How Frank O’Dea Went From Life on the Streets to Successful Entrepreneur



Many entrepreneurs face hardship, but not many can say they’ve faced life on the streets. Before his successful career as an entrepreneur began, Frank O’Dea faced a difficult childhood in Montreal and spent time living on the streets and panhandling in Toronto. It was only after listening to a self-help radio ad that he decided to turn things around, knowing that it couldn’t get much worse than it already was. “Being down and out gives you a sense of how bad that is but on the other hand it really shows you that it’ll never get worse,” O’Dea says. “So its up from there.”
O’Dea got back on his feet and got a job as a salesman. He then started a mail order business selling coins to Catholic churches with a business partner, Tom Culligan. He says most of his life comes out of meeting other people, and that was certainly the case with his partner. Tom had been in the retail business prior to their venture, and he received a call about space that was available for a coffee store at a local mall. “One thing led to another and we took the opportunity,” he says. They called that coffee shop Second Cup, and it quickly grew to become the largest chain of gourmet coffee and teas in Canada.
His time on the streets may have been difficult, but in the early days of Second Cup it made it easier for him to take a risk. “I was determined not to fall but I knew if I did I’d be able to get out of it,” he says. “So it was a sense of being able to look at the future with calmness around risk, and that doesn’t mean just taking risky chances it meant thinking about risk in a way that wasn’t terrifying.” In the early days Frank and Tom faced a myriad of challenges, ones he says ranged from minute issues like finding a place to put a telephone and a desk together, all the way up to financing and finding suppliers. “So the challenge really is beyond the minutiae of all that but much more the focus on vision. Knowing that you’re going to do it and getting it done. Perseverance is the word that best summarizes that.”
O’Dea says that while there was no expectation that they would build a national chain, the vision was never just having one store. “In fact we had three stores very, very quickly even in spite of the fact we were losing money we opened two more store just simply because there never any concept of only having a single store,” he says. “It was both wonderful and agonizing.” Eventually O’Dea’s partner bought him out of Second Cup, and Culligan sold the business in 1988. Before it sold the chain had 150 locations, and it now boasts over 360 stores. The company went public in 1993 and in 2002 it was sold to Cara Operations Limited.
Despite moving on from Second Cup, O’Dea had caught the entrepreneurial bug. Another serendipitous meeting led to the creation of his next company, a shredding business called Proshred Holdings Ltd. Though it was a lot different than selling coffee, he says the challenges were the same. “Same challenges, same thoughts, a lot more experience but the challenges are nonetheless the same growing a new business.”
O’Dea, who is 66, now sits on the boards of several businesses, supporting the CEO so they are comfortable with their vision. “We give support around that and adjust it if necessary with advice and council,” he says. “The board functions that I enjoy the most are governance and making sure that transparency and full disclosure are critically important to any operation so that we don’t have any surprises.” He also devotes a lot of his time to philanthropic causes – he helped start Street Kids International and the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research. In 2003 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.
His best-selling memoir is called When All You Have is Hope, and details his struggles during his teens and early twenties and eventual success in the business world. He says three words describe his journey: hope, vision and action. When asked which words or qualities he thinks are necessary to become a successful entrepreneur, he says perseverance and vision. “Perseverance and vision are critically important to getting where you’re going.” He says being an entrepreneur is a wonderful lifestyle when you can make it work, but it takes a special personality.
O’Dea is impressed by the new generation of entrepreneurs, and is excited by the potential for businesses to become global. ”The new generation thinks globally much more than we did as younger folks, and I think technology and the fast approach to life will evolve new interesting business without borders and I think that’s fascinating.” Judging by the demand for his book, speaking appearances and insight, people of all ages are fascinated by O’Dea’s story – one that’s far from over.