This is the time of year you think about getting someone special something special.
I was reading about this guy Michael Santoro who I didn’t know about who makes the most beautiful things I ever saw. I’m smitten with his talent and his ethics. His company is called MacCase.
You’ll enjoy hearing his ‘Risk it or Regret It” entrepreneurial story on this podcast after you hear me ‘stall’ a little as I wait for him to show up. He apologized of course as something related to a very important important client came up. Fellow entrepreneurs totally understand. Luckily I stall good. LOL I talk about how on any given day something is going on behind the scenes with everybody it’s just a matter of ‘what’ it is right? That’s reality. And you just try and dance in between those crazy moments.
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Dancing back to my ridiculously talented guest, Michael Santoro. Michael spent 6 years as an automotive designer at Chrysler. They recognized his gift of design early and brought him on board to help design some notable cars. The ground breaking, cab-forward exterior design for the 1995 Car of the Year, a first generation Chrysler Cirrus and the Dodge Stratus. Also Michaels designs helped return the 1996-2006 Jeep Wrangler, back to its iconic roots. As a consulting designer for Walter Dorwin Teague in NYC, America’s oldest design consultancy, Michael worked for 2 years on design interiors for Boeing Aerospace and the production interior for the Gulfstream G5 aircraft. Michael was a design consultant on the Vector M12 production supercar and Vector M12 “American Anthem” North American International Auto Show show car. Additional projects included the Lamborghini Jota.
When he left corporate America to start his own design company his father didn’t think it was a smart thing. He thought his son was crazy to leave Chrysler and go to on his own with zero experience. Michael said, “He kept reminding me that I went to art school not business school and that I knew nothing about running a company. Here I am 25 years later and things are still going ok.”
Most of us know from experience that when parents make a doubtful or negative comment about your life choices, they can really get under your skin. Should you still listen to their advice? Tough call.
Michael said, “I think that its been my experience that whatever my parents tell me to do if I do the opposite I’m doing really well. I’m moving in the right direction in my life. Parents want the best for they kids so they tend to be protective I totally understand that. I know that I’m moving in the right direction if my parents are feeling fearful about a decision I’m trying to make, and then I know I need to go in that direction. (Sounds exactly how my daughter and son-in-law deal with me these days LOL)
Michael knew he had to…Risk It or Regret It!
“Once my company got up and running and My Dad saw the freedom it brought me and how I could go from concept to production in a matter of weeks he saw the freedom it brought me. He totally understood and he was on board.”
“Freedom and Creativity” are two values high on both my own and Michaels’ list. Like many creatives, Michaels ideas arrive in the shower, at night in dreams and on napkins at lunch. His dreams are about design and he gives a lot of credit to his training at Pratt in Brooklyn. “They have a very systematic way about thinking about design” said Michael. ( Nice plug for Pratt)
Now to the beautiful things he makes with ethically sourced leather from India where cows are beautiful animals treated with love and their body parts only become useful after they pass naturally.
It all started In 1999, when Michael Santoro created the Apple-specific case market with the launch of his company, MacCase.
I wondered did Michael make a strategic partnership with Apple? Otherwise how could he legally use the word Mac for anything without them?
“The company was a few months old when we went to the MacWorld show in San Francisco for the first time. We had one product in the line. We had no idea how the Apple community was going to react to this strange design for Mac iBook case. Luckily, the response was overwhelmingly positive. It was the right product at the right time, a true blue ocean strategies moment. When we got back from the show on Monday morning the phone rang. It was Apple’s legal department.
“We saw your products at the MacWorld show”, the voice said flatly. “I just wanted to congratulate you. You’re the first person to figure out how to use the Apple logo without getting sued. Best of luck to you.”
“It was at the moment I realized we might be on to something.” – Michael Santoro, President / Chief Creative Officer
Good Story Michael!
Enjoy this great podcast conversation of the live interview with Michael Santoro Founder of MacCase on The Debbie Nigro Show.
