Jeff Gordy

I had no money when I started the company.

No other choice in the very beginning and a passion for nonprofits.

Basically, I was a troublemaker growing up.

I got kicked out of high school.

I got kicked out of the home.

I didn't even get my GED and go back to college for the third time until I was about 28.

Did you ever serve jail time?

I might have spent a few nights for some behaviors that I did back in the day.

All right.

So you were a bad boy.

Yeah, I was.

I was a troublemaker.

But at the same time, I had to make a living.

So I was on my own around 15, 16 and worked in restaurants and managed restaurants, sold some of the first cell phones, sold copiers, walked the streets selling fax machines, even sold voicemail when voicemail was something you would cold call on and sell as a service.

Um, so, you know, and then I ended up running the world's largest Haagen-Dazs of all things down here at Navy Pier.

Um, I had a staff of 100 kids.

Which state are you in?

Yeah.

So I had a hundred kids selling popcorn, lemonade, and ice cream, um, in a popcorn shipping business that I was managing and I was getting paid about 40 K a year, 60 hours a week, six days a week.

And I had an epileptic seizure one day.