I Made It In San Diego By Voice Of San Diego

If you listen to local music, then you’ve heard of Tim Mays.   Mays is the cofounder and co-owner of San Diego’s mythic music venue The Casbah.   On this episode of "I Made it in San Diego," Voice of San Diego's podcast about local businesses and the people behind them, hear how Mays went from a kid handing out concert fliers to an indie music legend.   Mays started booking and producing shows in San Diego in the early 1980s as a way to make sure his favorite bands came through town. By the mid '80s, Mays and some of his friends also wanted to open a bar more geared toward his generation – with their music in the jukebox.   Mays' side gig promoting shows and the bar he helped open, The Pink Panther, both found quick success. He quit his day jobs and became a serial entrepreneur with a knack for opening businesses that grew to be local icons.   "I never said, 'I don't want to work for the man,' I just was lucky enough to not have to after a certain point."   After the birth of The Casbah, Mays continued to ope

Entertainment and hospitality is one of the top 10 industries in San Diego. Because hotels play such a big role in our region, their owners have some political power. In a new episode of I Made It in San Diego, a VOSD podcast about the people behind the region’s businesses, I talk to hotelier Elvin Lai about how running a hotel has led to his involvement in several business ventures, city politics and the community. After his father’s death, Lai was unexpectedly handed his family’s hotel when he was just 21. During the first few months of running Ocean Park Inn, a 72-room boutique hotel in Pacific Beach, he slept under his desk while he learned the ropes. He turned out to be an astute businessman. But running a hotel was never enough for Lai. He’s become a serial entrepreneur and an active community member. Currently, he’s a member of a few hotel trade associations, he’s on the San Diego Convention Center board, and he helps run a program addressing homelessness in Pacific Beach. “If the community is not

Last year, $9.4 billion flowed to defense contractors in San Diego. At the helm of one of those local private firms getting some of those military dollars is David Inmon, the CEO of Redhorse Corporation. In a new episode of I Made it in San Diego, a VOSD podcast about the people behind the region’s businesses, Inmon talks to Scott Lewis about how he built a fast-growing business that provides program management and technology services to the military and other clients. Almost exactly 10 years ago, Inmon and his business partner opened Redhorse Corporation. They had no capital besides a $50,000 loan from the small business administration. Inmon is from Oklahoma, a descendent of Choctaw Indians – a minority status that helped him get his foot in the door on government contracts. Redhorse grew quickly. By 2016, the business had revenue of $57 million and was among the 1000 fastest growing companies in the country, as ranked by Inc. 5000. In the world of government contracting, small businesses get a big bo

For music engineer Justin Watson, music has always been a part of him. Growing up in Detroit was tough. He lived near the stretch of highway known as the 8 Mile Road, in a neighborhood where everyone and everything was about work. Watson, who goes by Jay Wat, had to grow up fast. Music kept his family tight. Wat's parents would put on basement parties that got the whole neighborhood dancing to Roy Ayers and Sly and the Family Stone. In the sixth grade, Wat's mom bought him his first boombox, and he'd play his cassette tapes on repeat. In high school, Wat got a hip-hop education in Detroit’s "school of hard knocks," where DJs spun records, b-boys breakdanced to the beat, and emcees battled with freestyle rhymes. In a new episode of I Made it in San Diego, a VOSD podcast about the people behind the region’s businesses, Wat talks about how he turned his love of music into a career. “It just became a point to where I wanted to really do this full on,” Wat said. “I didn't make a conscious decision yet that I

Ilisa Goldman thinks it should be easy for a group of neighbors to spruce up a vacant, city-owned lot with seating, shade, art and other simple amenities. Instead, they often end up having to claw through a series of bureaucratic barriers and many simply give up, or avoid the ordeal entirely. Goldman is the landscape architect and planner behind Rooted in Place, a firm she started to help clients – mostly nonprofits and community groups – create public spaces and outdoor learning environments for kids. In a new episode of I Made it in San Diego, a podcast about the people behind the region’s businesses, I talk to Goldman about the community gardens, outdoor classrooms and other projects she's designed, and her ongoing struggle to make it easier for people to improve their neighborhoods. Jargon like "tactical urbanism" and "placemaking" have gained popularity in recent years. Both concepts refer to the kind of work Goldman does – quicker, easier, more affordable urban projects, often in historically unders

Moving sucks. Mike Glanz went all in on that basic premise and ended up running an online moving business in Oceanside that now pulls in about $8 million in annual gross revenue. A decade ago, most people were either renting their own trucks or hiring full-service companies and paying them thousands of dollars to do everything. Glanz and his roommate Pete Johnson started seeing the rapid emergence of a new type of move. More and more folks were renting their own moving trucks and then finding movers to hire by going online to sites like Craigslist, or swinging by Home Depot to pick up day laborers. Glanz and Johnson called it the "hybrid move," and they decided to build HireAHelper.com, a website that would make it easier. In a new episode of I Made it in San Diego, a podcast about the people behind the region’s businesses, I talk to Glanz about how and why he's helping to disrupt the multibillion-dollar moving industry. By simply entering a date and zip code, folks can easily compare prices of local move

Brian Beevers is the man behind the farmers markets in Clairemont, Serra Mesa and at Horton Plaza. He's also got a farmers market-inspired shop called Simply Local in North Park that sells goods made by San Diegans. Becoming one of the region's biggest purveyors of local products, though, wasn't easy. The success of a farmers market relies heavily on finding — and keeping — the right locations. That means Beevers' businesses over the years have often fallen victim to the whims of landowners. In a new episode of I Made it in San Diego, a podcast about the people behind the region’s businesses, Lisa Halverstadt talks to Beevers about his ongoing struggle to open farmers markets and sustain the interest. “I've always known that I am at the mercy of the land owners, and it's something that you just have to kind of live with every day, that you just don't know for sure when somebody just might pull the plug on you," Beevers said. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Josue "Josh" Anival Salcido entered his first professional wrestling ring in 2009, it was as a last-minute fill-in for a few performers who didn't show up. His twin brother Jaime Salcido was by his side, and they tag-teamed in a Lucha Libre match. They had been training for that moment for more than two years, and even though they thought they weren't quite ready, the fans disagreed. Their careers as Lucha Libre performers, Josh as Krazy Klown and Jaime as Rasta Lion, lurched forward. Sometimes the two wrestled on the same team, other times as rivals. On a new episode of I Made it in San Diego, Voice of San Diego’s podcast about the region’s businesses and the people behind them, I talk to Josh about wrestling in Lucha Libre matches across Southern California and Mexico, his recent retirement and his new venture as a promoter for a Lucha Libre business that puts on matches in the South Bay. Lucha Libre is more of an art form than a sport. It’s dripping with long-held traditions. Josh fell in love with

Back in the late 1970s, musical theater was growing rapidly from coast to coast. Semi-professional actors looking for a chance to perform on stage had several opportunities. But kids? Not so much. On a new episode of I Made it in San Diego, Voice of San Diego’s podcast about the region’s businesses and the people behind them, Paul Russell talks about how he filled that niche and built a kids' theater side job into what he said is now the largest youth theater program in the nation. In 1979, Russell got a job teaching drama at Christian High School in East County. The high school shows he produced were so popular in the community that the vice principal persuaded him to start Christian Community Theater. Christian Community Theater brought together dozens of churches and, for the company's first-ever production, kids and adults starred in "The Sound of Music" at an amphitheater on top of Mt. Helix. The show was not great, but the community loved it – especially the parents of the kids who performed. The par

Jennifer Luce has made a name as an architect who takes an artful approach to designing buildings. Her firm, Luce et Studio, designed the Nissan offices in La Jolla, Extraordinary Desserts in Little Italy and dozens of other award-winning projects in San Diego and beyond. On a new episode of I Made it in San Diego, Voice of San Diego’s podcast about the region’s businesses and the people behind them, Luce talks about how she got an unexpected break early in her career, and how she has worked to keep the momentum going ever since, with varying degrees of success. At her first job out of architecture school, Luce was tasked with designing prisons. She needed a creative outlet, so she entered a prestigious international design competition. More than 500 firms across the world applied, including people three times her age, with decades more experience. She wasn’t even a licensed architect yet. But the jury saw something special about her design, and selected it as the winner, effectively putting Luce in char

Back in 2001, the internet was a weird and wonderful place. It was devoid of the much of the online entertainment and noise of today. It was a place where a couple of Santee kids could do silly but entertaining things like bring the video game Tetris to life by running around San Diego dressed as a Tetris block – that people noticed and enjoyed. In a new episode of I Made it in San Diego, Voice of San Diego’s podcast about the region’s businesses and the people behind them, VOSD contributor Dallas McLaughlin talks to Rocco Botte, Derrick Acosta and Shawn Chatfield about how they turned their funny internet videos into Mega64, a successful online business with thousands of fans worldwide. Botte, Acosta and Chatfield never set out to build a business. As theater geeks who grew up in Santee, they started out making free videos for fun. But the right people saw the videos at the right time, and set the trio on an unexpected trajectory that has lasted for more than 15 years. With over 400,000 YouTube subscriber

Diana Ocampo is a fighter. In a new episode of I Made it in San Diego, Voice of San Diego’s podcast about the stories behind the region’s businesses and the people who made them what they are, Scott Lewis talks to Ocampo about the battles she's faced and the businesses she's built, then lost, then built again. When mixed-martial arts first started getting big, matches were illegal in California. Still, Ocampo saw an opportunity, and launched MMA matches at a venue in Tijuana. Her events quickly took off, and she outgrew the space just in time for California to lift the ban on the sport in 2006. The matches she organized at places like the Del Mar Fairgrounds, Starlight Bowl in Balboa Park and casinos across the San Diego region attracted thousands of fans. She was one of the only female MMA promoters in the nation, and her business became a big financial success. But then she got cancer — and lost everything. "Going from having been very comfortable to nothing was very shocking," she told Lewis. What s

I had no choice but to try Bitchin' Sauce. It was years ago, and Ryan Smith was at the farmer's market in Hillcrest. He was so enthusiastic and wildly upbeat about his "bitchin' dips, so I stopped to give them a try. Yum. The sauces – which are sort of like hummus but made with ground-up almonds instead of garbanzo beans – are good. They're also vegan and fit other restrictive diets. And Smith had a whole charming farmers market schtick that sucked people in. It didn't take long for Bitchin' Sauce to take off – both because of the flavor and Smith's knack for pitching the product. After making the rounds at local farmers markets, Smith and his sister Starr Edwards enlisted their family for help and started getting stores across the state to sell the product. Bitchin' Sauce, based in Carlsbad, grew to about $2 million in annual revenue by 2015, Smith said. That's when the trouble hit. A small disagreement among the family morphed into an all-out legal battle that left Edwards with total control of the busi

It's hard to imagine, I know, but there was a time when San Diego wasn't so sure about fish tacos. When Ralph Rubio opened the inaugural Rubio's on Mission Bay Drive in Pacific Beach, people still expected a taco to have a crunchy shell and contain some sort of beef. It took some time before Rubio's original fish taco, with its soft, yellow corn tortillas and beer-battered fish, caught on. "There was a lot of resistance. I was surprised when people would say, "What? Fish in a tortilla? What are you thinking?'" Rubio told me on the latest episode of "I Made it in San Diego," VOSD's podcast about the people behind the region's businesses. "That thought never occurred to me. And so I was I was ignorant of that, or that possibility. I didn't realize what a marketing challenge I was in for." We all know how things turned out, though. San Diego ultimately embraced fish tacos so hard that they're now the thing people seek out when they visit the city. In fact, Rubio's initial challenge of marketing the fish taco

New Village Arts started as an idea Kristianne Kurner had for a theater company back in the late 1990s. At the time, Kurner was a member of the first graduating class of The Actor’s Studio in New York – an intense program led by James Lipton. When Kurner graduated, she left New York for Los Angeles and started a family. But the theater scene in L.A. wasn’t doing so well at that time, so Kurner instead decided to make New Village Arts a reality. In the latest episode of “I Made it in San Diego,” VOSD’s podcast about the region’s businesses and the people behind them, I talk to Kurner about how, with just a couple thousand dollars, she moved her family to Carlsbad and started a scrappy little theater company that eventually grew into one of the region's most respected (Disclosure: I've done some acting for New Village Arts). The company's first production was inside an old chicken coop. "It only had 25 seats, so we sold out every show," she said. "It was really a great way to start because it got us a lot o

There aren't any slick commercials or campaigns advertising Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps. And yet, you've probably heard of the product. The soap is different – some might say a little weird. The most memorable feature isn't the soap itself; it's the labels, which are packed with over 3,000 words about “God’s Spaceship Earth,” Mohammed, Jesus, the Marxist welfare state, arctic timberwolves and more. The quasi-religious rants on the labels were written by the company's founder, Emanuel "Emil" Bronner, an eccentric man who started by selling his liquid peppermint soap to people who would first listen to his soapbox lectures about uniting humanity. When he realized that more people were showing up to buy the soap than listen to what he had to say, he started printing the main tenets of his philosophy right on the labels. In our latest episode of “I Made it in San Diego,” VOSD’s podcast about the region’s businesses and the people behind them, Emil's grandson David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner's, talks about how t

I take three separate fitness classes a week to supplement my running workouts, including one at Barry's Bootcamp in Hillcrest, a franchise with locations across the country. San Diego has lots of similar options for the fitness-inclined: CorePower Yoga, OrangeTheory Fitness, CrossFit. One fitness franchise helped pave the way for all of them, and it started with one woman teaching classes out of rec centers in Oceanside. Judi Sheppard Missett, who is still Jazzercise's CEO and continues to teach classes, didn't set out to build a fitness empire. When she moved to Oceanside after college, she was trying to make it as a theater actress and singer, and just wanted to teach classes — a modified jazz dance workout she invented — on the side. "But as luck would have it, or karma, or whatever — the universe had something else in store for me," Sheppard Missett tells me in our latest episode of "I Made it in San Diego," VOSD's podcast about the region’s businesses -and the people who made them what they are. At

Finding shoes that fit perfectly can be hard. After a particularly frustrating day of shoe shopping at a mall,  Lucy Beard had a big aha moment while drinking her Starbucks latte. Beard happened to pick up an article about 3D printing technology and she thought, if these machines can create one-of-a-kind objects, couldn't they be used to make customized shoes? "I could have any kind of coffee I want from two little machines, and yet I couldn't get a pair of shoes that fit," she said. "And that was where that light bulb moment came off." Beard decided right then and there to get into the shoe business. In the latest episode of I Made it in San Diego, a podcast illuminating the stories behind the region’s businesses and entrepreneurs, I sat down with Beard to talk about Feetz, the company she launched last year that uses a smartphone app and a warehouse filled with 3D printers to create one-of-a-kind shoes for its customers. Beard knew nothing about 3D printers when she decided to build a business around t

The first time Daniel Sullivan was introduced to solar, he was hooked. He said he knew right away that it would take off, even though it was an expensive and somewhat obscure technology at the time. He was an electrician, so he brought the business opportunity to his employer. "I went to my boss and I said, look, this is something that I think is going to be a big deal," Sullivan said. His boss shut him down. And that was just the first time someone told Sullivan that his big solar bet was a loser. In the latest episode of I Made it in San Diego, a podcast illuminating the stories behind the region’s businesses and entrepreneurs, Voice of San Diego’s Lisa Halverstadt sits down with Sullivan to talk about how and why he went all in on solar despite the naysayers' warnings. Sullivan got a slow start, but his persistence eventually led to the creation of a solar company that now pulls in $50 million a year and operates in San Diego, Orange County and the Inland Empire. He says his main motivation to build th

James Slatic is a marijuana business pioneer. One of his past business ventures set the standard for packaging medical marijuana. Another innovated vape cartridges and other products. The successful businesses he's built and his highly publicized ongoing legal battles with the district attorney’s office have made Slatic one of the most recognizable faces of the green rush that's sweeping the state as entrepreneurs jostle one another to find their place in the newly legal industry. But before all that, Slatic was a serial entrepreneur who made lots of money, and lost lots of money, time and again. In the latest episode of I Made it in San Diego, a podcast illuminating the stories behind the region’s businesses and entrepreneurs, Voice of San Diego's Scott Lewis sits down with Slatic to talk about the ups and downs of building his many businesses. Slatic's helped build restaurant software, started an internet business that helped unsigned bands get record deals, ran an organic spice company and started a c