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The Empire Builders Podcast

The Empire Builders Podcast

By: Stephen Semple and David Young
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 Reverse engineering the success of established business empires.The Empire Builders Podcast Economics Leadership Management Management & Leadership Marketing Marketing & Sales
Episodes
  • #211: Alienware – Computing Power Empire

    #211: Alienware – Computing Power Empire
    Jun 25 2025
    Synonymous with gaming Alienware rode the wave of easy to use and beautiful gaming computers. Now they are the G.O.A.T. 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. [Pinpoint Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here with Stephen Semple, and we're talking about empires. This is The Empire Builders Podcast. You tuned in because you wanted to hear us talk about empires, right? Stephen Semple: I hope that's why they tuned in. Dave Young: I mean, I'm assuming that's why you... Stephen Semple: Either that, or you're in the wrong place. But still, stay with us, you might like it. Dave Young: If you're expecting steamy ghost stories, this is not your podcast. Stephen Semple: Oh, there goes half our audience. Dave Young: That's all right. "Choose who to lose," that's what we always say. People that are interested in steamy, ghost stories, this is not it. Stephen Semple: But. Dave Young: Aliens. Stephen Semple: Aliens? Dave Young: Maybe. Maybe- Stephen Semple: Maybe. Dave Young: ... I'm saying. Maybe. Stephen Semple: Yeah, maybe. Dave Young: Because today's topic, Stephen told me we're going to talk about Alienware, as an empire. And I know them because I remember, back in the day, one of my kids insisting that that was the only computer that would allow them to play World of Warcraft in any kind of successful fashion. Does that sound right? Stephen Semple: Yep. That would be pretty accurate. Did you end up buying an Alienware computer? Dave Young: Probably. I don't know. Dad was just the checkbook. Stephen Semple: Well, we're going to talk about Alienware, but even before we go into Alienware, I want to take a little bit of a detour, because it actually speaks to Alienware. Is, one of the things that Alienware was really good at recognizing, was things going on in the world. And you know how we often talk about tapping into what's happening out there, and the emotions that's happening out there, and looking outside of your world. I had a really interesting conversation this weekend with Bob Camp. Now, Bob Camp is the co-creator of Ren and Stimpy. Dave Young: Okay, yeah, yeah. Stephen Semple: Now, if you remember, remember back at the Slinky episode? Remember when we covered Slinky? Dave Young: We talked about Log. Stephen Semple: And we talked about Log. Well, as it turns out, Dave, you are completely right. Bob Camp told me that the whole thing Log, was actually completely inspired by Slinky. Dave Young: Oh, yeah, I was just, yeah. Stephen Semple: And here's what happened. It was in the very first episode of Ren and Stimpy, and they had produced it, and they suddenly realized just before it was about to go on air, they were a minute short. And he was like, "How do we come up a minute fricking short?" So that night he decided, "I got to come up with a minute of content." And what he decide to do is create a commercial. He thought. "Let's start the commercial." So the very first Ren and Stimpy episode started with that commercial Log, and he very specifically wanted to tie into something that was a shared experience, that had a positive emotional context, and that he could kind of have some fun with. But it was that whole looking outside the world, and that's how he came up with Log. Yeah. Dave Young: Nice. Stephen Semple: When I come see you in Austin, people can't see this podcast,
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    22 mins
  • #210: Tesla – Changing the Auto Industry

    #210: Tesla – Changing the Auto Industry
    Jun 18 2025
    Instead of talking like all the others about EVs being environmentally friendly, Tesla made a sure everyone knew just how exciting driving one was. 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. [Travis Crawford HVAC Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. I'm Dave Young, and Stephen Semple is here. We're going to talk about an empire that's boy, it's been in the news a lot lately, but we're going back to the early days of Tesla. We're going to ignore the whole Cybertruck knock down. Stephen Semple: Right, but we're going to talk about the electric car. We are going to talk about that. And if people are interested in terms of some of my views in terms of what's going on today, Matthew Burns and I did a Sticky Sales Story over on YouTube about what's going on with Tesla today and the challenges that they're facing and what has created all of that, especially around brand promise and things along that lines. But for a long time I've been wanting to talk about Tesla for a simple reason. So you know how you and I talk about one of the very first things that we will always want to do before we take on company, before you make up the messaging, before you do anything, you got to get really clear on the strategy and you want to always try to find unleveraged assets. I think I feel like the success of Tesla and how they've changed the world and really brought the electric car to the forefront is a great example of that, especially the unleveraged assets. So if we go back to the early days of Tesla and we take a look, or even early days of the electric car, the electric cars were basically being marketed as green. And they were ugly, and they were poor performing and they were dull, and they were uninteresting and uninspiring, and they were basically a golf cart. Dave Young: Basically a golf cart. Stephen Semple: Yeah, yeah they really were. And didn't get traction going, didn't capture the imagination, and really was sort of only this small segment of the population was where the market was, and it wasn't growing beyond that. And so that's kind of where the market was. Now, here's what Tesla did. Tesla changed the whole conversation through an unleveraged asset. And the unleveraged asset was this. When you took a look at an electric motor, if you put a high-powered electric motor in there, you could make that thing accelerate like it's nobody's business. So what they did, so while everybody else was going the whole environmental tree hugger conversation, they went, we're going to make a car that accelerates so fast that you can set your iPhone on the passenger seat halfway up, hit the accelerator and the phone will stay hung there on the car. Dave Young: Just from the acceleration. Stephen Semple: Just on the acceleration. And will beat most supercars, gas-powered supercars. We could just take this car right off the production line, it could go out and drag race and blow the doors off of pretty much every gas car on the market other than the multi-million dollar supercars. And even a few of those, it was able to beat. Dave Young: So up until this point, electric cars and hybrids in particular were, you think about Toyota Prius, right? Or something like that. And you don't think super performance, you don't think zippy fast, but you think, oh, I'm just putting along, I'm going to get from here to there, and we're not going to pollute very much. Stephen Semple: And it's economical and all this other stuff.
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    14 mins
  • #209: Hexclad – From Auditions to Non-Stick

    #209: Hexclad – From Auditions to Non-Stick
    Jun 11 2025
    What would you do if you were a starving actor that just lost his last orange? Start a cookware Company of course. 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 in 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. [Eco Office Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple and we're talking empires. Empires, businesses that started from scratch and are now, well, as the title suggests, empires, kind of the whole idea. I saw that we were listed in some top lists in Canada as well, like top business podcasts and top reverse engineering podcasts. I thought that was a cool, that's the list that I'd rather be on anyway. Stephen Semple: Well, we were higher ranked on that one, so there you go. I think it was number two or three on that, wasn't it? Dave Young: It didn't even know it was a thing. Stephen Semple: Yeah, pretty exciting. Dave Young: So today, you whispered in my ear that we're talking about the HexClad Corporation. Stephen Semple: HexClad. Dave Young: These are the pots and pans. People with the, apparently according to ads that I've caught glimpses of are now the perfect pans. They think they've built a better mousetrap. Stephen Semple: Yeah, and it is interesting. If you take a look at them, if you've ever seen them, they actually have this pattern in them, and there's now a bunch of knockoffs, of course. But the whole idea is with the raised surface of stainless steel, you can actually, the pan will brown, because a lot of nonstick pans don't brown very well. So the whole idea is you can get a nice searing with them. And also the way it's constructed, the nonstick surface is better protected. Dave Young: So you're not going to scrape the Teflon right off the bottom of your pan with your eggs. Stephen Semple: It'll withstand higher heat. You can put it in a 500-degree oven. So in many ways, one could argue with those things that that is a better nonstick pan. Dave Young: Sure. So who, what, when did this happen? Stephen Semple: So they were founded in December of 2016 by Danny Winer and Cole McCray. And boy, I'll tell you very much a bootstrapped backyard business when they started. And in 2024, it's estimated the business did 500 million in sales, have become $1 billion brand. Dave Young: How do you build Teflon pans, nonstick pans as a backyard kind of thing? Stephen Semple: Well, that's what we're going to learn here. Now, here's the other interesting thing. They now do cookware and knives and accessories and all that other stuff, but they started basically with pots and pans and Danny's first business was, he was an actor. Dave Young: Oh, okay. Well, that makes perfect sense. Stephen Semple: Doesn't it? Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: So Danny started off as an actor. That was his goal, and he moved to LA, of course, lots of auditions. And there's a certain point when you're doing that, one of the things that starts to creep in is that sense of that feeling of failure. So he's struggling a little bit with that. And then in 1994, he's in a really bad car accident, literally shatters his leg and does some damages to the vertebrae. He's doing lots of rehab, many months with a cane, and there's no way to act and he has to figure out how to recover and make money, and he's never felt so poor. One day he's coming home, and this is literally his worst moment. He's coming home. He has this home that's on the side of a hill and he has no money and he couldn't work yet.
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    26 mins
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