Ray Kelly remembers the days when he and his wife were so broke that they had to hide from debt collectors and collection agencies.

“There was nothing on the bench. We couldn’t park our car in front of our house because they knew where we lived,” he recalls.

Fast forward to the present. Kelly is the founder and CEO of groundbreaking wellness company TERSA, whose crown jewel is the SAVA – an immersive sound therapy pod used in luxury hotels and wellness facilities worldwide.

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But this dramatic turnaround in Kelly’s fortunes didn’t happen overnight. It required unwavering vision, perseverance and a strategic approach to entrepreneurship.

Kelly is this week’s guest on the podcast “One Day with Jon Bier.” Below you can listen to the entire interview, where he describes his 20-year career as a renowned injury rehab expert and later as a successful entrepreneur.

Here are some of the hard lessons he learned along the way.

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Stay true to your vision

In the early stages of TERSA, Kelly had a clear vision to develop a unique and dynamic healing modality that would disrupt the status quo through a more holistic approach to wellness.

But not everyone around him saw it that way. They gave him a lot of tips and advice that almost threw Kelly off track.

Almost.

“If I’ve learned anything over the last eight years of my entrepreneurial journey, it’s that advice can be dangerous,” says Kelly. “All the advice I received in the earliest stages of building my product lines wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am today if I hadn’t been holding the reins. Everyone wants to share their information with you, but they don’t see what’s going on in your head.”

Inside his head was a human-sized sound cocoon that surrounded its inhabitants with vibration therapy, sound frequencies, music and artificial intelligence to increase physical, mental and emotional well-being.

Related: This 32-year-old started a side job with $3,000 – now he makes over $100,000 a month: “I can’t get enough”

Rely on the expertise of our company

Kelly stresses the importance of building a strong internal design team rather than relying too heavily on external design houses. “Avoid going to a design product house like the plague,” he warns.

Why? “Many design houses work on a ‘time and materials’ basis, which can lead to a lack of caution and potential financial stress for startups,” he explains. “There’s no accountability whatsoever if they fail,” Kelly says. “And that can ruin you as a company. It can absolutely ruin you.”

Instead, Kelly advocates building slowly and recruiting individual team members on short contracts. This approach allows founders to maintain control over the development process and ensure they hold their own team accountable.

Navigate through financing with your eyes open

Many startups believe they can control the type of investors they want to work with. Kelly disagrees: founders are often dependent on where they are at the time of their capital raise and who is willing to sit on the other side of the table.

“Sometimes you have to take these deals or accept the situation you’re in and just move on with your life to fight another day and then bust your butt to reach the next milestone and keep fighting,” he says.

He warns entrepreneurs about the realities of working with investors: “They are not your friends,” he states bluntly. Investors are in business to make money, and entrepreneurs need to be prepared for difficult decisions and added stress when things don’t go as planned.

“Investors aren’t the ones who are struggling to pay their bills every month,” Kelly emphasizes. “It’s easy for them to give advice and tell you what to do. But at the end of the day, you’re the one who has to pay for it.”

Related: This fitness CEO ignored advice to rebrand his business What happened next is a crash course in business focus.

Position yourself strategically

Perhaps one of the most nuanced aspects of Kelly’s strategy is TERSA’s positioning in the market. Although the product has strong appeal among people seeking psychedelic, out-of-body experiences, Kelly is careful not to overemphasize this aspect.

“If you focus too much on the psychedelic sector, you isolate yourself from the larger conversations that are happening,” he explains. Instead, Kelly positions TERSA as a serious player in the broader field of wellness and potential medical applications.

This strategic positioning allowed TERSA to “have a seat at the table and be taken very seriously” when it came to conversations about mental health. Kelly explains: “We had to look really buttoned up and ready to have a serious conversation, because if we came across as branded with chakras and crystal balls – and there’s nothing wrong with that, that would be incredible – but we had to look and break away from the stereotypes.”

The strategy has paid off. The company has a contract with the U.S. military to research PTSD and trauma. Recently, Kelly and his wife drove past a street in Los Angeles where they once ran out of gas because they couldn’t afford the tank. They just laughed at the memory and realized how far they had come.

“We just had to pinch ourselves,” he says.