Chad Rea is a former ad agency founder and creative director turned serial social entrepreneur. His latest company, ecopop, can be described a lot like a product design firm or ad agency…but without the clients. For more than 18 years, Chad has created award-winning advertising and marketing for some of the hottest creative shops in the U.S. and Europe—not to mention his own prolific agency, 86 the onions—helping develop over 130 iconic brands, including Target, MTV, Mountain Dew, ESPN, Starbucks, FUEL TV and HUMMER. While building brands for others, Chad was also creating many of his own products from the ground up—everything from coffee table books and monthly music events to offensive baby clothing and philanthropic outreach programs. It was initiatives like these that Chad enjoyed developing most and what ultimately led him to shut down his successful agency and form ecopop, a new kind of company that would allow him and others like him to not only create and market their own ideas but ideas that merged capitalism with social good. What is the one thing you did/do as an entrepreneur that you would do over and over again and recommend everybody else do? Becoming an entrepreneur. Do it. You’re ready already. Nobody knows what the hell they are doing. There is no instruction manual for exactly what you want to do and how you want to do it. It hasn’t been written yet. And only you can write it. Now’s the time to face the fear and go for it. Stop waiting to live your dream. What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers? I’m fascinated by waste. TerraCycle is one of those innovative companies that has figured out a way to reuse waste and turn it into a profitable business by changing the way people think about and handle their trash. ecopop spent months trying to figure out how to make products out of shredded office paper. An industrial designer and I played around with various eco-epoxies and pulp molds to make everything from paperweights and bookends to garden gnomes and decorative plates. We ended up pulling the plug after our 90-day proof of concept phase, but I still think there’s a viable business idea there for anyone who wants to develop this idea or invent products made from waste.