Hundreds of students filled the Meagher Theatre to overflowing in mid-November to hear Aaron Krause, CEO of Scrub Daddy, tell his success story. Some sat in the aisles during the 70-minute presentation.

And Krause did not disappoint.

Mixing old photos, video clips from home-shopping network QVC, and segments from his winning appearance on the hit TV show Shark Tank in 2012, Krause mesmerized the audience from start to finish, tracing his 35-year career from running a high school car washing business to being CEO of a company with $400 million in sales last year.

Along the way, he sprinkled gems of wisdom to inspire budding entrepreneurs in the crowd.

Match Grit with Talent

“Are you born an inventor and entrepreneur or is that something that can be taught?” Krause asked. He credits his father with instilling the entrepreneurial spirit in him long ago. In high school, Krause constantly bugged his father to buy him Atari, an early video game. “Buy it yourself,” his dad eventually told him, providing a list of chores for which Krause could earn money.

The car washing enterprise that Krause launched then revealed his willingness to work hard and charted the course for a lucrative career in cleaning products.

“The invention part, I was born with,” he admits. “I was always seeing problems in my environment, that this or that could be better.” His natural inclination was to create ways to solve those problems: how to turn off the lights from his bed, how to install cup holders in cars.

He didn’t invent the Clapper or cup holder, but he did learn that mixing entrepreneurial grit with natural talent was a winning combination.

Gotta Be in It to Win It

He told an old joke with a timeless lesson. “If I don’t win the lottery, I’ll lose my house,” a man prays to God. He doesn’t win. He prays again: “If I don’t win the lottery, I’ll lose my car.” Again, he fails to win the jackpot. Finally, he begs, “If I don’t win, I’ll lose my life.” The skies then open and God says, “You gotta buy a ticket.”

Krause distilled the moral succinctly. “If you aren’t in the game, how can you win?”

He referenced Steve Jobs, one of his heroes, in his encouragement to students. “You’ve got to act and not be afraid to fail. Believe in yourself and act on it.”

Persistence and Resilience

Krause graduated from Syracuse University in 1992 with a degree in psychology and pursued a career in the auto detailing industry. He developed and patented a double-sided buffing pad and other car detailing products over the next 15 years.

During this time, he worked with a German company to develop a yellow scrubbing foam, which he thought would be a perfect hand-washing tool for mechanics. He got a patent on it, but it didn’t sell.

In September 2008, global conglomerate 3M acquired Krause’s buffing pad business; however, material deemed superfluous was carved out of the contract and notably included the Scrub Daddy foam. It sat in a box labeled “scrap” from 2008 to 2011.

Washing dishes with the foam one day, Krause discovered that it became soft in warm water, hard in cold.

“The heavens opened up, and I heard the angels sing,” he recalls. Scrub Daddy was resurrected and would soon be beatified on national television.

In 2014, The Original Scrub Daddy was named the most successful product in Shark Tank history, a title which it held for ten years. Since initially airing on the show, more than 250 million units of Scrub Daddy products have been sold.

The Abessinio Lecture Series

Rocco Abessinio and his wife Mary established The Rocco and Mary Abessinio School of Business Chair in Management and Entrepreneurship Endowed Fund in 2015. It is the center of entrepreneurship education, activities, and programming for the School of Business and across campus. The annual lecture series is one of the outcomes from this endowed fund. Neumann’s inaugural Abessinio Lecture was delivered by Rocco Abessinio himself on October 4, 2016.

Mr. Abessinio, an alumnus and longtime friend of Neumann, is chief executive officer of Roch Capital, Inc., a privately owned capital management firm, headquartered in Glen Mills, PA, and focused on making investments in quality assets that will be held for the long term. He is also the founder of Applied Bank and Applied Card System, which grew to be the 10th largest issuer of Visa and MasterCard credit cards in the country.