Room 1148 in Gerdin Buisness Building was bustling with excitement as students made their way into the spacey lecture hall. Mike Delazzer, founder of Redbox, stood in a grey sports coat in the front of the room, going almost unnoticed as the buzz of conversations and people settling into their chairs filled the room.

Delazzer finally took his place at the podium, and the audience fell silent, eager to hear what the established entrepreneur had to say. Mike asked a simple question right off the bat:

“Do entrepreneurs have to be difficult people?” Delazzer asked. “Yes.”

The audience laughed at his blunt answer. He began to talk about how important it is to have a thick skin and the ability to go after what you want no matter what if you want to be a successful entrepreneur. As the founder of Redbox and eight other companies, Delazzer, a serial entrepreneur, knows a thing or two about making it in the business world.

He was inducted into the Chicago Entrepreneur Hall of Fame in 2006 for his work with GetAMovie, Inc. He talked about how hard it had been for him to get Redbox, the second largest video rental company in the world, to the place it is today. He said one of the most important things in order to succeed is to fail.

“Failure is not fatal,” Delazzer said. “You are going to fail. Who cares? I will get right back up and start something else.”

When he first tried to have Redbox put into McDonald’s restaurants the test device failed to work. The test robot was completely brain dead.

In one last meeting with the company, he decided that he was not going to give up.

“I will not accept no today,” Delazzer said. 

He convinced McDonald’s to give him 24 hours to make Redbox into something incredible. Because of his stubborn and convincing argument, McDonald’s agreed, and after a long strenuous night of work, the time finally came to find out if it worked correctly. To the surprise of Delazzer and McDonald’s, it worked. 

Delazzer knew then if he would have given up the day before he never would have created the almost $2 billion invention of Redbox. He said there are two things that can drive you to success.

“Hope on one side, fear on the other,” Delazzer said. “Sometimes success requires us to be insanely devoted. Devotion to an idea is not just a want.”

He shared his top three tips for being a successful entrepreneur: control the fear of failure, don’t care what anyone else thinks and think big.

Delazzer ended with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt saying, “There is no effort without error and short comings.”

Delazzer attempted to convey how, in his words, “vision, drive, devotion, and a little bit of dumb luck” can take a person who is dedicated to places in life they never would have dreamed.

Missy Crow, freshman in animal science, appreciated the insight.

“It was so interesting I really have a new perspective on what entrepreneurs go through in the real world.” Crow said.