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The Empire Builders Podcast

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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Episodes
  • #154: Slinky – It’s Slinky, Oh What a Wonderful Toy

    #154: Slinky – It’s Slinky, Oh What a Wonderful Toy
    May 22 2024
    A failed suspension idea for the navy, slinky becomes a toy so popular they sell over 300 million of them. 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. [Seaside Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders podcast. I mean, that assumes that you've listened to an episode already I guess. Stephen Semple: Very presumptuous, very presumptuous. Dave Young: That was very presumptuous of me. I'm Dave Young, Steven Semple's here, and he's got a new story for us and told me just before we got started here that it's going to be slinky. It's Slinky. It's Slinky. Yeah. Childhood favorite. I used to love playing with a Slinky, and I could keep one without getting tangled for about an hour. Then it'd just be a tangled mess of scrap iron. So I'm going to take a wild guess as to the origins. Stephen Semple: Okay, go for it. Dave Young: Because I could be completely wrong. I don't have any basis for this other than a hunch, because it feels almost like the Silly Putty story. He made a thing that was, oh, this is stable and it's industrial and it won't hold its shape, and it's of virtually no use. Let's let children play with it. I feel like a spring made out of flat steel that's springy, but not springy enough to really help you as a spring, somebody just said, well, this is kind of fun just to play around with in your hands. Is this an accidental toy or did somebody set out to say, oh no, we're going to build a toy out of a spring? Stephen Semple: You're pretty close. It was started in 1943 by a mechanical engineer, Richard James, and to date, they've sold over 300 million of these things. It was inducted in the Toy hall of Fame. It's on the Toy Industry Association Century Toy List. In 1999, Slinky was a US stamp. Dave Young: Really? Stephen Semple: Yeah. But the origin goes back to, if you think about 1943, World War II was going on, and the control of the sea is critical to supply lines. Richard James is working on a way to keep sensitive instruments safe at sea and what his ideas are- Dave Young: To suspend them from springs. Stephen Semple: Suspend them from torsion springs and what does he do? He accidentally knocks over one of the springs and it looks like it starts to walk. So what he does is he goes home and he says to his wife, "I think we got a toy here now." Now he seemingly had brought home all sorts of strange things. Keeping in mind, during World War II toys were also made a cardboard because there was a shortage of steel and things along that lines. Dave Young: He can't go making toys out of spring steel in 1943. Stephen Semple: Yeah, a little tough. Also, the Navy rejects the idea for the equipment, but he continues to tinker with it and for two years he experiments with different wire. He finally lands on, it's 98 coils of Swedish steel, and it's about two and a half inches tall. It's Betty who comes up with the name Slinky because they're running around trying to come up with the name. Betty goes, "I think we should call it Slinky." Dave Young: Springy. No, it's stretchy. No. Stephen Semple: Right. Yeah. Dave Young: Slinky is great. Stephen Semple: Slinky is a great name. So they decide to borrow $500 and they make 400 of them. Look, it's like no other toy in the market, and no other toy has really come along like Slinky really, if you think about it. Dave Young: No. Stephen Semple: But now he has to convince... So he's got this thing that's completely diffe...
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    15 mins
  • #153: Dunkin Donuts – Giving People What They Want

    #153: Dunkin Donuts – Giving People What They Want
    May 15 2024
    Taking a true look at where your business is taking you and working hard to give customers what they want. Bill Rosenberg, way to go. 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. [Colair Cooling & Heating Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast. Dave Young here, along with Stephen Semple, talking empires. And what better way to get an empire started in the morning than to have a donut? Stephen Semple: There you go. Dave Young: And a cup of coffee. Stephen Semple: That's it. Dave Young: So today's topic is Dunkin Donuts. Stephen Semple: Dunkin Donuts. There we are. America runs on Dunkin, right? Dave Young: I don't know a lot of history about them. I have childhood memories of Dunkin Donuts and then no memories for a long time, and then sort of rediscovered them when my daughter was going to school in Boston. I think they're a Boston or Massachusetts origin story. Stephen Semple: They are. Very good. Dave Young: But I feel like they've had some ups and downs maybe. Stephen Semple: Oh, they've had a bunch of ups and downs. There's no question. But they are. They're from Quincy, Mass, just outside of Boston. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: Yeah. So they were started by Bill Rosenberg in 1950, and today they have close to 13,000 stores. They're the second-largest restaurant chain in the US, they're worth about $9 billion. And if you're in New York City, they have an unbelievable concentration in New York. There's one every five blocks. And I'll tell you, it was weird when I was in New York last summer, and you're walking around, it felt like there was one every two blocks. It's more how it felt. But there's literally one every five blocks in New York City. Dave Young: Including the airports, right? They're everywhere. Stephen Semple: They really are. So the origin of Dunkin really goes back to the late 1930s because the US economy at that point had been struggling for close to a decade. With the Great Depression, unemployment peaked at 20% in an era where there was little in the way of safety nets. And this actually had a big impact on the food business because at this time, snacks have started to be reinvented as lunch. So we're seeing this movement towards these smaller packaged foods. People wanted something small that was a fun to eat item, that was not expensive, that really started to dominate the food market. And we've seen that in other podcasts that we've done with other foods. So Bill Rosenberg is from Boston, and he has a successful food truck business. And by 1946, he's starting to make enough to start a brick-and-mortar location. So when he launches the business, here's something Bill notices, is that in his food truck business, 40% of the sales were coffee and donuts. Dave Young: Wow. Okay. Stephen Semple: That was 40% of the sales from the food truck. So when he launches the business, he realizes that he wants to create a new idea centered around coffee and donuts. And you know what, it's interesting. When we go back to companies like Toys R Us and things like that, or even a Dollar Store, it's this observation of, "Hey, here's this thing that's selling." Or in Toys R Us cases, they looked at it and said, boy, toys are a big part of a department store. Maybe we should just do something along that lines. So this is similar to what he saw. He saw, look, coffee and donuts is a big part of the sales. Why don't I create something around that?
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    20 mins
  • #152: Social Media & Recruitment – A Case Study with No Bull RV

    #152: Social Media & Recruitment – A Case Study with No Bull RV
    May 8 2024
    Building trust is not easy, but when you are consistent, unique and true to yourself people take notice. No Bull RV has done this very well. 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. [Tommy Cool Air Ad] Matthew Burns: This is not Stephen Semple or Dave Young. I've commandeered the entire podcast at the request of Stephen. So I am here for a reason. I've got with me a client of Stephen's, Rick Showers of No Bull RV in the Edmonton area of Alberta, and you guys have heard us talk about him before, he's been on the podcast before, but we've had a very specific topic that we want to talk about today, and we're talking about the amazing use of social media that him and his team, we have one of his team members here, her name is Natacha. Natacha, what's your role with No Bull? Natacha: Technically by title I'm HR. Matthew Burns: That'll be part of what we talk about. Great. And then what are some of the other things that you're doing there? Natacha: I'm doing anything I can to support Rick, I guess, and just build the business and making sure all our pieces are aligning together and that we're really approaching things from a whole business level, not just bits and pieces at a time. Matthew Burns: Okay, fantastic. And Rick, that's a very politically correct answer. What is Natacha to you? What does she do for you? Rick Showers: She does pretty much all the stuff I don't want to do. Matthew Burns: There we go. That's the answer. That's the answer we wanted. Rick Showers: She sees to it that it gets done. Let me put it that way. Matthew Burns: Exactly. Well, no, and her job is to support you and all the things that we're honestly, truly ... Business owners, especially entrepreneurs, we get caught up in doing everything at the beginning and then we realize I'm really not good at this list of 20 things, so I'm going to get somebody else who's much better at it than me. I'm going to concentrate on what I'm good at. And that's your Natacha. What we really want to talk about today is how you guys are using social media and its effect, the kind of the bonus effect it's had on your recruiting and the onboarding of new staff members. Rick, talk to me a little bit about your perception of this and how it's affected you guys there at No Bull. Rick Showers: The perception of the social component? Matthew Burns: You got it. Rick Showers: Well, as a user, I always thought it was a bit of a pain in the ass, frankly, because there's one more social channel coming after another. As a business owner, I was always skeptical and never really liked the fact that competitors, for example, or other business categories were actually using it to try and flog product, which to me always seemed a little bit counterintuitive because it's not really a social thing. They're looking at it as an advertising channel. So we approach it a little bit differently and wanted to stand out by just being different. Matthew Burns: You're highlighting your people on social media, you guys are spending time talking about the vulnerabilities of some of your units because you guys are in used RVs and you're pointing out the negatives and saying, "Hey guys, well, we take care of this for you." And you're very upfront. I remember one post where you were trying to do a video when a bird was squawking in the tree next to you and you're like, "Come on, man, we're doing a video." It was so funny. But yeah, I mean, social media really is meant to be social.
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    16 mins
Leadership Management Marketing Economics
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