Erik Lautier is a former professional actor and opera singer who parlayed a web design business serving performing artists in the early 2000s into a highly successful career as an ecommerce and marketing executive at publicly-traded retail companies. Today, he’s an entrepreneur, an emerging composer, and a dad.

QUOTES

“The definition of making it on Broadway is doing the same show for potentially years at a time. And that terrified me because I didn’t see another way.”

“I’m going to teach myself web design so I can build a site for my performance work, others saw it and started to pay me to do that for them.”

“I needed an exclamation point after my performance career, to show I had skills and that ended up being an MBA.”

“It dawned on me that what was truly unique about me was this background that was completely unconventional… they (MBA colleagues) saw value in that even if I didn't at the time.”

“The marriage of technical and creative is a gift that musicians have that they don’t realise they have. That is extraordinarily valuable in business or another context.”

“When people ask me what they should I do, I say “just do something, anything you’re passionate about” Just get started.”

“Being able to pay singers to make their art was very gratifying.”

“I wasn’t afraid to fail and I wasn’t afraid to look like an idiot. And that’s the key. You can’t be worried about appearances on this kind of journey.”

LINKS

• Erik Lautier
• Hamlet, an Epic Opera by Erik Lautier
• Seth Godin
• INSEAD: The Business School for the World
• Pivoting Into Business After an Artistic Career from INSEAD

PODCAST TEAM

Production Support from Molly Jenkins
Audio Engineering from Frazer Ruddick
Theme Music Composed by Danna Yun
Theme Music Performed by Jasper Ly

RECORDED

Recorded on 05 April, 2021.