Inc. Readers Review " The Aviator"

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Inc: How often does that cycle repeat? Every day?

Panton: Every hour. Nine o'clock is wonderful. Then, at 9:15, you get a phone call. At 9: 30, you want to fire somebody. And at 10:00, you get a big order.

Evans: You could be having the worst week, then something happens and you have a great day. It changes day-by-day, hour-by-hour.

Inc: Does that take a toll on you and your employees?

Panton: It takes a toll on me more than on them.

Evans: Same here. You can't share everything. You have to keep your employees motivated. You don't want to burden them with every bad thing that happens, or even tell them how great everything is.

Panton: We had a point as a dot-com when a major car company backed out. I walked around like everything was fine. They don't need to see me being depressed. I need them to maintain a good job. When things are down, I look harder and try to find other solutions. I work harder when the lows come because I'm thinking more.

Bergino: When you get to a low, you have to suspend belief of reality for a while. You have to believe what you're doing, and by you believing, other people will believe too. Otherwise, if you really let you get it down, it will affect your biz. Sometimes it's beyond reason, but you have to believe it will work out.

Bergino: If something's not going well, you have to remember that it's not going well for a lot of people. If they can get through it, you can.

Inc: Is there another company you see as a rival, similar to Hughes and the head of Pan Am?

Evans: One thing that's great about my business is that it's a unique idea. As a little guy, you have to have a unique idea to compete, especially in niche markets. Having a unique concept puts you in your own category so you're not competing. I certainly look at price points and what people are buying, but that's not something I identify with.

Inc: Do you think entrepreneurs are competitive by nature?

Panton: Very competitive.

Bergino: When I worked as a sports agent, when you're a top athlete like Derek Jeter, they think the reason they worked so hard getting to that point is that they assume there's someone out there whom they don't see who's working just as hard. If they don't do it, that unknown person is going to move in. It's not as dramatic as Hughes.

Evans: When he made crazy claims as a kid, I did the same thing. I said I was going to run my own business. So you might not fulfill that potential. You're competing against that.

Panton: My company competes against different magazine, mainly Conde Nast publications. Conde Nast spends 60 million, we spend a little less than 5 million. I look at myself as my biggest competition.

Evans: I'm not even sure if he cared about Pan Am as much as they cared about him. He just wanted to do the things he wanted to do.

Inc: Is Hughes a true entrepreneur, even though he came from money?

Panton: If he stayed with his family's drill bit company, that would be a different story. But he tried different things.

Evans: He also risked everything, regardless of how much he had to start with.

Inc: For someone so wealthy and in the public eye, I wouldn't have thought of him as the great American entrepreneur. Did you?

Bergino: I always knew him as a nut. I didn't know he was in movies, or anything.

Evans: He definitely moves up on my list. He was able to be successful in so many different areas. He's similar to Richard Branson.

Panton: He's the one who really changed the aviation industry. He thought outside the box and figured out how to do things better.

Inc: Did the movie shed any new light on you as entrepreneurs?

Bergino: I think I liked the movie least of anyone, but I liked the entrepreneurial aspect of the story. I was a little disappointed because it didn't really delve more into that. For me, the movie Bugsy did a better job of portraying what it really means to be an entrepreneur. But maybe it's just because I don't like Leonardo DiCaprio as an actor. He just couldn't win me over. That said, watching the movie did make me want to learn more about Howard Hughes the entrepreneur.

Evans: I definitely think it will stay with me. It puts things into perspective. You see how much Hughes went through and you realize that if you have a vision, you have to stick with it and stay strong. You can make a lot of things happen, assuming you were right to begin with. For entrepreneurs, you have to believe you have a great idea and you have to see it through.

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