Mario Kelly, a Detroit native, is an entrepreneur, community leader, and visionary whose rise from homelessness to success embodies the resilience and determination that define his city. His inspirating story is now a memoir titled "The $27 Millionaire: How Mario Kelly Turned $27 Into Millions By Revitalizing Communities and Cleaning Up The Business World". News outlet also covered his success story. Here is his Novelpro Junkie Interview:
1.In one word how would you describe your book “The $27 Millionaire”?
Inspiring.
2. What is the genesis of your book “The $27 Millionaire”?
The genesis of the book is just more so about my story where I started with $27 to have a multi-millionaire company. But it's more so focused around tapping into your genius level talent as the reader, figuring out what their purpose in life is, and then getting them to believe in their purpose to fulfill that.
3. Were there other titles you came up with before the book title? if so, what were they?
Yeah, man, about 10 different titles. It was one like from “Homeless to Millionaire”. We had one that was “The Detroit Diamond”. I had multiple different titles. What I ended up doing was posting the top five online and asking the people, what did they like the best?
I did this maybe last year, 2024, around February or March. I just posted on Instagram and Facebook and everybody picked “The $27 millionaire”. But one thing I do wish I would have did was not put my face on the cover of the book. I mean, everybody like, “Oh man, you're everywhere, you're on Instagram, you're on Facebook”. I am kind of shy. I just felt like it would have made more of an impact, because I want the impact to go towards the book. I know it's my story and I memorized myself, but I want it to be more generated around the book and not the person on the cover.
4. What was your writing schedule when you wrote your book?
So, I got with a publishing company. His name is Ash Cash. This was actually the actual second book, the first book he did in about four months. It wasn't really telling the whole story to me. So, we added something called the genius level talent. There's nine in forms of intelligence that we all have. Some of us may have one, some of us have multiple, but we all are a genius in some level. There's also something that Dan Gilbert, who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers, he came up with something called 19 isms. So, we took both of those and added that to the book. So, it took maybe seven to eight months to really get the book fulfilled.
5. What was the hardest thing about writing your book?
Just telling the story overall. I'm more so just want to do the work. We don't see the greatness that we see in ourselves sometimes. Other people see it. So, people have been telling me, “Man, you should write a book. You should run for mayor”. I don't see that. I was like, “Man, I'm still locked in to doing work”. So, the hardest part was just really sitting out and telling my story overall, opening up, inviting people into my world. Even though I'm comfortable with talking about the beginning part of the book of being homeless and being divorced, it was kind of a soft situation for me. A lot of my friends didn't know I was homeless until they read the book.
6. What was your favorite section to write in your book?
The section is “The inches we need are everywhere around us”, because that's really how we should look at life. Everything that we need is right here in front of us. If we open our eyes, we'll see. That's really the foundation of my business and myself. It was more so just going to Shinola, seeing that they needed a service and me offering that service, regardless if I had that service or not, I just figured it out. I call it launch and learn. Don't really try to be so perfect before you launch. Just launch it and then you'll learn it as you go along.
7. Could you talk about why you named your cleaning company “Believe313staffing”?
Like I said, I was homeless. My ex-wife had got $250,000 life insurance; she gave me $1,500 in a Dear John letter when I came home. So, at that moment, being married, your ex-wife getting $250,000 and she's only giving you $1,500 out of that and moving on with her life. That's a moment where you have to make a hard decision. I feel like the reason I'm in this position right now in my life is because I made one of the most difficult decisions at one of the difficult times in my life. So, at that moment, all I can do was say, “What would Jesus do at this time?” because I had a lot of negative thoughts, a lot of bad thoughts in my mind. I said, “What would Jesus do?” And back in the day, they used to have some rubber bands called WWJD—What Would Jesus Do? So, what I did was took that model and put “believe” on a rubber band, because at that particular time, that's all I had was just to believe in myself, believe in my mind, manifest the future and just believe in that.
So, I started with the rubber bands. it was called and believe. Then I had locked and tricked my mind so much that everything I named my dog believe, I write it all on the windows, on the mirrors in my house, “believe”, the bathroom mirrors, when I'm brushing my teeth, that's what I see. So, at that particular time in my life, I had to trick myself to believe in what I believed in my future and doing the right thing. Also, it wasn't just for Believe 313. I believe that every city, every country, every state, people love their city. If you're born and raised in Miami, New York, Chicago, you believe. So, my whole goal was to go to every one of these cities and make a business and call it Believe 310 for Miami, Believe 718 for Texas, Believe 415 for maybe Houston or Seattle, because I know that would draw attention from people who really believe in their city. then believe is a universal word. So, believe, money, free. These are three words that we all love. So that really resonates with people. So that's why I call all of my business Believe and whatever that area code is, staffing and cleaning. I have an AI business. I call it Believe in AI. because that's really the foundation of the world. We have to believe in order to go to the next step.
8. I believe you clean stadiums as well? If you do, could you talk about a few of them and which one was the messiest to clean and why?
Over the past five years, we've cleaned NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas, Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, Comerica Parks where the Detroit Tigers play, Little Caesars Arena where the Detroit Pistons play. We cleaned multiple Apple theaters, like Shane Park is one of the biggest Apple theaters in the United States—it had everybody from James Brown, Biggie Smalls, 2-PAC come to this actual theater.
The messiest stadium is a tie. In Houston, it was Taylor Swift. One of her tour lasts, 2023, her world tour. She shot off so many confetti that literally it was like higher than your ankles. It took us literally two days just to pick up the confetti alone, not even cleaning the seats, just getting all the confetti. I can guarantee you that it was so many confetti that it's still for confetti in the Raptors because the whole stadium was just full with confetti. It was a three-day concert and this was the first day. So, they told us, “Listen, just get as much as you can, leave the rest of it down”. And she shot confetti every day. By the third day, man, like I said, it literally took us two days just to get that confetti up alone.
In Detroit, Beyonce had her tour. We had maybe 2000 bags of garbage. Big 55-gallon bags of garbage. So, Taylor Swift in Houston with the confetti and Beyonce in Detroit because we had so many bags of garbage. But both of those were some amazing concerts.
9. If (or when) your book becomes a film or TV Series, what scene would you like to see on the screen?
That's a great question. So, let's say this, because we do believe and I am Mr. Believe. When Tyler Perry picks this book up and do it as a film, there’s a couple parts. The first part I wanted to see is, I would love to either see Damson Idris (from TV series Snowfall) or Eddie Murphy play the part because I think walking into the house and seeing it, walking into an empty house, after you get off work and seeing that your ex-wife—or your wife at the time— has moved. She's got all of this money and she left you $1,500, a letter and an empty house. I think that's the scene I want to see because I think that's going to resonate with people so much because a lot of us go through hard times. Every day we all come to a stake in the road where we can go left or we go right and depending on which way you go, will dictate your life. I want to see that scene because when I walked in the house, I went back to the car because I thought I was dreaming. Started the car up and sat in the car for a second, like I know I'm shitting, I know I'm not seeing this. Turned the car back off, went back in there [empty house]. So, I think that scene is heart pulling, and at the same time, it's a little bit of comical because…let’s say Eddie Murphy plays that role. He just looking around like there's no furniture. He goes back to the car, starts the car back up. He thinks, “I know I'm shitting myself. I'm dreaming”. And then going back in there [ empty house] and see that it's really real life. What can you do from this point? What would Jesus do? That's one of the biggest scenes I want to see [ on the screen].
There is also a scene where, I told myself in 2022, that next year I want to be able to have at least 400 employees. I just had to put together what I had to do in order to get to that point, as far as financially, getting systems, getting more Behind-the-Scenes employees. I had to really put together everything that it was going to take for me to get 400 employees for that next season. I was able to get there, actually was able to get to 500 that next season.
Those are two scenes I want to see because the first one is heart-pulling. It's a little bit comical, but we all come to that stake in the row. Then the last scene is more like discipline. In order to get to where you have to go, get to where you want to go, you have to have discipline. So those are the two scenes I want to see.
10. Would you make a cameo if there is an adaptation of your book?
Yes. I already got it together. So, I really want to make a cameo in the part where I'm downtown Detroit selling rubber bands. When I was homeless, I would sleep in my van in a certain neighborhood in Detroit called Rosedale Park. Then I'll go downtown and sell these rubber bands. So that's the part I want to make a cameo in and just give that person some inspiration—Keep believing in yourself. God got his eye on you. Don't stop. Just keep believing regardless of what obstacles come your way. I believe that you can do it.
11. Could you talk about your “University of Cleaning” program?
I actually have two programs, Cage Rage and the University of Cleaning. The University of Cleaning came about after so many cleaning companies and people who wanted to start cleaning companies would call, email, or DM me about information: “How can they do this? How can they do that?” I feel like the cheat code to life is a mentor. So, I needed to make a University of Cleaning in order to be mentors to up-and-coming cleaning companies, to be a mentor to existing cleaning companies, to scale to a different level.
I believe that every cleaning company is actually the foundation for a staffing agency. You start off with one cleaning account. You may just be yourself and your kids or yourself and one other person, but eventually you're going to go to 20 and 30 different cleaning accounts. If you got 20 cleaning accounts, you're going to need anywhere between 20 to 40 employees. So now you need to learn how to go from cleaning to staffing, managing, recruiting, markup and different things like that. Over all, the University of Cleaning teaches you how to start off as a cleaning company and eventually become a staffing agency. It teaches you how to scale from residential to corporate, from corporate to stadiums. You’ll learn all of the things that I went through that I had to learn, the hard way or things that I learned in my cleaning journey, I share that with my students.
12. If you had your own talk show, who would your first three guests be?
If I have a talk show before the movie came out, I consider my perimeter and I have to most definitely have to get Tyler Perry. So, it depends on if I'm already talking about putting the movie together. My second guest will be a gentleman named 19 Keys. 19 Keys has a very educational podcast. It's very educational. I suggest everyone to go look him up. Then either Michelle Obama or Barack Obama. When you look up the word “belief”, I think it's Barack Obama. Growing up as a young black man in the city of Detroit, not seeing a Bentley or a Mercedes Benz or a luxury car until I'm in my twenties, let alone thinking that we can one day have a black president, just for me to ask him some questions, “take us back to those early childhood days or the early teen days when you knew that you were special. Did you ever think that you would become a president? Or when did it hit you that you see if I keep going down this road, I might can become the president. Was it when you graduated from college? Was it when you're going to college? Was it when you were a state representative of Chicago? When did it really resonated with you that I have a shot to become the first black president of the United States?”
13. What do you want readers that read your book take away from reading it?
It's a couple of things I want them to take away. The first thing I want you to be very inspired after closing the finishing that last page, I want you to like light a fire under your butt. I want it to say, “let me go ahead and start what I've been holding off for, for so long”. A lot of things in my book, it teaches you to launch and learn, figure it out. Don't wait to be perfect in order to start that career. Also, the main thing is—and its very cliché—is to believe in yourself. Believe that you can be the best at whatever you want to be at. It's not just about having to have a certain type of upbringing. It's not about having to have a certain type of education. It's really about what's inside of you. If you truly believe in yourself, you can make that difference.
14. Last question, what is the one thing everyone should eat, drink, or check out if one should visit Detroit?
So, I’m vegan, but we have a signature place here called National Coney Island. Coney Island downtown, we have a certain type of chili dog that we have here, with a hot dog, with chili and cheese on it and onions. I suggest everybody go down there. We also have a location in Detroit called Campus Martius. It's in the heart of downtown. Detroit is a totally different city than what you guys really have heard about. Downtown is a very walking city. It reminds you of like downtown Chicago, downtown Atlanta. where you can just walk for miles with storefronts and big buildings, it's clean. It's not really what people think is so much violence and different things like that. So, I would tell everybody to go get a Maconi Island doll, walk downtown, and then go to a store called Shinola and buy a Detroit watch. Detroit, also have our own watch company. It's affordable luxury watch, a Swiss watch that's made in America. This is the only American made Swiss brand where it's just as luxury as Rolex or AP or Brighton or whatever those other watches are. So, I would say come to Detroit, get your Shia Nola watch, walk around downtown and then go get your Coney Dog.
1.In one word how would you describe your book “The $27 Millionaire”?
Inspiring.
2. What is the genesis of your book “The $27 Millionaire”?
The genesis of the book is just more so about my story where I started with $27 to have a multi-millionaire company. But it's more so focused around tapping into your genius level talent as the reader, figuring out what their purpose in life is, and then getting them to believe in their purpose to fulfill that.
3. Were there other titles you came up with before the book title? if so, what were they?
Yeah, man, about 10 different titles. It was one like from “Homeless to Millionaire”. We had one that was “The Detroit Diamond”. I had multiple different titles. What I ended up doing was posting the top five online and asking the people, what did they like the best?
I did this maybe last year, 2024, around February or March. I just posted on Instagram and Facebook and everybody picked “The $27 millionaire”. But one thing I do wish I would have did was not put my face on the cover of the book. I mean, everybody like, “Oh man, you're everywhere, you're on Instagram, you're on Facebook”. I am kind of shy. I just felt like it would have made more of an impact, because I want the impact to go towards the book. I know it's my story and I memorized myself, but I want it to be more generated around the book and not the person on the cover.
4. What was your writing schedule when you wrote your book?
So, I got with a publishing company. His name is Ash Cash. This was actually the actual second book, the first book he did in about four months. It wasn't really telling the whole story to me. So, we added something called the genius level talent. There's nine in forms of intelligence that we all have. Some of us may have one, some of us have multiple, but we all are a genius in some level. There's also something that Dan Gilbert, who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers, he came up with something called 19 isms. So, we took both of those and added that to the book. So, it took maybe seven to eight months to really get the book fulfilled.
5. What was the hardest thing about writing your book?
Just telling the story overall. I'm more so just want to do the work. We don't see the greatness that we see in ourselves sometimes. Other people see it. So, people have been telling me, “Man, you should write a book. You should run for mayor”. I don't see that. I was like, “Man, I'm still locked in to doing work”. So, the hardest part was just really sitting out and telling my story overall, opening up, inviting people into my world. Even though I'm comfortable with talking about the beginning part of the book of being homeless and being divorced, it was kind of a soft situation for me. A lot of my friends didn't know I was homeless until they read the book.
6. What was your favorite section to write in your book?
The section is “The inches we need are everywhere around us”, because that's really how we should look at life. Everything that we need is right here in front of us. If we open our eyes, we'll see. That's really the foundation of my business and myself. It was more so just going to Shinola, seeing that they needed a service and me offering that service, regardless if I had that service or not, I just figured it out. I call it launch and learn. Don't really try to be so perfect before you launch. Just launch it and then you'll learn it as you go along.
7. Could you talk about why you named your cleaning company “Believe313staffing”?
Like I said, I was homeless. My ex-wife had got $250,000 life insurance; she gave me $1,500 in a Dear John letter when I came home. So, at that moment, being married, your ex-wife getting $250,000 and she's only giving you $1,500 out of that and moving on with her life. That's a moment where you have to make a hard decision. I feel like the reason I'm in this position right now in my life is because I made one of the most difficult decisions at one of the difficult times in my life. So, at that moment, all I can do was say, “What would Jesus do at this time?” because I had a lot of negative thoughts, a lot of bad thoughts in my mind. I said, “What would Jesus do?” And back in the day, they used to have some rubber bands called WWJD—What Would Jesus Do? So, what I did was took that model and put “believe” on a rubber band, because at that particular time, that's all I had was just to believe in myself, believe in my mind, manifest the future and just believe in that.
So, I started with the rubber bands. it was called and believe. Then I had locked and tricked my mind so much that everything I named my dog believe, I write it all on the windows, on the mirrors in my house, “believe”, the bathroom mirrors, when I'm brushing my teeth, that's what I see. So, at that particular time in my life, I had to trick myself to believe in what I believed in my future and doing the right thing. Also, it wasn't just for Believe 313. I believe that every city, every country, every state, people love their city. If you're born and raised in Miami, New York, Chicago, you believe. So, my whole goal was to go to every one of these cities and make a business and call it Believe 310 for Miami, Believe 718 for Texas, Believe 415 for maybe Houston or Seattle, because I know that would draw attention from people who really believe in their city. then believe is a universal word. So, believe, money, free. These are three words that we all love. So that really resonates with people. So that's why I call all of my business Believe and whatever that area code is, staffing and cleaning. I have an AI business. I call it Believe in AI. because that's really the foundation of the world. We have to believe in order to go to the next step.
8. I believe you clean stadiums as well? If you do, could you talk about a few of them and which one was the messiest to clean and why?
Over the past five years, we've cleaned NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas, Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, Comerica Parks where the Detroit Tigers play, Little Caesars Arena where the Detroit Pistons play. We cleaned multiple Apple theaters, like Shane Park is one of the biggest Apple theaters in the United States—it had everybody from James Brown, Biggie Smalls, 2-PAC come to this actual theater.
The messiest stadium is a tie. In Houston, it was Taylor Swift. One of her tour lasts, 2023, her world tour. She shot off so many confetti that literally it was like higher than your ankles. It took us literally two days just to pick up the confetti alone, not even cleaning the seats, just getting all the confetti. I can guarantee you that it was so many confetti that it's still for confetti in the Raptors because the whole stadium was just full with confetti. It was a three-day concert and this was the first day. So, they told us, “Listen, just get as much as you can, leave the rest of it down”. And she shot confetti every day. By the third day, man, like I said, it literally took us two days just to get that confetti up alone.
In Detroit, Beyonce had her tour. We had maybe 2000 bags of garbage. Big 55-gallon bags of garbage. So, Taylor Swift in Houston with the confetti and Beyonce in Detroit because we had so many bags of garbage. But both of those were some amazing concerts.
9. If (or when) your book becomes a film or TV Series, what scene would you like to see on the screen?
That's a great question. So, let's say this, because we do believe and I am Mr. Believe. When Tyler Perry picks this book up and do it as a film, there’s a couple parts. The first part I wanted to see is, I would love to either see Damson Idris (from TV series Snowfall) or Eddie Murphy play the part because I think walking into the house and seeing it, walking into an empty house, after you get off work and seeing that your ex-wife—or your wife at the time— has moved. She's got all of this money and she left you $1,500, a letter and an empty house. I think that's the scene I want to see because I think that's going to resonate with people so much because a lot of us go through hard times. Every day we all come to a stake in the road where we can go left or we go right and depending on which way you go, will dictate your life. I want to see that scene because when I walked in the house, I went back to the car because I thought I was dreaming. Started the car up and sat in the car for a second, like I know I'm shitting, I know I'm not seeing this. Turned the car back off, went back in there [empty house]. So, I think that scene is heart pulling, and at the same time, it's a little bit of comical because…let’s say Eddie Murphy plays that role. He just looking around like there's no furniture. He goes back to the car, starts the car back up. He thinks, “I know I'm shitting myself. I'm dreaming”. And then going back in there [ empty house] and see that it's really real life. What can you do from this point? What would Jesus do? That's one of the biggest scenes I want to see [ on the screen].
There is also a scene where, I told myself in 2022, that next year I want to be able to have at least 400 employees. I just had to put together what I had to do in order to get to that point, as far as financially, getting systems, getting more Behind-the-Scenes employees. I had to really put together everything that it was going to take for me to get 400 employees for that next season. I was able to get there, actually was able to get to 500 that next season.
Those are two scenes I want to see because the first one is heart-pulling. It's a little bit comical, but we all come to that stake in the row. Then the last scene is more like discipline. In order to get to where you have to go, get to where you want to go, you have to have discipline. So those are the two scenes I want to see.
10. Would you make a cameo if there is an adaptation of your book?
Yes. I already got it together. So, I really want to make a cameo in the part where I'm downtown Detroit selling rubber bands. When I was homeless, I would sleep in my van in a certain neighborhood in Detroit called Rosedale Park. Then I'll go downtown and sell these rubber bands. So that's the part I want to make a cameo in and just give that person some inspiration—Keep believing in yourself. God got his eye on you. Don't stop. Just keep believing regardless of what obstacles come your way. I believe that you can do it.
11. Could you talk about your “University of Cleaning” program?
I actually have two programs, Cage Rage and the University of Cleaning. The University of Cleaning came about after so many cleaning companies and people who wanted to start cleaning companies would call, email, or DM me about information: “How can they do this? How can they do that?” I feel like the cheat code to life is a mentor. So, I needed to make a University of Cleaning in order to be mentors to up-and-coming cleaning companies, to be a mentor to existing cleaning companies, to scale to a different level.
I believe that every cleaning company is actually the foundation for a staffing agency. You start off with one cleaning account. You may just be yourself and your kids or yourself and one other person, but eventually you're going to go to 20 and 30 different cleaning accounts. If you got 20 cleaning accounts, you're going to need anywhere between 20 to 40 employees. So now you need to learn how to go from cleaning to staffing, managing, recruiting, markup and different things like that. Over all, the University of Cleaning teaches you how to start off as a cleaning company and eventually become a staffing agency. It teaches you how to scale from residential to corporate, from corporate to stadiums. You’ll learn all of the things that I went through that I had to learn, the hard way or things that I learned in my cleaning journey, I share that with my students.
12. If you had your own talk show, who would your first three guests be?
If I have a talk show before the movie came out, I consider my perimeter and I have to most definitely have to get Tyler Perry. So, it depends on if I'm already talking about putting the movie together. My second guest will be a gentleman named 19 Keys. 19 Keys has a very educational podcast. It's very educational. I suggest everyone to go look him up. Then either Michelle Obama or Barack Obama. When you look up the word “belief”, I think it's Barack Obama. Growing up as a young black man in the city of Detroit, not seeing a Bentley or a Mercedes Benz or a luxury car until I'm in my twenties, let alone thinking that we can one day have a black president, just for me to ask him some questions, “take us back to those early childhood days or the early teen days when you knew that you were special. Did you ever think that you would become a president? Or when did it hit you that you see if I keep going down this road, I might can become the president. Was it when you graduated from college? Was it when you're going to college? Was it when you were a state representative of Chicago? When did it really resonated with you that I have a shot to become the first black president of the United States?”
13. What do you want readers that read your book take away from reading it?
It's a couple of things I want them to take away. The first thing I want you to be very inspired after closing the finishing that last page, I want you to like light a fire under your butt. I want it to say, “let me go ahead and start what I've been holding off for, for so long”. A lot of things in my book, it teaches you to launch and learn, figure it out. Don't wait to be perfect in order to start that career. Also, the main thing is—and its very cliché—is to believe in yourself. Believe that you can be the best at whatever you want to be at. It's not just about having to have a certain type of upbringing. It's not about having to have a certain type of education. It's really about what's inside of you. If you truly believe in yourself, you can make that difference.
14. Last question, what is the one thing everyone should eat, drink, or check out if one should visit Detroit?
So, I’m vegan, but we have a signature place here called National Coney Island. Coney Island downtown, we have a certain type of chili dog that we have here, with a hot dog, with chili and cheese on it and onions. I suggest everybody go down there. We also have a location in Detroit called Campus Martius. It's in the heart of downtown. Detroit is a totally different city than what you guys really have heard about. Downtown is a very walking city. It reminds you of like downtown Chicago, downtown Atlanta. where you can just walk for miles with storefronts and big buildings, it's clean. It's not really what people think is so much violence and different things like that. So, I would tell everybody to go get a Maconi Island doll, walk downtown, and then go to a store called Shinola and buy a Detroit watch. Detroit, also have our own watch company. It's affordable luxury watch, a Swiss watch that's made in America. This is the only American made Swiss brand where it's just as luxury as Rolex or AP or Brighton or whatever those other watches are. So, I would say come to Detroit, get your Shia Nola watch, walk around downtown and then go get your Coney Dog.
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