Big Ass Fans

Kerry Smith had previously tried cooling large manufacturing spaces with water and air conditioning—it didn't resonate. Then he was introduced to a large fan being developed for the dairy market. The insight struck him: there were massive, unconditioned buildings across the country where workers suffered in the heat, armed only with small personal fans. He saw a gap nobody was filling. The product category didn't exist yet. He called them HVLS fans (High Volume Low Speed)—technically perfect, but commercially clunky. When people called the office, they'd say: "Are you those guys that make those big-ass fans?" The name stuck, and Big Ass Fans was born in 1999.

Kerry's expectations were sky-high. He thought they'd sell 1,000 fans in year one. Reality: 142 fans. Year two brought 400. Not the trajectory he imagined, but the signal mattered more than the number. Every customer he personally sold to, every installation he helped with, gave him direct feedback. They loved it. People called asking why the price was so low—$5,000 seemed like a steal. Others called saying it was insane to charge that much. The market was figuring itself out, and Kerry was listening. He knew it was a good idea. The marketing was resonating. He just needed to persevere.

Big Ass Fans rejected the standard playbook. No distributors. No major advertising agencies (they wanted to change the name, or worse, put women with "big asses" in ads). Kerry built an in-house sales team and controlled the customer relationship directly. That proximity was everything. He could hear what customers wanted, what broke, what could be better. The company obsessed over R&D, pouring money back into the product rather than pockets. The brand strengthened. The price doubled to $10,000 over time, justified by continuous improvement. By 2004 or so, they were selling thousands of fans. When they eventually exited 19 years later, Big Ass Fans held ~80% market share in a space they invented, competing against a hundred rivals. Manufacturing stayed in the U.S. (except for a Malaysia facility serving Asia), defying the China-cost logic everyone else followed. Kerry believed controlling quality and supporting the American economy mattered more than shaving pennies.

In 2017, after a COO casually asked if Kerry had ever thought about selling, and Kerry replied off-the-cuff, "If someone offered me $500 million, I'd sell it," the ball started rolling. That number wasn't a formula—it was a gut call. Kerry wanted it to be big enough to change lives. When PE firms countered with $400-450 million, Kerry didn't budge. He was genuinely willing to walk away. The ambivalence was real. They sold for $500 million on the dot. The best part? Kerry wrote checks totaling $50 million to about 150-160 employees who had been instrumental in building it. Some got life-changing paydays. Some started their own businesses. Kerry himself raised his salary to $1 million/year right before the exit—the only personal wealth extraction he'd made in 19 years of ownership. Everything else went back into the business. He then took an 8-person R&D and business development team (mostly 20- and 30-somethings) and moved to Austin, Texas to start Unorthodox Ventures, focusing on supporting contrarian entrepreneurs rather than chasing money.