Chase Taake
Creative, motivated, and loves tacos
Hi, thanks for stalking my website.
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I'm Chase Taake, your host of this stalk. I was born in Columbia, Illinois in the year 1999, the year Spongebob came out. I guess two legends were born that year.
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Most of my school days I was Mr. Chubby. My multiple Sunkist soda's and Cosmic Brownies saw me everyday, as well as my couch and Xbox 360. I was bored.
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School really was stupid to me, really, really stupid. I'm taking classes that have nothing to do with what I want in life. And I can ace every single test by process of elimination, I don't even have to know the content. I was getting strait A's without doing any work. And the fact that even though you get all A's on quizzes, on tests, you still have to go to homework outside of school "to make sure you get it" is ridiculous. Why give me the extra work if I don't need it, and then give it a grade so I HAVE to do it.
Enter: CEO Class
Near the end of high school, when my chubbiness began to melt away, I was introduced to a program. CEO Class. In this class you were to create a class business, a real one, and then after the class business, you had to create your own personal business. Your grade wasn't about if you did homework. Your grade wasn't if you passed tests, there were no tests. It was if you could start your business. Even if your business FAILED you passed, you just had to start a business.
This amazed me. This is how things NEED to be. Not based off of if you can follow rules, or stuff information in your brain for 20 minutes for a quiz and forget it for the rest of your life. It needs to be ACTION based.
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Enter: Sports Throne
So I started being action based. Sitting in a coffeeshop after school one day, me and my friends were having our usual "what do you want to do today" conversation with it going no where.
With this new mindset, I changed the course of the conversation. "Can we MAKE something fun to do today?" We started discussing what is fun, how we could make our city more fun for friends and families alike. And our 17 year old master minds thought mini golf was the way. Today, I realize that it's a tiny part of the picture, but back then, miniature golf WAS the picture.
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We went to an old miniature golf course with years of leaves and snakes piling on top of the torn up, ripped turf. We asked the owner if we could buy it, and he said if we could come up with the money.
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Enter: Problem Solving Mode
My first real challenge to solve. How the heck is a child with literally five bucks going to come up with around TWENTY THOUSAND dollars? Well, sponsors. We had 18 holes. We decided to go door to door selling a massive sponsorship sign in front of hole for $500-$1000. If they purchased the sponsor, they got a sign with their logo, name, and information in front of the hole of their choice (the price depended on how awesome the hole was) and it stays there for the LIFE of the course. A $500-$1000 for a lifetime advertisement. Not bad. I go more into this story on my blog!
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Enter: Business Skills
After hard work, we got the course. And after even HARDER work, we cleaned, repaired, and made the course look beautiful. In less than a year, we made back all the money it took to get the course started. We were profitable. I learned advertising skills, operating skills, customer service skills, and much more, but I wanted to get even greater ideas from a more successful business to see what we could do differently.
For a year and a half, I moved away to Branson and worked for Big Cedar Lodges "Fun Mountain" to learn their systems, operations, and how they managed. After this year and a half, I began to understand that we made a crucial mistake with our mini golf course. Sure, it made money. But it could not scale. The course was in such a bad location, and every dollar we put into improvements would be a dollar better spent on a different location. I decided to pull out when I realized their was no growth potential in the course. But during these years, I was dreaming of a massive entertainment business and a plan to make it happen.
To make it happen though, my first step requires money and it requires more skill. I also need a safety net in case all fails. Here was my plan:
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Enter: The Plan
I could have the most amazing plan in the world, but if I fail, I fail. I need something to catch me in case I fall on my climb to success as an entrepreneur. And as much as I hate this, my mindset thought that safety net was a college degree. Social pressure makes everyone think success is a college degree (losers). So to ease everyone's emotions, I incorporated this into my plan. If I happened to fail in my climb in business, I would have a college degree to get a safe 9-5 job. I just graduated college in August of 2021.
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Next, I needed money to fund my ventures. Well, I remembered someone from CEO class, a real estate agent who was a mentor. I thought that as a real estate agent, I could QUICKLY make money to fund my ventures which is amazing. And then I started thinking, I could ALWAYS do real estate on the side and make money WHILE having a business. That's extra money and that's amazing! And THEN I started to realize, that if my business failed, I could have REAL ESTATE instead of a basic 9-5 from my college degree as a safety net instead! Which could and most likely would pay way more than a normal job. So real estate is near and dear to my plan. I call it my engine, it runs the plan. It is how I make money for my businesses, and also will always supply money for my life on the side and money for my business on the side. And will always be a safety net in case the worst happens. I now currently am at Salger Properties with a neighbor and a friend, Blake Salger. With this firm, I can work on my own time, get my own leads, and have my own mini brand. Perfect for my goals.
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Finally, I needed some more experience before I could start my empire of a business. I didn't want to go in knowing only what I learned from Big Cedar and my miniature golf course, I want to learn as much as I can first! I LUCKILY, from my Grandma Arlene, was introduced to the perfect thing just for this. Praxis. Praxis is a program that takes you through a three month bootcamp learning hard skills: creating websites, creating projects, and learning skills FOR those projects. You're not learning, being graded by quizzes like school. You are DOING and ACTUALLY gaining skills during these three months. After the three months, you are placed into an apprenticeship position for a startup. How could this be any better. I learn skills, check, then I am put into a startup TO LEARN, check, but I am being paid to do this!? It couldn't be any better! Praxis is the way education should be, but that's another post.
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Enter: Current
So, that's where I am currently at. Earning money from real estate (and now extra money from Praxis) to start my business, and learning skills from Praxis and my soon to have apprenticeship before I start my business, and I have a college degree as a lame backup in case the worst happens (which it won't).
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If you are curious as to what my vision is for entertainment, click here:
(Under
Construction)