Do you want to be an entrepreneur?
These days, many people want to be their own boss and become an entrepreneur, run their own business and be millionaires. An achievement not many succeed at. So, let’s get some advice from someone who has been around the block and can tell it straight forward.
With so much sugar coating nowadays, it is refreshing to talk to someone who can shed some light into the world of Entrepreneurship who will give us some of the keys of starting a successful business. For those who don’t know who Jeff Stoller is, he is a highly-educated individual with a lot of attention for detail and has worked with some of the best known brands in the world including The Rolling Stones, Playboy, Warner Bros. and Penthouse.
Jeff, before we delve into the world of Entrepreneurship and talk about your book, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your professional background as you have an interesting story about your degrees, don’t you?
Professionally, I’m an attorney and accountant. I went to the University of Southern California and a fun fact of that is that when the university was celebrating its 100th birthday, a major photo exhibition was assembled to reflect that history. My photo was one of the pix because I was the first and only person to get 3 graduate degrees simultaneously. They actually changed the rules so others couldn’t do that… so I’m in a club of one. After receiving my law, master of business and master of taxation degrees, I went into the tax department at KPMG. I was recruited back to USC as a professor of finance, where I taught for 3 years before diving into the film finance business. Isn’t everyone in Los Angles in “show biz”? Through a good friend, I was around the music industry and got involved with product merchandising.
That led to an invitation for me to work with the Rolling Stones (which I accepted) and that, in turn, led to my working with Warner Bros. and Playboy. So, my legal and accounting background had morphed into the use of intellectual property to expand and build a brand. Separately, a client of mine was in the nightclub business, which took me into that world where I became - so I’m told - an expert in the hospitality/entertainment field. In fact, between 2004 and 2016, I created the largest international chain of nightclubs in the world. I left that world to pursue my own passion that caters to more of a family-friendly, totally mainstream audience, which is what my focus is now, along with some consulting on the side in hospitality, entertainment and entrepreneurship.
I met you when you were working for the Penthouse brand where you were the international licensing director in charge of opening clubs worldwide. Can you tell us what that entailed and what did you look for when people wanted to open more clubs?
I joined Penthouse right after it had been taken over by an investment group. My role was to create a program to license the world-famous Penthouse name to nightclubs around the world. I was given almost complete autonomy and the company was doing well enough that making money was my second priority. My first priority was protecting the integrity of the brand, which meant I said “no” to a lot of people who either wanted to convert an existing club or get in the business for the first time.
With the brand being the top priority, I could focus on how a particular club and the owners would impact the brand and what we wanted the brand to be and to mean, because the owners’ goals and styles have an enormous impact on how the club turns out.
This month we catch up with the author of “You Want To Be An Entrepreneur,” Jeff Stoller.