Hi Joshua, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur since middle school. I began working on my first business with my best friend during my sophomore year of college at Texas Tech. The project was put on hold after we got an opportunity with a company in the United Kingdom. We flew to the UK in April of 2015 to have an interview with a school software company based in Leicester. We then got the position and were in charge of helping the company transition to the US starting in June. We then flew to India for a month and then came back to Texas for two weeks before moving to the UK for five months. During that time, we got the product ready to market to schools in the US market. After five months, we moved back to Dallas to begin sales in the states. I was with the company until December of 2016 after deciding to move onto other things. I set out onto my next venture that would be another software system for schools but this one focused on athletics.
The system would be a ticketing platform for high school athletics to sell their tickets on. It would do away with paper tickets completely and give the option to have tickets to be prepurchased online. The system was helped built by a development team in India. En route to meeting with the team in India, I stopped off to visit old friends in Leicester and ran into Suresh on the street who was the owner and the person that gave me the opportunity to work in Britain. I had coffee with him the next morning, where I had discussed the project and he offered to take over the development side. I decided to pass on his offer until after the summer when I had 50+ schools ready to begin using the system and it was not ready to be used at the start of football season. So he then stepped in and helped and we began working with each other again. He has been one of the biggest reasons for my success as an entrepreneur.
From there helped him bring some of his projects to the states and did sales with those businesses. Those being software for healthcare-focused for the elderly. I then set out with my brother Tanner and Suresh to start another trucking company called Maverick Trucking. Which currently runs freight in the greater Chicago area hauling for companies such as Ross, Home Depot, and Corsicana. Then also for the last year and a half, I have invested in stocks which has surprisingly gone really well, along with making a small investment into a startup in California. The trucking and stocks are currently what I am focusing on but have some other projects that I want to begin on really soon. 2020 has been the year where I have really found success and a rhythm with everything. Hopefully can carry the momentum into this upcoming year.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No way. Everything you start out on is bound to have its struggles. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing it’s not going to be easy. It is fun to have a challenge, though. I would say trucking is for sure the one that gives you the most struggles, only because of how many moving parts there are. It seems like there are always obstacles that get thrown your way. Whether it be something with personnel or equipment, there are many things that can go wrong—a lot of the time, you have to think on the fly to get something handled. Luckily we have a great team at Maverick that helps everything run as smoothly as possible.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about McKinleyX Capital?
My brother and I co-founded McKinleyX Capital which is the company that owns Maverick Trucking and other businesses that it owns equity in. Currently, it owns an interest in about four companies. In 2021 we will be setting out into some other ventures in different sectors, which I am really excited about. Some that will be started by us and would hope to look into making small investments in startups.
Can you talk us about how you think about risk?
I personally like taking risks. They usually pay off if they’re calculated risks and not a shot in the dark. You just have to be smart and be knowledgeable about taking the risk. I took a pretty big risk a few months ago investing in a stock and luckily it went up about 90% in value within the days after. Currently, I am taking a big risk with an investment that hopefully will pay off in the early part of 2021. I have also taken risks and went bust so win some, lose some. Honestly, I think taking risks is good because if it pays off great, and if it doesn’t, it usually teaches you a really good lesson or lessons to learn from.
Contact Info:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshcmckinley
