Levin's Most Insightful Interviews
Rob Levin typically profiles the businesspeople who are featured on NY Report's cover. "I get a lot out of interviews where what subjects say goes above and beyond conventional wisdom. Some of them can really articulate what has made them successful," he says. They include:
Marc Ecko: Here's someone whose company does over $1 billion a year in sales, he has a basketball court in his personal office, he's clearly successful and in his mid-30s. He didn't have a business background and started out making T-shirts in parents' garage. He just had a tremendous amount of wisdom. One of the things he spoke about is how mistakes are part of the game. He actually said you should have a line item in your budget called "screwing up." It's going to happen so you might as well acknowledge it. If you don't, it's either going to catch you buy surprise or you're not encouraging people to take risks, which you need to do to grow.
Norm Brodsky: He was our first interview. He has also spoken at some of our events, and millions read his column [he is also is on the magazine's board of advisers]. He has written about how I went to him with this idea for a magazine. I didn't know him -- I just called him up out of the blue. I was thinking about having a paid subscription model. He took out a magic marker and a flip chart and showed me the numbers and how it wouldn't work. I didn't want to hear that -- I didn't want to give the magazine away for free, but I slept on what he said and decided he was right. One of the things he always preaches is you have to really do the numbers, have to go through all the steps. Even with my background as a CFO, I probably skipped too many steps and made unrealistic assumptions.
Jim D'Addario: His company is one of the largest manufacturers of guitar strings in the world, and he manufactures in Long Island. That blew me away. Not only does he manufacture on LI because he wants to keep it here in the country but with a lean manufacturing process that he and his team studied and found a way to do it cheaper than shipping it over from China.
Liz Lange: Lange designs maternity wear. What was really interesting was how her research comprised speaking with a lot of women, her friends who were getting pregnant and couldn't find something that was fashionable to wear. Many of her friends told her she was out of her mind. Were women really going to spend a lot more money for clothing that was only going to last several months? She really defied conventional wisdom because she saw something that nobody else could see. Typically those are the entrepreneurs who become really successful.
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