Carey Smith Email & Phone Number

Austin, Tx, Us

Following his $500 million sale of Big Ass Fans, Carey founded Unorthodox Ventures, which aims to upend today's parasitic venture capital industry by partnering with disruptive founders seeking to manufacture extraordinary products and build enduring brands. Unorthodox Ventures offers far more than money. Carey's team of experts in everything from manufacturing and engineering to marketing and analytics provide founders the expertise they lack. The goal is that by the end of an agreed-upon time frame, they'll be profitable. This hands-on partnership model earned a 2021 World Changing Idea honor by Fast Company.Unorthodox Ventures' partner companies include modern bidet maker Tushy, Mediterranean frozen food company Afia, chronic constipation solution Vibrant and Awkward Essentials, which makes after-sex cleanup tool Dripstick.Unorthodox Ventures even helped one of its own principals launch Vaask, the maker of a hand hygiene system designed to be a permanent fixture in modern interiors.

Lexington, Ky, Us

Carey founded Big Ass Fans in 1999 and served as its Chief Big Ass until the company's sale in 2017. Under his guidance, Big Ass Fans grew an average of 30% a year, with offices across the globe. It made the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies 11 consecutive years — a feat achieved by only 34 others — and expanded from industrial products to include a line of chic, silent commercial fans. When Carey learned that a man in Malaysia had created a revolutionary design for a residential fan, he brought the man and the fan into the company and turned it into a $60 million division: Haiku Home. And when he heard that his industrial fan customers needed better lights, he hired lighting engineers to build Big Ass Light. In less than two decades, he took the company from 0 to nearly $300 million in revenue, without the help of investors.

Bachelor'S Degree, Economics

Education record