3 success-mindset lessons from “90 Day Fiancé” creator Matt Sharp:
- When a business or career goal falls short of expectations, pay close attention to why, to identify opportunities that reflect a more authentic fit. ‘The jobs that don’t work out are just as valuable as the ones that do,’ he said.
- A harsh inner critic can lead to quitting. ‘Sometimes the biggest enemy of your project is you,’ Sharp said. Instead, tolerate the discomfort of doubt to see a project through.
- Recognize the business possibilities staring you right in the face — and maximize them. ‘Sometimes you need to bring all your talent and energy, and creativity to [where you are] … and good things will happen.’
Matt Sharp’s entrepreneurial impulses seem etched in his DNA.
The media mogul behind the “90 Day Fiancé” hit reality TV series on TLC has been building his creator-meets-business-hustler bona fides since his days selling candy at soccer camp in the 6th grade.
For Sharp, a lifetime of lessons learned hawking gumballs, running small businesses like a window-washing service in high school, and honing his entertainment-industry craft to follow his muse—rising from a CBS page to a writer for the network—proved critical to building Sharp Entertainment, the multimillion-dollar media empire behind the “90 Day Fiancé” franchise that’s now part of Sony Pictures Television.
Here, Sharp shares with CO— the critical experiences, bold pivots, bouts of crushing self-doubt, and hard-won epiphanies like, “Every opportunity you need is where you are right now,” that ultimately led to business success.
Bit by the business bug at soccer camp: ‘I was selling more candy, and I was obsessed’
In the summer of his 12th year, Matt Sharp and his mother made a pitstop to a Wegmans supermarket on their way to soccer camp. She was feeling generous. “My mom said, ‘Hey, get some candy from the bulk section,’” Sharp remembered. “So, I got this huge bag of candy thinking I was going to have it at soccer camp, and what I realized is that I could sell it.”
Sharp started selling fellow campers fistfuls for 50 cents a pop.
“It was bulk candy, so there was a profit margin on every handful, and soon everybody was stopping by my dorm room at soccer camp,” he said.
That summer, Sharp’s mom effectively became his supplier, “and I was selling more candy, and I was obsessed,” he said.
The takeaway: Don’t be held back by the notion that ‘I don’t know how to do this’
That sweet success whet Sharp’s appetite for more. When in high school buddies got jobs at the mall, he started window-washing and driveway-sealing businesses. “I was a kid working with adults negotiating contracts,” he said.
Then came a T-shirt venture in college that crystallized his love of both business and creativity —designing clothing, in this case—where he intuited a market opportunity. “I was selling Grateful Dead T-shirts at the University of Vermont,” Sharp said. “I knew my audience.”
There were valuable lessons in how to maximize events, like planning T-shirt sales around parents’ visits, and facing business risks. He thought then: “‘I really hope we can sell these because they’re costing me $4 apiece.’” (The business ended up making Sharp thousands.)
Be it selling T-shirts or washing windows, Sharp hatched these businesses with zero expertise. “Some people are held back by the notion that, ‘I don’t know how to do this,’” he said. “I guess I had the confidence that I could,” he said.
[Read: How 3 Franchise Entrepreneurs Built Multimillion-Dollar Businesses]
Flipping the script to follow his muse and hone a craft: The law ‘was not what I wanted to do’
In his free time as a young man, “I was always making videos with friends,” Sharp said, including “montages of us performing various dunks on a dramatically lowered basketball hoop edited to music.”
But he couldn’t imagine that buzz from creative play could ever be more than a hobby.
The plan was always to go to law school. In college, Sharp landed a prestigious internship with a New York State Supreme Court judge. “What I realized was it was not what I want to do,” he said. “I probably wanted to work in television.”
Sharp ceded to his muse and moved to New York City. He secured an internship as a CBS page, a coveted right-of-passage for many a TV-industry hopeful. He worked the internship in the mornings and the “Late Show with David Letterman” in the afternoons, “juggling two jobs to get the experience,” he said.
Months later, Sharp got hired as an assistant at CBS News, where he moved up the ranks in producer roles at newsmagazine shows including “Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel.” “It was very exciting,” he said.
The takeaway: The plans ‘that don’t work out are just as valuable as the ones that do’
The clarity that came from closing the door on a law career freed Sharp to pursue a private hankering to work in TV. “The pivotal moment for me — and I always tell people and my children this — is the jobs that don’t work out, where you realize this is not what you want to do, they’re just as valuable as the ones that do.”
‘I’m really in the deep end of the pool … I’d never been a writer before’
But while the TV business excited Sharp, “journalism wasn’t entirely [his] passion,” he said.
And when the Gumbel show ended, “I was in a rut,” he said. “I felt like I wanted to write, although I’d never been a writer before.”
Sharp managed to land a writing job at VH1 for Video Timeline, writing biographies of music artists during the heyday of that kind of programming.
“I was hired, and I immediately felt, ‘Wow, I’m really in the deep end of the pool.’”
The showrunner assigned Sharp his first script — a bio of either Mariah Carey or Peter Gabriel, Sharp can’t remember which. But he does remember the dark night of the soul he spent writing it, badgered by a harsh inner critic.
Working on it, he thought, “This is garbage, this is so cheesy, this is awful,” he said.
Nonetheless, he handed in the script at 3 a.m.
When the showrunners summoned Sharp to a meeting that day, “I thought I was going to get fired,” he said. Instead, they said, “‘This is the best script we’ve ever seen,’” Sharp said. “That was a turning point.”
The takeaway: Pushing through debilitating self-doubt to see a project through
Of course, not all projects will turn out that well, but that’s almost beside the point, Sharp said. “The doubt that makes you say, ‘It’s bad, I’m going to quit,” is all too common.
“When you’re working on something, sometimes the biggest enemy of your project is you,” he said. The idea is to tolerate the discomfort “and persevere through it.”
There is something about the power of asking. Never be afraid to ask.Matt Sharp, media mogul, entrepreneur, and founder of Sharp Entertainment
Facing another rut: ‘What am I doing here?’
Four years into his writing gig for VH1, Sharp grew restless.
“I thought, ‘I’m writing for this small cable channel’”—no matter that in 2003, VH1 had its pulse on the pop-culture moment, he said. ‘“I’m not really a music guy. What am I doing here? Maybe I want to write for a sitcom.’”
The takeaway: ‘Every opportunity you need is where you are right now’
Sharp, whose passion had drifted from his day job to writing and pitching spec scripts at night, including episodes of Seinfeld and Friends hoping for takers, asked his wife Martha, “Where should I go?”
Her advice: “Just give all your talent and energy, and creativity … to where you are. All the opportunities you’d ever want are there.”
The advice struck a chord. His side projects ceased, and when Sharp’s boss gave him a blank canvas to conceive a show about celebrities and their money, he came up with “The Fabulous Life of Jennifer Lopez.” “We wanted to do something cool, and different and fresh that had a little bit of snark,” he said.
The pilot launched and earned VH1 its highest ratings for a non-promoted show at the time, and Sharp’s creation got picked up as “The Fabulous Life of…” series.
“I think a lot of people feel like on the other side of the fence is where all the opportunities lie,” he said. But sometimes, “every opportunity you need is where you are right now.”
Betting on a business dream: ‘Oh my gosh. That’s exactly what I want to do’
As “The Fabulous Life” hit it big, Sharp started getting offers from Los Angeles for executive producer jobs. Now something else tugged at him more. “That was really the moment when I felt like I wanted to start a business,” he said.
The timing was right, as 2003 marked the rise of third-party production companies. Until then, networks produced most everything in-house. “All of a sudden, the networks started farming out shows and I said, ‘Oh my gosh. That’s exactly what I want to do,’” he said. “’I love creating shows and I’m really interested in starting a business.’”
The takeaway: Making a business leap by tapping ‘the power of asking’
The decision meant having the chutzpah to ask for what seemed unthinkable at the time, he said.
So, Sharp walked into the office of his then-boss Michael Hirschorn, who was Executive Producer of VH1, and said, “‘I’d really like to start a production company, and I’d really like your support,’ thinking he would laugh me out of the room,” he said.
Instead, “to his credit, he said, ‘I’d support that.’”
So, Sharp formed an LLC, convinced the staff behind the “The Fabulous Life” series—which would go on to cover celebrities from Brad Pitt to Missy Elliot—to come work for him. And starting with a 20-episode order, Sharp Entertainment began producing the show out-of-house, with VH1 now his client, rather than his employer.
“There is something about the power of asking,” Sharp said. “Never be afraid to ask.”
Tapping into the zeitgeist to establish and sustain business success
Wooing former Viacom executive Bob Larson, whose parents ran a bowling alley business and helped build production companies, proved critical to Sharp Entertainment’s launch. “He had that small business expertise,” Sharp said, and is his business partner to this day.
“I think it was the Apple Tree Deli on Broadway where Bob and I sat down with a laptop and came up with a plan,” from the budget for the shows to the cost of office space.
The first year was especially tough, but “we kept our head down and built the business,” Sharp said.
And while there have been flops, he attributes Sharp Entertainment’s overall success to scoring “genre-defining hits” by tapping into the cultural zeitgeist.
From "Man v. Food" on the Travel Channel to TLC’s "Extreme Couponing," Sharp Entertainment’s reality shows have shined a spotlight on a subculture before it moves into mainstream culture, he said.
A newsmagazine segment on bachelors looking abroad for potential mates sparked the idea for “90 Day Fiancé,” just as online dating was connecting people sometimes continents apart.
And unlike another hit reality show, “The Bachelor,” whereby singles seek a match from show-supplied romantic prospects, “For the first time in the [reality show] love genre, we were casting people who were already together falling in love that were from all around the world,” which struck a resonant chord with viewers.
A decade later, the show has spawned 25 spinoffs, and Sharp Entertainment employs 450 people in New York City.
Business success, Sharp said, comes from leveraging your strengths and tapping the talents of others to balance out your weaknesses. “Then the passion drives you and pushes you through the doubt.”
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