Even if you don’t know me but have been a regular reader of entreVIEW (are there any regular readers?), you’d also know this because I have frequently written about musical theatre for this blog, including my very first real post on this blog over 14 years ago, which was about the Spider-Man Musical. I’ve also written about other musicals, including "Finding Neverland," "Ernest Shackleton Loves Me," "Matilda," and couple of favorites, "Here Lies Love," and, of course "Hamilton." In case that isn’t enough to show my passion for musicals I’ve also written about the musical I wrote, "Pickle-Chiffon Pie: The Musical," which has now been produced three times!
While I sometimes have had to stretch a little bit to make my posts about musical theatre also be about entrepreneurship, just this past Sunday an actual musical about entrepreneurship opened off-Broadway! That musical, "Joy: A New True Musical," is based on the true story of entrepreneur and inventor Joy Mangano, who was also the subject of the 2015 film Joy.
In case, like me, you haven’t yet seen the movie or the musical, Joy Mangano is a serial inventor and entrepreneur. Her first invention on the early 1990’s was the self-wringing “Miracle Mop.” Her initial launch of that mop sold modestly. Once QVC let her on the air to sell it herself, she sold 18,000 mops in less than half an hour! By 2000, she was reportedly selling $10 million worth of Miracle Mops a year!
She then started regularly selling items on HSN and is considered its most successful purveyor of products, with annual sales topping $150 million. A HSN executive said that Mangano’s success is due to her ability to convey her “passion, excitement, and pride of every detail with her views.” In my experience, this entrepreneurial passion is one of the keys to successful entrepreneurship. Of course, it takes more than just passion to be successful, but without passion the rest of the skills may not matter.
The musical opened to mostly positive reviews, especially for Betsy Wolfe, who stars as Mangano. Whether that will translate to commercial and financial success for the show’s creators, especially given the current landscape where production costs have become greater and finding an audience in NYC more difficult, remains to be seen. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it extends until my trip to NYC late next month so I get the chance to see the intersection of two of the significant parts of my life, musicals and entrepreneurs!
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