『The Empire Builders Podcast』のカバーアート

The Empire Builders Podcast

The Empire Builders Podcast

著者： Stephen Semple and David Young
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 Reverse engineering the success of established business empires.The Empire Builders Podcast マネジメント マネジメント・リーダーシップ マーケティング マーケティング・セールス リーダーシップ 経済学
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  • #229: French Florist (Part 1) – From Failing to Flourishing

    #229: French Florist (Part 1) – From Failing to Flourishing
    2025/10/29
    Michael Jacobson wanted to help his uncle sell his flower shop, but now it is growing like a weed. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick in business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Seaside Plumbing Ad} Stephen Semple: Hey, it's Stephen Semple here and we are without Dave Young today because we have an opportunity for a really, really special interview. I have with me Michael Jacobson from French Florist and we had a conversation, it was probably about a month and a half ago, and I just thought some of the things that you shared was amazing and I was like, "I got to get Michael onto the podcast." Now, the first question I asked Michael is, what's your title? "We don't believe in titles." I said, "Are you the founder?" "Well, sort of." That's where we'll start. That's where we'll start the story about French Florist in terms of how you came to be the owner and what's happened in the time that the business has been with you. Michael Jacabson: Awesome. Thanks Stephen. This is a generous introduction. I appreciate that. Thank you. When I say we don't believe in titles, we really don't. As we get to be a bigger organization, we brought on a chief operating officer who's a lot smarter in operations than I am. And that's become my job is hire people that are smarter than you and give them the reins, so maybe, I don't know what title that is, but whatever that job is, and she tells me we do need titles because it helps with accountability and that kind of important stuff. I thought it was a little boring, but she did convince me. Stephen Semple: Before we go on, what size are you at today? You're large enough that you brought in a chief operating officer, so how many employees do you have now? Michael Jacabson: We've got just over 100 employees now. Stephen Semple: How many locations? Michael Jacabson: We have 10 locations now and we'll have 17 open by the end of the year. We'll have 60 open by the end of next, so a lot of our employees- Stephen Semple: Awesome. Michael Jacabson: ... right now aren't necessarily for the immediate now, but we're building the infrastructure to support tomorrow. Stephen Semple: That's cool. That's cool. That's amazing. That's amazing growth, so 100 people now, but you're really looking to go to that... You're at 17, going to 60 locations. That's awesome. Going back to the early days of how you found yourself owning French Florist. Michael Jacabson: Oh, gosh. Okay, so I don't know if this will resonate with the audience. Hopefully it does. I've graduated college... You hear the statistics of how many startups fail, whatever it is, 90, 95% of startups. I did- Stephen Semple: Most. Michael Jacabson: Most. And I actually joined a few startups in college that I didn't found but kind of joined their team. All of them, but one failed, so I saw firsthand too. And I took a job in super boring corporate consulting right out of college, paid super well, great opportunity. I could work alongside awesome executives at really awesome companies. That was the pitch. I didn't make it even a year. I made it about one year and it just didn't feed that fire in my belly. That was the wall that my ladder was leaned against and I could sit there and climb that ladder or if I'm not happy, do something about it. And so I had my ear to the ground with different opportunities and I got a call from my uncle one day and he says, "Mike, I've been running my flower shop for 38 years. I'm working six days a week, 60 hours a week or more,
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    27 分
  • #228: Saving Lego – The Amazing Turnaround

    #228: Saving Lego – The Amazing Turnaround
    2025/10/22
    From almost going out of business in 2000 to becoming the biggest toy manufacturer in the world. This is an empire! Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [OG Law Ad) Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here, along with Stephen Semple. What Steve told me is that it's a little bit different episode today. We're not talking about the building of an empire, but the saving of the LEGO Empire, right? It was already an empire, and as empires sometimes do, I guess starting to collapse. Stephen Semple: Yep, yeah. Dave Young: And then something happened. Stephen Semple: Here's the thing that's remarkable. According to studies I've come across, when companies go through the type of challenge that LEGO faced, only literally one in 10 survive it. Most businesses do not survive it. And they not only survived, they went from being, I think they were the third-largest toy manufacturer to after facing this crisis, they became the largest toy manufacturer in the world. Dave Young: Wow. Okay. Stephen Semple: So not only did they survive, they thrived. And today they employ over 30,000 people, they have over 1,000 stores. And you can learn more about the early days of LEGO by going back to another episode, episode 28. Can you believe it was 28? We did it in the first year- Dave Young: Wow. Yeah. Stephen Semple: ... of the podcast. But in early 2000, they literally almost went out of business. They were facing a moment where it was unclear whether they were going to survive and they were even in conversations to sell to other toy manufacturers. They were even in conversations with Mattel. Dave Young: Because I don't know exactly how this went, but I can hazard a guess that the pivot they were able to make was to just start prepackaging kits and licensing things from movies and other things, other toys. Because when I was a kid, I had LEGOs, but man, if you wanted to build something specific, you had to come up with that yourself, right? There was no kit that made a battleship or a Star Wars fighter or anything like that. You were lucky if you had a couple of the little window things and maybe one or two little figures, but that was about it. Stephen Semple: Ironically, it's part of what saved them, but also part of what almost killed them. Dave Young: Oh, okay. Stephen Semple: So it's interesting. Dave Young: Right, I'm leaning in. Stephen Semple: Yeah. So we go back to 1997, and basically sales had started to stall in '93, and so they were looking for other ways to grow the business because video games were coming in, all these other things were going on. And in 1997, Peter Eio is an executive with LEGO, and what he's noticed, because he's working in the US market, he's seen a trend in the toy business where half of the toys in the US are being sold under licensing deals. So he puts together a deal with Lucasfilms to do Star Wars. And at first, LEGO's really hesitant because they've never, first of all, done the licensing. Their real hesitation is the Lightsaber and blasters and the fact that it involves weapons. Because LEGO was always committed to, "There would never be any violent use of the toys." Dave Young: They're peaceful Scandinavians. Stephen Semple: Companies being run by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, who's a family member, and the grandson of the founder, they do some focus groups and they come around to it, because the evidence is that parents don't associate S...
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    19 分
  • #227: AOL – You’ve Got Mail

    #227: AOL – You’ve Got Mail
    2025/10/15
    Did you know that at it's peak America On Line was responsible for 50% of all Compact Disc production in America? Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Simple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [No Bull RV Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple. And Stephen, you've got mail. Stephen Semple: That's right. Dave Young: You've got mail. You've got mail. Stephen Semple: Could you imagine? Could you imagine if it's still happened that way? You got mail. You got, you got, you got mail. Dave Young: It'd be all day long. I can remember in those early days when getting an email was like, oh, shit, I got an email. Or, somebody sent me an email, or they replied to one of mine. Oh my gosh. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: So AOL, that's the... There was a time. Stephen Semple: America Online. Dave Young: There was a time they'd send out their what? CD-ROMs. Stephen Semple: Yep. Dave Young: You couldn't reach into the seat back pocket of a car without finding one. Stephen Semple: And we're going to explore that whole marketing campaign. But here's the crazy thing- Dave Young: [inaudible 00:02:37] cereal. Stephen Semple: All of it. Yeah. At its peak, one half of CD production in the United States was dedicated to America Online. Dave Young: Oh my God. Stephen Semple: Isn't that crazy? Dave Young: Say it isn't so. Stephen Semple: I can't. AOL was founded by Steve Case, William Von, Jim Kimsey and Marc Seriff in 1983 in Brooklyn. And as we know, it went on to become one of the biggest names in the internet. And in January 11th, 2001, it merged with Time Warner being one of the largest corporate mergers at the time, which actually it turned out was a disaster, but we're not going to talk about that. But back in the early days in 1983, let's put it in perspective, because sometimes it's really hard to think about these technological evolutions, but in 1983, Sony released the first consumer camcorder CD-ROMs were developed. And the first cell phone, remember the Motorola one that looked like it was a World War II walkie-talkie? Dave Young: Well, before that were bag phones. My first one was a bag phone. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: The cell phone that you carried around with a giant battery in a bag. Stephen Semple: Exactly. Yeah. So that's like 1983. And AOL did not start as AOL. It started as a company called Control Video Corporation, CVC, founded by Bill Von Meister. And here's what they created. They created this thing called Gamelink, and basically it's a modem that plugs into the Atari 2600 game module, and they would sell the modem for 50 bucks, and it was a $15 setup fee, and you could download games for a dollar over the phone. That was the idea. This whole idea of the internet did not exist. It was this idea. Now, Steve Case, who becomes the main character in our story, worked for Bill and less than a year later, 1984, CVC is struggling because the video game boom has gone bust. Atari cancels the 2600 because only 3,000 units are sold. So the business is a bit of a tough space. Dave Young: This is a couple of decades almost before the boom, the bust? Stephen Semple: Yes. Oh, yeah. Dave Young: The bursting of the .com bubble. Stephen Semple: But this is the video game business goes through this a little bit, softening. The board sidelines, Von Meister and parachutes in Jim Kimsey, who's a former military guy,
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    24 分
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