Adam is an example of how anyone can achieve success with hard work and dedication. He grew up in humble beginnings in a low-income neighborhood in Liverpool, England, before moving to America in 2009. A former amateur boxer, Adam applied the same determination and focus he used in the ring to his entrepreneurial pursuits – starting a business from only $500 capital and growing it into a multi-million dollar agency.

Today Adam is the CEO of Noticed, one of the leading eCommerce agencies in the US. But despite his success, he still finds time for philanthropy, giving back to others, and staying fit by participating in Spartan and Tough Mudder Races.

With a motivating attitude and incredible determination, Adam has shown that anything is possible if you stay focused on your goals and never give up. His story proves that it doesn’t matter where you come from or how much money you have – if you put in hard work and effort, anything is possible!

Stay Hungry, Stay Humble!

Key Spots

– 01:57 Chat about the weather

– 03:56 Boxing And Entrepreneurship Run In The Family

– 06:03 From Delaware to Marriage: The Surprising Connection on a Road Trip

– 06:12 Meeting Adam’s wife

– 06:31 Adam’s journey to entrepreneurship

– 09:11 Transitioning To Eco And Finding Passion Through Magento

– 10:36 The Buzz of Growing a Business

– 11:51 Embracing the Ups and Downs of Building a Successful E-commerce Agency

– 12:29 Embracing the Journey

– 14:26 The Importance Of Teamwork In Business Success

– 14:58 The Life-Changing Course That Transformed Adam Butt’s Leadership Skills: A Review of Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’

– 15:13 The Dale Carnegie course and emotional intelligence

– 19:30 From Panera Bread to Multi-Million Dollar E-Commerce: The Inspiring Journey of Adam Butt

– 21:00 Reflections On A 10-year Partnership In Web Development

– 21:34 Embracing the Meaning of Life: Celebrating 42 with Adam Butt

– 21:58 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Must-Read for Discovering the Meaning of Life

Find Adam Online:

https://www.noticed.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamb12/

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Transcript (Provided by Castmagic.io)

Seth [00:00:01]:

You entrepreneurs Enigma is a podcast for the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. With the wins and the fails that we all face be entrepreneurs. How we learn from adversity. Every week I talk to a different entrepreneur with a story to tell. I’m Seth Goldstein. Come with me on the journey. This is Entrepreneurs Enigma. Let’s get started. You. You. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Entrepreneurs Enigma podcast. I’m as always, Seth, today I’m with a good budy of mine, Adam Butt. He is from Liverpool, but he lives in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. And he I’ve known Adam, I think, almost a decade. No, a decade. I think I met him in 2012. He came over in 2009. He is from Liverpool. He came over and he started his business with, I think he said in his bio, $500 in his pocket. Now he’s a multimillion dollar company. He runs Notice and it is an ecommerce company, shopify partner. And we’re going to bring him on. How’s it going, buddy?

Adam [00:01:17]:

I’m good, Seth. It’s good to see it again. Appreciate you having me on.

Seth [00:01:22]:

Can you believe we’ve known each other probably since 2012? Back when you were like, advanced Web solution. Something nice, creatives, noticed.

Adam [00:01:31]:

It was actually a really awesome name, but I ended up changing it. It was called super web development.

Seth [00:01:35]:

Yeah, it was super. I remember. It was kind of like, we’re super. I was like, thank God. Thank God. And then you got noticed. No pun. Completely intended. There you go. How are you doing today, buddy?

Adam [00:01:51]:

Yeah, I’m doing good. Life’s good. Sun’s out in Philly.

Seth [00:01:56]:

Oh, thank God it’s out in Philly. I mean, it’s been so rainy. April went into May. March. April May was crazy. So it’s sunny, it’s warm. I’m actually able to wear shorts now. It’s fantastic. But this is not the weather podcast. This is talking about Adam and his entrepreneurial journey. So you grew up in Liverpool, lower income area of Liverpool, as you say in your bio. So you’re kind of scrappy. You’re an amateur boxer, which I think is pretty cool. We have our very own Rocky here, which is kind of neat. Came over here in 2009 and started the American Dream. Pretty much.

Adam [00:02:38]:

Yeah. It’s been a real journey, to be honest, Seth. So, yeah, top level. I’m originally from Liverpool, England, a son of a Pakistani father, British mom. I’m the oldest of four. I would say I’m the wisest, but I think my siblings would say a bit differently. Yeah, we grew up in a lower income neighborhood pretty much most of our lives. My my dad was an entrepreneur. He actually started his business in 1987 and unfortunately, one of his partners ended up taking advantage of him.

Seth [00:03:15]:

He lost happens a little too much. Yeah.

Adam [00:03:18]:

So we ended up going through that and for the next probably several years, we end up struggling. So grew up in a really rough neighborhood in Liverpool and place called Bootle. It’s probably one of the roughest neighborhoods in Liverpool.

Seth [00:03:31]:

Wow.

Adam [00:03:32]:

And it’s a neighborhood where you kind of had to really push through and get out of. So we ended up I ended up boxing when I was 16, started fighting when I was 16. I used to be fighting a lot in school because I was getting picked on because of multiple reasons. And my two brothers are also boxers.

Seth [00:03:50]:

Oh. Runs in the family. So entrepreneurship runs in the family. And says boxing. So why for those butts?

Adam [00:03:57]:

Yeah, it’s been an interesting one. And I end up moving here in 2009. My actual goal when I moved here was to box. I was living in Charlote, North Carolina, and my goal was to come here and box and ended up getting married. Nine months of moving here.

Seth [00:04:13]:

Wow. There you go. Is your wife american?

Adam [00:04:16]:

Yeah, she’s American. Yeah.

Seth [00:04:18]:

It’s actually a funny your kids actually have an interesting accents growing up because they get to Liverpool and we were discussing you’re also half Irish, so it’s like your kids are going to have some fun accents.

Adam [00:04:30]:

Yeah. We’ve got an ancestry background on the Irish side from Liverpool, so it’s going to be interesting. My daughter is saying sitting where she goes to school, and she asks for a bubble. And the teacher’s always asking them, what’s a bubble? And we have to translate it. It’s a hair tie.

Seth [00:04:47]:

Oh, it’s a bottle. No, it’s a hair tie.

Adam [00:04:51]:

Bubble. Bubble.

Seth [00:04:52]:

A bobble. There you go.

Adam [00:04:54]:

Makes no sense.

Seth [00:04:56]:

Or like a boot for the front for the trunk.

Adam [00:04:59]:

Exactly. Yeah.

Seth [00:05:01]:

Or does she say trunk?

Adam [00:05:04]:

She says boot. She actually does say oh, no, her.

Seth [00:05:08]:

Dad dropped off on her.

Adam [00:05:11]:

So they’re getting a bit of the English British dictionary language, you want to call it.

Seth [00:05:16]:

That’s fun. That’s great. So you met your wife over here. You said there’s a fun story. You want to elaborate on that?

Adam [00:05:24]:

Yeah, well, the fun fact is, I actually married my wife within two months of knowing her. I met her on October 4.

Seth [00:05:34]:

She may be crazy, but, you know you’ve found a winner.

Adam [00:05:38]:

Yeah. 15 years later. It’s been the biggest blessing in my life, but it actually is a true Rocky story. You’ll laugh at this, I’ll be really short. I was living in Charlote, North Carolina. You know Rocky four with the Russian drago?

Seth [00:05:51]:

Yeah.

Adam [00:05:52]:

He has the VASER climate. I bought one of those machines when I first moved in 2009.

Seth [00:05:56]:

And why not?

Adam [00:05:57]:

Didn’t end up using it, was purely acting the Rocky scene out and then ended up selling on ebay. The guy who bought it was from Delaware. So I decided to go into, like, a US road trip in my Ford Explorer. Drove 12 hours. It took me 12 hours, should have took me nine. I realized I was driving too slow and so got there. And then that night, I ended up meeting my wife at a restaurant and then eight weeks later we were married.

Seth [00:06:25]:

Wow.

Adam [00:06:26]:

Yeah. So I did drop off the VESA climber. The guy was a happy customer. That’s just something I want you to know. Exactly.

Seth [00:06:39]:

Ties together.

Adam [00:06:41]:

It came full circle, but yet it was actually a true Rocky store. Went to Philly, did the whole Rocky thing that night, ran up the steps. Ran up the steps.

Seth [00:06:51]:

Of course.

Adam [00:06:53]:

Lived it through. And then basically fast forward to 2012. I was like really trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Was working at a personal trainer because I was really into fitness. And then I got a job at an ad tech company called Thomas net. They are a BC search engine and was doing sales day selling like AdWords, SEO, brochure websites. And at the time Elance was like the main website and jumped on that and started getting projects. And literally a few months later we did like 90,000 in sales from our apartments.

Seth [00:07:34]:

Not bad. Super weapon. Not bad.

Adam [00:07:37]:

Yeah, there you go.

Seth [00:07:38]:

Very super.

Adam [00:07:39]:

Yeah. And basically that year it was a huge learning cave. I ended up going from that fair sheet of business, opened up an offshore team in Pakistan, went into my father. Yeah, that was 2012. And then the end of 2012, it was like 40,000 in debt, sold my car, maxed out my credit cards, borrowed money from my mom and was purely ready to quit. I was just like, you know what, I jumped too early and tried a different approach. And at the time I was like, okay, let me give it a different try. So I started outsourcing the work at the time to third party contractors overseas. Finally had the first profitable project, did really well, and that’s kind of where it all started and just ended up freelancing for the next three years, building informational sites mostly. And then finally moved into ecommerce around 2014.

Seth [00:08:37]:

Oh, yeah, it’s kind of when it all kind of started. Yeah, it started back in 2000 with.com bubble burst and all that stuff. But it really came back around the middle of the teens and you jumped, right?

Adam [00:08:54]:

Yeah, I got in at a good time and at the time I was dealing with Magento. So Magento was like really the main platform back then. And really where my AHA moments where my passion came for ecom was I got a lead from Guru.com. Guru.com, remember it? Yeah, got a lead. She sold high end Western women’s apparel. So ponchos, cowgirl boots. Cowgill hats.

Seth [00:09:22]:

Yeah.

Adam [00:09:23]:

Average product was about three to $500. Very expensive stuff.

Seth [00:09:27]:

Yeah, high end. High end, yeah.

Adam [00:09:29]:

Crazy fact, one of their best customers used to spend $40,000 a year on this store on clothes. 40,000. And you were in La.

Seth [00:09:39]:

There’s an audio my mouth just dropped open.

Adam [00:09:43]:

Yeah. I can’t remember the person’s name, but it was every year they spend minimum 40,000 on the site.

Seth [00:09:50]:

Had the work.

Adam [00:09:52]:

Yeah. And basically client reached out to me and said, hey, I need help with the site. And after a few months, I started doing some keyword research and started seeing that they were really in like a really niche, unsaturated market. A lot of the players in the space were really not with times not doing ecommerce. It was old brochure websites, like a PayPal button.

Seth [00:10:18]:

I did that. I admit it. I did those go to PayPal, jerry rigged all together. Yeah.

Adam [00:10:24]:

So that was what kind we were up against. And I convinced them at the time to really do a rebrand replatform to Magento and ready launch their marketing. And they were doing about 450 grand in revenue at the time. They’ve been in business like ten years, mostly on ebay, some on the site, and then within twelve months went from 450 grand to 1.8 million.

Seth [00:10:44]:

Oh, that’s all?

Adam [00:10:47]:

Yeah.

Seth [00:10:48]:

That’s awesome.

Adam [00:10:49]:

So that’s kind of where the buz came, and I was like, you know why, I want to do more of this. This is fun. I don’t want to build static informational websites. I want to do something that I can really see the ROI behind.

Seth [00:11:00]:

Yeah.

Adam [00:11:01]:

And started to continue doing Magento for the next two years. And then around 2016, because I was seeing the problems with Magento and the issues with the platform, I started to explore with the platforms and then came across Shopify Plus completely just click for me. And I was like, you know what, I think this is going to be the next revolutionary ecommerce platform.

Seth [00:11:21]:

And you jumped right?

Adam [00:11:22]:

Yeah, jumped right in. And we ended up becoming one of the first I think it was Ten Plus partners in the world at the time.

Seth [00:11:29]:

Oh, wow.

Adam [00:11:31]:

And then yeah, Notice was launched late 2015, and fast forward to today, we’re about 45 plus people full time. US, Canada and UK. Got a few people in Ukraine. And top level, we basically work with direct to consumer ecommerce brands. And we’re basically an ecommerce and marketing agency. We do replatforms, redesigns, ongoing maintenance, marketing services, mainly work with brands that are doing five to 100 million GMB. We work in the beauty cosmetic health, wellness food bed. That’s kind of off, really our sweet spot. So, yeah, that’s where we are today.

Seth [00:12:12]:

You’ve done the boxing, you’ve done the super web development side of things, where it’s kind of like you tried it. It was like, all right. Oops, we made some mistakes here. What’s the best thing now? Looking back, what’s the best thing about being an entrepreneur in your mind?

Adam [00:12:29]:

I think it’s just embracing the journey. For me, I didn’t really enjoy the journey as much in the middle of it. I think the beginning, you’ve got those butterflies, and it’s new, it’s fresh, it’s exciting. But then when you get into the middle, you get to really see the challenges of the business and where you’re at as a person. And I think when I was about five years into it, I really wanted to push the business forward. I knew it was capable of it, but it was really going into the unknown because personally, I kept questioning, I haven’t got a Harvard degree like some of these CEOs I’m competing with, and I haven’t got these athletes that some of these people. So that was a really big thing for me to overcome mentally. I went through a few mental things there to overcome.

Seth [00:13:11]:

Yeah.

Adam [00:13:11]:

And when I started to realize that it all really comes down to how much you want to push through, I think that middle part, if you can get past that middle part, really getting the right people and understanding where your focus should be.

Seth [00:13:24]:

Yeah.

Adam [00:13:25]:

That for me, is really what I’ve learned through the process. Yeah.

Seth [00:13:28]:

That’s wild. Clearly. I know you had some scary moments. So what’s the scariest? What keeps you up at night about being an entrepreneur? Especially? How about now? What keeps you up at night now?

Adam [00:13:42]:

To be honest with you, it’s going to sound really I think I would say bad or good. It’s good. So I would say I’m actually not scared now. I feel like we’ve got a really good vibe at the moment at the company. I think a lot of business owners are trying to figure out the Rubik’s Cube of business yes. Of where you should be focusing. Like I mentioned, what people do you need to get the company, where you need to be. What is your role as a CEO? I think for me, a lot of people, when they start businesses, and I think people don’t really overcome that mindset is that it’s all about you. It’s not really all about you. It’s about the team. And I think people really forget that, and I think people who don’t grow don’t realize that’s what it’s about. You started it. Round of applause. Awesome job. But you’re not going to get the company to the next level unless you get the team behind you. And I think that’s been a big maturity stage for me to go through as an owner, just being vulnerable. You know, that about me, Seth. I’m super vulnerable. I just go there, talk the shit.

Seth [00:14:44]:

You do, and I mean, that’s kind of you’re humble. This is what I like about you, because boxers are always humble. Mike Tyson is not a humble man, but you are a humble man. I mean, you came from humble beginnings and you made something to yourself. I mean, it is the American dream. You came to America, met the love of your life. You struggled a little bit. I mean, this could be made for TV movie I’m not going to say made for movie theaters, but maybe for Lifetime.

Adam [00:15:12]:

We can do a collaboration.

Seth [00:15:13]:

Hey, maybe we can do a little collaboration. Adam butt story. I love it. So what is the most important thing that you carry with you all the time.

Adam [00:15:25]:

So the big thing I carry now, and I would highly recommend this to anyone, is the Dale Carnegie Course. I just recently did the Dale Carnegie Leadership Course in KLP. Speaking of pressure, that course, for me, Seth, was like, life changing. It was one of the best courses I’ve ever done. It really made me understand the human side of people. I think people say that they understand emotional intelligence and they talk about it, but dale Carnegie how to Influence influence People. If you really read it, if you.

Seth [00:15:56]:

Truly read it.

Adam [00:15:59]:

It works. It really does. And they actually gave us a book. It’s called The Golden Book, and it’s principles that we follow. I actually keep it in my pocket every day to remind me of the principles. And I think once you start to get them, the way you approach your conversations with anyone, family, friend, team member, everything changes for you. You look at the world in a completely different place. And I think the one thing that I think this is a lot of people go through when it comes to taking that leap, is we’ve got so much control inside of ourselves that we want to control everything. There’s anxiety there for some of us, but once you let go of that and you kind of just are okay with understanding that you’re not going to grow if you don’t jump, and you’re not going to grow if you don’t let go. You’re not going to grow if you don’t give people the opportunity to think for themselves. That’s kind of what Dale Carney teaches, is to let go.

Seth [00:16:58]:

Yes.

Adam [00:17:00]:

And it’s hard. It sounds easy, but it’s not.

Seth [00:17:03]:

It’s incredibly hard. But the thing is, it’s so simple. It’s hard because a lot of people overthink it and go way too deep on it. And it’s really a simple concept. I’ve been thinking about taking the course myself, and I haven’t yet, because I haven’t pulled the trigger on it yet. But I’m glad that you found a course methodology that works for you. That’s fantastic.

Adam [00:17:29]:

Yeah. One thing I would call out as well, Seth, is I recently listened to a podcast of Richard Branson.

Seth [00:17:37]:

Oh, yeah. Brian.

Adam [00:17:38]:

You know, big rich. Right?

Seth [00:17:39]:

Yeah.

Adam [00:17:42]:

What was fascinating to me was he talked about how he didn’t even know what net profit was or gross margin was in his business. He had no clue. That, for me, really brought it into perspective of, like, a lot of people, when they’re starting a business or they’re growing it, they’re so worried about, like, I need to know all these things. And it made me realize, just listening to him. Our goal as visionaries is to come up with crazy ideas, see if the team want to rally behind us, see if they’re excited as much as we are, and try and push that forward as a team. It’s not to be the best of finance, it’s not to be the best of HR. You can understand it when you start out because you need to. You haven’t got a lot of money, but once you start to grow and I think that’s where I’m at today, Seth, is I’m having to really get focused on what my role is. And my role is to be driving the culture, coming up with new ideas, doing thought leadership, get my name out there and ready brand out there. That should be my focus. And I think as you scale, you kind of lose who you are because you’re trying to figure out where you fit in that business.

Seth [00:18:50]:

Yeah, I know. You kind of scale yourself out and you got to make sure you don’t scale yourself out.

Adam [00:18:57]:

And that’s where the continuous learning comes in, right?

Seth [00:19:00]:

Oh, yeah. You have to constantly reinvest in yourself, especially when you’re at the top and you’re top of 45 person company, multimillion dollar company. It’s a lot. And you can lose yourself.

Adam [00:19:12]:

Yeah.

Seth [00:19:14]:

Idea is not to. So where can people find you online? Where is all this good thought leadership happening?

Adam [00:19:21]:

So it’s going to be kicking off the next two weeks. We’ve got a whole LinkedIn demand generation campaign kicking off.

Seth [00:19:27]:

Great.

Adam [00:19:27]:

So I’m on LinkedIn. My name is Adam. Can’t forget the last name, but B-U-T-T just type that in, you’ll find me. I’m also instagram. You’ll probably see me post some videos with my boxing. There you go. I like to put educational videos out there as well.

Seth [00:19:45]:

Yeah, it’s awesome. It’s great. And it’s great to see you’re embracing it. You’re getting out there, you’re reinvesting in yourself. This is fantastic, Adam. And I can say I knew you when I knew you back in the super web development days.

Adam [00:20:02]:

I still remember our meeting, actually, at the Panera Bread. Remember that?

Seth [00:20:06]:

Yes.

Adam [00:20:09]:

It’s amazing how much things change, right, in a short period of time.

Seth [00:20:14]:

Yeah. Seriously. It’s been ten years. As of last year, it’s been eleven years because we’re in 2022 anymore. I think I met right when you were starting super web development. You actually, I think, reached out to me saying, hey, you want to talk about partnering together on projects? I was like, sure. I had been in the business since 2008. So I think I finally got my head out of my ass by that point. Because that’s one of the things about being when you start your business, it’s like, oh, it’s the whole romantic side of being an entrepreneur. It’s not romantic. It is not one bit romantic. Everyone who is an overnight success has been ten years in the making. Adam is a good example. He’s a success now. It was not overnight.

Adam [00:21:06]:

To that point. Seth, I think when you start it, you’re all ego, right? You think you know it all. I know I was that like that, and it took time for me to realize if you get rid of the ego. This whole world opens up to you.

Seth [00:21:20]:

And I think it does.

Adam [00:21:21]:

It takes time, maturity, as you progress. I’m 35 now, so I was 25 when I started it. So I was practically a kid in the entrepreneur world. Yeah, average entrepreneur these days is starting a business at 45.

Seth [00:21:35]:

Yeah, seriously. I’m 42 tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m turning 42. The Special Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy number. So, actually, I’m going to have fun with that for a year. I’m totally going to live that up. This is not coming out until June 15, but I’ll be very well into the 42s. But I’m going to have fun with that. I’m going to have fun with 42. The meaning of life. And if you’ve not read Hitchhiker’s Guide of the Galaxy, read that book. It’s a great fiction book. I mean, Douglas Adams, rest in peace, was an incredible author.

Adam [00:22:11]:

Happy birthday, by the way.

Seth [00:22:12]:

Thank you. Thank you very much. I’m not sure how I feel about it, though. So 40% scary. So, anyhow, on that note, we will see everyone next week. Actually, we’ll start over. We’ll see everyone next time. That was a great show. If you’re enjoying entrepreneurs Enigma, please view us in the podcast directory of your choice. Every review helps other podcast listeners find our show. If you’re looking for other podcasts in the marketing space, look no further than the Marketing Podcast Network@marketingpodcast.net. Hopes you have enjoyed this episode. This podcast is one of the many great shows on the MPN Mark Theme Podcast Network.