Are You the Next Russell Simmons?

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 at 01:13pm by David Askaripour in Innovation

Russell Simmons, co-founder of the legendary hip-hop recording label, Def Jam. Founder of clothing/fashion line, Phat Farm and Baby Phat. Founder of production company, Def Comedy Jam. Founder of sneaker company, Run Athletics. And the list goes on�

Russell Simmons is a true entrepreneur, in every aspect of the word. He had a vision of using hip-hop as solution to the problems of the underprivileged kids living in the inner-city. His passion for music and helping people fused into an entrepreneurial mission that laid the seeds to his empire.

Russell began promoting artists in his early days, taking unknown rap artists and sharing their words with the world. Giving them the opportunity to use their words as hooks to grapple their way out of poverty and hard times. He saw opportunity where other promoters saw risk. Most people weren�t interested in promoting rap artists back in the day, so he took it upon himself to exploit this particular niche.

He dropped out of college to pursue his promoting company full-time and soon become deeply entrenched in the industry. He worked tirelessly — bootstrapping and using grassroots methods — to promote rappers. Such names as L.L. Cool J, Beastie Boys, etc.

Within a few years, in 1984, he founded his record label, Def Jam. From that point on, he went on to growing into a billion dollar company.

What Simmons did was nothing short of brilliant. He was able to offer a remedy to the woes of the black youth who felt that they had no other options in life. He created a vision for them, a dream. Something to aspire to. And with those issues and needs to fill, he founded an empire that changed the music industry, the world.

You, too, can lock in on the wants and needs of a particular group and build and industry around it. This is exactly how industries are created — to fill a need for a particular group of people. Russell found such a need (niche), so can you.

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