WCU Stories      December 11, 2024

By Bill Studenc

A Western Carolina University College of Business graduate and former Catamount baseball player who hit it out of the ballpark with an appearance on “Shark Tank” shared some personal lessons from his life as an entrepreneur during a recent-on campus presentation.

Garrett Ozar, who earned his bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship at WCU in 2009, described how a student-athlete who competed on the baseball diamond succeeded in a business venture specializing in – irony alert – diamonds.

Ozar is co-founder of a company that takes cremated remains of loved ones and turns them into diamonds for surviving family members. He and business partner Adelle Archer appeared on the ABC-TV show “Shark Tank” in 2019, landing a shark in the form of Mark Cuban, who gave them $600,000 in exchange for a 9% stake in their company, Eterneva.

The WCU alumnus returned to his alma mater as keynote speaker during Global Entrepreneurship Week.

“I am so glad that Garrett accepted our invitation to share his story with our students,” said A.J. Grube, dean of the College of Business. “It’s so important for current students to hear directly from those who previously sat in our classrooms and have gone out into the real world to achieve success. Students learn by hearing about those life and business experiences, and they see that they also can get there from here.”

 While Ozar’s time in the spotlight on “Shark Tank” has a certain level of cachet, he spent much of his presentation focusing not on negotiating with Cuban, Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary, Lori Greiner and other sharks but rather on aspects of his entrepreneurial journey.

Ozar told the crowd of approximately 200 not to be afraid of failing as long as something is learned from that failure. He described selling a previous business as a deal that, in retrospect, actually cost him more than 20 times what he earned.

“Looking back, I would not have done that. I would have not sold. But it’s Ok, because it taught me,” he said. “I look back and think, ‘What did I learn? What could I have done differently?’ And one of the things was, don’t do this yourself.”

That’s why he has made it a practice to surround himself with others who have expertise he does not, such as scientists who helped create the Eterneva company. He readily admits that the “engagement diamond space” was not where he wanted to be.

“We had conversations with scientists. Diamonds are carbon and we are carbon-based. What if you took carbon from a person and made it into a diamond, and that’s how you remembered them?”  Ozar said

“There are two deaths in this world. There’s one when in which you pass away and there’s another one in which people quit thinking about you. I thought about the impact I wanted to have, and I was thinking if we do this correctly, we get to help someone’s legacy or story endure,” he said.

Ozar said that he and Archer founded Eterneva “to bring brightness and meaning to loss.” By recruiting experts in diamond science, chemistry and precision logistics, they created a way to honor loved ones – transforming carbon from ashes or hair into diamonds – to offer families a “deeply personal and unparalleled experience, fostering connection and remembrance in a truly unique way,” he said.

Throughout the development phase, they focused on obtaining sustainability in their business model.

“That being said, I can tell you that our company is not motivated and driven by profit,” Ozar said. “We’re motivated and driven by creating value for families that have lost their loved one and, in doing that, it delivers value back to us in the form of profit.”

Ozar encouraged business students in the crowd not to simply strive for profit, but to pursue something meaningful in their lives.

“Whatever you do with your life, make sure that at the end of it, when you are sitting on the porch and looking into the sunset, whatever you did you are proud of it and that it had an impact on people,” he said.

Ozar reminded the audience of a business school parable about the power of compound interest: Would you rather have a penny that doubles every day for a month or $1 million upfront? While many might choose the $1 million in one day, the single penny turns into nearly $6 million in just a month when it doubles daily, with larger increases kicking in about day 21, he said.

“Do you know how many people are continuing to work every day with relentless focus and then quit on day 21 because they’re not getting results? So, don’t focus on the results at the beginning. They’re not supposed to be there yet. Focus on the process,” he said.

“We’re talking about sticking to something. We’re talking about going all in and continuing with the  process – the relentless support of consistent action in a planned and specific direction,” Ozar said. “When you’re doing that every day with consistency, something ends up being built. When you bail early, nothing ever gets built.”

Equally as important as consistency to success is vision and direction, he said.

“If you don’t have a specific direction, how can you be consistently doing something that will get you anywhere? A specific direction is a vision, and it’s a vision that needs to be so strong that it motivates you. It’s the thing that gets you out of bed. If you don’t have something that you want to achieve, that you’re so afraid of not having, that you’re excited to wake up every day and go do this, that you’ll continue to go through hell and get no results, then you need to take a step back and reflect about what your vision should be,” he said.

“My advice is to know it’s not going to be easy. Know there’s going to be adversity. Know you have to have a clear vision and something that really motivates you, or it’s going to be trouble. Stick with it every single day and, when adversity comes, do not panic. Just go back to the foundational things that were making you successful before,” Ozar said.

Lane Perry, assistant professor of entrepreneurship, characterized WCU’s Global Entrepreneurship Week activities, which also included smaller sessions on detail-oriented nuances of launching startups and real-time critiques of upper-level students’ business plan pitches in new venture creation as “a masterclass in navigating life with an entrepreneurial spirit.”

“Garrett’s visit reinforced the importance of pursuing passions with purpose, leading with integrity and constantly seeking ways to add value to the lives of others. While he came to help inspire and teach students about business, leadership and entrepreneurship, I was struck by the focus on life lessons that were shared with these ‘futurepreneurs,’” Perry said.

“I was reminded that an entrepreneurial approach to life is one that embraces resilience, curiosity and adaptability,” he said. “Garrett’s insights highlighted that entrepreneurship isn’t just about building businesses – it’s about building character, embracing failure as growth and staying committed to a vision even in the face of uncertainty, which is really how life works, isn’t it?”

This story was produced with the assistance of students Julian Vanderhoef and Max Poku-Kankam of The Western Carolina Journalist.