Frank Babar has been in the music business since he was a teenager — he had no supervision, no safety net, just hustle. He clawed his way from making ends meet working in a warehouse to producing and promoting to becoming a full-blown music mogul, and today he’s the founder of Embassy Studios, a state-of-the-art New York City recording facility with jaw-dropping Empire State Building views. Frank sat down with me for How Success Happens to share his career journey and his advice for anyone dreaming of building a company and a legacy. Watch above or listen below, and read on for highlights from our chat to help fuel your own success.
When people ask Frank why he built a world-class recording studio in the middle of a global pandemic, his answer is refreshingly simple. He says he negotiated a 25-year lease with terms he calls unrepeatable, then explained his real motivation: “Because I could.” He’d spent decades building leverage — financial, relational, creative — so when the window opened, he was ready to walk through it.Takeaway: Keep building your skills and resources now, so when the moment comes, you’re actually ready to say yes. Frank’s core advice to entrepreneurs is blunt and unforgettable. He says inspiration and determination are everything, and if you find yourself wavering, you probably shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.
In his words, “Your foot is on the pedal, and it never comes off.” He’s quick to add that pivots are fine — even smart — but quitting never is.Takeaway: Give yourself full permission to pivot, but never give yourself permission to quit. In his early 20s, Frank was working days in the music business and nights loading trucks in a warehouse, unsure where his next check was coming from. He told his wife he wasn’t sure he could keep going. Her response reframed everything: “Do you love what you do?” When he said yes, she told him, “Well, I don’t think you should stop.” That moment, he says, is the only time in his career he seriously considered quitting — and not quitting changed his life.Takeaway: When you hit a real low, ask yourself if you still love the work — not whether the work is currently easy.
Frank admits one of his biggest early mistakes was trying to do everything himself — producer, songwriter, business guy, all at once. He says entrepreneurs often get “blinded” by their own vision and stop listening to real expertise around them. His fix when building Embassy Studios: keep the vision, but let the right experts execute it. As he puts it, “Just get the best people around you.”Takeaway: Protect your vision fiercely, but hire people who are better than you at making it real.
Comparing notes with Sam Adams founder Jim Koch, Frank realized they’d landed on the same philosophy: you either compete on price or you compete on being better. He chose better. Embassy Studios isn’t the cheapest option in New York, but Frank insists it doesn’t need to be, because it can’t be replicated. “I want something unique… that people can’t compare themselves to,” he told me.Takeaway: If you can’t win on price, make yourself impossible to compare. Frank Babar built Embassy Studios in New York City, just blocks from the Empire State Building — one of the most distinctive recording facilities in the world.
To hear the full, unfiltered conversation (including the entrepreneurial advice he almost didn’t share), check out the full episode of How Success Happens. Want more lessons on the topics we covered today? Check out these popular Entrepreneur.com reads: Each episode of How Success Happens shares the inspiring, entertaining, and unexpected journeys that influential leaders in business, the arts, and sports traveled on their way to becoming household names. It’s a reminder that behind every big-time career, there is a person who persisted in the face of self-doubt, failure, and anything else that got thrown in their way.
Frank Babar has been in the music business since he was a teenager — he had no supervision, no safety net, just hustle. He clawed his way from making ends meet working in a warehouse to producing and promoting to becoming a full-blown music mogul, and today he’s the founder of Embassy Studios, a state-of-the-art New York City recording facility with jaw-dropping Empire State Building views. Frank sat down with me for How Success Happens to share his career journey and his advice for anyone dreaming of building a company and a legacy. Watch above or listen below, and read on for highlights from our chat to help fuel your own success.
When people ask Frank why he built a world-class recording studio in the middle of a global pandemic, his answer is refreshingly simple. He says he negotiated a 25-year lease with terms he calls unrepeatable, then explained his real motivation: “Because I could.” He’d spent decades building leverage — financial, relational, creative — so when the window opened, he was ready to walk through it.Takeaway: Keep building your skills and resources now, so when the moment comes, you’re actually ready to say yes.
