Fred Mossler
Entrepreneur
“Always be curious. Learning doesn’t stop when you get out of school—learning is a journey.”
Videos
By Roadtrip NationFred Mossler
Milestones
My road in life has taken me all over.
I grew up in a rural town, but always wanted go into “business,” even before I knew what that meant.
Most kids in my town got their first jobs in the fast-food industry—I chose to work at Taco Bell.
I’d never been a good student, but something about that job made me want to try harder at school.
I enrolled in college and became a pretty good student, while also working as a shoe salesman.
After college, I was hired at Nordstrom; I worked my way up to a buyer position in San Francisco.
While there, I was approached by Nick Swinmurn to help him start his business (which became Zappos).
Amazon acquired Zappos and I used the capital from the sale to open a restaurant Nacho Daddy and to fund other business ideas.
I recently left Zappos to focus my time on my entrepreneurial projects and nonprofit involvement.
Education
High School
Career
Entrepreneur
I'm involved in many different ventures including Nacho Daddy and several other businesses around the Las Vegas area.
Career Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Numbers
Technology
Building Things
Day to Day
A great day for me at work is a day I can work around people I enjoy spending time with and working on things that are impactful to customers, employees or the business. I really subscribe to the adage of “do what you love and you’ll never work another day in your life!” That being said, if a student were shadowing me it might look pretty mundane. They would find me in lots of meetings discussing financials, progression planning, operational procedures, legal and human resource issues.
Advice for Getting Started
Here's the first step for everyone
If you want to start a business, there are plenty of opportunities for you to do just that, even if you have very little capital and very little experience: all you need is a little creativity and a little effort. You just have to start—just take that first step.
Recommended Education
My career is related to what I studied. I'd recommend the path I took:
Hurdles
The Noise I Shed
From Myself:
"You’ll never be a good student."
