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The Empire Builders Podcast

The Empire Builders Podcast

Auteur(s): Stephen Semple and David Young
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 Reverse engineering the success of established business empires.The Empire Builders Podcast Développement commercial et entrepreneuriat Entrepreneurship Gestion et leadership Marketing Marketing et ventes Réussite personnelle Économie
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  • #249: Drunk Elephant – Yep, A Skincare Company

    #249: Drunk Elephant – Yep, A Skincare Company
    Mar 25 2026
    Tiffany Masterson was a stay at home mom who wanted to help out the family. With grit and a willingness to be different she built an empire. 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. [AirVantage Heating & Cooling Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. I’m Dave Young. Stephen Semple is here with another just enticing story of someone who’s built an empire, mostly sold it. Sometimes they’re still running it. And today he told me we’re sticking our toe back in the cosmetics industry. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: And then he named a company that I’ve never heard of. If you told me the name of it, I wouldn’t have guessed it was cosmetics. Stephen Semple: Right. Dave Young: Elephant what? Elephant. Drunk Elephant. Stephen Semple: Drunk Elephant. Dave Young: Drunk Elephant. Stephen Semple: And you think of it. It’s a crazy name for anything in cosmetics because it’s not like- Dave Young: I mean, it’s a crazy name for anything. Stephen Semple: It’s not like you aspire to have skin like an elephant. Dave Young: Especially a drunk one. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Drunk Elephant. It was started by Tiffany Masterson in 2013. And six years later, it sold for $845 million to the Japanese company, Shiseido. Dave Young: Dang, Tiffany. Way to go. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Right? Crazy, right? And so she’s a 40-year-old stay-at-home mom of four and her brother-in-law got involved in the business and she had no background in skincare business, didn’t have anybody around her in the skincare business. And it was like really her brother-in-law who gave her the seed money. And again, when I came across this and was like, “What the heck does elephants or drunk have anything to do with skincare?” Because elephants are wrinkly. Dave Young: Well, and so may I take a detour? Stephen Semple: Absolutely. Dave Young: I love that kind of a name. The worst, in my opinion, which is correct. Stephen Semple: If you do say so yourself. Dave Young: If I do say so myself, in my humbly correct opinion, the most intriguing business names are not descriptive names. Stephen Semple: Correct. Dave Young: They’re names that make you stop and snap your head around and go, “Wait, what?” And descriptive names are okay if you’re just counting on people searching in Google for whatever it is your business describes. Stephen Semple: Yeah, but I’d even argue- Dave Young: But even then- Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Yeah. We could go on this one for a long time, but I love the name and I love that it’s not Drunk Elephant lipstick. I mean, maybe it is. I don’t even know. It’s skincare. Stephen Semple: Everybody around her tried to talk her out of the name and she was like, “No, I’m sticking with this name.” And there’s a little bit of a reason for the name. But coming back to your point, when we go out and take a look at successful businesses. Your very, very, very hard press to find successful businesses where the name is descriptive. And even the ones that are descriptive, we do not even refer to them that way. Case in point, we do not call General Motors General Motors, we call them GM. We do not call General Electric General Electric, we call it GE. There’s Ford. There’s Chrysler, there’s Tesla. Dave Young: There’s International Business Machines. Stephen Semple: Yeah, which we do not refer to them as I refer to them as IBM. Apple. Microsoft. Now, Microsoft is slightly descriptive, but not at the same time. Dave Young: But I love names like Drunk Elephant, Caterpillar. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Yeah. I love it. Stephen Semple: Absolutely. So back to Tiffany. So back to Tiffany. So Tiffany grew up in Houston. Her dad was actually a quarterback. She was not a good student, couldn’t focus in school. She did okay in college. What she really wanted to be, she wanted to be a mom. She wanted to be a mom. She wanted to...
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    19 min
  • #248: P.T. Barnum – You Must Capture Attention

    #248: P.T. Barnum – You Must Capture Attention
    Mar 18 2026
    P.T. Barnum realized very quickly that entertainment is currency and was one of the first to use outdoor mass media. 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. Steven Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I’m Steven’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 A/C & Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here and alongside Steven Semple. And if you were going to tell what Steven’s role is in this and what my role is in this, if we were going to use a theme that revolved around today’s topic, it would be Steven is the ringmaster in center ring. Stephen Semple: That’s where you’re going? Okay. Dave Young: And I’m like the chief clown driving the clown car because that’s where I’d rather be. We’re going to talk about Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey. Are we just talking about P.T. Barnum? Stephen Semple: We’re going to talk about P.T. Barnum because that’s really the origin of all of this is. Dave Young: P.T. Barnum. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: I mean, what a guy. And I’ve never read a biography or anything, but what I know is, I’m guessing that he maybe invented the three-ring circus, but it’s the kind of thing where, man, to me, what he invented was just constant distraction. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Right? Like you go to a three-ring circus, it’s just going to be you’re going to be constantly distracted because you can’t see everything that happens in a three-ring circus. Stephen Semple: It’s true. Dave Young: And so there’s so many examples. We can talk about those. I’ll let you get going because I would just talk about all this stuff. Stephen Semple: Well, here’s the interesting thing. There’s a lot of historians who believe that his was the first use of mass outdoor advertising in America. Dave Young: Okay. That, I believe. Stephen Semple: Right? Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: That he really invented the use of that as a medium. Couple of interesting things he went through. So his full name is Phineas Taylor Barnum, and he was born in Bethel, Connecticut in 1810. And he wasn’t born wealthy or talented or connected, but he kind of knew that attention was a form of currency. And it’s kind of interesting when we think about the world today with social media and things along that lines, attention is a form of currency. Dave Young: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Stephen Semple: And by the age of 12, he was selling snacks, lottery tickets, anything he could do to make a buck. And he was quoted as saying, “I’m a showman by profession and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me,” right? Like he just basically saw those things. So his first commercial breakthrough, and it was also pretty controversial, was promoting Joice Heth, a Black woman, that he marketed as George Washington’s 161-year-old nurse. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: Guess what? It was not true. Dave Young: Well, so what year was this? When was this? Stephen Semple: 1835. Dave Young: Good grief. 1835. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: Yeah. But, but he was this relentless promoter who believed if there’s no story, there’s no audience. So the next thing he did was what he called the American Museum, and this started in 1841, ran from 1841 to 1865. And basically in 1841, he bought Scudder’s American Museum, and he renamed it Barnum’s American Museum in New York. And basically, again, this is considered one of the very first modern mass entertainment facilities, and here’s what he did. He exhibited things of science, oddity, theater, stunts. There was new attractions weekly, so people had to come back. And there was live performances like the General Tom Thumb, magicians, and the first use of mass outdoor advertising, went all around New York City putting up billboards, pasting billboards up all over the city. And on peak days, it’s reported that on peak days, he drew 15,000 people into a single building without electricity, AC, or ...
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    17 min
  • #247: He-Man – I Have The Power

    #247: He-Man – I Have The Power
    Mar 11 2026
    After Mattel took a loss on the Clash of the Titans toys the almost did it again with Conan the Barbarian. 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. [Handyside Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here alongside Steven Semple, and we’re talking about empires, empires. And Steven whispered the subject of today’s empire in my ear, and I would’ve been hard-pressed to call it an empire because I don’t know all that much about it. But I think again, it’s cartoon property that happened after I was pretty much done watching cartoons. He-Man, right? As in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, that He-Man? Stephen Semple: That He-Man. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: That He-Man. When you think about it, it’s toys. There’s been movies. There’s the cartoon. It’s pretty huge. Dave Young: Yeah. Okay. I’m anxious to hear about it. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: And is he the one that’s become kind of a meme, too? Like, there’s He-Man meme? Stephen Semple: Oh, sure. Oh, look, there’s a meme for everything today. So it’s really a story of lost opportunities, but at the same time, sort of seeing changes in the marketplace and doing some really interesting things because in 1975, The Six Million Dollar Man really changes action figures. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: Because to make an action figure, you’re only licensing from others, and it was product-orientated rather than brand-driven, and along came The Six Million Dollar Man, and it was a guy. Right? Dave Young: I mean, we were all running around going… Stephen Semple: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dave Young: Pretend we could see, and hear, and lift things. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And along that time, out was coming the movie, The Clash of the Titans. And so there was this whole thing of, okay, let’s create action figures around Clash of the Titans. And the movie did poorly. And so the toys did poorly. And Mattel had been involved in that. And this shaped Mattel’s thinking because when Star Wars came along, Ray Wagner at Mattel passed on it because of his experience with Clash of the Titans. It’s like, “Well, we’re not doing this.” Dave Young: Wow, okay. Stephen Semple: Because again, they wanted to create the toy, right? The Star Wars they wanted to create the toys before the movie came out. So another movie comes along, Conan the Barbarian. Dave Young: Sure. Yeah. Stephen Semple: Right? And Mattel is like, “All right, we’re going to get all over this.” And they end up buying the license for Conan. They made samples, and they had all these expenses, and then Mattel discovers Conan the Barbarian is an R-rated movie. Dave Young: Yeah. No kids are going to see it. Stephen Semple: Can’t do it as a toy. Dave Young: Oh, no. Stephen Semple: But at the same time, they sort of started looking at all of these action figures that are out there, and all of the male figures are kind of wimpy. And they had started down this exploration of making a Conan the Barbarian style action figure. So they thought, why don’t we do this massive figure? And they first did these ones called Tankhead, and Bullet Head, and H-Man. And they wanted them to be comic book-like and bring action to the figure and how they stand. And they were making them bulkier and create this visual shelf presence and over-the-top muscles, all these ideas that they had drawn from Conan the Barbarian. Dave Young: All right. Stephen Semple: And what they also noticed is that when kids play with things, they want to have the power to do what they want to do. Dave Young: Absolutely. Stephen Semple: Which is where the line, “I have the power,” came from. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: Where Conan holds up the sword, and he says, “Oh, I have the power.” Right? That whole idea came from watching kids play with toys. And in fact, a lot of the ideas that ...
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    13 min
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