Jake Steinfeld readily admits he didn’t come to California to become an entrepreneur. But when the opportunity presented itself, he grabbed it and held on for dear life until he was able to build a fitness empire worthy of his well-muscled frame.
“I knew I was an entrepreneur the second I made the cover of (body-building magazine Sportstyle), and I said, ‘How can I turn this cover into money? How can I parlay me being on this cover into the next idea, the next venture? I knew it right at that moment,” says Steinfeld, chairman of Body by Jake Global.
But the road from $200-a-half-hour fitness trainer to global business leader was fraught with mistakes. And Steinfeld has heard “no” and experienced skepticism more times than he can count.
His goal when he came to Los Angeles was to win the Mr. America bodybuilding competition, but when he came in second in the Mr. Southern California competition, he knew he wouldn’t realized that goal. Not wanting to give his former girlfriend and friends back in Brooklyn, NY. — who predicted his return in six months — the satisfaction of an “I told you so,” he decided to give it a go in the City of Angels.
A chance meeting with a B-movie actress ultimately led a career as a personal trainer for a host of the movie industry’s biggest names. And although he didn’t know it at the time, it was the launch of his fitness empire.
He spent years working with Hollywood’s power elite as a personal trainer, absorbing their secrets. And he parlayed that knowledge — along with his “Don’t quit” attitude and a little bit of fame — into several successful businesses, including FIT TV, which he sold to Fox Network’s Rupert Murdock for $500 million in 1997.
Steinfeld spawned the personal trainer industry, helped found Major League Lacrosse, has peddled more than $600 million in a line of fitness products that bear his Body by Jake brand and is in the process of launching his second fitness-themed television network.
“Once I was able to hang with these rich and famous people, I discovered these people are no different than you and me,” says Steinfeld. “The only difference is, they had a dream and they never quit on a dream and never took no for an answer.
“I might never direct ‘ET’ but I’m going to have my own successes in life. And I was able to feel like I can do whatever I want in my life as long as I put my head to it. I parlayed that famous-by-association into videos and books and television shows.”
