DESCRIPTION
“One of the most provocative entrepreneurs of our time, who started Eckō Unltd out of his parents’ garage and turned it into a media empire, Marc Eckō reveals his formula for building an authentic brand or business. Marc Eckō began his career by spray-painting t-shirts in the garage of his childhood home in suburban New Jersey. A graffiti artist with no connections and no fashion pedigree, he left the safety net of pharmacy school to start his own company. Armed with only hustle, sweat equity, and creativity, he flipped a $5,000 bag of cash into a global corporation now worth $500 million. Unlabel is a success story, but it’s one that shares the bruises, scabs, and gut-wrenching mistakes that every entrepreneur must overcome to succeed. Through his personal prescription for success—the Authenticity Formula—Eckō recounts his many innovations and misadventures in his journey from misfit kid to the CEO. It wasn’t a meteoric rise; in fact, it was a rollercoaster that dipped to the edge of bankruptcy and even to national notoriety, but this is an underdog story we can learn from: Ecko’s doubling down on the core principles of the brand and his formula for action over talk are all lessons for today’s entrepreneurs. Ecko offers a brash message with his inspirational story: embrace pain, take risks, and be yourself. Unlabel demonstrates that, like or not, you are a brand and it’s up you to take control of it and create something authentic. Unlabel is a groundbreaking guide to channeling your creativity, finding the courage to defy convention, and summoning the confidence to act and be competitive in any environment”—
Highlights
- Authenticity1 is equal to your unique voice,2 multiplied by truthfulness,3 plus your capacity for change,4 multiplied by range of emotional impact,5 raised to the power of imagination.6 (Location 53)
- You must move from the mind-set of “I am a consumer and I want X” to “I am a producer and I create Y. (Location 103)
- When you UNLABEL and create an authentic personal brand, you will broadcast yourself differently to the world. You will think of yourself more actively, not passively. You won’t just use the social network, you’ll become the social network. (Location 119)
- Building a brand is like creating your own personal religion. You need to be willing to fight for it, defend it, die for it. It involves being something of a zealot. (Location 122)
- I did what a lot of creative types do when they don’t understand the business: I hid behind the art. (Location 899)
- I now know that this is normal for every entrepreneur. You’re always pitching. You never stop auditioning. (Location 1030)