RENEE GARCIA

Interview with an Entrepreneur

USC Marshall School of Business Entrepreneurship Professor Steven Mednick Richard Lubman

June 29, 2019

INTRODUCTION:

Renee Garcia is someone typically described in the business world as a “serial entrepreneur,” but this title does not do justice to her or her compelling story. I first met Renee through a dating website in the spring of 2015. It was not long after my wife passed away and I had recently started dating, so I was quite interested to meet this attractive if somewhat mysterious young woman. We went out together a few times, although it did not go further than that. Nevertheless, I had the opportunity to hear her life story, central to which was the entrepreneurial journey that had brought her from the most modest of beginnings to considerable financial success.

I lost track of Renee for several years, during which time she had moved from Los Angeles to Portland and then back to her home town of Modesto, CA. I had not forgotten her or her story. When the assignment was made to interview an entrepreneur, I immediately remembered the conversations I had with her several years ago and thought that her unconventional story was worth sharing. I became convinced this would be especially valuable after reviewing a recent Forbes article in class titled “Is Entrepreneurship Becoming the Purview of Upper-Class Men?” I thought Renee’s life countered the thesis of this article beautifully.

I still had Renee’s phone number and was fortunate to connect with her. She generously took the time recount her tale, with updates covering the past few years. She was completely open about her past – the good, the bad and the ugly – and declined my offer to censor details concerning some of her more distressing periods in her life. With that in mind, here is her story – happily, still a work in progress.

RENEE GARCIA’S PERSONAL BACKGROUND:

Renee grew up in Modesto in California’s Central Valley. Modesto is less than 100 miles from San Francisco, but it’s a town that Renee describes as “25 years in the past” – the Bible Belt of California. It’s a mostly blue-collar city with a farm-based economy that offered little of interest to Renee as a teenager.

She was born into a working-class family with several children, so her memories of childhood are of poverty – even by local standards. Her father worked as a bus driver,her mother as a nurse’s aide. Her grandfather was a repairman for the county and her grandmother worked in a local drug store. One brother currently works for the California Highway Patrol, another as a journeyman electrician and a third works for a cannery. Her sister has three children and is not working outside the home, and all still live near where they grew up.

The only member of her family to attend college was her father, who studied to be a photographer. He had a studio that failed when Renee was an infant, and he never again attempted to work for himself or practice his skill. She describes him as being her number one fan, always urging and supporting her. She said that “I think he’s proud I’m doing something he could never do.”

She otherwise describes her family as “slaves to the system,” unwilling or unable to pursue dreams beyond the conventional lives they grew up into. She was an unhappy, rebellious teenager who frequently ran away from home, experimented with drugs and alcohol, suffered from depression and experienced short periods of homelessness. Few of her friends and acquaintances from that period were able to find success or happiness in their lives. She recently heard that one of them had committed suicide, which seemed no surprise to her at all.

Modesto has been blighted by a methamphetamine epidemic for years. A quick internet search reveals that one of the city’s nicknames is “Methdesto” and their motto is “The capital of meth, death and car theft.” Not everyone from Modesto comes to a bad end – Star Wars director George Lucas is from Modesto, and he seems to have done quite well for himself – but even those with relatively privileged backgrounds can end up leading troubled lives. Renee told one particularly harrowing story of a local woman who had been the prettiest girl in school, the daughter of a physician who grew up in a comfortable environment in the wealthy part of town. She was recently described by a friend as seen wandering on 9th Street in Modesto – home to drug addicts and prostitutes – toothless and soliciting sex.

When I asked Renee what distinguished her from the many whose lives had taken such a dark turn, she replied simply – “the will to succeed.” She feels that she always had that, even in the most difficult or seemingly hopeless times. She always knew she wanted something better for her life even when her upbringing and experience did not offer any immediate pathway.

Renee never graduated from high school or attended college or business school. She married while still in her teens to a man who had a good job with WebMD and moved to the San Francisco Bay area in an attempt to escape and establish a new life. He had a $100,000 salary in 2000, so they were able to live comfortably on his income plus whatever odd jobs came her way. With no education or useful no skill set to speak of, she worked as a nanny, picking up dogs for a dog groomer and doing retail at a shopping mall. Although she felt confident about her ability to talk her way into situations, she did not have the wherewithal to pursue a more ambitious career at that point.

Her ability to adapt was seriously tested when her marriage failed in 2004. Her husband had lost his job and they moved to Los Angeles to live with his family. Her then father-in-law was a domineering individual who convinced his son to divorce Renee, at least in part because she did not wish to have children. Her marital relationship was described as abusive. Her husband divorced her and managed to keep all their assets, including her car. She studied to be a dental hygienist and graduated from her program with high marks, but ultimately decided this was not something she wanted to do and never pursued work in this field. She was living in Glendale in apartment with her rent due in two days with no money, no car and no prospects for meaningful employment. She described this period as one of the darkest moments in her life.

SEEING THE OPPORTUNITIES:

Needing immediate cash to pay her rent, Renee went looking to pawn her wedding ring. She stopped at several pawn shops with her mother looking for the best price she could get, and was discouraged by the consistently low offers she received. When she came to the next shop she was planning to give the owner “a piece of my mind” when he gave her another low offer, but was pleasantly surprised at how fair he was. After hearing about her situation, he offered her a job as well. This turned out to be the beginning of what turned out to be one of several careers as an entrepreneur.

Renee learned about buying and selling jewelry from her year working at the pawn shop and selling used jewelry through their eBay website. She was able to develop a deep knowledge of the business, including the mark ups charged by the pawn shop compared with the prices paid for jewelry, and she was able to save $7000 in capital during that time. She rented an office at 607 S. Hill Street in the heart of the jewelry district in Downtown Los Angeles and started her own wholesale used jewelry business.

She eventually bought the eBay website from her old employer, but she started her business buying, selling and trading with other wholesalers and retail jewelers. The price of gold was low and it was a good time to enter the business. She began attending trade shows and was able to increase her revenue further. She used her knowledge of the business and her native ambition and intuition to make deals in which, for example, she bought lots of jewelry with payment due in 30 days, selling them at a profit before the cash was due. When I asked her what the main lesson she learned from this period, she told me that in this business one’s word was everything. If you made a deal you were expected to keep it – no exceptions – and she took this to heart and made it work for her.

Renee continues to work in the wholesale jewelry business to this day, although she currently has some other business ventures that occupy more of her time. She prefers to have several businesses going at once, sometimes three or more, and rarely completely abandons them once started. By the time I met her in 2015, however, she was feeling exhausted, somewhat burned out on her Los Angeles experience. She moved to Portland, Oregon where her grandparents lived and started a new business almost by accident. She started purchasing, refurbishing and selling used VW Euro Vans.

She sold the refurbished vans for a few years, set this business aside, invested money in bitcoin – her initial$40,000 investment now worth only $10,000, one of the few times she has lost money in business. She moved back to Modesto and bought a house in the nicer part of town. The real estate agent that sold her the house was so impressed with Renee’s negotiating skills that she offered her a job. Renee obtained her real estate agent’s license and now has a job selling real estate on commission. Although she only started a month ago, she already has four houses in escrow and additional business coming her way.

What she felt really turned her personal and professional life around was a personal growth philosophy called Transurfing. After reading Russian founder Vadim Zeland’s book “Reality Transurfing,” she traveled to St. Petersburg at meet him and ultimately became a speaker and instructor. She maintains a website (https://www.transurfing.us), is credentialed by Mr. Zeland to train others to become an instructor and has become a public speaker and advocate for his approach to life. It is also, not surprisingly, another success for her.

ADVICE AND LESSONS LEARNED:

A lot about Renee Garcia impressed me when I first met her in 2015, and I was not disappointed to hear her life story recounted with updates for the last four years. She attributes much of her current sense of fulfillment to her knowledge of Transurfing, which I do not doubt, but I am also quite certain that much of her extraordinary journey from dire circumstances to entrepreneurial success has to be the result of her own innate talent, intelligence, taste and, most important, her drive to succeed. Among the many things she reminded me is that whatever you’ve chosen to do, pay attention to how you feel about it when you wake up in the morning. If you feel exhausted by it, you are bound to fail.

That said, Transurfing has given her a way to reconcile her current life with her past. She’s returned to Modesto, obviously a much different person than she was in her troubled teenage years. She is able to appreciate what is good for her there, including family relationships. She is also able to recognize opportunities in Modesto – becoming a real estate agent, for example – that she never would have seen or been able to take advantage of earlier in her life. When she passes by a church parking lot or some other location where she passed her unhappy youth drinking, she is able to see it in a completely different way – traveling back in time and “looking forward to the past” as she describes it. She has transformed herself from a rebellious teen headed for disaster to a cultured, wordly, articulate, thoughtful and successful entrepreneur by sheer will. She is barely 40, but she has already lived several lives, with several more to come no doubt.

Renee has a lot of memorable comments to make about business and entrepreneurialism as well. Some of these are not unique to her, of course, but they resonate coming from someone who has lived that life completely. For someone who has had great financial success, she claims never to do anything just for money. She has two “bridges” that must be crossed before she pursues any business opportunity. She always asks herself first if it feels right and does something for her in her heart and soul. Only then does she consider whether it is financially sound and worth her time and energy. If both agree, and it is consistent with her values, she will proceed

Renee has never been financed by investors and never had a true business partner. She believes that if you can’t expect to see your first dollar of profit on a $10,000 investment it’s not the right choice. Although she recognizes that not all businesses are meant to operate in this way, she does her own marketing
and advertising. She lives well these days, but is careful with

her personal finances and feels that she could always do with less if she had to. She quoted Warren Buffett who said that you should “deal in things that you know,” a strategy that has worked for her, even for things she apparently did not know very well like real estate.

Somewhat counterintuitively, Renee calls herself an anti-feminist. She is an independent woman who made her first success in a business world inhabited almost exclusively by men, but rejects the notion of victimhood for herself or other women.

She believes the best thing you can do is the right, the second best thing is the wrong thing, but the worst thing you can do is nothing. Her mantra is “take action.” Coming from some individuals that might seem like a simplistic suggestion. Nevertheless, Renee Garcia has travelled a very long way on her personal and entrepreneurial journey, and she has unequivocally earned the right to offer that advice.

RENEE GARCIA’S TIPS FOR BEING AN ENTREPRENEUR

1. Pay attention to people offering opportunities around you. You don’t need to go searching for anything. Usually just having your ears open you will come across ideas frequently just by tuning into what people are doing and talking about. Pay attention to trends and hot topics. Go after endeavors where few people are on the scene. Be the first to get there.

2. The art of trading can be translated to many different areas. I’ve often told people… all I’ve really learned to do is buy something and to sell something. I have bought and sold many different types of things and have simply just had to educate myself on what it is I’m buying and who will purchase it from me. Importantly as well, most of my good deals are from buying something right, not necessarily the sell.
Make your money on the buy.

3. Fake it till you make it. Cliché I know, but it works. Dress the part, talk the part, act the part. Your reality is simply reflecting back to you your actions and thoughts projected towards it. If you reflect to your reality a particular imagine, it is only a matter of time until your reality responds. Play the part long enough and eventually you will get cast in the play you want to lead in. The key to this trick is, enjoy your role before you see the results. Pleasure should
come on your way to your goal with achievement of the goal being icing on the cake.

4. Don’t go after other people’s goals. Know what it is you are capable of and what you are not capable of. Be on good terms with your own personal skill set and be a realist about who you are and what you offer. Don’t go after stuff meant for others. The easiest way to make money is to understand your strengths and weaknesses and plug your strengths directly in to external circumstances in need of your particular skills. Don’t be foolish and get involved in crap that isn’t meant for you.

5. Read ‘Reality Transurfing Steps I-V’