The Empire Builders Podcast

Written by: Stephen Semple and David Young
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  • Summary

  • Reverse engineering the success of established business empires.
    The Empire Builders Podcast
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Economics Management & Leadership Marketing & Sales Personal Success Small Business & Entrepreneurship
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Episodes
  • #193: Jacuzzi – Propellers to Propellers

    #193: Jacuzzi – Propellers to Propellers
    Feb 19 2025
    The Jacuzzi Seven were obsessed with flight and engineered better propellers. What is the difference between propellers of air or water??? 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. [Tapper's Jewelry Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here, alongside Stephen Semple, discussing empires, entrepreneurial empires that started from just somebody's crazy idea and became something huge. And today, Jacuzzi. Stephen Semple: Jacuzzi. Dave Young: We're not talking about a hot tub, we're talking about a Jacuzzi. Stephen Semple: Correct. Dave Young: Which, sort of became the generic name for hot tubs, but I'm fascinated to hear the story. I'm guessing we're headed to the 70s, baby. Is that ring true or no? Stephen Semple: The business was founded in 1915. Dave Young: All right, so we're not headed to the 70s, but we'll still be around. Was it founded as Jacuzzi? Stephen Semple: Well, here's the interesting thing, here's the really fun part. Dave Young: Oh wait. Stephen Semple: Guess what their first business was? Dave Young: Wait, I'm thinking. These might be like therapeutic Whirlpool things too, no? I don't know. I'm getting ahead, I don't know what their first business was. Stephen Semple: Their first business was in the airplane business. Dave Young: Okay. The 1915 three engine Jacuzzi. No, I don't know. Stephen Semple: No, they started by making props for airplanes, that was their first business. Dave Young: Really? Stephen Semple: Yes. How crazy is that? Dave Young: That's nuts. Okay. Stephen Semple: Isn't that nuts? Yeah. So, they were founded in 1915 in Berkeley, California by seven siblings, there were seven kids in the Jacuzzi family. Dave Young: Holy. Stephen Semple: And they were- Dave Young: Was Jacuzzi their name? Stephen Semple: Well, actually, it was Iacuzzi, and when they immigrated, the classic. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah, the classic mistake of being written down wrong, and that's the new spelling is what stuck. They were immigrants from Casarsa della Delizia in Italy, and I'm sure I'm completely butchering that. Dave Young: Yeah, just say Italy. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And as said, the original family name was Iacuzzi. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: And it became Jacuzzi, and of course, it defined the hot tub business, which today is a $6 billion global market. Dave Young: But airplane propellers. Stephen Semple: Airplane propellers. Dave Young: Seven siblings had the bright idea of making airplane propellers. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: But this is shortly after Orville and Wilbur- Stephen Semple: Oh yeah. This is- Dave Young: Had invented airplane propellers. Stephen Semple: Well, this is the day of biplanes, right? So, it's 1915, and Rachele Jacuzzi, who's the youngest of the seven, is visiting the San Francisco Fair, and he sees biplanes. And one of the sons is working as an engineer for the founder of McDonnell Douglas, and they're obsessed with flight, and they see these stunt plane props, and they look at them and go, these are really inefficient. So, they invented propeller that is curved and smaller and more efficient, and it's called the toothpick propeller. Got these little tiny blades. And they open up a machine shop to start making these propellers,
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    19 mins
  • #192: Polaroid – Instant Idea, Instant Pic, Instant Empire

    #192: Polaroid – Instant Idea, Instant Pic, Instant Empire
    Feb 12 2025
    What happens when you are in the polarization film business and your daughter asks why she can't see the picture right away? You invent Polaroid. 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. [No Bull RV Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple. And today's topic, man, you keep picking topics that take me back to my childhood, Stephen. And for this one, it's the camera my dad had. It's the Polaroid. Stephen Semple: Is that right? Your dad had one? Dave Young: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And it was a great camera. He used to let me take pictures. And he'd set the timer and I'd peel the backing off. These were the old kind, not the SX-70, modern day seventies. Stephen Semple: You were old school. You had the little backing you had to peel off. Right? Dave Young: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Stephen Semple: Awesome. Dave Young: And he had extra doodads and things like a little timer that would snap onto the button so we could do a family pic. Stephen Semple: Oh, is that right? Dave Young: Oh, yeah. Stephen Semple: Wow. Dave Young: All the fun stuff. Stephen Semple: Well, when I got talking about this with my oldest daughter, Crystal, what I was surprised to learn, and I learned this when I said to her I was going to do this and then discovered more about it. Polaroid is still around. She is a camp counselor in the summertime. Little kids show up at camp with a Polaroid camera. And it's still the point it and comes out, and you've got to wait for a minute for it to it develop. But yeah, it's still a thing. Dave Young: And honestly, the nice part is the algorithm doesn't get ahold of that image. Stephen Semple: That's true. That's true Dave Young: Big data doesn't have a picture of your kid If you use a Polaroid. Stephen Semple: Well, that's maybe why they're giving these little kids to do that. It's estimated that they do around $770 million in business. Dave Young: Wow. Wow. Stephen Semple: So it's not insignificant. Yeah. Yeah. Dave Young: I'd say that's not insignificant, I think. Stephen Semple: Yeah. But as we know, it was revolutionary at the time, this whole instant picture. And at their peak, which was 1991, they were doing about $3 billion in business. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: So that's- Dave Young: Man, I would've thought their peak was way earlier than that for some reason. Stephen Semple: Yeah, that was the peak, '91. Yeah. Dave Young: Just before digital kind of came in. Stephen Semple: And kind of messed with a bunch of things. Yeah. The company was founded by Edwin Land and George Wheelwright in 1937 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But didn't start off as a camera company. Edwin Land was in Harvard, and he dropped out of Harvard to pursue business. But what he had invented was the coating that polarizes lenses. Dave Young: Oh, okay. Stephen Semple: So hence the name Polaroid. Dave Young: Polaroid. Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And I've always wondered about that. Why Polaroid? And it came from that. And the business became huge in 1941 when the US entered World War II, because it was being used for flight goggles. It was massive. Sales went from $760,000 pre-war to like $16 million in 1943. Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: Selling this polarizing technology. But 90% of the contracts were military. There was no Sunglass Hut yet. Right?
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    24 mins
  • #191: Three Levels of Trust – From Surface to Deep

    #191: Three Levels of Trust – From Surface to Deep
    Feb 5 2025
    Stephen has been studying and learning how to use and explain trust for Organizations. Let's just say, you need to get vulnerable for this one. 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. [Out Of This World Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young, alongside Stephen Semple, and Stephen, you're supposed to whisper- Stephen Semple: We're going off the reservation, I know. Yes. Dave Young: You were supposed to whisper in my ear today's business that we're going to discuss, and you just mentioned trust, and I'm thinking, this is not like a bank and trust. This is not like a trust fund. Stephen Semple: In God, we trust, money. Dave Young: No, not that. Basically, this is like trust. This is like consumer trust, people trusting each other, people trusting businesses, people trusting, I don't know, government. Are we living in a post-trust age? Is that the question? Stephen Semple: Well, Gallup and other organizations that measure basically people's trust in institutions and organizations and businesses and things like that across the board all agree, it's at an all-time low. Across the board, our trust in organizations, businesses, other people, things like that has declined to a level not seen before. And what's disturbing on this is if you're coming up with an innovative idea, if you're wanting to create a movement, if you're wanting to get support from something, if you're wanting to sell a product or service, everyone agreed. I had the opportunity to run lots of workshops and speak at lots of places, and I'll ask people, is trust important to what you do? Everyone agrees, trust is super important. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: We all agree on that. Studies show trust is way down. So we all agree it's really important, all the studies show its way down, so it got me to thinking and really studying, how do we establish and build trust as organizations? And what I found was there's actually three levels of trust, and one of the things we're going to dive into here in a little bit, the highest level is this concept of parasocial relationships, which we'll dig into. But I just thought, if you're wanting to build something big and large and grand, there's a point where what you've got to recognize is you've got to get people to trust this new idea that you're doing. So when I get talking to folks about trust, I'll often ask, "What are the things that you do to build trust?" And we did this in the workshop that I did with Matthew Burns and Gary Bernier. Dave Young: Selling professional services. Stephen Semple: On the selling professional services, one of the questions was that, and people talked about how, well, you do what you say you're going to do and be on time and be polite and be transparent and all those things build trust, and it's true, but those are like level one trust things. They will form a basic level of trust. And the other challenge with it is, for the most part, they were things that you had to have an interaction with the client or the prospective client in order to even establish that. Dave Young: Man, this is a Gordian knot. [inaudible 00:04:46] This is a tough nut you want to crack. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: I think of a lot of things. When do you want to dive into the parasocial effect? It happens to me, oh, I don't know, three, four times a month. Somebody will show up at Wizard Academy at a class and they'll go, "Wow,
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    23 mins

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