The Barbara Corcoran Interview, Part 1

By: Ashkan Karbasfrooshan

SOURCE: WatchMOJO Business Blog

I had a chance to speak with Barbara Corcoran. If you’re a New Yorker – or even been to NYC – she needs to introduction. Corcoran flipped a $1,000 loan from her boyfriend to create an eponymous $5B organization that became one of the most successful NY real estate brands. She sold her company and now can be seen on ABC’s Shark Tank, helping folks all over the country become familiar with her.

Here is Part 1:

WatchMojo: Why did you decide to sell Corcoran and what have you been doing since the sale?

Barbara Corcoran: I decided to sell it, because I accomplished what I said I have to be. I wanted to be the largest broker in the New York City area, and we accomplished it; that coupled with the fact that I was a very late in life mother having my first child at forty-five. And, my child at that point was probably, my son was probably seven years old, and I felt that between being a mother and being very occupied with running a big business. So, those two combined made the decision an easy one.

WatchMojo: Congrats, I can imagine how that changes everything and…

Barbara Corcoran: Oh my God, without a doubt. And, I have a three-year-old, and believe me I am panting through most of the evenings.

WatchMojo: Since you left the world of real estate directly, have you been first and foremost a mother or have you kept up your entrepreneurial ways and done other?

Barbara Corcoran: No, I went nuts as a mother within a month, as a fulltime mom and I started thinking about what I wanted to do now. And, the thing I came up with is what I liked most about the real estate business building it, which was the media side of the equation.

So, I decided to go into the media business; I didn’t know what form that would take, but I thought I am going to go into the media business. So, the first thing I did was write a book the first year, took me almost a year to write it, which made me realize I am not the best writer.

It’s a great book, good seller, but I realized it’s a lonely business and not up my alley, writing. And then, I went into the TV arena which is much more to my liking.

WatchMojo: You’ve actually done a lot of TV appearances, and obviously the show now. On the researching your background you started a Production Company. Is Shark Tank actually related or is that sort of…?

Barbara Corcoran: Well it’s, no, not at all. I started a Production Company producing real estate for different TV shows, real estate pieces. But, the truth of the matter is that it quickly turned into just being a real estate talent and addressing the marketplace. So, my first job was at Fox News as a political commentator, which was certainly a suit that didn’t fit me. It was the first time in my life I had ever read to New York Times.

I didn’t know, I would like to say, you know that was really on top of politics by any means. But, I learned it on the job, and then I went from there to Good Morning America, then I left Good Morning America went to Today Show, and now of course I’ve added the Shark Tank to it.

WatchMojo: How did Shark Tank come to be, because it’s a fascinating show and I think you add a lot to the show?

Barbara Corcoran: You know it’s a very, very successful show in many places around the world. I think it started in Tokyo, it’s in Taiwan, it’s in Canada; it’s in London and it’s been running for many years. But, I don’t know what the technicality problem was, but they were not able to bring it to the United States.

I don’t know if they couldn’t buy the rights, or what was going on there, but this is the first time they’ve been able to do it US style. And, unlike all the other shows that are called Dragon’s Den around the world, they’ve decided to call it Shark Tank here in the US.

WatchMojo: Why is that; do you think that’s a social thing for this kind of name?

Barbara Corcoran: No. I think it, I happen to agree with it. I understand the logic of it, Mark Burnett was the one who renamed it, wanted to rename it, and I heard his logic on it. And, I am misquoting him, but the jest of it was that he felt that people in America don’t really relate to dragons so well, that’s more of an Asian thing, whereas anybody can relate to being bit by a shark.

WatchMojo: Makes sense. Now, I am not an expert in securities law, but I think part of the problem is the appearance that a contestant is basically offering shares in his company to the public without a prospectus.

Barbara Corcoran: Oh, that makes great sense actually.

WatchMojo: Every successful company has an amazing story; every entrepreneur has an amazing story. Yours is up there definitely: a thousand dollar loan from your boyfriend turns into five billion dollar empire. You sort of have a sense of how, but I just want to like nitty-gritty, how does an entrepreneur actually do that; how do you take a thousand dollars and get it to a big number, forget five billion even a million. So, how did you go about?

Barbara Corcoran: Well, I don’t think I am unlike anyone else; you work your ass off #1, okay? #2, you have to be doing something you really love, and I happen to just step into something I really loved. And third, and maybe not in this order, but it’s just what’s coming to my mind. I think third, I loved the idea of creating something, and so what I created was a business version of the family I grew up in which had ten kids, lot of commotion, lot of mouths to feed.

So, being in a crowd was very comfortable for me, so I was growing the business as quickly as I could from the very first day. If I had an extra commission I would take the commission and hire another sales person, use it for the overhead immediately. And so, we just grew very, very quickly; and I might say I had a lot of help from New York City. Because, just happened to be that 1975, New York City was a terrible place to live. No one liked to come here, and there certainly wasn’t anything or not very many.

There were a handful of coops in the city that were places to live that you could actually buy. And so, I actually rode that wave up as the city converted from a rental town to a sale town. So, my timing, so that’s I guess the fourth one. I had excellent time, hot luck timing.

WatchMojo: The timing is actually up there. You raised the point that you started in 1975. Is there such a thing as an overnight success, or would you say that even the biggest so called overnight success takes a lot of time?

Barbara Corcoran: No, not that I have ever experienced one. It would be nice, no it always came harder and later than I expected.

Come back tomorrow for Part 2, where we chat about entrepreneurship, good and bad students as well as the unique challenges and opportunities of being a women entrepreneur.