Marine Corps Veteran On Not Being Afraid To Fail

Tony Perez is the general manager and VP of the security product group at GoDaddy. Before that though, Tony did two tours in Iraq with the Marine Corps. After getting out of the Marines, Tony dipped his toe in the entrepreneurial waters. He’s downright drenched from those waters now! The reason I wanted Tony on the show is because I knew some of his background and how successful he’s been – I knew there was a story behind it all. Tony didn’t disappoint. Tony talks about an almost naive approach to business, and life in general, with his “how hard could it be” mindset. Yet even when things get tough, Tony talks about how he perseveres through those harder times. This was a truly enjoyable episode to record, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy listening to it! Links & Resources PerezBox.com Sucuri CleanBrowsing War Horses for Veterans Jocko Podcast Military Influencer Conference Semper K9 Mighty Oaks Foundation Transcript Scott DeLuzio:    00:00    Hey everybody, this is the Drive On Podcast where we talk about issues affecting veterans after they get out of the military. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and now let’s get on with the show. Scott DeLuzio:    00:16    Hey everyone, thanks for tuning into the Drive On Podcast. Today my guest is Tony Perez. Tony is the general manager and vice president of the security product group at GoDaddy. He’s also the co-founder and former CEO of a website security company called Sucuri. Tony is also a Marine Corps veteran who did two tours in Iraq. Tony, thanks for joining us on the show. Why don’t you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself and I don’t want to give too much about your background in that intro, but why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself? Tony Perez:    00:47    Yeah, for sure. Thanks a lot for having me guys. I’m really happy to be here to chat with you and your audience about my background and history and maybe it’s helpful to somebody. So, as you mentioned, I was in the Marine Corps. I got out as a Sergeant back in 2005 and I was in between 2000 and 2005. I was attached to the first that was attached to 1st MARDIV in 2003 when we pushed across the LOD, we did our whole push up to Baghdad. And then, I was attached to responsible for Karbala and the provinces.  Total in time country was about a year, three quarters. And then I went back as a defense contractor. So, after 2005, I was a defense contractor through 2011.  In 2011, it’s really where I got started with Sucuri, but it actually wasn’t my first start as an entrepreneur. Tony Perez:    01:37    I actually had a WordPress agency or what you would call a boutique agency where we would build WordPress based sites for customers.  Since then, as you mentioned, we grew the company. We ended up exiting it and I came over to be part of the GoDaddy family.  I like to call myself an intrepreneur now because I’m part of a good company trying to grow a thing inside, which is an experience in and of itself. In addition to that, I also founded another tech startup with my good friend Daniel called Clean Browsing where we do DNS-based content filtering.  I’m also an off-road racer, with DDoS racing team, which we could also get into. And then I do some philanthropic work with a lot of veteran based stuff for one reason or another. So, combat vets struggling with PTSD, looking for opportunities, a more spiritual resiliency type veteran organization for folks with PTSD as well.  So that’s just a little bit...