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| | == Personal Life == | | == Personal Life == |
| − | Mr. Marc was born in Los Angeles, his dad was a professor at UCLA. He has three daughters Kelly, Shelly and Tracy Ostrofsky. Kelly and Shelly are identical twins, they graduate co-valedictorians of their high school | + | Mr. Marc was born in Los Angeles, his dad was a professor at UCLA. He has five daughters Kelly, Shelly and Tracy Ostrofsky. Kelly and Shelly are identical twins, they graduate co-valedictorians of their high school |
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| | == Education == | | == Education == |
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| − | Ostrofsky was born in Los Angeles where his dad was a professor at UCLA. One of Marc's earliest memories are of an especially entertaining guy who was his grandfather's
| + | When he was 5, he ran his own lemonade stand and says "that's the way to learn business as a kid!" He was a major donor to lemonade day, which teaches kids entrepreneurship. Once, his neighbor asked him to clean his car, when he was 7, the neighbor gave him $10 for cleaning his car. After this, he started waxing cars. After a few years, he moved to Houston with his family. He decided to join University of Texas to study BBA. |
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| − | When he was 5, he ran his own lemonade stand and says "that's the way to learn business as a kid!" He was a major donor to lemonade day, which teaches kids entrepreneurship. Once, his neighbor asked him to clean his car, when he was 7, the neighbor gave him $10 for cleaning his car. After this, he started waxing cars. After a few years, he moved to Houston with his family
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| − | Ostrofsky's Entrepreneurial Instincts Blossom in the Lone State State
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| − | Ostrofsky's family moved to Houston so his dad could take a new job teaching Business and Logistics at the University of Houston. His father's expertise in those subjects had an impact on young Marc. "That's where I got my sense, good or bad, for over planning each and every step for each business I started. It is much less expensive to learn about the good and more importantly the bad – before it happens. Learn on someone else’s experience and try to apply the good to your situation and know about the bad – just in case."
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| − | Ostrofsky (circled) with fraternity
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| − | When it came time to head off to college, Marc decided to enroll at the University of Texas in Austin. " At UT I learned more about business and started to learn about girls as well," Ostrofsky recalled. "What I learned then and there was that I had to be better in business as it was expensive to hang with the girls! They liked “stuff” and now with a loving wife and five daughters, it was a lesson I learned all too well!," Ostrofsky smiled.
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| − | His time at Texas paid other dividends as well. "I realized I loved marketing so I started the first “American Marketing Association” for students at the University of Texas. We called it AMA-UT. I was VP, then President of the group," Ostrofsky said. "To raise money, I called a local beer distributor and he gave me $1,000 for a “sponsorship” of one of our events. Wow…that was serious money and I got it via a phone call? I guess that was the impetus for my making money in the trade show business with
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| − | sponsorships. There were clients, there were exhibitors, but those sponsorships, THAT was where most of the income (profits that is) came from the serious money was!"
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| − | "While my friends and fraternity brothers partied, I wanted to get going on the money making thing. So I got a real estate license and made great money on the weekends selling condos to parents of college students. I knew the kids wanted their own place and a microwave oven while the parents wanted a great financial opportunity and a safe place for their kids to live. I knew the lingo and made money selling real estate when I was a junior and senior at Texas," Ostrofsky said.
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| − | Ostrofsky often found inspiration for making money in places others overlooked. "The Rubik’s Cube craze hit while I was in college," Ostrofsky recalled. "While I was visiting my former high school, a teacher introduced me to a young man that was not a good student but had this amazing talent. He could solve the Rubik’s Cube in 25 seconds! If not a world record, it was darn close. He turned that thing so fast you could not see his hands moving - it was shocking actually. Here I am a big shot in college and I’m sitting in the cafeteria of my former high school learning how he did this. He had figured out his own mathematical “formula” to solve that brain teaser that only required 3 moves. That was so easy for him to do, he could look away and solve the cube in 30-60 seconds."
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| − | Ostrofsky learned the "trick" and took that new talent back to Austin where he showed it to his
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| − | best friend. "We took it to the University and wound up teaching a class called “how to solve the Rubik’s Cube in under 60 seconds." It was just an after hours non credit class for fun but Ostrofsky used his marketing skills to turned it into something bigger. "My friend and I went to the major wire services - Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI) and they jumped on the story. It ran across the wires worldwide getting us thousands of “hits” and a slew of letters sent to us from across the globe. That taught me the power of the media," Ostrofsky declared.
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| − | Dell Computer Founder Michael Dell
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| − | (Photo: Dell.com)
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| | During his college years Ostrofsky also crossed paths with a fellow student who would go on to become of America's most successful entrepreneurs ever. "I placed the little bit of money I had made with a family friend who was our family's stock broker in Houston. Brokers worked with partners and his was a nice lady named Lorainne Dell. One day when I called my broker, Mrs. Dell answered. She asked me if I would be interested in working for her son to help him with marketing. He had started a computer building business in his dorm room at UT. I told her I knew her son Michael but wouldn't work for a kid that was two years younger than I was because I would look silly to my fraternity brothers! I tell folks if I had been his Marketing Director, Michael Dell (of Dell Computer fame) might be a bum on the streets of Austin these days!," Ostrofsky laughed. | | During his college years Ostrofsky also crossed paths with a fellow student who would go on to become of America's most successful entrepreneurs ever. "I placed the little bit of money I had made with a family friend who was our family's stock broker in Houston. Brokers worked with partners and his was a nice lady named Lorainne Dell. One day when I called my broker, Mrs. Dell answered. She asked me if I would be interested in working for her son to help him with marketing. He had started a computer building business in his dorm room at UT. I told her I knew her son Michael but wouldn't work for a kid that was two years younger than I was because I would look silly to my fraternity brothers! I tell folks if I had been his Marketing Director, Michael Dell (of Dell Computer fame) might be a bum on the streets of Austin these days!," Ostrofsky laughed. |