I Have a Bad Habit: Seeing Businesses Before They Exist | Steven Jensen

I have a bad habit, although I'm not entirely convinced it's a bad one.

Somewhere along the way I realized I don't really fall in love with businesses. I fall in love with ideas. Once one gets into my head, it has a way of taking over. It usually starts with a name, but it never stays there for long. Before I know it, I can already see the room, hear the music, picture the logo, imagine the guests, the conversations, the lighting, and even the way someone will feel when they walk through the front door. Long before there's a business plan, I've usually bought the URL. My friends laugh because they've watched me do it for years. In my mind, if I own the name, I've at least given the idea a fighting chance.

My family and close friends know the signs. Every now and then they'll hear something in my voice—a little more excitement than usual, maybe a little too much conviction—and they'll smile because they know what's coming next. Another idea. Another domain name. Another logo. Another concept I've somehow managed to build entirely in my head before most people would even admit it was worth thinking about. They usually roll their eyes for a minute, listen to me explain it, and somewhere along the way I can see it happen. They stop looking at me and start seeing what I see.

That habit didn't start with restaurants.

For more than twenty years I represented actors, writers and performers, sold television and film projects, and negotiated deals in Hollywood. People often assume that business is all about contracts, relationships and timing. It is. But the part I loved most happened long before any of that.

I loved possibility.

I loved reading an article, a magazine blurb or even a headline and seeing a television series or feature film where someone else saw nothing at all. I loved meeting an actor, performer or comedian who'd only landed a commercial or a handful of small roles and imagining where they could go with the right opportunity. Sometimes it became a television series. Sometimes it became a feature film built around one overlooked idea or forgotten piece of history. Sometimes it was simply believing in someone's talent long before the rest of the industry caught up. My job wasn't just putting deals together. It was seeing potential before there was proof.

Looking back, I realize that's how I've approached almost everything in my life.

That same instinct showed up again a few years ago in Charlotte with Bar One.

Back in the late 1990s there was a place in Hollywood called Bar One. It wasn't the biggest room in Los Angeles, but it was one of those places everyone wanted to be. It had an energy that couldn't be manufactured. You didn't go because it was trendy. You went because something interesting always seemed to happen there. Every night felt like it had another story waiting to unfold, and somewhere along the way that room found a permanent place in my memory.

Like most great places, it eventually disappeared.

Twenty years later I found myself in Charlotte with the opportunity to build something of my own. Most people probably would've started with market research, demographics, focus groups, or pages of possible names. My brain has never worked that way. I already had the name. More importantly, I already had the room. I could see it before it existed. The music. The lighting. The cocktails. The energy. The conversations. I wasn't bringing Hollywood to Charlotte, and I honestly didn't care whether anyone understood where the name came from. I believed in the feeling behind it, and once I committed to Bar One, everything else simply grew around that idea. If I could see it, I figured other people eventually would too.

I remember sitting across from my future partners for Bar One. Almost every meeting started in the same place. Someone would lean back, look across the table and ask, "So... how much experience do you have operating a restaurant or bar?"

My answer was always the same.

"None."

It usually caught them off guard. They expected me to dance around it or inflate a résumé I didn't have. Instead, I told them exactly what I believed. I wasn't asking them to partner in my restaurant experience. I was asking them to partner in my vision.

Somewhere during those conversations, the questions changed. They stopped asking whether I could build Bar One and started talking about it as though it already existed. That's when I knew they could see it too.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that's how almost every meaningful project in my life has begun. I don't start with a business model. I start with a feeling, and then I spend the next few months or years trying to catch up to what I already see in my head.

Kitty Kat Cocktails couldn't have been more different.

I wasn't sitting around trying to figure out how to get back into the cocktail business. The name simply appeared one day and immediately had an attitude. Within an hour I'd bought the URL and had a logo sitting on my screen. Before there was a location, a recipe or a business plan, I already knew what it was. Confident. Playful. A little glamorous. Slightly mischievous. The product didn't create the brand. The idea did.

Oakhurst Billiards & Cocktails came from watching a friend build something remarkably successful by doing the simple things exceptionally well. It wasn't about copying what he'd created. It was about asking myself what those same fundamentals would feel like in a different neighborhood with a little more panache and a completely different personality. Before I'd figured out the business, I already had the logo in my head. I could hear pool balls breaking across the room, picture worn leather stools, imagine regulars arguing over the same table every Thursday night and a bartender who knew your drink before you even sat down. None of it existed, but somehow it already felt real.

State of Grace is the only one I haven't completely figured out yet, which is probably why it keeps pulling me back.

Unlike the others, it didn't come from another place or another business. It came from a feeling. Maybe it's where I am in life. Maybe it's watching people spend years trying to become someone they think they're supposed to be instead of becoming who they already are. Maybe it's realizing that the most interesting people I've ever met were usually the ones who stopped asking for permission a long time ago.

Every few weeks another piece quietly appears. The logo's already there. The room keeps changing. The menu evolves. Another thought shows up. A different conversation. Another sketch. It keeps evolving because, if I'm being honest, maybe I am too. I'm not in any hurry with this one. Some ideas need time because they're still teaching you why they showed up in the first place.

I've stopped trying to explain this process because, honestly, I don't completely understand it myself. Some people see spreadsheets. Some people see demographics. Some people immediately ask about financing, return on investment or market share.

Maybe that's my Achilles' heel.

I've always been more interested in what something could become than what it already is.

Sometimes that's an actor.

Sometimes it's a script.

Sometimes it's a cocktail lounge.

Sometimes it's nothing more than a name scribbled on a legal pad that refuses to leave me alone.

I've learned to trust that feeling. Every meaningful idea I've ever pursued has started exactly the same way. The hair on the back of my neck stands up and suddenly I can see the whole thing. Whether it's talent, a television series, a cocktail lounge or a new hospitality concept, I don't just see what it is. I see what it could become. I can already picture the people, the conversations, the energy and the stories that haven't happened yet. That's usually when I know I'm all in.

I've finally accepted that's just how my mind works.

It's probably a bad habit.

Then again, it's also how almost everything worthwhile in my life has begun.

— Steven Jensen, Charlotte NC