart people I can trust. We have an intensive process to hire people that will do good work,” said Chapin. But, it’s not all serious business. “I love going to work on Mondays, it’s a fun culture. It’s business but there’s a lot of creativity involved.”
Chapin’s success is due to a mixture of personal drive and an aggressive attitude towards business, and he left a few words of advice for the class about how to follow in his footsteps. “Make yourself the smartest person in the business you are going into, and create a product or provide a service that creates differentiation in the marketplace,” said Chapin. He also mentioned that there is no such thing as being too informed, and it is important to stay up to date on current events.
In the end, he said, it’s necessary to stay realistic and flexible. “I would have loved to be a pro tennis player, but that wasn’t going to happen. That couldn’t be the end of the world. Now, the rewards of business are just as good as pro tennis, and I don’t come home every night with sore knees,” said Chapin.