Ed Mirvish Essay, Research Paper

How to build an empire on an orange crate or 121 lessons I never learned in school

by: Ed Mirvish

If you have ever been in the vicinity of Bloor St. West, then you have mostly probably seen Ed Mirvishs empire. He owns 6 restaurants, 3 theatres, and one giant four-floor bargain store. He is a man that went from nothing to everything.

He originally started off in a grocery store, which was owned by his dad. Since his father didn t have enough money to hire employees, Ed had to work long hard hours. There family barely had enough money to pay for their electricity bill, which kept getting cut off. When Ed s father passed away, that left his mother to run the store. Ed was forced to drop out of school, to assist his mother, although he was ranked seconded in his class (he was receiving the best marks of his life). Unfortunately, nine years later the store was forced to go out of business. Ed scrambled to find a job, and was lucky to find jobs through friends. He was always unhappy of his low paying jobs. So he pursued his own business. He opened up his own laundry cleaning service store, since he felt that it was practically self-serve. Soon enough his venture failed. After he got married, his wife and himself, decided to open up a store that sold ladies sports apparel. This venture of his was a huge success because he sold the apparel cheaper than the retail price. Ed thought, as long as he sold the product cheaper than the competition and more than the purchase price, he would attract customers, and profit. Ed s was extremely right. He soon enough had his wife and himself working full-time to deal with all the customers. A couple of years later Ed bought a strip. Slowly the ladies sports apparel store, expanded to take over the whole strip mall. Ed became sick of selling ladies sports-wear. So, he decided to create a bargain store, and sell all the accessories that had collected in his basement. To Ed s amazement this venture was the most successful.

Ed s wife had always been interested in arts, and so when the Royal Alec, went up for sale in 1962, Ed bought it for $200, 000. Since the theatre business was a success for Ed Mirvish, he bought a theatre in England called Old Vic, and in 1993 he built the Princess of Whales Theatre. Ed felt that when people came to a show at the theatres they would want something to eat. Since, there wasn t enough room inside the theatre he was forced to buy the land surrounding the theatre. There is where he built 6 restaurants. The restaurants are so successful that they go through, 1,200,000 meals a year, as well as 500 tons of beef.

Ed has received many awards. Some of them include The Order of Canada award, and The Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He was the first person in 25 years, being a non-English resident, to receive The Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Although Ed only had 9 years of education and virtually no money, he was still able to create a multi-million dollar empire. It was all made successful by Ed s great thinking and luck. He used to place ads in the paper about his bargain emporium, until he realized that it wasn t worth it. He found that one newspaper article is worth about one thousand advertisements. So, Ed would pull off outrageous stunts that would end up making the newspaper. He was extremely found of free publicity, so he would constantly pull off stunts that would land an article about him, in the paper.

Some of the stunts that he pulled off included recreating Noah s Ark with all the animals in the stores basement, selling potatoes and turkeys for pennies, and handing out silver dollars to the homeless. Sometimes, Ed would even get publicity when he least expected it. For instance, when the 23,000 light bulb sign was first turned on, it cut off the power for peoples blocks away.

My favorite part in the book is when Ed was able to buy the strip mall. It all started when his landlord, the same one that owned the strip mall, passed away. This allowed Ed to buy the property from the people who received it through the tenants will. The death of the Ed s tenant caused a chain reaction. It allowed Ed to expand his sports apparel store to the entire strip mall. Then, it allowed him to open Honest Ed s bargain emporium, which began to make him loads of money. This is my favorite part because this is what really got Honest Ed, as a person and a business to soar. It allowed him to buy the sign outside his store, which costed half a million dollars, back then. It allowed him to buy three theatres, and build 6 restaurants near by. As Ed said The dinky little sports shop made it possible to buy all the other properties , which in turn formed his empire.

What I learned about entrepreneurship from this book is that it doesn t just take money and the brightest education to be a successful entrepreneur. Honest Ed became successful, with out lots of money and an education. He started his business off with only a few hundred dollars. Using, the little money he had, self-confidence, and initiative he was able to build on his business until he owned an empire. Although, it was never mentioned in the book, I think that self-confidence and luck is what mainly drove Edwin Mirvish to become an owner of 3 theatres, 6 restaurants and a humongous bargain emporium. Ed never really set goals in his life; everything that was done was planned at the spur of a moment. For instance, when his tenant passed away, he made the quick decision to buy the tenants previously owned land. He was not expecting for his business to take up the whole entire strip mall, although it did. Having self-confidence in all the business decisions is what made Ed Mirvish the man he is toda