Me, Inc. (20 page)

When he was thirteen, Spielberg made his own forty-minute war film,
Escape to Nowhere
, about a World War II battle in East Africa. At sixteen, he wrote and directed his own 140-minute sci-fi epic,
Firelight
, which later provided the inspiration for his
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
. Spielberg shot
Firelight
on a budget of five hundred dollars, and actually got it shown in a local theater. He even saw a profit from the film: one dollar.

The rest is history, and Steven Spielberg is now the most successful filmmaker of all time, with such historic blockbusters as
Jaws
,
E.T.
,
The Color Purple
, and
Schindler's List
to his credit.

He grew up an Orthodox Jew in Middle America. He encountered anti-Semitism, including being routinely beaten up for being Jewish.

There wasn't a school for film where Spielberg lived, so he taught himself.

If thirteen-year-old Steven Spielberg had walked up to you and told you he was going to become the most celebrated film director in history, you'd think that was a silly or perhaps impossible notion.

But that's exactly what he did.

And it all started when he was a kid.

And it all started with a dream. A big one.

But none of it would have happened if that little kid who was beaten up for being Jewish and stayed in Middle America listened to the bullies or lamented his misfortune, and didn't make it happen for himself.

No one was going to do it for him. HE had to make it happen.

So do you.

You're never too young to
make things happen
for yourself.

Don't give your kids a weekly allowance. Don't give your kids spending money. Give them a sense of pride by letting them create and run their own little business, hopefully making a profit. Let them become kid entrepreneurs.

We can also learn a thing or two from our children—the older we get, the less adventurous we tend to be. We rely on patterns and defaults that have brought us success in the past, even if they are no longer doing so. If you watch a child in action, they are constantly moving from one activity to the next, trying new things and often throwing caution to the wind.

As we take on more business and financial responsibility, caution becomes a virtue, but it can also be a burden as we try to keep our respective ships afloat.

Let's design a ship that won't sink, you say.

It's tough to do.

“Captain, I found a small pencil-thin hole in the hull of the ship.”

“Don't worry, sailor, it will only let in a glass of seawater every hundred yards or so.”

Of course, that ship will have sunk by the time it's reached its port. It doesn't take a lot. One hole can sink an entire ship.

So to design a ship, and a business model, that's virtually unsinkable, it's best to have lots of little ships tied next to each other, all of them going in the same direction and all carrying full loads, but not dependent on or “exposed” with the other ships. That way, if one ship sinks, the rest probably won't.

Or each section of your ship can be sealed off. If seawater comes flooding in, you can lock the steel doors and the water won't spread to the rest of the ship. There are some problems inherent in this model, but you get the idea.

It's better to be an octopus than a fish. If an octopus loses a tentacle to a predator, the octopus will survive with seven tentacles left to fend for itself, and perhaps a few lessons learned that will enable it to avoid another such attack. If a fish loses a fin—or worse, its tail—it's unlikely to fare as well and its survival will be questionable.

So use the Octopus Business Model.

Create non-cross-collateralized sections and/or businesses—which means that the
cost
of running a section of your business, and the potential
profit
of that business, should be self-contained, and not “cross over” to the other businesses. For instance, KISS is a band. It tours, has licensing and merchandising, and makes money. It also has costs in running the business. Gene Simmons is a non-crossed business entity. Gene Simmons is a partner in ROCK AND BREWS restaurant chain. The profits/costs of running KISS, do not cross over to the profits/costs of running ROCK AND BREWS, even though both KISS and ROCK AND BREWS share Gene Simmons. And if that one business is unprofitable, or is too time consuming or too labor intensive, get rid of it. Close it down. It will probably not affect the other businesses you have.

To keep with the nautical theme: Be an octopus. Cast a wide net. Spread your risk.

23

Failure: What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

“I've missed more than nine thousand shots in my career. I've lost almost three hundred games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

MICHAEL JORDAN

basketball superstar, entrepreneur, and majority owner of NBA team the Charlotte Hornets

I
've got some bad news for you: you
will
fail.

But every time you fail, you will learn something.

Don't feel bad when you fail. You're no different than the most powerful, the most intelligent, and the most entrepreneurial among us.

When you buy a car, it comes with five wheels. The spare isn't there for
if
you get a flat tire—it is there for
when
you get a flat tire. Because you will get one. The car company expects you'll get a flat tire at some point. But as long as you've got a spare tire in the trunk, you can keep going.

In other words, you need to have a backup plan. Always.

When Paul Stanley and I put Wicked Lester together, we actually succeeded in getting a contract with Epic Records. But we failed to pick the right members for the band, and we failed to pick the right kind of music to make. So at the very beginning, we knew that we had failed.

So we adjusted.

We quit the band.

We formed a new band.

We changed the style of music.

We changed the personnel and persona of the band.

We looked at the marketplace of 1972 and noticed that the English glitter and glam bands were making the most noise. So we decided to put together our own version of that. We loved it, anyway. We paid attention to the market, but we also did something we truly loved. There's a balance there.

And after that first failure, we succeeded.

That was forty years ago.

If we hadn't failed and caught the mistake early enough, Wicked Lester would have come and gone, and we may have never had another chance at success.

Oprah Winfrey was fired as a young reporter, and then fired again as a co-anchor of a news show. Oprah Winfrey failed.

Walt Disney, in his early years, was fired by the newspaper he worked for. And his first attempt at a cartoon studio went bankrupt. Walt Disney failed.

Henry Ford changed the automobile industry by inventing the modern assembly line, but his first car company went bankrupt. And when he formed another car company, he failed again, and was fired from his own company. Henry Ford failed.

Donald Trump's hotel/casino business went bankrupt. And then when he tried again, his company went bankrupt again. Donald Trump failed.

Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world, initially started off in a tech venture that quickly went belly-up. Bill Gates failed.

So when you fail (and you will), you will be in good company. All of these men and women have gone on to do great things. Their achievements speak for themselves. But don't think for a second the richest and most powerful people in the world have never failed. They have failed more times than they have succeeded. Just like you and me.

Not only have I failed more times than I have succeeded—I fail every day.

Read that again: every day.

Any success you see from me is built upon the bedrock of the corpses of other ventures that simply didn't work out, for one reason or another.

Those old adages about falling off the horse and getting back on again—those old clichés, “if at first you don't succeed,” and the like—consider them again, as if for the first time. There is a reason they became clichés—you simply cannot survive as a businesswoman or businessman without them. If failure discourages you from being productive, you shouldn't bother becoming an entrepreneur.

You
will
fail. And then you will fail again. Over, and over, and over.

Simmons Records first saw the light of day when I met RCA Records head Bob Buziak and RCA International head Heinz Henn in the late eighties. All of us thought that I could repeat the success of my gut instincts. That refers to my having discovered Van Halen in 1978, and ignoring everyone in the peanut gallery who didn't believe in them. I signed Van Halen to my production company, Man Of 1,000 Faces, Inc., and flew them to New York to record a fifteen-song demo on a twenty-four-track tape. I produced that demo at Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios and used engineer Dave Wittman, who had worked on Humble Pie and KISS records. The demo consisted of most of the songs on the first Van Halen album, and some that appeared on their later albums.

Our manager at the time, Bill Aucoin, didn't believe in Van Halen, and neither did any of my band mates. I wanted us to take Van Halen under our wing, and have them as the opening act on every one of our concerts. That would have instantly launched them, and given KISS an ancillary income stream from another band. At least that was the idea. But ideas are fragile. And unless you have like-minded people around you who believe, ideas tend to die. And so it did.

I let Van Halen go. I tore up the contract that tied them to me. I felt that I had to do that on an ethical basis. Within six months, Van Halen would sign with Warner Bros. Records, and the rest is history.

My experience with Van Halen had a big influence in my launching of Simmons Records. Never again would a band slip through my fingers because others didn't believe. At least that was the idea when Buziak, Henn, and I agreed to start the label.

Initially, there was some traction. The label's first act was a new band led by Gregg Giuffria, who previously played keyboards in another band I discovered: Angel. When I first saw Angel at a club in Washington, D.C., I immediately called Casablanca Records president Neil Bogart, and in short order, Angel got signed to the label.

After Angel, Gregg had gone off on his own and started another band called Giuffria. They were on MCA Records. Their contract was up, and Gregg wanted to move his group to another label. I was interested, but I thought that the name of his band didn't resonate. That's putting it mildly. I insisted it had to be changed; otherwise I wouldn't sign the band. I created and trademarked the name “House of Lords” and gave it to the band to use. No fee. No percentages taken. House of Lords signed with Simmons/RCA Records and two albums were released. Medium success. Not what I wanted. I wanted BIG.

I then signed a Southern California band called Silent Rage. I called Black Sabbath's manager at the time, and got Rage an opening slot on their tour.

And finally, Buziak asked me to sign a band he believed in from Canada called Gypsy Rose.

Eventually, Simmons Records and RCA parted company.

By the nineties, KISS had reunited with Peter Criss and Ace Frehley and toured the world to become the number-one tour. KISS was without a record company at the time. At the same time, I had cowritten songs with Bob Dylan and Frank Zappa and wanted to release those songs. They weren't right for a KISS album, but a solo album would solve that dilemma. I started talking with Sanctuary Music about a Gene Simmons solo album and the relaunch of Simmons Records and I made a two-pronged deal. One was to relaunch Simmons Records and debut it with a Simmons solo album. And the other was to find a home for new KISS albums. Once they agreed in principle, I handed over the KISS recording rights to our new manager, Doc McGhee. Eventually, that would result in our worldwide bestselling album and video,
KISS Symphony
.

But the debut Simmons/Sanctuary release was my solo album, which I titled
Asshole
. The title was a lapse of judgment. There was a song on the album called “Asshole,” and at the time I thought that an in-your-face title would get people's attention. It didn't.

I also released an album by a multitalented Canadian artist named Bag. The album didn't do well.

But I play that album to this day.

Eventually, Simmons Records and Sanctuary Music parted company as well.

Then I met Randy Lennox of Universal Records Canada. We had a meeting of the minds, and we agreed to relaunch Simmons Records with a new mandate: find the next big bands from Canada. The first signing was a great little band from Toronto called the Envy. I loved 'em. Headed by lead singer Shaun Frank and guitarist Void, the band went on to open an entire North American/Mexican KISS tour. They opened for us on forty shows.

But the music industry had changed drastically. It had become very difficult to launch a new band. Music was routinely being downloaded and file-shared for free. Record companies were going out of business, one after the other. And despite the quality of the songs on the Envy's debut album and despite their live-performance prowess, the band failed to get traction.

I then met Brittany Paige. She wrote real metal songs and fronted a band called Kobra & the Lotus. I loved what I saw and heard. But I wouldn't budge on insisting she get rid of the name Brittany. The name would always bring to mind one of the biggest-selling female singers of the time—Britney Spears—and it clearly wasn't a metal name. I insisted she change her name to Kobra Paige. That one move would connect the singer with the name of the band. I arranged European and South American festival concert dates for the band to play in front of other big metal bands. And we are getting some traction. Kobra is currently recording its second album. We could fail. Who knows?