Martha Stewart's Entrepreneurial Evolution
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A story about Martha Stewart's remarkable journey from model to stockbroker to media mogul, as told by Sam Parr.
"Martha Stewart was a total shark. She was way sharkier than her put-together image of a housewife who cooks. She was born on the east coast, went to Columbia University, and while in school became a model because she was a very pretty woman.
She got married young, around 19 or 20, graduated Columbia studying architectural history, and her father-in-law helped her get a job as a stockbroker. She built this massive media empire starting with a cookbook called 'Entertaining' that sold 650,000 copies. She was one of the early influencers in the 80s when mass media was becoming a thing.
She was a perfectionist and actually a pain to work for. Her personal life suffered - her husband cheated on her, she cheated on him, her daughter said she was a cold mom, and employees complained about her being an asshole. But she was unapologetic about it, saying 'I'm not sorry for that, I'm a perfectionist.'
She built the company to doing about $300 million in revenue, but when she got arrested, the stock plummeted. In the documentary, she said she thinks it could have been worth $10 billion, but they ended up selling for around $300 million. Even today, her businesses still do about a billion a year in sales.
She paid the price for her success though - her husband left her, she has a bad relationship with her children, and at 83 now, she hasn't had a relationship since her marriage ended. As she puts it, there's a cost to being the boss."
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.