Entrepreneur Portrait: Gary Levitt, Mad Mimi
Gary Levitt, a native of South Africa, came to New York City in 2000 to be a Jazz musician. Several gigs, various jobs, and eight years later, he decided to start an email marketing business along with his brother, Dean. Today, Mad Mimi brings in several million dollars revenue each year and employs over two dozen people across the United States. Gary took some time out of his day to answer New York International’s questions about starting a business in NYC.New York International: Please tell us briefly about Mad Mimi.Gary Levitt: Mad Mimi is a web-based email newsletter tool that small businesses use to create, send, track, and share email newsletters and promotions. I started it from my little Brooklyn apartment working nights, and during the days I split my time between a couple of coffee shops in the Park Slope neighborhood (Cocoa Bar and Red Horse Cafe FTW!). 
I was quite inspired initially by the thoughts of creating a tool for musicians that would allow them to have an online presence, but the product soon evolved more generically into an email application. I think the core of the move from musician-focus to everyone-focus was the voice. I recognized a distinct lack of sweetness and approachability in the marketplace, and thought it would be a good idea to try to infuse a little of that in my own take on a popular paradigm. It seems like there was a reasonable demand for that, and we’re now closing in on almost 200,000 customers.NYIntl: Did you come to NYC with the goal of starting your own business? If not, what brought you to NYC?Gary: Jazz. I came to the US to study music at Berklee College of Music, specifically with the goal of being a jazz bass player. After graduating, New York was the natural move because the city is one of the most intense and thrilling environments to grow as an artist (and a bus boy). For several years after my arrival in New York, I cleared dining tables to make way for my pursuit of music.NYIntl: Where did you get the idea to start the company?Gary: I was interested in not doing what I was currently doing, so I was on the prowl for a problem to try to solve. Specifically, what I was doing in music wasn’t terribly satisfying - I would rather have been playing jazz with great players - and life had me playing lame library music for uninspired television programming. I figured maybe I’d try building a tool for artists to promote themselves. That was always a headache for me, and maybe there was a solution out there that I could produce and move forward from where I was. I decided to produce a tool to build online press kits; I soon discovered that the vertical stacking design method I created was able to be adapted excellently for a more general use: email newsletters.NYIntl: In just five years your business is generating millions in annual revenue. Is there something in particular you would attribute your success to?Gary: I’ve always been highly sensitive to the execution of the product and making sure it’s satisfying for me to use; I have an artist’s desire for beauty and craft. Investing those characteristics in the product found resonance with a lot of people I think, and my sense is that anyone can apply this same type of creative energy to other genres of product.NYIntl: What was your biggest mistake as an entrepreneur? Your best decision?Gary: Mistakes are never really mistakes, except if they’re a product of neglect. Whatever mistakes I made were absolutely core to a particular lesson that, had I not made whatever error of judgment then, I would have one less tool in my belt. I think my best decision though, was to structure Mad Mimi remotely. I cannot tell you how healthy it is to have my own space and allow everyone on the team the freedom to work from wherever they want. I have a bunch of kids, and after school things get crazy loud around here, so there’s definitely some noise tolerance I’ve developed, but the plus side is my kids always know where to find me. Hang on… did I say that was a plus??NYIntl: As a tech company, how much does it matter where you are based? Do you think you would have had the same success if you’d begun in South Africa?
Gary: I do not think I would have had success in South Africa but at the same time, I don’t know if it’s me or the location. I can say that being in New York and making it in music (having played at the top jazz clubs in NYC was making it for me) gave me tremendous confidence that I could hang with top notch talent. I’m also naturally disposed to having a reasonably focused and bottom-line work-style, but had I not drawn inspiration from NYC, I would probably not have the confidence to step into the tech fray and make some serious noise. That being said, I was never in the tech “scene” and I’m still removed from it. I don’t feel like I need to belong to the herd and my non-engagement with any type of scene doesn’t negatively impact my keeping on the cutting edge of what’s going on.NYIntl: There’s a lot of talk about NYC being the new Silicon Valley. What are your thoughts on that?Gary: There are lots of creative people in New York, and its diversity provides lots of freshness and polychrome. To me, technology is best built in a diverse environment where perspective and horizon are constantly expanded. I imagine others are also hip to that reality and thus NYC seems like a naturally fertile city for tech.NYIntl: In starting up in NYC, did you encounter any hurdles specifically due to being international?Gary: I sure did. Visa issues definitely make creative business establishment a little tricky. I don’t blame anyone for it, and I think Visas and permits are necessary evils but it was definitely a challenge and significant expense to wrangle my way from O1 artist visas to Green Card. An O1 visa requires a very specific set of working rules, which inevitably need to be bent or ignored when establishing a business like I was. It also made hiring key people tricky (colleagues who were also on O1s.) I understand that a system needs to exist and be consistent, which means that it’s problematic to make exceptions in visa-land, but had I not ended up getting married to a US citizen, applying for a green card would have been nearly impossible. Right now though, we employ many Americans and pay a lot in taxes. I don’t think it was that discouraging or impossible to deal with, but the red tape could have been prohibitive.