Announcer: 0:00

The following programming is sponsored by Marc J Bernstein. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management or Beasley Media Group. Entrepreneur, founder, author and financial advisor, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing business owners turn their visions into reality. Through his innovative work and the Forward Focus Forums, Marc connects entrepreneurs to resources that fuel their success. Founders Forum is a radio show and podcast where entrepreneurs share their journeys, revealing the lessons they've learned and the stories behind their success. Join Marc and his guests for a mix of inspiration, valuable insights and a little fun. Now let's dive in.

Marc Bernstein: 0:44

Should I, should I, should I? That's the song. Anyway. That's the song called Should I? From the album by Frets Bridges and Skins. It's called Like Hurting Cats and that's an album that I produced with my band during the pandemic, so I don't think I've ever really talked about that on the air. I thought it was appropriate, because should I is a big question I think we all go through every day, every decision we make, and this is a show for entrepreneurs and, um, you know, it's um, I, I, uh.

Marc Bernstein: 1:18

We have Sean Dawes in the studio, who was our last guest on the show, and we were talking a little bit about motivation and how people are making decisions constantly. In fact, let's make this the topic of the day, because we were talking about you know, how do you control your motivation? And I did some recent listening to a podcast that basically said you don't, because everything you do is motivated by you. It's just you may not be aware of how you're motivated, and so stepping back and thinking about your motivation and why you did certain things and having you assess that might help you in terms of do I continue to go in this direction? Should I or should I go in this direction? And Sean, have you say words and I'm going to introduce Justin and have him talk a little bit about that, but no, just about this whole idea of we talked a little bit about Nike on the last show and just doing it. You know how do you see motivation in terms of your actions on a daily basis as an entrepreneur?

Sean Dawes: 2:28

Yeah, I think I mean oftentimes even comparing outside of business, but even to just exercising at the gym. Oftentimes people say some days you just don't want to do it, but you have to find what your why is and why you're doing it. And I think for me obviously, like I mentioned in the last, conversation having children. Oftentimes, when you become a parent, that becomes your. Why You're getting up, you're pushing through those challenges, whether it's in business or in life, because of those very reasons. So I think it's crucial to find that inner motivation.

Marc Bernstein: 2:54

So when you become a parent, it becomes a parent, which is maybe that's where that word came from when you think about it. But anyway, so Justin Wineburgh's here. I'll introduce him formally in a minute. But, Justin, what do you think about that? You're an entrepreneur having to make on the way in. We were talking about all your different departments and everything that's going on, and there's a lot of decisions that have to be made in almost every minute. I would think, yes, sure.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 3:17

And thanks for having me, my pleasure. For me, the motivator is pretty clear and I agree with Sean and I've said this before my greatest motivation fear, absolutely petrified, and that fear gets channeled into motivation from the second I open my eyes in the morning. It's the fear of not just failing myself, but also failing the people who rely upon me.

Marc Bernstein: 3:50

So, yep, so I think that's great. I think it's great that you understand what your motivation is. I think a lot of people don't understand what's motivating them. I hate to call it positively and negatively, but the things you do and the things you do, which you don't always necessarily mean to do or not necessarily taking you in the direction that you want to go in.

Marc Bernstein: 4:11

But with that let me introduce Justin as president and CEO of Alkemy Alkemy AlchemyX. Justin Wineburgh has transformed the 44-year-old company from a Philadelphia post-production studio into a solutions-driven media and entertainment powerhouse with expanding expertise into the industry's hottest sectors. So, from work on the Emmy-winning series on top streaming platforms to original branded content connecting viewers with consumers, influencers and tastemakers, in his nine years at the helm of Alkemy X, Wineburgh has rejuvenated or Justin has rejuvenated and established the global company as an award-winning creative partner at the intersection of entertainment advertising technology. Under Wineburgh's, under Justin's leadership I'm reading, so I'm going to change it he's here with us, so I'm going to call him Justin instead of Wineburgh.

Marc Bernstein: 5:06

The Alkemy X team has worked on top hit series and films from the Walking Dead franchise on AMC, amazon, prime's the Marvelous Mrs Maisel Great show I love that show Starz Power franchise, hbo's the Gilded Age and Westworld another great show, and Wednesday on Netflix they're probably all great shows, but I haven't seen them all To Academy Award-winning films the Whale and the Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. To original unscripted series as TLC's award-winning Dragnificent and Restaurant Impossible on the Food Network, while growing the company's slate of branded production for the likes of Amazon, t-mobile, electronic Arts, hulu, wayfair, bud Light, samsung and more. I think we used up half the show in that introduction, but there's a lot there. So welcome Justin again and listen. One of the most interesting parts of your story is when I was introduced to you. I was introduced to you as actually a lawyer at a major Philadelphia law firm national law firm and that's how you spent your career. So tell us how that happened and then how you went from that to what you're doing today. There is a connection, so we'll talk about that.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 6:18

Yeah, I think I've had an entrepreneurial spirit from my teenage years. If you will, I had a business in college and Sean can relate to that, as will I had a business in college.

Marc Bernstein: 6:26

Sean can relate to that as well. We've been talking about that.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 6:28

Yeah, and me too, and I went to law school, practiced law for many, many years, started when I was 12, as you can tell, and practiced law for 19 years.

Marc Bernstein: 6:43

The.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 6:43

Doogie Howser of entertainment lawyers yeah, exactly, and built a media and entertainment practice at a global law firm. The practice and department did not exist at that law firm, but I saw an opportunity because essentially the practice of law, while there are specific industry concepts, it's also a combination of so many varied practices of law and areas of law that already existed, whether it's corporate intellectual property tax, real estate, insurance, et cetera.

Marc Bernstein: 7:13

By the way, I just have to tell you I knew that law firm early on as a young lawyer because I worked at another firm alongside of them on the MGM fire case way back, which was a big deal, so entertainment definitely wasn't their business, even though it happened to be the MGM hotel.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 7:28

No, no, no, not at all. But it's interesting you bring that up because there were all of these entertainment adjacent types of cases that they handled and I saw that opportunity saying, okay, well, we're doing all you know. We were doing that type of work, as your example at MGM, mgm. Mgm has lots of entertainment concepts and entertainment issues we should be Marc to them. The door is open, we just have to walk through it and ask for that type of work.

Marc Bernstein: 7:58

By the way, I didn't realize all that until recently. I was in Las Vegas, went to the Sphere, which is pretty cool.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 8:01

The Sphere. It's not called the Sphere.

Marc Bernstein: 8:03

But I stayed in an MGM hotel, the Dara, which I didn't realize was an MGM hotel, and I didn't realize how vast. What they do in Las Vegas, aside from has nothing to do with making movies for the most part.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 8:18

It's tremendous. So, anyway, I sort of used that thesis to put together a business plan and say let's go after this body of clients. And the law firm supported me. I mean, they saw it was a firm that really embraces an entrepreneurial spirit and vision. And I was young, right, and at some point being young and maybe ignorant can be an asset, right. It's the eyes wide shut and I recognized that I had a number of sort of relationships right Childhood friends that were in the media and entertainment business that trusted me, friends that were in the media and entertainment business that trusted me, and that was kind of the genesis of the law practice.

Marc Bernstein: 9:10

What kind of work did you do? Was it film related, music related?

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 9:14

It was initially litigation related. One of my best friends from growing up was sued in connection with his production of a pretty significant blockbuster film in Hollywood called the Ring that we're familiar with, and he had asked me to help him, and I utilized the existing infrastructure of my law firm to defend him and his company, and without going into all the boring minutiae details of this it became a three-year piece of litigation in Los Angeles.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 9:58

So, being from Philadelphia, I was going out to LA and spent the better part of these three years in LA meeting people and we sort of became known because it was a contentious lawsuit and the case went to trial and it settled favorably after two weeks of trial and it was sort of that. That was kind of the inflection point, because it was this sort of well-covered lawsuit in the industry with a favorable result and I was kind of there in the middle of having done something once the first time, but having done it really, really well.

Marc Bernstein: 10:30

Yeah.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 10:31

And that sort of started the kind of flame really spreading, not to go back to your MGM fire analogy and I assume and that was also a litigation case, so I assume more litigation came in.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 10:44

But I also assume that eventually you were doing contractual work and other stuff that wasn't 100 percent, because what would happen was we were well, it was the litigation of specific producer types of issues right. It sort of led to the question of well, what? Why are we in this lawsuit? We have contracts, so you sort of back up the train to the very beginning of the station and you can then become the expert on how to draft these contracts and what do you do to prevent future litigation?

Marc Bernstein: 11:12

You got it.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 11:12

Exactly so. That was kind of the genesis of all of the very early stages, and this was like the mid-2000s, so 2004, 2003. And this was my best friend at the time and he's passed away, as I said, but that turned into a bunch of other types of matters.

Marc Bernstein: 11:35

So you came to have a very successful entertainment law practice. I did, and then what happened?

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 11:41

And then what happened? So back in 2004-5, my studio now where I work and happen to own had come to me for legal help. They had an idea for a television show, philadelphia-based studio, philadelphia-based post-production company that was looking to get into the actual production of content, and they had come to me to help them do that. And it was sort of a unique time in the industry, developing some expertise with also representing documentary filmmakers and unscripted reality TV is basically just a short documentary movie, right. And they came to me to help them with a reality TV show and this was at a unique time in the industry.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 12:40

I was involved with some of the early tax incentives around producing TV shows and I helped them put together what became a really, really successful reality show for the Food Network and that was kind of my first touch with what was called Shooters at the time that had been founded in 81. And I helped them over the ensuing years thereafter with this piece of content, with Restaurant and Dinner Impossible. It started as and then became Restaurant Impossible and that show lasted for 13 seasons. And all the while I was helping them sort of expand into some other areas of the industry, helping them grow or helping them try to grow, as the case may be, and that was their path. The industry, and by that I mean the advertising industry, went through a pretty big correction in 2012. And that was sort of the first kind of crack. Was that a big?

Marc Bernstein: 13:46

writer's strike year. Well, that was earlier.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 13:48

That was earlier, but yeah, this is the advertising side Gotcha, and that was kind of the sort of crack in the company. Right, the Restaurant Impossible and so many of the company's other divisions were doing really well because of these tax credits, but it was kind of like a dying fruit on the vine because we know these shows come to an end and come 2013,. That was what happened and the company was having some significant trouble. By 2015, the company was on the verge of really going out of business. The shareholders at the time had come to me, um, and asked what was going on in the business and I gave them my thoughts on, uh, on the problems and the challenges.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 14:35

And it was typical, you know, entrepreneur stuff raise the bridge, lower the water. Not enough clients, not enough business. Out of control expenses Um, enough business out of control expenses, you know. And there was problems. They had a bank. The bank wasn't impressed by how they were running the company and how the business was being pushed forward. And they looked at me and said, well, do you want to come in and run the business? Take over as CEO? I was like, absolutely not.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 15:08

Don't put me on the Titanic inches from the iceberg, so that was kind of the and this was Sounds like a joke.

Marc Bernstein: 15:14

Wineburgh on the iceberg.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 15:16

Exactly Right. Wineburgh staying off this iceberg, so this was like late 2015. By that point they had changed the name of the company from Shooters to Alkemy X. It's kind of like what you see when restaurants are having trouble.

Marc Bernstein: 15:33

All they do is they change a sign. Right, it's just a rebrand.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 15:36

Right, and let's see if that works. Right, right, right, and that's kind of what they had done. So, and that's kind of what they had done.

Marc Bernstein: 15:45

We have to take a break in a second, but what changed that convinced you to take?

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 15:50

over. It was the Thanksgiving break 2015. And I went home and basically thought you know what? What's the worst that can happen? I know what I know. I don't know what I don't know. Let me go learn a heck of a lot about a lot of things I don't know. The entrepreneur in you took over. I didn't even know it was in there, but it really did take over and said you know what? I think I'm as good as I say I am, but let me go try and prove it.

Marc Bernstein: 16:17

Well, we're going to hear more about this right after our break.

Announcer: 16:19

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Marc Bernstein: 17:38

We're back on WWDB AM in Philadelphia and you're probably listening to us on podcast. And, by the way, we just had an ad from the Sattel Institute great organization, which is how Justin and I met. So back to your story. So there you were, you took the plunge and then what happened?

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 17:58

So it was really this perfect confluence of an entrepreneurial spirit, business acumen and knowledge of at least what I thought was knowledge of the media and entertainment business, with this fundamental kind of attorney backdrop. And you know, I looked at the opportunity to become the CEO, the actual head of the company. I wasn't a lawyer, I wasn't going to be their general counsel, I wasn't going to be sort of siloed into one particular area, just working for someone else. And it's an unusual career opportunity to be able to go from a law firm as a partner and have a successful career to become the actual chief executive of a going concern, Putting aside for a moment the viability of the going concern at the time. And that was kind of the impetus here. Right, it was one of those major life inflection points to take an entrepreneurial risk in a really challenged environment and a really strong way to give a parent a heart attack. When I walked away from a law career I thought I was going to kill my mom.

Marc Bernstein: 19:10

I understand that. Well, you know I'm another guy who walked away from a law career to do what that was the question I got, but you know anyway.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 19:16

Yeah, exactly Exactly. You guys do what. What's this company do? So I started kind of the transition in January of 2016 and full-time started as the president and CEO on February 1st of 2016. So we're coming up on nine years.

Marc Bernstein: 19:33

Do the current shareholders still own the company? They do not.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 19:37

They all exited the business in 2018. So I'm now the sole shareholder of the company.

Marc Bernstein: 19:45

I thought so. I just wanted to confirm that. So now you're much more than CEO. You're the owner, you're the guy that you know the buck stops here, kind of guy.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 19:53

Yeah, and I think that was really important as part of the entrepreneurial kind of turnaround story of the company, not only to our you know external stakeholders and the people that do business with the company, but also with the people who work at the company. Right, my colleagues every day. Right that I believe so strongly in the mission of the company and the mission of what we're doing and in our success that I went all in right, I took out the other shareholders, I streamlined the operation, I got rid of the chatter and I believe so much right, this isn't me, right, I don't make content right I believe so much in the people and in the team and in our mission and what we do and what we bring and, as Sean said, the why, why we're doing it.

Marc Bernstein: 20:41

Do you, do you? And I assume a lot of the employees are still there, many of them, or oh?

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 20:46

yeah, we have employees that are I hate the word employees but I have colleagues that work with me that have been there for 26, 27 years, some of them Right gotcha. We have people that are approaching retirement age.

Marc Bernstein: 21:01

I would imagine you had to do some adjustments to company culture coming out of what the company came out of.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 21:06

I would think Big time adjustments to company culture. Coming out of what the company came out of. I would think Big time adjustments in company culture and where I want everyone to be empowered to solve problems. That's sort of the biggest thing is that I can help people, I can open the door, but I want everyone there to feel empowered to do their best to solve problems.

Marc Bernstein: 21:25

In effect, they're your stakeholders, if not shareholders, they're your stakeholders in the company Sure, and it seems to be going well. I know the company's robust in terms of there's lots of business there.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 21:39

Yeah, you know, listen, we started a turnaround in 2016. Right, and we were well on our way and 2020 was going to be our year. It took me a few years, I was well on our way and 2020 was going to be our year. Right, it took me a few years, I was ready to go and 2020 was our year. And then, of course, we all know what happened in 2020 and, putting aside, obviously, all the tragedy and illness and everything else, it kind of was almost good to some extent for the company for a whole host of reasons. Most importantly was that I was working on a turnaround on a company that was in bad shape and instantly, overnight, every other company in the world was in bad shape with me. Right, right, right, put you on equal footing, right. So that was kind of good. And then, to some extent, right, and it gave us 2020,. 2021 was wiped out, 2022 was going to be our year and I had to work on some operational issues. And then 2023, we were ready to go.

Marc Bernstein: 22:38

And then, of course, right after the pandemic, all of Hollywood decided to go on strike. Time flies by quickly on this, so I want to get to your future vision, but along with that, I want to ask you about how you handle challenges. So if this were three years from today, Justin so it's November of 2027, and you and I are talking, we're looking back on the last three years what would have to happen in your business and I'm going to say, in your life, because we were talking earlier. It's all intertwined right, Sure, so what?

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 23:06

does that look like for you? I am now really singularly focused on stability. Having been through the pandemic and those challenges, having been through the strike there were actually four concurrent labor disputes over the past two years I've made such changes in the business, in the cost of the business, in the overhead structure of the company, to set it up for long term stability. Right, in any business there's always going to be vagaries of of clients. Right, you're always going to have revenue ups and downs and I've kind of put in place a structure that we will weather that storm no matter what. And then I've also positioned the company for essentially unlimited scale. We now live in a global world, to some extent thanks to the pandemic, with remote work, hybrid work in large respects, which basically in my mind, means that I have unlimited capacity for people and unlimited scale. And I positioned the company that way.

Marc Bernstein: 24:11

That's great. Well, I was going to ask you what strengths do you have to overcome any potential storms? But you just answered it You've built it for that. That's where we'll be in three years. That's wonderful. Scaling, may I ask you? I mean offline. We were talking about some of the great personal things happening in your life what does that look like for you over the next three years?

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 24:28

Yeah, so I'm going through a significant, profound change. As we talked about, I lost my mother recently, who I was extremely close with, and that's been a devastating and gutting and heartbreaking time in my life. And then, shortly thereafter, I found out that, even a little bit later in life, I'm obviously now expecting my first daughter in a few months. And you know, I think it's when you talk about things coming full circle you know I'm going to go from that moment of profound grief to what I envision being the singular, most moment of profound joy that anyone could experience. And you know, while I'm saddened by the loss of my mother and her not being there, this is my personal circle of life.

Marc Bernstein: 25:20

It's, you know. I don't have words you know to express to you. I know a lot of what you're going through, but it is the circle of life and you have nice things to look forward to. I do.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 25:34

I'm anxious with my wife and I to really go on to this next phase of life together, in a time of professional prosperity as well.

Marc Bernstein: 25:43

Yeah, it sounds great. A couple of last questions. If you could speak to your younger self, what advice would you give you, knowing what you know now?

Announcer: 25:52

Work really really hard.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 25:56

It's okay to make mistakes, it's okay to fail, but to work really, really hard and do the absolute best you can, no matter what I call it, like the 90 percenters, I see so many people that are 90 percenters and can get 90 percent of the way there. The artistry lies in that last 10 percent getting it into the end zone.

Marc Bernstein: 26:22

Justin, what are your thoughts, since you're having a child and you've built this business? What are your thoughts, since you're having a child and you've built this business? What are your thoughts about your legacy?

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 26:29

I think it dovetails into my last answer really to leave the world a little bit better than however I found it. Touch a life right. I sort of try and touch lives, no matter what I do, and leave them a little bit better than the way I found them. And if other people can do that, it doesn't take a lot right? I've taught, I teach, I've taught law school for years and years. I still get emails now from people whose careers have been touched by something I did a decade ago. I see people on the street.

Marc Bernstein: 26:59

Yeah, you probably had no idea.

Justin B. Wineburgh, Esq: 27:00

I don't even remember some of these students coming up to me on the street saying you touched my life with that class or with that one lecture or with what you helped me with, and just to give. It doesn't take a lot, right. It can be one email a day, one phone call, one text, right. Just the tiniest act of kindness can be inspirational to someone and you don't even know it, and it doesn't take a lot.

Marc Bernstein: 27:26

Yeah, I agree, and, um, you know, those kind of random not not necessarily random, but the acts of kindness throughout the day, throughout your week, throughout your life, and that's, that's a great legacy to have With that, believe it or not, we've run out of time, it went quickly and uh, we thank you all for listening. Thank you, justin, for being here, sean, thank you for being here for the second recording of the show today, and thank you all for listening and we'll see you next week on Founders Forum. Thanks, Marc.