Barry Moltz
The PTP Godfather
November 6, 2006 | by brett | Permalink
It all started in January 2006, when I picked up an issue of Young Money Magazine and read an article written by Barry Moltz, an inspiring entrepreneur based in Chicago. Looking for people to interview on our upcoming tour some five months away, I sent Barry an e-mail telling him our plans and objectives with our project. As someone who preaches passion, our idea struck a chord with Barry. He replied to my e-mail saying that he would be happy to be interviewed, but thought that he could do a little more for us. Through multiple exchanges of e-mails and phone calls, we collectively came up with the original Pursue the Passion website and sent out e-mails to people that might be interested in being interviewed. As promised, we met with Barry at his house in the suburbs of Chicago to conduct an interview with the author of “You Need To Be a Little Crazy” And the “PTP Godfather.”
Barry’s story starts while in college, where he had convinced himself that he was going to law school. Growing up Jewish, the common path was either to become a doctor or a lawyer. Since he didn’t want to go through the prerequisites to become a doctor, law school became his only option by default. But the aspirations to become a lawyer were put on hold once barry developed an interest in computers. One week before graduation Barry accepted a $18,000 a year offer from computer giant, IBM.
So Barry made the move from Boston to Chicago, a brand new city, with endless possibilities. He moved into a studio apartment whose closet contained his modest, two suit business wardrobe. At that point, Barry thought that he had all he would ever need and had the lofty goal of becoming the president of IBM one day. Barry thoroughly enjoyed his experience in his nine years at IBM. He found comfort in the structure of a corporation and it wasn’t until he met some business owners that Barry was exposed to the excitement of entrepreneurialism.
After much thought, Barry put his IBM presidential dreams on hold and began his transition from Corporate America to small business. He knew that it would not be easy and soon realized that working for a small business was drastically different from the comfort of a corporation. Phone calls placed to old clients and former employees went unanswered. The structure and rules of IBM were non-existent at this new company, where he was the head of the national sales force. Based on his performance (or lack thereof) after only a year the company let him go.
Despite his failures, Barry saw the advantages of small business as opposed to corporate life. So he started his own business.
His first business went out of business. His second business, a partnership between himself and two other partners, proved unsuccessful as well. Barry explained that his partners kicked him out two weeks before his first son was born. Now with a newborn to support, Barry had no choice but to start his third business. In 1999, he sold said business and was able to pay off his debts from it’s start-up costs. In his many years of experience, Barry gained endless insight into the how businesses, big and small, worked. Using the things he had learned from his many work environments, Barry became a jack-of-all-trades. He is now not only a motivational speaker, but a business consultant, and a successful author. He has not had a boss in over 15 years
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Here are a few excerpts from our interview with Barry:
PTP: What has been one of the biggest lessons learned along your path?
BM: “Business is about people. It’s the relationships that will make your business go round, and what will make it profitable. You need to ask yourself how are you going to raise awareness of your product or service, and how are you going to find the people that will pay for your product or service?”
PTP: What has been one thing that you’ve learned that was not taught to you in school?
BM: “They don’t really teach relationship building, networking, and trust in school, and you don’t realize how important the people you meet in school are to playing a role in building your future. It’s about the people. If you want to be successful in business, you have to identify the right people, build teams, and get work done through other people. Because if you are unable to leverage other people to do work, and you’re just one person, you can never build a company.”
PTP Thoughts: The reason this interview was so special, beside the fact that we finally got to meet one of our only “believers,” was that Barry practices what he preaches. He made a point in our interview to say that business is about the people involved and that building healthy relationships is what makes business work. In retrospect, Barry’s belief in our ability to make ”Pursue the Passion” materialize enabled us to show people that we could take a seemingly farfetched idea and make something out of it. Thanks Barry!
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