Interviews/Magazines » bizSanDiego features Tom and Jen
By: Jon Hindman of bizSanDiego ♣ Jan 7, 2008
Gen X and Y Entrepreneurial DNA
One’s a rock star, one’s the rock star’s wife, one’s a technologist and an aviator, one’s a social marketer and one’s got an environmental conscience. They have different makeups, but these twentysomethings and thirtysomethings have all chosen entrepreneurial paths.
Not every entrepreneur had a lemonade stand as a kid. Not every entrepreneur was the top candy salesperson in school fundraisers. Not every entrepreneur is willing to bootstrap their company to the point of near destitution to reach their dreams. In fact, entrepreneurs have such a wide range of appearances, personalities, special skills, educational backgrounds and management styles that it’s often next to impossible to recognize who’s an entrepreneur and who isn’t.
Read on to get a snapshot into the lives of five entrepreneurs pursuing their dreams, doing what they love and posting a profit at the same time.
Open Airwaves
San Diego isn’t Seattle. The local music scene can’t boast Hendrix, Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana and a slew of other famous bands and musicians that were thrust out of Seattle’s music incubator. But a few bands have made an indelible mark—namely Unwritten Law and Blink-182.
The latter was formed in part by Tom DeLonge—born and raised in Poway—who has one of those inspirational stories you can’t ignore.
When DeLonge was 13, one of his friends gave him a guitar for his birthday. It was nothing quite like the Fenders and Gibsons he wails on today.
“It was a really old beaten guitar worth about 20 bucks,” he says.
And even though he picked up the instrument quick, and had the singing voice to match his newfound talent, being in a band wasn’t his first calling.
“I was originally going to be a firefighter. I was in the San Diego Cadet Program,” says DeLonge.
Not that it would have been a bad career choice, but it was a far cry from what he ended up doing. And the reason he decided to pursue rock stardom over firefighting: “They yelled at me to do pushups. Well, then rock and roll seemed better,” he jokes.
So while still in high school, DeLonge and Scott Raynor formed Blink-182, which had a successful run from 1992 to 2005, enjoying the bulk of its commercialism after the release of Enema of the State in 1999. Raynor, as many die-hard fans of the band know, was kicked out of the band for a drinking problem that pretty much severed the tie between him and DeLonge.
That’s probably one of the biggest controversies surrounding the 32-year old punk rock icon, who seems to have set himself up well, not only in the realm of music, but in the business world, as well.
About 10 years ago, when Blink-182 was still dreaming of gold records, DeLonge had his sights set on the long term.
“I was sure we wouldn’t continue to sell records,” he says. So [going into business] was an insurance policy of sorts.”
With a $20,000 investment, the budding entrepreneur started a holding group called Really Likable People (RLP), which now encompasses a few different companies. The mini empire that he’s built started with Loserkids.com, a website specializing in youth-branded apparel. Despite the Loserkids.com moniker, DeLonge has proved to be anything but, even though he does admit being a little lazy in his early rock and roll days, stating that he and his fellow band members never practiced and didn’t pay any attention to the business side of the music industry.
That hasn’t been the case with RLP, which also encompasses Macbeth Footwear, a rock and roll–inspired shoe company. And at one time, before it was sold, Atticus Clothing, a T-shirt brand, was also under the auspices of RLP.
He juggles his business seamlessly with his newest music pursuit, Angels & Air¬waves, which was started in 2005 and recently launched its second album, I-Empire.
Yet DeLonge never seems satisfied and is already in the midst of his newest venture, Modlife.com, a Web-based operating system designed to help usher in a revolution of media, starting with music. The launch will be this spring, and there’s already a large buzz surrounding it. The preview of what’s to come for Modlife.com can be found on the Angels & Airwaves website, www.modlife.com/angelsandairwaves.
DeLonge opts not to share revenue numbers for his private company, but does disclose that in hopes of possibly taking RLP public, it was recently valued at $12 million. And that’s not including the Modlife.com component, which, if it’s anything on the scale of MySpace (it was designed to rival the popular social media site) could potentially increase that value tenfold. Right now, DeLonge has about 20 U.S. employees who work out of his San Diego office, and he also has offices in London and Australia.
“Tom is such a leader in his entrepreneurial drive and spirit,” says his wife, Jennifer, an entrepreneur in her own right. “He is constantly thinking and innovating and pushing the limit. Whether it’s in music or business, he doesn’t believe anything cannot be done, and he is infectious with his pursuits.”
Jennifer, a self-described “Navy brat” who was raised in Coronado, Maryland and Texas, met DeLonge in high school through a mutual friend. She, like DeLonge, wasn’t very wishy-washy on her career path. She wanted to be a designer, and she wanted to be in business for herself.
Her road to being an entrepreneur started long before she graduated from San Diego State University with a bachelor’s in fine art.
“I was actually a designer from a very young age without even realizing it,” says Jennifer, 33. “I was always designing art projects. I love art and design and definitely had an entrepreneurial spirit at a young age.”
A year before marrying DeLonge in 2001, Jennifer started her first business, Jennifer Jay Design Firm. Just like DeLonge’s first venture, it was self-funded, squashing any thoughts that she was only able to work for herself because her husband is a rock star. And, she admits, the business had its early struggles.
“Like your first time doing many things in life, [the startup] had many obstacles in the beginning,” she says. “I had no problem with the client base, but as a creative type, it was difficult to understand the business side initially.”
Not one to give up, though, she trudged through and has gained notoriety with her second design company, Jennifer DeLonge Children’s Furniture, which she had inspiration for starting up when her daughter (the oldest of two children the couple has) was about a year and a half old.
While she also chooses not to disclose revenue numbers, her company’s success can be shown in other ways. Her children’s furniture is now in retail giant Barney’s New York, Giggle and Modern Tots, in addition to dozens of upscale boutiques across the country. Additionally, she’s built a strong base of celebrity clientele, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Courteney Cox Arquette and Debra Messing and Mira Sorvino.
Next up for Jennifer was MommaMust Haves.com, a fashion and interior design website specifically geared toward mothers. As Jennifer maintains, “Just because you’re a mom doesn’t mean you have to check your style at the door.”
Somehow she manages to run her companies with only six employees, a few of whom are freelancers, and shares office space with her hubbie. And she can afford to work only a few days a week, because she’s also dedicated to her child¬¬ren and, of course, her husband (“I’m his biggest supporter,” she says).
When it doesn’t disrupt their lives too much, the entire family goes on tour with Angels & Air-waves. They have their own tour bus to emulate “normal” home life as best they can.
The DeLonges may have more tricks up their entrepreneurial sleeves, though they are pretty tight-lipped about what’s on the horizon. Optimistic for his wife’s future success, however, DeLonge says, “Her company will far surpass mine someday.”
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