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The Empire Builders Podcast

The Empire Builders Podcast

Von: Stephen Semple and David Young
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 Reverse engineering the success of established business empires.The Empire Builders Podcast Management & Leadership Marketing & Vertrieb Ökonomie
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  • #226: 7-Eleven – The World’s Biggest

    #226: 7-Eleven – The World’s Biggest
    Oct 8 2025
    Joe Thompson saw the future shifting with the invention of the refrigerator. So with innovation after innovation we now have convenience stores. 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. [OG Law Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple, and Stephen just whispered into my ear the name of the empire that we're going to discuss today, and oh, thank heaven. I've been waiting for this one to come along, 7-Eleven. Stephen Semple: 7-Eleven. Yeah. Dave Young: 7-Eleven. Stephen Semple: It's the largest retail chain in the world. Dave Young: Is it really? Stephen Semple: Yes. Yes. Dave Young: Is it franchises, or is it a combination of something? Stephen Semple: Oh, it's franchises. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: Yes, it's franchises. But 85,000 stores in 20 countries. Dave Young: That's amazing. Yeah, they're everywhere. Stephen Semple: There's 13,000 in Canada and the U.S. alone. Dave Young: You know what I love about their name? It's spelled the same no matter what language you speak. Stephen Semple: Well, that's a good point. I never thought about that. Dave Young: Right. You look at a 7-Eleven sign, and it doesn't matter what the native language is, it's two numerals, and you recognize that brand by the color and the numerals, and you know exactly what to expect. Stephen Semple: Yeah. They're the largest in the world. They're also now owned by a Japanese company. It was bought out after a disastrous leverage buyout that was done by the Thompson family, but a story as old as life itself. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: But back to 7-Eleven, and it's a story that starts back in 1927 in Dallas, Texas as the Southland Ice Company. Now, I wasn't actually able to find the founding date for the Southland Ice Company, everything, I found said it was 1927, but I really believe it happened before that. But that said, that's when our story starts, is in 1927, with the selling of blocks of ice. So we think about- Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: ... in those days, ice houses were really important. People would go and buy big blocks of ice and take them home, and that was basically your ice box. Dave Young: Yeah, or there would be delivery trucks going around with big blocks of ice. Yeah, either way. Stephen Semple: Yeah. But it was an important part of life. We forget that how you kept things cool was, you basically had... Let's face it, what you basically had was a cooler in your house. You threw ice in the ice box, and that's what kept things cool. And look, every town had one, or if it was a bigger town, more than one. So Joe Thompson is the owner of the Southland Ice Company, but he sees this new trend coming, and he's a little bit worried. He's worried that refrigerators are going to start to steal his business. Now, the early refrigerators are actually quite dangerous. They would break down, and they would release these dangerous fumes. But in 1927, GE releases a new refrigerator that runs on Freon, and it could also get below freezing. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: And look, electricity was starting to be in most homes. And shortly after GE's launch, 56 other companies started to also develop refrigerators. Dave Young: So you could make your own ice. Stick it to the man. Stephen Semple: Yeah, there you go. Dave Young: Yes. Stephen Semple:
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    25 Min.
  • #225: Movie Concessions – Let’s All Go To The Lobby

    #225: Movie Concessions – Let’s All Go To The Lobby
    Oct 1 2025
    Joseph Blumenthal, Jack Beresin and Milton Holloway, all kind of came together to make movie concessions happen. 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. [Maven Roofing Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here alongside Stephen Semple. And Stephen just told me what we're going to talk about today, and it's not really, I mean, it's an empire sort of. It's an empire in terms of its category, right? Stephen Semple: Yes, yes. Dave Young: But it's not so much like you can't put your finger on a brand name for it. So we're talking about movie concessions and how things got started. So I'm guessing in the early days, you didn't buy a big old thing of popcorn. You just sat down and watched a movie. Stephen Semple: No, that was what I found, so I found interesting about this, and I thought, and when I went down it, I was actually researching one particular business. And then what I suddenly realized is that, no, there's a couple of things that converge together that really made the modern movie concession. And there's three players that went into this, and all three of them ended up building fortunes in the process. That's Joseph Blumenthal, Jack Beresin and Milton Holloway, all kind of came together to make movie concessions happen. As we know today, movie concessions are like a multi-billion dollar business, and concession sales are like close to half of movie theater profits so they're a big deal. Dave Young: Where I am in Austin, we're, I don't know, half a mile from an Alamo Drafthouse, and I don't go to the theater as often as I did before all the things. But Alamo Drafthouse is known for pioneering like you have a menu and you sit down, you order a meal while you're, and they'll bring it to you in the theater. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: We've always known that you're going to spend more on popcorn and drinks, than you did it on the movie ticket. Stephen Semple: And they've taken it to a whole other level, but wasn't always that way, Dave. In June 19th, 1905- Dave Young: 1905? Stephen Semple: ... was the first movie, like the first movie showing kind of in a theater sort of setup, and they were called nickelodeons. That's what they called the early movie houses because it was nickel and all that other stuff. And it was super successful, and pop-ups started happening all over the place. And as we know, the early movies were silent. So what would happen is people would buy a ticket to go to the movie, like vendors would buy a ticket to go to the movie, and they would walk up and down the aisle going, "Popcorn, popcorn. Who wants..." and selling stuff just like they did at the ballgames and there was- Dave Young: Or the circus, yeah. Stephen Semple: But there was no connection to the theater. These were like, literally, Dave Young would buy a ticket, show up, and then basically walk up and down the aisle selling whatever food he had to sell. Dave Young: And they just let him. Stephen Semple: So concessions were not a thing at all. At all. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: So Jack Beresin is working at an opera house, and he's looking at a way to make some extra money, and he saw people buying and eating food at a nickelodeon. So he approaches his manager with the idea of, at this opera house now, you can't go up and down the aisles in the opera house. The whole idea, let's set up a table and do concessions during the intermission....
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    20 Min.
  • #224: Power Rangers – Japan Meets America

    #224: Power Rangers – Japan Meets America
    Sep 24 2025
    Haim Saban is a Billionaire and it all started with a trip to Japan and only one thing on TV. Way to Go Go Power Rangers. 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. [OG Law Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast, and we're talking empires today. Stephen Semple's there. I'm here. I'm Dave. Gosh, if anybody that ever thought I was reading the intros like that, it's not okay. Stephen Semple: Mystery solved. Dave Young: Mystery solved. Never the same twice. So Stephen, you told me that we're going to talk about Power Rangers today, and I think of that like an entertainment franchise sort of thing, but also what also toys. Stephen Semple: They are also toys, yes. Dave Young: Was it one of those things where it's like, oh, we're going to invent this toy and then we're going to have an entertainment program to go along with it? Because these things seem to go hand in hand these days. Stephen Semple: Yeah, and they very much was hand in hand. The two came about very much together. And it's got an interesting history to it because it was launched in 1993 and it was created by Haim Saban, who is now a billionaire. He's gone on to do a bunch of things. Not just making a ton of money from this, but if you look him up on Wikipedia, it's estimated he's worth a couple of billion dollars. So he's done well in the entertainment industry. And Hasbro acquired the company back in 2019 for $522 million. So it certainly has contributed to his wealth. And he was a cartoon theme songwriter is where he got his start. Dave Young: Really? Okay. Stephen Semple: He worked on things like Professor Gadget and Masters of the Universe. Those were the things that he was writing theme songs for. Dave Young: Oh, cool. Stephen Semple: But he wanted to create his own property. He always wanted to have his own thing. And at the time, he's on a business trip in Japan, and the only thing you can get on the TV is this Japanese animated series called Choudenshi Bioman, which is part of what they call a Super Sentai series. And Saban was fascinated by this concept of five masked people in spandex fighting monsters. So it's in 1985, and he produces a pilot of Bioman. And the idea of adapting Japanese productions to the US market started basically in 1970 with Marvel. Marvel did a deal with Toei Company to exchange ideas, and Toei created a Japanese version of Spider-Man that did actually really well. And what Marvel tried to bring to the US, not so much. So it sort of worked. Initially, America to Japan was working, but Japan back to America was not working as well. But that didn't stop Saban. So what he decided to do was create a show where they could keep the original action scenes, because the action scenes are complex and hard to film, and then just replace the other scenes with good-looking American actors. So basically when there was the action scenes, it was actually the original Japanese content. And then they would put in... Dave Young: Oh, wow. Stephen Semple: Yeah, he just basically said, okay, here's this Japanese thing. I'll keep the original story. I'll keep the Japanese content. And then where any of the acting is, I'll put in good-looking American actors. Basically that footage is already shot and the toys already existed. So it was also economical to import it to the United States. This was his idea. So he gets a meeting with Toei and Bandai, and they agree. What the heck? Sure. Take our content.
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    18 Min.
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