Gustavo Serafini has constructed a dream enterprise round work he loves. He’s co-founder of Pure Audio Video, a reseller of high-end dwelling theater gear primarily based in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. The film buff and his co-founder and brother Marcelo create elaborate dwelling leisure experiences for individuals who love applied sciences, motion pictures and music. Serafini doubles as host of the Enabled Disabled Podcast, which goals to shift the narrative round incapacity and empower individuals via sensible recommendation and tales.
Pure Audio Video, based in 2005, has grown to about $2 million in annual gross sales, and presently has 9 staff, placing the duo within the small cohort of entrepreneurs whose small companies attain $1 million in annual income or extra.
Serafini has constructed his enterprise whereas dwelling with a incapacity. He was born with proximal femoral focal deficiency (PFFD), a uncommon, non-hereditary situation which leads to a shortening of the femur, for which he wears a custom-made prosthetic; he’s additionally lacking his proper arm. (He’s amongst a number of entrepreneurs who will probably be talking at a free neighborhood occasion on the New York Public Library on entrepreneurs and incapacity this coming Thursday, June 28, at midday EST; I’ll be moderating.)
Gustavo Serafini tapped his ardour for the moviegoing expertise right into a enterprise that installs … [+]
What has spurred Serafini via the ups and downs of entrepreneurship is a perception in “selecting your self”—as in “That is what I need my life to be. That is the trail I’m prepared to take. These are the sacrifices I’m prepared to make,” he explains. “If we don’t have the braveness to decide on ourselves, nothing goes to occur.”
Serafini adopted this mindset at an early age. “The primary time I bear in mind actually going out on a limb and selecting myself was after I performed basketball,” he says. “I made a decision to check out for the 8th grade group. I used to be shorter than everyone [who was trying out] and slower. Everybody was light and was telling me, mainly, ‘Gustavo you’re not going to make it. I don’t assume it’s the perfect thought you’ve ever had.’ My response was that it doesn’t matter if I make it or not. I need to take a look at myself. I need to see what I’m able to doing.”
He did make the group, which was undefeated. Though, as a pre-teen boy, he by no means requested his coach why he was chosen for the group, he intuited that the coach had two causes: to encourage others on the group to work tougher and to attain factors like everybody else.
“The coach modified his offensive system after I performed,” he remembers. “It didn’t matter if we have been up by 20 factors 30 factors, 50 factors—if I didn’t carry out, he pulled me, immediately. I used to be given the chance to make myself and him look good. If I didn’t do it, I bought taken out of the sport like everyone else.”
That have was extremely motivating for Serafini. “I spotted for the primary time that no matter limitations I believed I had have been false,” he says. “The true limits have been a lot, a lot additional away and so much murkier than I knew. Simply to have that world increase in entrance of me was life altering.”
What enjoying on the group in the end instructed him, he says, was, “I could make it on the planet. I could need to work tougher. However individuals are going to offer me the chance to do one thing.”
That have led him to function a coach at a basketball camp, the place the top coach noticed that he had a radical understanding of the game. “That was one other stunning expertise,” he says. “I realized so much about about motivating myself, main a group and camaraderie. All of these items led into entrepreneurship.”
Past that, teaching was a possibility for private development. “There was all the time a pleasure and motivation in defying expectations,” he says. “If somebody instructed me ‘You may’t do that, I took on that problem of proving them flawed.’”
Serafini attended faculty on the College of Chicago—impressed by an English trainer who wished him to turn out to be a author and liked the English program there—after which went on to the George Washington College College of Legislation. He found he didn’t have a ardour for regulation as a profession—“I used to be profoundly allergic to it,” he says—however caught it out. Nevertheless, when it got here time to use for jobs after college, felt the decision of entrepreneurship. Asking himself, “What can I do to take management of my life and the issues I’m all in favour of?” he concluded, “I ought to personal my very own enterprise.”
His brother Marcelo shared an analogous want. “We liked the film music expertise,” he says. They did some analysis and a yr and half later, determined to begin Pure Audio Video—and by no means regarded again. They initially started advertising and marketing their service to audiophiles, then refined their enterprise mannequin. Past working with prospects to plan the theaters and promoting the audio and video programs, the corporate additionally does the associated electrical work and cyber safety. Over time, they centered their consideration on serving critical audiophiles with dwelling theaters.
“This was an train in endurance, soul looking out, determining who we wished to serve and who we have been for,” he says. “We realized we wished to maneuver into the high-end, luxurious customized dwelling market, which is admittedly troublesome to interrupt into. The builders management a whole lot of that work.”
They did the entire networking they may to search out their first prospects, and the enterprise started taking off in 2007. However by 2009, the nation was in a recession. “We had that second of not realizing if we have been going to make it,” he remembers. “We determined we have been going to go high-end or shut.”
Lastly, a builder they knew gave them a possibility to bid on a job at an NFL participant’s home. They received the bid, and the builder held a barbeque to rejoice the deal. “As soon as individuals knew we labored on that job and he was completely happy and prepared to inform individuals, the alternatives began,” says Serafini. By taking each mission to the best degree they may, they constructed optimistic word-of-mouth that helped the corporate develop.
“The inventive stuff we do with pure audio/video is admittedly in honor of the artists,” he says. “While you create a cinema room that exceeds the expectations of the individuals within the business, that tells you you’re doing one thing proper. Personally, I simply love sitting in a terrific theater with associates and watching one thing I do know is as shut as doable to how the artist meant it to be. 1000’s of individuals work on a giant finances film. How typically can we admire these nuances and particular results? In the perfect case, it’s transformative.”
He and Marcelo now intention to construct the corporate to $4 million to $6 million in annual income. “I undoubtedly see the advantages of doubling or tripling in dimension,” he says. “However we don’t need to sacrifice the expertise of working with us. We don’t need to really feel company.”
For Serafini, a giant a part of the enjoyment of constructing the enterprise has been the educational course of. “That concept of mastering one thing and spending a very very long time of doing it for its personal sake for the pleasure of seeing what you are able to do is enormously motivating to me,” says Serafini. “What am I able to if I apply myself to this?”
Somewhat over a yr in the past, he began his podcast. Since then, he has turn out to be far more snug opening up and speaking about his incapacity, he says. On one event, he labored with an aged couple, by which the person seen his incapacity and requested him, “What occurred?” When Serafini instructed his story, the person’s spouse shared their very own story of shedding two kids. “There was a profound human connection and belief constructed up,” he says. “If I hadn’t been open to being susceptible, that wouldn’t have occurred.”
Serafini has discovered that whereas incapacity is a part of his identification, everybody is formed by many alternative experiences, and completely different ones come into play in several conditions, each in his enterprise and life outdoors of it.
“Incapacity is a part of us,” he says. “Generally that half can dominate the remainder. Generally it’s there within the background. It is dependent upon the place you’re and what you’re doing in life.”