A Happy Career in Music
Maria Garcia, MBA1
Issue date: 11/15/04 Section: News
On Friday, the Entertainment, Media & Sports Club and the Entrepreneur and Venture Club presented Happy Walters (BBA '90), founder and CEO of Immortal Records.
A very practical person, Happy Walters is the fascinating for the audience, most from the Business school and the Law school, who had many questions about both the music and the sports industry.
But how does a regular Indiana guy become so successful in this type of industry? Happy has had an amazing record of success over the last 14 years in the entertainment industry since leaving Michigan and driving to LA upon graduation. Despite having no entertainment contacts whatsoever, through creativity and a willingness to hustle as an entrepreneur he finally found his first break after 18 months with the discovery of the hip-hop act Cypress Hill.
Listening to this guy talking about the music industry, it seemed like it was easy for him to be successful. Happy dresses in typical LA business style - khakis, t-shirt, laid back - that belies a confident attitude derived from doing things his way effectively for a long time. Creativity is the word that defines him (maybe it all started with such an interesting first name!). Happy is a serial entrepreneur. By the age of 19 in Michigan, he already had the knowledge of outsourcing and by his last year at college he had started 10 businesses. So he sold them, including one he sold to Joe Boxer, and went to LA, one of the only two cities - the other being NY - were he thinks this industry can be developed.
As mentioned, he initially took a year and a half to sign his first artist, but after some years of guesses and some mistakes, he has become a well know player in the music, movie and sports industries. In the last 14 years, he has launched Immortal Records, expanding into movie soundtracks, then into television and movie production, and finally into athlete representation. Happy and Immortal have continuously looked for new areas of business.
A very practical person, Happy Walters is the fascinating for the audience, most from the Business school and the Law school, who had many questions about both the music and the sports industry.
But how does a regular Indiana guy become so successful in this type of industry? Happy has had an amazing record of success over the last 14 years in the entertainment industry since leaving Michigan and driving to LA upon graduation. Despite having no entertainment contacts whatsoever, through creativity and a willingness to hustle as an entrepreneur he finally found his first break after 18 months with the discovery of the hip-hop act Cypress Hill.
Listening to this guy talking about the music industry, it seemed like it was easy for him to be successful. Happy dresses in typical LA business style - khakis, t-shirt, laid back - that belies a confident attitude derived from doing things his way effectively for a long time. Creativity is the word that defines him (maybe it all started with such an interesting first name!). Happy is a serial entrepreneur. By the age of 19 in Michigan, he already had the knowledge of outsourcing and by his last year at college he had started 10 businesses. So he sold them, including one he sold to Joe Boxer, and went to LA, one of the only two cities - the other being NY - were he thinks this industry can be developed.
As mentioned, he initially took a year and a half to sign his first artist, but after some years of guesses and some mistakes, he has become a well know player in the music, movie and sports industries. In the last 14 years, he has launched Immortal Records, expanding into movie soundtracks, then into television and movie production, and finally into athlete representation. Happy and Immortal have continuously looked for new areas of business.
