About The Author

Dear Reader,

MJ Gottlieb was born on the Lower-East Side of Manhattan. He attended the Friends Seminary School from kindergarten until he graduated in 1988, and began his undergraduate studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he majored in philosophy, but was disappointed that the school offered only Western philosophy, as MJ was interested in the Eastern studies of Philosophers like Lao Tzu and the mindset of the Eastern culture. Frustrated with his studies, MJ became involved in the study of race relations. Coming from the melting pot of the United States, he was shocked to find a separation of the races that he had never seen before.

MJ started his first company, BNW Racial Awareness Wear in his senior year with his roommate, Gary McDonald. BNW was an urban inspired clothing company, standing for Black ‘N White, MJ being Caucasian, and his partner, African-American. The message of the company was to show that, if a black and a white person can come together and create something positive, it could break down the color barriers and get people to work together as human beings, regardless of race, culture or religion. With a $540 loan from MJ’s father for 100 t-shirts, they began their journey into the world of entrepreneurs. Due to the controversial nature of the collection, MJ was frequently asked to speak on behalf of the company at various tradeshows, expos, and colleges in order to explain the importance of what he and Gary were doing. This is where he got his first bug to speak and interact with the public and he thrived on the interest he generated from the public. From the time he started BNW in 1991, to the time they ended their second company in 2000, they had shipped several million dollars in product and had distribution in over two thousand stores and fifteen countries worldwide. Their product appeared in over forty magazines and trade publications, had appeared on network television over seventy times, and their product was worn by over two hundred celebrities in the sports, music and entertainment industry.

After licensing the BNW brand to Samsung America MJ became involved in the development and launching of another brand that Samsung was financing, FUBU, and he and Gary were given the lucrative opportunity to work for the amazing start-up, however they turned the offer down as they made the mistake of letting their emotions cloud their judgment. BNW’s plan for expansion was soon halted as they lost their license in February of 1996 as Samsung needed to concentrate on the further expansion of FUBU.

Eighteen months later, he started his next business, Entrig, with Gary by his side, and, within the first six months of business built revenues in excess of two million dollars and orders from nearly eight hundred stores worldwide, however a small oversight, a seemingly “simple mistake” in the production of their core denim forced them to surrender their business in a single day, as they did not have the capital to cover the loss.

After building up two businesses for eleven years, and subsequently losing each one in a single day with a ‘simple’ mistake, MJ, for his own rehabilitation spent the next several months writing down all the mistakes he had made in both business ventures in order to try to put as many of the mistakes on the table as he could so he could identify them in order not to make them in the future. One day, a friend of his told him that he should do more than write his mistakes down for his own rehabilitation, but to turn it into a book. His friend commented, “What you have experienced and learned should be passed on to the next generation of entrepreneurs. You can save NOT JUST YOU, but a heck of a lot of people from an awful lot of headaches in the future… Heck, call it Everything you should NOT do in business!” Years later, MJ would finish a thirteen chapter booked entitled “How To Ruin a Business Without Really Trying”).

In 2001, MJ formed Urban Connexion, Inc. (UCX), a strategic consulting firm located in New York City. His company acts as a liaison between new companies looking for capital and/or financing, as well as large companies looking to acquire companies and/or licenses. Furthermore, Urban Connexion (UCX) acts as strategic consultants to assess a company's overall health, and strengthen their weaknesses. Once building the company's weaknesses, he will work with all departments of the company and oversee in the development of making them work together as one strategic unit. UCX also seeks dormant intellectual properties and/ or overseas properties that MJ feels may be an asset to the domestic market. Urban Connexion will either buy the Intellectual Property outright, license it out, or form a strategic partnership with a domestic company.

MJ has also served as a strategic consultant for a wide variety of companies ranging from clients as small as $300,0000 in revenue, to companies in excess of several billion dollars including but not limited to; Fubu, Drunkn Munky, Negro League Baseball Museum, AST Sportswear, Young Stuff Apparel Group, Jordin Sportswear, Johnny Blaze, Wu Footwear, Super Seven, multi-billion dollar giant Kellwood Enterprises, Phat Farm, Diana Z, Origami, Monarch Clothing, billion dollar Chinese giant Sainty International, Inc., multi billion dollar giant Korean based Samsung America, and a list of others in the sports, clothing, media, and entertainments industries. " On the apparel side, I'd say we did our fair share of shipping when I owned the brands, but significantly more, sometimes ten to twenty million dollars a year acting as a sales agent for several clients for the other seven years".

In February 2003, MJ merged Los Angeles based Drunkn Munky Clothing Company, with NY based GTFM Inc., owner of FUBU THE COLLECTION. He agreed to stay after the merger taking a consulting retainer. In addition, GTFM hired Urban Connexion’s sales force to oversee the sales of both Drunkn’ Munky as well as FUBU, Platinum FUBU, and Harlem Globetrotters, a license acquired by FUBU the year before.

In May of 2003 (though already two years into filming), while working days at FUBU, MJ officially began shooting a documentary during the late night hours on the streets of New York City entitled, Forgotten Souls, a documentary on the homeless and disenfranchised on the streets of Manhattan. In the documentary, for four years, MJ interviewed these victims, first hand, and gave them a voice to speak out on the true realities of the system. This documentary gave MJ a much deeper role of speaking out, as well as first-hand reporting, which taught him not only to be a better speaker, but to be a better listener, something that plays a crucial role in public speaking, lectures, and consulting.

While shooting the documentary, MJ formed The Forgotten Souls Foundation, Inc. a not-for-profit-organization that is set up to provide the first upward mobility program for this overlooked segment of society. A full service program for the lives of the people that, for whatever reason, have fallen off of the radar screen of the American Public. The goal of Forgotten Souls is to be the first organization to put them through a program that supports them to become healthy working class citizens again, and, most importantly, provides them the opportunity for full upward mobility to go from obscurity to as high a level they want to reach. MJ has developed the concept to a reality-program that follows these Forgotten Souls on film to track the progress of these individuals as they struggle to overcome their previous demons, and accomplish their dreams, no matter how high those dreams might be..

In 2005, MJ and clothing partner David Saulters launched of Crooked Ink, an urban-upscale contemporary clothing company, dedicated to the memory of Mark Anthony Brown (aka M.A.B), best friend to David. The line has been viewed on nearly every celebrity in the urban contemporary industry, and celebrated its million dollar sales mark in only its seventh month in business. By the end of the year two, the company was shipping nearly one million dollars in revenue per month with heavy product distribution throughout both domestic and international markets.

In July 2007, MJ stepped down and sold his rights to both companies in order to focus on the launching of thelemonaideguide.com, a website geared toward helping the aspiring entrepreneurs of our next generation and to use his new method of teaching to warn them of the key mistakes most entrepreneurs make when entering into the business world for the first time. “My hopes are to build a community of entrepreneurs that I can work with on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to help them in their journeys into the world of being entrepreneurs.” He adds, “I’d like to stay in this space. I think I’m done with apparel. I just have too much information in my head about the life of an entrepreneur, I feel I can dedicate quite a long time to help this next generation of entrepreneurs avoid the mistakes that I have made in the past. I’m telling you, knowing what ‘not’ to do is the secret. I just need the chance to share that information with as many people as humanly possible.”