UP
ront
Notes from around the Minnesota business community
June 2010
How to Succeed
in Business
(Without Really Knowing Business)
To start you on your way through the compendium
we thought we’d offer some words of wisdom from
the unlikeliest of local business people.
Blake Richardson
May 2010 // interviewed by drew wood
Blake Richardson is the founder, owner and
brewing mastermind behind Minneapolis
restaurants the Herkimer and Moto-i.
Horst
Rechelbacher
February 2008 // Interviewed by David Gee
Horst
Rechelbacher
is the founder
of aveda and
intelligent
nutrients.
Be your own boss: I don’t do well working for
others. I just don’t know how to be submissive. I
don’t believe in that. I believe, rather, in expressing
yourself.
Easier said than done: Profits will come if you are
persistent and consistent and make excellence.
When to change: I knew I had to change and the
industry had to change, but you cannot abandon
the old before you create the new.
Who needs actual business skills? My success
in business is only a result of my determination, of
my will to make it happen. I mean, after all, I don’t
think mathematically and I don’t think in details
and I don’t particularly like to manage people. I
might just look at the red and ask others how we’re
going to get in the black.
Entrepreneurs: I think entrepreneurs are dream-
ers. But more importantly, they have faith in their
dreams. They can figure out how they will get
where they want to go. Most people know what
they want when they get it but they don’t know
how to create that path.
Turn hobbies into passions: there was a hobby
behind it first—i was making [beer] in my
kitchen—and then there was this evangelical
piece of it—i was trying to explain the process to
friends—and then people were starting to gain
an appreciation for it on that other level.
Exploration is just motivation: i think it’s like
anything i’ve attached myself to. there’s this
element of discovery and education—i just want
to learn more and am fueled by the mystery of
something.
A time before Google: i got in my car and i
drove up and down the streets of St. paul—
there’s no internet at the time, so you can’t just
Google it—and looked in windows because they
more than likely will display the brewery in the
windows.
When the restaurant world hands you lemons,
make sake: this Japanese restaurant opened
down the street and half of the herkimer staff
left to go work there. but i had a fondness for
the people so i thought, “well, let’s go over there
and see what the big hubbub is about.” and i sat
down at the bar and i said, “i don’t know any-
thing about [sake], so you just do what you’ve
got to do and i’ll play along.”
The entrepreneurial spirit: do you rest on your
laurels and enjoy what you have? there’s noth-
ing wrong with that. but that’s not necessarily
me. there’s a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit that
i have that will never go away. it drove me to
sake and sake drove me to it.
