Wayne Shulick

Wayne Shulick is a self-made successful serial entrepreneur located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wayne has a long history of business creation and development in numerous industries such as fashion, nightlife, curating, and investment. Wayne is a street CEO currently focusing on business opportunities in nightlife, fashion, and pet products post corona landscape. Wayne Shulick is highly motivated and creative with outside the box thinking. When Wayne isn’t traveling for his business back and forth from LA and Philly, he often enjoys boxing in his free time.

Where did the idea for Modern Bone come from?

My partner and I consistently look at market trends (before COVID hit ) and find industries where we can come with cool brands with many channels of revenue such as direct to consumer, amazon, wholesale, etc. The idea for Modern Bone actually came from analyzing these trends and we took it and ran with it.

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

My average day looks similar to most top executives: it consists of meetings, meetings, and more meetings. Interspersed with emails and phone calls. I also spend plenty of time traveling between our two locations in Philadelphia and LA along with the typical business meeting. While my job takes up a lot of my time, I enjoy boxing in my free time.

How do you bring ideas to life?

It takes a lot of patience to see things through to completion at each stage of the business process. It’s more important to not rush and take your time to develop an idea and walk it through to physical launch. If you get hasty, you may be posing a serious financial risk for a product or service rushed to market.

What’s one trend that excites you?

Believe it or not, the pet field. People don’t really think about it, but this particular market is pretty recession-proof as animals still need to be cared for like humans. Also, pet lovers can be encouraged to give back to pet charities.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

Success as a serial entrepreneur is a great “habit” to get into. The goal is to build great sustainable companies that make a solid profit. We are driven to do that every day within my businesses.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I would stress to myself the importance of patience: I definitely have made my share of mistakes of rushing through a decision I should have sat down to thoroughly consider. Patience is key to success and be very granular and look at a nuclear worst-case scenario rather than best-case scenario

Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

This reminds me of my first nightlife project. Everyone told me I was nuts as I was trying to contribute to nightlife in Philadelphia. They would tell me things like “it’s not New York”, “ It won’t work here” etc… But I knew in my gut if I were to build it, that people would come as this was something that hadn’t been tapped in this market. 17 years later, although I eventually sold it, it’s STILL talked about as the best nightlife Philly has ever seen. Don’t let people shun your business ideas. They just might work.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Having a strong work ethic is another important attribute. It’s been said that talent will only take you so far: it’s the determination to improve and have a strong work ethic that will take you all the way. As a leader, it’s even more important to showcase a strong work ethic as everyone is looking to you as an example. If you don’t practice what you preach, do honestly expect them to do so?

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

I think one strategy is to focus on creating more channels of revenue with each particular business, especially post-COVID. As we don’t exactly know when occupancies will be back to almost 100 percent, it forces us to think about adding other channels of revenue to make up for the lower number of customers

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

One time, I expanded a business too quickly…. I had to learn the hard way that I did not yet understand the difference between cash flow and profit. It was a huge error on my part, but I thankfully have not made this same mistake again. As long as you learn from your mistakes, you will continue to grow.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

Alright, I’ve got an actual idea for a business, not just business advice. Resale clothing businesses have great potential growth. This would be a good area to consider getting into.

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

Personal or professional, believe it or not, the best purchase I made recently was Uggs slippers. While this may seem inconsequential, it’s a great product and I wear them personally and professionally.

What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive?

I can’t stress enough the importance of learning excel – for projections especially, but there is so much potential in that software and will serve you well if you invest your time into improving your skills.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

“Tuesdays With Morrie” has long been an essential read for me and I highly recommend it as it keeps you grounded. There are a lot of golden nuggets to be found throughout the book.

What is your favorite quote?

“Keep your sex life, income, and next move private.” While this may be a rather blunt statement, each of these things should be considered outside the public eye. Revealing them can cause more than just some uncomfortable moments: the choice to disclose this may have a negative effect on your career.

Key Learnings:

• Be more granular regardless of business or investment size
• Understand your marketplace.
• Make sure you have a great team around you.