March
16, 2021

15+ min read

This story appears in the
March 2021
issue of
Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

Vortic is a watch company. But in 2015, that description was overly generous. It was more like two guys working out of a storage closet with $40,000 from a Kickstarter. To make ends meet, one of those guys also had a corporate job at Walmart. They aspired to make watches, sure, but they’d never actually done it.

That’s why when a cease-and-desist letter arrived from one of the largest watch companies in the world, they thought it was a joke.

The sender was Swatch Group. “I had to google it,” Vortic cofounder R.T. Custer (below) admits. He learned that the Swiss conglomerate was doing $9 billion in net sales largely through its 18 brands, which included Breguet, Longines, Omega, Harry Winston, and — oh, now it made sense — Hamilton. “I was like, Holy crap.” He knew it had to be the ad they’d just run in WatchTime magazine.

Image Credit: Darren Squashic

Vortic’s plan was to build modern wristwatches, but to build them with salvaged parts from vintage American pocket watches (as well as some new bits from a 3D metal printer). The ad featured a prototype of the kind of pieces they’d be selling, and the elegant face on that prototype was…an antique Hamilton.

A legal question was being raised here. If Vortic takes a piece of an old watch and then combines it into a new product, is that trademark infringement? Swatch obviously thought so. Custer thought not — and was willing to bet his company and life savings on it. Some might say his fight was insane; some might call it Custer’s Last Stand (particularly apt because, yes, he shares a bloodline with the general). And now, nearly six years later, the lawsuit known as Hamilton International Ltd. v. Vortic LLC is still unresolved.

Related: Why Your Brand Plan Is More Important Than Your Business Plan

What happens next may impact founders across the country, because Custer is fighting an uncomfortably gray and unsettled area of trademark law that’s becoming increasingly contested. His case isn’t a dispute over something simple, like a label or a logo. Entrepreneurs like Custer are instead propelled by a culture that loves to drop brand names, recycle, and share everything, the way sampling has become common in the music industry. Given the proliferation of DIY manufacturing tools, Kickstarter fund­raising, and easy selling on eBay and Etsy, a kind of remix economy is booming —­ which hasn’t gone unnoticed by large companies. “Mark holders have been pushing to acquire more rights to protect the value of their brands,” says Andres Sawicki, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law who specializes in intellectual property (IP). Between the two colliding trends, he says, courts are struggling to set the rules.

You can see that going on, case by case, in a number of recent upcycling disputes in which established luxury brands are suing startups that, in one way or another, are engaging with their trademarks. Chanel is suing The RealReal and What Goes Around Comes Around; Ralph Lauren has gone after VNDS in Los Angeles; and Rolex, somewhat ominously, just won a case against La Californienne. And then there’s Vortic versus Swatch.

“You have to ask yourself, as an entrepreneur, Do I ever want to be a test case?” says Joseph Gioconda, a New York IP attorney who has represented both small startups and large companies like Hermès and Tiffany & Co. “The answer is generally no because over time, they’re going to outspend you in a war of attrition. Even if you’re in the right, it’s going to be very hard to stay in the game and to fight tooth and nail for the next 10 years. So when it does happen, like in the Hamilton case, it’s very interesting.”

Especially because, for the moment, the little guy is winning.

Trademark law, which is spelled out in the Lanham Act of 1946, hinges in large part on a simple question: Is the consumer confused?

When you see a swoosh on a sneaker, for example, you know it’s made by Nike. And you’ll likely assume it will fit exactly like the last 29 pairs of Nike you bought. This is the reward of intellectual property rights. If a brand builds trust in the marketplace, it should be able to own that trust. So when Company B puts something swoosh-like on its product — say, a tennis racket—then the question for the courts is clear-cut: Do people think this other brand is Nike (that’s “infringement”), or is it whittling away at Nike’s distinctiveness (that’s “dilution”)? If the answer to either is yes, then Company B has a problem.

Related: This New Kind of Expensive Lawsuit Could Easily Bankrupt Your Small Business

Although this system is fair in theory, it has been the subject of great debate and heartache. Some claim that it stifles innovation. Others say that it empowers deep-pocketed brands to squash every little competitor. But for the most part, legal experts say, the problem is in the system itself.

Trademark law makes clear that registering a mark — a word, a name, a symbol, or a device that identifies the company’s goods and distinguishes it from others — is not a one-and-done deal. Brands must continually enforce it to keep it. If they don’t, a court may eventually decide that a trademarked name has become generic—which is how the original creators of the escalator (introduced in 1900 by Otis Elevator Company) and heroin (once a Bayer cough suppressant) lost their marks. Often, defendants in trademark cases will point out that a brand has been lax and say, Hey, why are you picking on me and not the other guys who are infringing? Judges can be receptive to that argument, Gioconda says, so companies (and, full disclosure, that includes Entrepreneur Media) remain diligent in protecting their mark.

These battles may be what the legal system demands, but too often, the casualties are small businesses that intended no harm. A few years after starting a healthy snack company called Quinn in Colorado, Kristy Lewis discovered there was a Quin in Oregon, which made all-natural candy. She’d heard from a buyer who confused the two and, in an effort to protect her brand, asked Quin candy to change its name.

Quin’s founder, Jami Curl, said no. Curl had gone to a lot of trouble to hire an IP lawyer to trademark her name, which was spelled differently, anyway. Their lawyers went back and forth, racking up fees. “It was so emotionally disturbing that it took everything out of me,” says Curl, who couldn’t afford to rebrand. Ultimately she decided to close her business, which Lewis maintains wasn’t her intention. “Looking back at it now,” Lewis says, “I probably would’ve done things differently.”

And this is when trademark disputes are straightforward.

Related: Make a Name for Yourself: 4 Expert Tips for Choosing a Name and Trademark

In cases like Vortic’s, in which a company intentionally uses another brand’s trademark, or upcycles its goods, to create an entirely new product, things get trickier. It’s a trademark issue, for sure, and generally falls under an exclusion called “nominative fair use,” which permits the use of another brand’s mark under certain conditions, says Connie Powell Nichols, a professor who teaches IP at Baylor Law. Whether a defendant meets these conditions can be debated, but the conclusion still often comes back to that central question: Is the customer confused? Upcycling also touches on a  legal concept called the “first-sale doctrine.” That means that once a mark holder puts a product on the market, others are free to resell it, unless they materially alter it. Honda, for example, can’t demand money when someone sells an old Honda.

But if you’ve got a business making hats out of old Gucci bags? Or new watches out of heirloom Hamiltons? That’s not so clear. And that’s when lawyers get involved.

R.T. Custer never aspired to be in the watch business, let alone fighting to shape a murky area of trademark law. Like so many entrepreneurs, his journey simply began with a problem. During his junior year at Penn State, he was playing golf with his buddy Tyler Wolfe, who took a shot and totally shanked it. “He’s like, ‘Oh, it’s because of this darn watch. It’s too loose,’ ” says Custer. “I was like, ‘That’s bullshit.’ ” But then they got obsessed with finding a solution. They imagined a watch where you twist the bezel and it tightens the wristband. It seemed like a cool idea, so they decided to start a company and call it Vortic — vortex plus ticktock.

After college, Custer moved to Fort Collins, Colo., and got a logistics job at Walmart, and he and Wolfe started figuring out how to make watches. They patented the twist-to-fit technology but learned it was prohibitively expensive to actually produce. Meanwhile they discovered all these old American-made pocket watches collecting dust in the back of pawn shops. Their cases had been scrapped for the gold or silver, but the movements and faces were still splendid. Custer and Wolfe wondered if they could combine them with modern parts and leather straps and, using software and 3D printing, fashion one-of-a-kind wristwatches. “We thought, Let’s create a brand around that,” says Custer. The twist-to-fit stuff could wait.

With the $40,000 they raised on Kickstarter, they spent $5,000 on the WatchTime ad to grab people’s attention. The proto­type with the Hamilton face? They called it the Lancaster. Swatch saw it immediately.

Related: 5 Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Brand Strength and Equity

Assuming the cease-and-desist letter was a misunderstanding, Custer trawled LinkedIn for C-level executives at the company and sent messages, hoping to sort things out. Instead, on July 21, 2017, Swatch sued for trademark infringement, dilution, counterfeiting, and unfair competition, asking the court to award it triple damages and attorneys’ fees.

Custer’s first son had just been born, and he didn’t have the money to fight this. But he saw it as an existential threat to Vortic’s business. If he caved to not using Hamilton parts, then every other watch brand they used would come after him, too. So he tried to reason with Swatch, which declined to comment for this story. He emailed its CEO and suggested licensing the trademark. The answer was no. He flew twice to New York City for a settlement conference, but Swatch barely engaged, and the court forced the company to pay Custer $445.93 for his travel. As a last Hail Mary, in February 2019, he sent a handwritten letter to Swatch’s CEO offering to meet him in person anytime, anyplace to work it out without lawyers. In response, he got a snippy email from Swatch’s lawyers that chided him for wasting “the postage of your letter.”

By the end of all this, Custer was ready to fight in court. He was confident that Vortic had a right to be its own brand and that no one was confused about who made its watches.

In some ways, this case is very typical. Roughly 4,000 trademark lawsuits are filed a year, according to Lex Machina, a legal analytics branch of LexisNexis. The most prolific plaintiffs tend to be luxury brands and large pharmaceutical firms, although the No. 1 litigant, filing 811 cases in the past five years, is Sream, Inc. It makes bongs.

What happened next to Vortic was also typical: The cost of litigation nearly broke it.

The court will entertain basically any case that’s brought to it, but the arena is hardly open to all. Legal fees mount fast, and IP lawyers are pricey; Vortic’s attorneys estimated that a trial would cost $10,000 a month. That’s a massive strain on any startup’s budget, and in Vortic’s case, the cofounders  were not on the same page. Wolfe was pretty opposed to fighting the lawsuit — to the point where he sold a large portion of his equity to reduce his liability. “Things were just super stressful,” he says. Even if they won, he thought, what shape would their business be left in?

Related: Creating a Brand Identity That Competes and Compels

Several states away, Tara Martin was about to learn the answer to that question for herself. Her company, too, used an iconic brand to define a new product. And while Vortic was going head-to-head with Swatch, she was nearing the end of a five-year legal battle with Louis Vuitton.

Martin’s journey began in 2012, when her hometown of Santa Monica, Calif., banned plastic bags. She designed a line of canvas grocery totes with cartoonish drawings of iconic fancy purses on them — Hermès, Chanel, Louis Vuitton—along with the phrase “My Other Bag,” which was also the name of her company. It was a nod to the popular “my other car” bumper sticker, and a poke at the luxury market and those who couldn’t afford it. Customers loved the bags, but Louis Vuitton did not. It sued. She fought back, won, and then kept winning despite Louis Vuitton’s multiple appeals. The court decided that her bags met the strict definition of parody, which is protected under the nominative fair use exception.

But outside the court system, the ultimate result favored Louis Vuitton. “They sent letters to all my distributors saying that My Other Bag was trademark infringing, even though we were still in the lawsuit,” Martin told Entrepreneur. “They crushed my business.” (Louis Vuitton declined to comment.) She sued for attorneys’ fees, which climbed to nearly $1 million, but the court denied her. A trademark lawsuit must be extraordinarily egregious for a judge to award fees, and that rarely happens.

So in the end: An entrepreneur won in court but lost her company and her money, and the legal system offered little more than a gigantic shrug. “I’m glad I stood my ground,” says Martin, who closed the business and focused on her fashion design firm, DTLA Custom, “because there definitely needs to be some reform in the law.”

Back in Colorado, as Vortic faced the question of whether it could withstand a trial, Custer’s girlfriend was pregnant with their second son.

It was now late February 2019, and he wanted to keep fighting but was at a loss for how. Later he would kick himself for not asking for help — it would turn out that one of his investors, who’d gone to Harvard Law School, loved trademark cases. But at the time, he felt ashamed and scared of what people might think. So one day, sitting in a leased Jeep parked outside the Vortic manufacturing facility, he started googling “best Colorado bankruptcy attorney.”

“I’m literally crying because I was about to give up everything I’d worked for and try to get my job back at Walmart,” he remembers. He called one of the numbers.

Related: Remember the Endless Taco Bell Chihuahua Lawsuit? Kamala Harris’ Husband Won It.

The woman who answered got Rob Lantz on the phone. They talked for a long time. Lantz said he had good news and bad news. The bad news was he did litigation; he wasn’t the type of bankruptcy attorney Custer needed. The good news was he could help with Swatch. “He told me I just needed an attorney who would fight on my behalf, because I hadn’t done a single thing wrong,” Custer recalls. “I lost it because he believed in me.”

For the next year, they prepared for trial. “All that time, I did not pay Rob a single dollar,” says Custer. “He was keeping track, but he told me, ‘You’ll make plenty of money to pay me back.’ ”

And then it was time. On the morning of February 19, 2020, Custer arrived at Thurgood Marshall Courthouse in Manhattan with a Vortic watch on his wrist — a Lancaster 001 he’d made with a Hamilton face — and passed a crowd of reporters that had gathered to cover the Harvey Weinstein trial in court next door. Custer’s mother, meanwhile, lay dying in Pennsylvania, and the world was about to explode into a life-altering pandemic.

It was a bench trial, so there was no jury, and the room seemed cavernous. “I was shaking when they put my hand on the Bible,” says Custer. “But as soon as I sat down and looked up at the judge, I was like, We’re both just here doing our jobs.”

Swatch’s attorney grilled Custer, trying to trip him up into admitting Vortic watches were inferior. By then Custer had found his stride. When a question was tricky, he asked for clarification, as Lantz had taught him, to give himself more time to answer. When he was pressed about profiting off Hamilton’s name, he testified that they’d mispriced the Lancasters — and for the 58 sold, they’d actually lost $5,483.43. At one point he took off the watch he was wearing and handed it to the judge to inspect. It became Exhibit I.

Swatch needed to prove that central trademark issue — that customers were confused. But they hadn’t done a consumer survey, as is standard in these cases. They simply produced a single email received by a Hamilton executive in Canada from a woman asking about Vortic’s Lancaster. The U.S. brand manager of Hamilton, who’d been brought in as a witness, didn’t know much about it, including whether anyone had spoken to the sender to see why she was inquiring. Lantz asked, “To the best of your knowledge, this is the only instance where somebody might have had some confusion?” She said, “Yes.”

Afterward he and Custer went to a bar to crack a beer and celebrate. From there Custer took a train to see his mother for the last time. Then he came down with what had to have been COVID-19. “It’s the sickest I’ve ever been,” he says.

Seven months passed. Back in Fort Collins, Custer and Wolfe were, again, playing golf on September 11, 2020, when they learned that they’d won. U.S. district judge Alison Nathan ruled in favor of Vortic on all claims. She said the company made it clear on both its products and website that it, not Hamilton, made the watches from salvaged parts.

Related: 4 Branding Tips From Gary Vaynerchuk and Entrepreneurs Who Built Brands the World Can’t Ignore

Custer’s relief was torrential. This, it seemed, would be one of the lawsuit stories that people hear less often — the one where the small company wins. He and Wolfe threw themselves into the holiday season, and for the first time, they broke $1 million in revenue. The two are in a better place than ever and now in the process of buying an 8,400-square-foot building and working on launching a sister company next year — this time a fully modern watch, with no other brand’s trademarks involved.

“There was something about getting kind of to that rock-bottom point and just being super honest with each other that really turned things around in a pretty amazing way,” says Wolfe. He’s since changed his mind about the lawsuit. “The fact that it forced some strife early on may have been beneficial in the long run. Would we have grown faster and invested in different things? Probably, but who knows? And it affected R.T. in a really positive way. He’s more confident and has more competence in his own decision-making. And that’s a good thing.”

A month after the victory, to no one’s surprise, Swatch appealed.

What will the Vortic guys do? They’ll fight, they say. And if they win at the circuit court level, it will set precedent in New York, Connecticut, and Vermont, and help build a body of law that more clearly defines how new companies can use old brands’ products. Even if they go broke, they reason, the lawsuit has become about more than just them.

March
13, 2021

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

An exemplary woman brings great satisfactions. This is demonstrated by the study When women lead, firms win by Standard & Poor’s. Well, when women lead, companies earn up to $ 1.8 billion worldwide.

And although only 39% of companies in Mexico have been founded by women, according to the Association of Entrepreneurs of Mexico ( ASEM ), their businesses are precisely more profitable than those run by men, according to the report Women Entrepreneurs: an unexplored investment opportunity , from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The IDB notes that women entrepreneurs in Latin America receive up to 50% less investment, and their companies achieve income up to 20% higher than companies founded by men. However, women are the ones who have been most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. A clear example is that as daycare services, schools and other services continue to be closed, they have to work more and are not paid; and because they do not have time available, they cannot grow their businesses.

But they well say that “there is a time for everything.” Therefore, we invite you to the webinar organized by Entrepreneur and Mastercard called Woman 4.0, forming alliances and leadership with a cause , where four successful women will be the speakers: Silvina Moschini, CEO of SheWorks! and TransparentBusiness, Marcela Carrasco, president of the Andean Division of Mastercard, Gabriela Lucke, director of INCAE’s Collaborative Center and Female Leadership, and Claudia Corona, founder of Impronta Verde and Co-Leader of the 30% Club.

Technology will be the protagonist of this webinar that will take place on March 17 at 3:00 pm ( Mexico City time) through the Entrepreneur networks in Spanish .

Technology became the balm in the pandemic, as it has prevented an economic and social collapse. Thanks to it, companies were able to operate remotely. Therefore, today more than ever it is essential to invest in technological tools for your business to succeed. The goal is to produce more, better and in less time.

In the technology sector, women are the ones who have the greatest challenges when undertaking entrepreneurship. Since 2010, only 43% of tech startups founded by a woman have been funded, according to Endeavor, an organization that promotes high-impact entrepreneurs.

Good advice is the way to success

One of the speakers at the Mujer 4.0 webinar, forming alliances and leadership with a cause , is Claudia Corona, passionate about innovation in the food and agriculture sector. She is the founder of Impronta Verde , a consultancy that promotes disruptive solutions to reduce food waste and greenhouse gas emissions throughout the supply chain. Before starting he worked for more than 20 years in global banks; and in leading multinational companies such as Comex and ECOM Group.

Claudia Corona knows that good advice is the way to success; Therefore, she has had mentors who have helped her understand different perspectives, languages and different ways of solving situations. “The harshest comments I have received have been from women trying to fit into a masculine milieu. I think they judged with more severe criteria than men because they had to open a gap for others ”, shares Claudia Corona, founder of Impronta Verde and Co-Leader of the 30% Club for Entrepreneur in Spanish.

Her fight for equality changed when she decided to become a mother, especially since flexible hours weren’t common 13 years ago. “I had to work overtime and show undeniable results. I feel very proud of having made it possible for others to have access to my same work scheme ”.

^{Art: Entrepreneur}

Claudia Corona is very good at negotiating, so we ask her for her best tips for our Entrepreneur reader:

1. Knowing your personality is vital. To know how to act and connect with people. To do this, you must develop empathy and humility.
2. Set points of agreement and disagreement diplomatically . To achieve this you must have confidence in yourself and use your voice to say what is valid and what is not negotiable.
3. Know how to listen and read body language . It helps a lot to understand the reactions of the other person to generate a dynamic that helps you achieve your goal.
4. Profiling very well the person with whom you are going to negotiate . To find common and different points that are very useful for dialogue when conversations get tense. Take a breath when the conversation stalls.
5. Be up to date on various topics. Sometimes it helps to connect in multiple situations, especially, to know habits and customs in other countries.
6. Attend to the details . You have to see the whole forest, but in the details you discover definitive turning points for forging long-term relationships.

And how to detect opportunities in adverse environments? The best advice from this entrepreneur is to know the trends and the environment. Stay alert to needs and look for ways to innovate because this makes the opportunities stand out.

Finally, for the woman who aspires to the top management of a company, she recommends: be curious, be willing to experiment, learn and adapt in short terms. Having resilience and tenacity is crucial to knowing how to get up after failure and learn from it.

Learn more about the subject and learn how to boost your leadership in the webinar: Woman 4.0, forming alliances and leadership with a cause .   We are waiting for you on March 17 at 3:00 pm (Mexico City time) in the Entrepreneur Networks in Spanish

Our business coaching franchises taps into growing demand for coaching and sales training services

The Growth Coach^® is an industry-leading business coaching franchise, established in over 150 markets in the United States and abroad. Since our founding in 1992, our coaches have helped thousands of small business owners achieve their personal and professional goals. With 28 million businesses in the United States, the demand for business coaching has grown to a tremendous $11 billion industry. The Growth Coach is ramping up for a rapid nationwide expansion, and is actively seeking entrepreneurs with proven leadership experience to help their small business communities prosper.

A business coaching franchise is vital in all economies – good or bad

Navigating uncertain economic times is a minefield of potential disasters for small business owners, managers and the sales teams that drive revenues. The Growth Coach business coaching franchise owners provide stakeholders with the tools and skills needed to hone their instincts. That way, they can avoid growing too quickly ahead of an economic downturn and make sure to maximize opportunities for growth and expansion when the economy is strong.

It’s no secret that economists are bullish on the economy these days — except on the days when they’re not. It seems we can’t go a week without hearing about this index setting that record, or that stock reaching an important threshold, only to turn around the next week and hear dire predictions about leading economic indicators. That’s where The Growth Coach business coach comes in — and that’s also one of the reasons why our business coaching franchise is virtually immune to economic turmoil.

Our management team positions Growth Coach owners for long-term franchise success

When you make the decision to become part of The Growth Coach, you’re making a commitment to yourself and your community to help business owners, managers and sales teams grow — both personally and professionally. We’re there with you at each step of the process, to provide training, develop new materials to respond to market demands, and help you grow your coaching franchise through professional marketing and promotional materials.

We’ve spent more than 15 years perfecting The Growth Coach franchise model in communities across the country, working with coaches from all walks of life and myriad careers. All that work shows in our comprehensive training programs, simplified business operations, referral-based marketing systems, and high-visibility branding.

March
9, 2021

12 min read

This story appears in the
March 2021
issue of
Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

The scene opens in hell. We see flames. We hear screams. Then the camera closes in on Satan himself — big horns, giant pectorals, bright red skin — as he slumps over on his throne. His phone buzzes. He glances at the screen. “You’re a match!” it says. Satan perks up, eyes wide in amazement. The dark lord, it appears, is looking for love on Match.com.

Cut to: a bridge underpass, in a park on Earth. There are trees. It is quiet. Satan waits to meet his date. A woman approaches. “Hi, Two-zero-two-zero?” Satan says to her. “Please,” she replies, “call me 2020.” Then it’s montage time: Satan and 2020 picnicking in an empty football stadium, doing yoga in an empty gym, stealing toilet paper and hanging out by a Dumpster fire, and generally setting their hearts aflame as they watch the world burn.

Related: 5 Most Successful Video Marketing Tactics Brands Are Using to Grab Eyeballs and Convert Customers

When this ad for Match.com debuted online in December 2020, it triggered an instant lovefest online. Ryan Reynolds expected as much. He cowrote and produced the spot for his marketing company, Maximum Effort, which has become one of the hottest in the advertising game. “I would have paid for [the Match ad] myself just to make sure we got it done,” Reynolds says. “I felt pretty confident that it would work. And when it did work, then I would go bill them back.” He laughs. But don’t worry about his compensation: He’s also on Match.com’s board.

A pandemic-themed ad created for Match.com.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Maximum Effort

Reynolds used to dislike marketing. He saw it as an obligation. And anyway, he was an actor; the marketing was for other people. But then, he spent a decade trying to turn the oddball Marvel superhero Deadpool into a movie — and even when 20th Century Fox finally got on board, the studio remained skeptical of its potential. So he teamed up with one of the studio’s marketing execs, George Dewey, who’d spent 15 years at the giant ad agency McCann, and they launched a ridiculous guerrilla campaign that stirred up so much excitement that Deadpool became the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time. (And so did its sequel.)

Related: How to Plan a Viral Marketing Campaign

“We started to look at marketing as a completely different tool we had in the shed, and something we could really tell stories with,” Reynolds says. “Everything is storytelling; if you’re not paying attention to that, then you’re just broadcasting and not engaging.” He and Dewey joined forces to build Maximum Effort, which has since produced consistent viral gems for a range of projects, including companies Reynolds owns (most notably Aviation Gin and the low-cost wireless company Mint Mobile). “Now I look at marketing as one of the great joys of my life and my business.”

Recently, while shooting a film in Vancouver, Reynolds stepped away to share what he’s learned about pushing the boundaries of what’s creatively possible — and pushing himself (and his team) to constantly reinvent.

Image Credit: Guy Aroch

Tell me about your creative process. When you sit down to come up with something like that Match ad, where are you starting?

You know that line about how Shakespeare smuggled poetry into popular works? Well, we’re kind of the opposite. We really feel like, when somebody is watching an ad, there’s no reason it cannot feel extremely entertaining and inventive and fun.

We want to bend, not break. We want to be able to comment on something like 2020 without being disrespectful to the grimness of that situation. So you’ve got to give yourself some guardrails — and we love guardrails. Problems are our best friends, because they really inspire ideas and ways to create. Even if it’s just “Our budget has to be X.” We can still get the job done, and we have to think outside the box in order to deliver something that is of great quality. I mean, showbiz will teach you that. If you keep throwing money at a problem, that problem is only going to be exacerbated.

I’m reminded of something I’ve heard you say before — that you’re happy Aviation Gin had a smaller marketing budget than its large competitors, because it forced you to be scrappier with your marketing.

If somebody says, “You have $10 million to go shoot an ad,” the reflex for most people would be to say, “OK, so let’s start with some helicopter shots. The city’s in peril, a superhero comes and lands and uses a skyscraper to block out the alien ship.” Immediately, your brain goes to scope and scale. But scope and scale can be character, too.

Related: Here’s How to Plan Your Digital-Marketing Strategy and Set Budget Priorities

This lesson was driven home to me while shooting Deadpool. Every time the studio took money away from our budget, we replaced whatever set piece we lost with character. Eventually that became the hallmark and defining characteristic of that property. People don’t remember saving-the-world kind of nonsense. They remember what he said, or how he reacted to a moment. To me, that lesson is worth its weight in gold, because you can penetrate the zeitgeist and make an impression without spending a ton of money, without busting the bank.

I mean, we live in a world that’s so reactionary, so there’s a lot to play with. But here’s a tenet of our work: We don’t want to be divisive. There’s enough of that out there. I know it sounds super saccharin, maybe a little nauseating, but when we talk about our company’s M.O., we talk about bringing people together. So when we talked to Match.com and they were nervous about this pitch — Hold on, your lead characters are Satan and a woman named 2020? — we had to reassure them that we’re not here to divide. We are here to embrace something and bring people together over a common experience. When people have an emotional response to something, or find something incredibly funny, it travels.

Image Credit: Guy Aroch

That seems to explain your marketing, which is often very simple. Most of the ads you produce are just a few people in a room, or you speaking direct to camera. And what you’re saying here is — a large budget can cause people to forget about human connections.

Yeah. I think audiences are numbed to spectacle. We’ve all seen superheroes save the day. We’ve all seen a city in peril. I mean, when we were working on our Peloton Aviation Gin ad, all we were doing is really just acknowledging the cultural landscape in that moment and doing it in a way that doesn’t attack Peloton. [For context: In 2019, Peloton released a cringe-inducing ad featuring a woman whose husband buys her a Peloton bike, and she becomes uncomfortably obsessed with it. Critics and consumers tore it apart, interpreting the ad as sexist or tone-deaf. Days later, Maximum Effort released an ad featuring the same actress, looking shaken, downing Aviation Gin martinis at a bar with two girlfriends and toasting to new beginnings. It was widely praised as one of the greatest ad moments of 2019.]

Related: Taraji P. Henson: Your Mission Must Be Stronger Than Your Fear

I just thought there was such an interesting redemption to that. If we could find Monica Ruiz, the woman in the Peloton ad, we could give this a side B — a look at this person from a different perspective, in a way that acknowledges and plays with the cultural landscape and the zeitgeist but still is only there to have fun with it. Not to further divide. Not to wag our finger at anybody or vilify anybody. Just to acknowledge this thing.

We found Monica — I called her four or five different times because she was so nervous that this would backfire. It’s already so alienating when you’re the subject of all of that energy and attention. But we did it. It was really where we started talking about “fast-vertising” — doing things with a speed and agility that others can’t, because Aviation Gin is owned by me, so I don’t really have to go up some huge corporate ladder. I can just say, “Let’s do it.”

You just told two stories — Match and Peloton — in which you approached a potentially controversial subject and had to convince others that you mean well. What’s your strategy for talking people into seemingly scary ideas?

It’s convincing them that I’m as risk-averse, if not more than they are. You want to be able to do something where everyone feels like you’re being provocative but nobody feels vilified, attacked, or nullified. It always comes back to that same edict: Let’s bring people together. Let’s filter everything we do through a prism of joy, as opposed to cynicism or division. I mean, division is very viral, but it’s not our bag. And it’s boring.

Related: Richard Branson Skewers Ryan Reynolds’s Business Knowledge as Virgin Atlantic and Aviation Gin Announce Partnership

Your ads can be self-referential or feature you as an overly confident dummy. Like the ad about Aviation Gin’s partnership with Virgin Atlantic. The setup was that you and Richard Branson were making an ad about the announcement, but you barely understood what was happening. Where does that instinct come from, to flip advertising on its head?

It just depends on what we’re doing. I mean, with the companies I own, I feel an obligation to be transparent. It doesn’t mean that transparency can’t be soaked in irony or self-awareness or silliness. When it’s me out in front, usually I’m playing with preconceived notions about celebrity or about the commercial space. We lean into the things a lot of people traditionally lean away from, which is “Hey, this is an ad. We are acknowledging and playing with the cultural landscape in this ad. And we are telling you that we’re doing that.” It allows people to be a part of it.

Reynolds with Richard Branson in a spot for Aviation Gin.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Aviation Gin

If I’m zooming out even farther, I look at our company, and our goal is to radically improve. But you don’t radically improve just on creative, because everyone is going to have great ideas. It’s our goal to radically improve in new and inventive ways. Rethinking things is our favorite thing to do, too. If I hadn’t second-guessed every decision I made since I exited the womb, I don’t know that I would be in the position I’m in. I think it’s OK to rethink things — even good ideas! I mean, if you’re satisfied with just making money, you’re not going to be a disruptor for very long.

As any entrepreneur knows, there’s a difference between wanting innovation and creating a culture that fosters innovation. How are you doing it?

I always say that you can’t be good at something unless you’re willing to be bad. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten way more comfortable with not having the answers. I think it’s such a great tool of leadership to be able to say, “I don’t know.” The worst leaders I’ve ever worked with or been around are the ones who are steadfast and indignant in their righteousness, and really worried about their image. So I love saying, “I don’t know.”

Related: Drew Barrymore Grew Her Lifestyle Brand and Started a New Venture in the Middle of a Pandemic. Here’s How She Did It.

Everyone at the company has different specializations and different interests, which we foster and want to grow. I want the people who work at Maximum Effort to feel like they’re the CEO. I want everybody pushing toward a direction that is really inspiring for them.

And that’s worked so far. I don’t pretend to know how exactly to run a company. But I think that people who run companies, they don’t know either! It’s great to stay curious and in the moment. Innovation is always born of curiosity.

You have an ability to stay a step ahead of culture — to engage with the next part of the conversation. What’s your advice on how to do that?

Well, you’d be a moron to not acknowledge the now. But as a company, we talk about 2022 right now. It’s just that balance of: We love culture. We know culture is typically very now. But we also love thinking ahead, and looking at where we would like to be, and what we would like to be doing, and trying to manifest that to the best of our abilities. 

March
8, 2021

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Mariangel Coghlan is a woman who is expertly and successfully serving many fronts simultaneously. He runs his design firm, edits books, studies, and mentors youth at the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) .

He studied architecture at the University of the Americas in Puebla with the dream of transforming spaces. After finishing his studies, he started working in a furniture store, but he soon realized that this was not what he wanted.

“What I did was follow a dream. I have the hypothesis and belief that the space you inhabit improves your productive and creative capacity, and of course your happiness ”, begins Mariangel.

The architect says that when she decided to undertake she had no idea what she had to do, but she was clear about the reason that still makes her get up every morning. With more than 20 years of experience, he reveals some secrets that have allowed him to grow.

^{Image: Courtesy Mariangel Coghlan}

1. Seek support and learn from other experiences

The first business he started was a furniture store that remained in force and grew to open three branches in Mexico City: San Ángel, Prado Norte and Prado Sur.

“After 14 years I wanted to do something different. However, the first thing I did was define what I wanted to do as an entrepreneur, ”she says.

Then a watershed came to her life and with the support of her husband, and a friend of his, they invited her to be part of EO, and although she already had many years of experience running a business, she was nervous that he would not. accept.

“It has been one of the best things that have happened because people share their experiences and help you grow,” he says about the experience. “What they have experienced helps you grow and I started there to learn.”

2. Fulfill your mission and be true to your philosophy

The mission of the design firm Mariangel Coghlan is simple: to help people live better, improving the environment they inhabit.

“When beauty is present it predisposes to good; when people are predisposed to good there is goodness, and when there is goodness the world improves ”, says the architect.

It may sound utopian, however, the lesson he shares is that to be a good firm of whatever it is, service comes before any business.

In her experience, many clients are not happy with the end result and she would rather sacrifice some profitability than lose a client’s recommendation.

“A satisfied customer will always be the best advertisement you can have. There are many people who write to us to ask for advice on which floor to put on or what color to paint and we answer all the messages we receive even if they cannot pay for our services, because that is my mission: to help them improve their spaces ”, he declares.

Being loyal to her principles has led her to have her firm recognized as the best luxury interior design studio in Mexico by the Luxury Lifestyle Awards.

^{Image: Courtesy Mariangel Coghlan}

3. Know your limits, don’t stop and adapt

For Mariangel, many entrepreneurs have in mind the idea of scaling and growing the business at any price, however, she has discovered that not all businesses have that possibility.

“I made a line of furniture to sell online and also at Casa Palacio. I wanted there to be a Mariangel Coghlan piece of furniture in every house and I became obsessed with scaling the business that ended up costing me millions and it never worked ”, describes the entrepreneur.

After this, the lesson that remained is that if it comes to entrepreneurship, you must be resilient and adapt to the possibilities.

“Not everything is a failure, I see it as an apprenticeship of millions of pesos. In this world of entrepreneurship, you must experiment, analyze and study what you want to do well, ”he says with a laugh.

For the architect, business is simple, it is about understanding how much comes in, how much goes out and how much you have left. If after some time there is no money left, it is not the right business.

“Then you have to turn it around to do what you are passionate about so that you can live well and also the people who work with you,” he says.

During the confinement caused by the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020 and 2021, the showroom in which he exhibits his work has been closed, but he had to adapt to the times to maintain his business and the collaborators who make everything work.

“It has been a year of great challenges, having a closed space of two thousand square meters has not been easy, but building a brand that is focused on service has allowed us to remain in force,” he says.

The adaptation process had to be quick. He transformed his page, went digital and has created 12 ebooks that function as catalogs so that his clients and prospects do not lose interest.

4. It’s not all about money, it’s about your dream

“Starting a business based on just making money is not a good starting point. The starting point should be what you like to do and what you are good at ”, he says.
As a passionate about architecture and design, she ensures that when you discover “your element”, that can fill entrepreneurs with adrenaline and energy to make things work.

“You have to do something that fascinates you. In my experience as a mentor, the projects that transcend are those in which the entrepreneur does what fascinates him, ”she says.

As a “shamelessly optimistic” person, Mariangel believes that it’s all about making dreams come true, and always having new goals. That dream is “the element that moves us” and it is what, if you do it with passion, it will bring you profit.

There are three dreams that she has before her today: to finish her second book on interior design… and another two that she asked not to comment on until they come true, but that her server is aware of.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Currently the average age of entrepreneurs in Mexico is 33 years. Of course, there are very young entrepreneurs … and others who already have gray hair start and achieve success. What is certain is that, today, millennials represent more than 80% of new ventures. And if there is one piece of advice that millennials have been given thousands of times, it is this: “follow your passion.”

Entrepreneurship is not the same as being successful. Very few entrepreneurs “hit it” the first time, and most great entrepreneurs know it. Once the CEO of Tajín, today a successful multinational company, told me with complete confidence: “I have bankrupted more companies than I have managed … and there were several moments when I thought about closing Tajín.” But perseverance pays, and each defeat becomes a new stepping stone to the future.

If you have ever thought about starting your business or have you wondered where do I start? Perhaps you have met a friend, your parents, a teacher or a supposed expert who will tell you: follow your passion!

Bad business

“Follow your passion!”

This is perhaps the most common advice… and one that can cause the most damage. The modern world offers us thousands of options, and it sounds tempting to “follow your passion” because, as they say, “that way you will never really have to work.” In truth, who could contradict this logic?

However, the logic falls apart very quickly. You know – and I do too – many people who try to follow their passion, but never get off the ground, or feel satisfied, happy or free. In the end, they end up working on whatever it is and dedicate their weekends – if they are lucky – to their passion. These are the people who hate Mondays, the ones who never found their place in the world.

And, although doing something that you are passionate about is very important , it is not enough to find a path that will lead you to success.

When asked “where do I start?” or “what business do I choose?” It is not enough to say “do what you love!” the correct answer has three steps:

1. Identify your talent.
2. Connect with your passion.
3. Learn the business!

These are just the first three steps. Passion is a powerful feeling that drives us, but like all feelings, it can be changeable; and it is certain that some days you will feel less animated than others. Also – and this is very important – the fact that something “you like” or that you “love it” does not mean that you are good.

Passion is not enough

There are people who “love” to sing or whose “passion” is to play soccer. But that is not enough. If you want to be successful, you have to be talented. Talents are different for everyone, and discovering yours can be the most defining moment of your existence. Talents are natural to us, we were born with them, and it is our duty to develop them.

The ideal place to start a business or career is within what Ken Robinson calls “the element,” which is the point where your passions and talents connect:

In the environment of success, your talent is the first step . You have to do something that you are good at and, furthermore, you can improve with training, practice and study. I’m going to tell you something that may sound cruel, but someone has to tell you: If you have two left feet, it doesn’t matter that you feel passionate about playing soccer: you can never be a professional. If you are 1.45 tall, it doesn’t matter that you have a passion for basketball; most likely we won’t see you at the Olympics.

So start by looking in the mirror and asking yourself what is your talent? If you don’t know, ask those who know you. Now advance it even further; make yourself the best doing what you do. Author Malcolm Gladwell, author of the bestselling book “Out of Series” (Outliers) states that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to develop talent to a level of excellence. It is not enough to have talent; you have to develop it. But spending time doing something that you have no talent or love for, will be a purgatory and a waste of time.

The third step: make money on your element

There are those who choose their career because they believe that money can be made in it. But beware! There are successful people (and money) in all activities. There are millionaire athletes, accountants and lawyers, but also poets, dancers, teachers and writers. That which you do well and that you love can turn into a very brilliant career! Money is everywhere. The difference is in the way we apply our element to the business format.

So, no, talent and passion are not enough either. There are excellent actors that nobody hires, or great singers who do not reach a fortnight. If you’ve found your item, the next step is to learn and understand the business. You have to understand how to make money with that talent. Learn to operate, to sell, to do the accounts, to carry out projects, to collect, to delegate and to grow. That is your business, and no one can do it better than you.

Although there are people who do not agree with what I am going to say, I am sure it is absolutely true: it is worth looking for people and places where you can learn, even if they do not pay you at first , or they pay you very little. Sure, working for free doing something you don’t like is simple exploitation. But if you’re in your element, learning will be the best payoff possible.

Do you have talent and passion for cooking, and do you want to be an entrepreneur? Then you won’t mind spending days and nights working in a restaurant, because you know it’s just one step to keep growing (remember the 10,000 hour rule?). Laws are your thing? So yes, even if you start by making copies, look for a place where you can learn how the business works, how do they find clients, how they carry out the processes, how they hire, how much they charge, what are the risks, crises and headaches ? To be a wealthy lawyer, it is not enough to be a good lawyer, you also have to learn the art of entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship has its less fun parts: the numbers, the regulations, the taxes, the annoying customers. Just because you follow your talent and your passion does not mean that everything will be simple and fun. You have to get right into it, learn the machinery and build with vision. This means thousands of hours invested; many errors; many challenges and many sleepless nights.

What I can promise you is this: working within your element will make things four thousand percent easier for you. Finding and knowing your talents and connecting them with your passions will help you go further, faster and with greater pleasure than anything else. Copying deals just because it has worked for others is a career that you will always lose. Instead, discover your own career.

When you are there, at the peak of your own success (no two are alike), others will see you and say: What good luck you are! But you and I know that it is not about luck, but about finding your talent, developing it. and face the challenge of transforming it into a business.

If you are in a career that is not moving forward, ask yourself, am I truly in my element? If the answer is “no,” then stop, open your eyes, and start building. Trust me: it’s never too late to be in the right place.