It was a cold Thursday night in December and my best friend, Jonathan & I were stuck freezing our butts off at the front of Glass Nightclub.  The Holidays were right around the corner and the bar business had significantly slowed down, but our boss didn’t seem to care.  He scheduled both of us to work the door knowing the club was going to be slow.  He was probably punishing us for the all the weekends we had spent swindling tips out of customers just to gain access into the bar.  It was no secret, our boss and the entire bar staff at Glass had heard the rumors and even some complaints of how we held the line at the door and only allowed in the customers who tipped us.  We had a solid operation all year long and had made a killing, saving most of the cash we had made in hopes that we would start our own business one day.  But tonight, Jonathan & I both knew that we were going to walk home empty handed, or so we thought.

For several hours we just stood outside with both hands tucked deep into our navy pea coats and our sweaters pulled up over our noses in an attempt to keep them warm.  Not a single customer had come into the bar and it was already almost midnight; downtown was a ghost town and all I wanted to do was go home and curl up in my warm bed.  The pleasant thoughts of getting comfortable in my bed were suddenly interrupted by the loud, annoying screams and laughter of young, college girls in the distance.  It wasn’t but a few seconds later that those same screams and the annoying laughter of drunken coeds would be piling themselves out in front of Glass from a large black tour bus that read: “Girls Gone Wild” across the side.  More than 20 girls stumbled their way off the bus and into our bar.  Following the girls was a large camera crew and the of course the founder of Girls Gone Wild himself, Joe Francis.

We immediately recognized who he was from his late night infomercials on tv.  He traveled the world with dozens of beautiful women and made millions of dollars selling dvd’s of these girls flashing the camera for a stupid t-shirt or hat.  This guy was either the luckiest asshole on the planet or the most brilliant man on the planet;  I had to find out which one it was.

Now let me just pause for a moment and set the record straight:  “I DON’T LIKE GIRLS GONE WILD or JOE FRANCIS!!!”  But when you’re 21 years old and an aspiring entrepreneur and someone who owns a multi-million dollar empire is standing right in front of you; you go up and meet him or her.  I don’t care what they do!  They could sell seashells by the seashore; it doesn’t matter.  Someone who makes millions of dollars a year always has a story or at least some advice.

Anyways, back to what I was saying;  Joe Francis was in our bar and Jonathan & I were arguing with one another on which one of us was going to approach him and say something.  Somehow we got so caught up bickering at each other we almost didn’t realize that the guy standing outside next to us asking if either one of us had a light, was none other than Joe Francis.  Instead of answering “yes or no” to his question regarding a light, I did what any young, ego-driven kid would do.  I completely disregarded what he said and began asking the questions.  “Mr. Francis, what advice would you give an aspiring young entrepreneur;” I asked.

Now like I said earlier, I am not a fan of Joe Francis or his company Girls Gone Wild, but what Joe said to me would forever stick in my brain.  He said, “the only advice I can give you is, don’t chase the money.” “Do something that you love & enjoy doing and the money will come.” “I love women and I love to party,” he said. “So I started a business that combined the two and one day it just started making money.”  I hung on his words and felt like I received the advice I had been looking for.  Jonathan and I knew we wanted to start a business and had saved up plenty of cash, we just didn’t know what the hell we were going to do.  But if we took Joe’s advice we needed to start something we loved and enjoyed doing.  Ideas were bouncing from the left side to the right side of my brain and I couldn’t wait to get home and get behind my computer and start putting some of these ideas I had down.

I started by listing all the things we loved (sports, girls, outdoors, entertainment, traveling, etc.), then I listed the things we enjoyed doing (marketing, promotions, the bar & nightclub industry).  Once I listed out everything it was pretty clear to see what our calling was.  In late December 2005, Jonathan & I would start a promotional modeling company, called Vixen Entertainment, which provided staffing services to a wide range of companies that were looking for smart, attractive females to promote their company product or service.  In 2006, the company gained over a dozen accounts in several different industries and our models were traveling all over the state of Texas servicing each of these industries at trade shows, conventions, banquets, restaurants, bar, nightclubs, hotels & festivals.

We had accomplished what we said we were going to do.  We had started a business that was rapidly growing and we could smell the smell of success in the air.  We should have been elated and overwhelmed with joy but even though things were looking promising, something was a little off;  starting a business wasn’t as fun as we thought it was going to be.  And even though we were doing all the things we loved & enjoyed: traveling with beautiful women, promotions, marketing, entertainment etc; it was still a job and work always outweighed the fun.  It was then that we realized that when we made the decision the start a business, we also made the decision to grow up and accept more responsibilities in life.  We were not your average 22 year old kids anymore and our lives were about to change, forever….