Mark Wahlberg has been in the spotlight since his late teen years.
Coming off of a troubled past, the actor found success and then some.
But how did the star make due as an entrepreneur during the most challenging times?
A new docuseries on HBO Max includes workouts at 2:30 a.m. and big dreams levelled by lockdowns.
Some say, “it’s nearly three hours of the waning, nearly 50-year-old movie star
bragging on his successes.”
Let’s see.
Today, we’re digging into Wahlberg’s business ventures.
Big stars usually don’t like talking publicly about their money.
It is a taboo subject, even though they do tend to diversify into businesses beyond entertainment.
The documentary series Wahl Street was supposed to follow actor Mark Wahlberg while navigating
his role in several up-and-coming businesses.
But the show instead depicts a celebrity watching his big plans collapse.
“It’s a much more honest depiction of where I’m at in life,” Wahlberg said in
an interview.
“I’ve certainly learned more from the failures and the losses than I have the victories.”
He puts it more bluntly in the series.
“Do you know why this show’s going to be such a hit?” he asks the camera crew
after a tense business meeting.
“People are going to love watching me f*ing implode.”
Mark tries to break open his side hustle for viewers to see.
Though, it is never clear exactly how much money he has invested or how much the pandemic
has cost him.
Even with the last year’s struggles, this is still the actor as he wants to be seen.
His company, Unrealistic Ideas, did produce the series.
Wahlberg estimated that he is directly responsible for 50 jobs across the roughly eight businesses
he is involved in, including car sales and a restaurant chain.
He said the companies in the series are starting to rebound, and he remains committed to them.
“We’ve definitely pressed pause on anything else that we might take on top of it,” he
said.
“But we’re not going to just say, ‘OK, let’s pack it in.’”
The six-episode series presents as a survival story whose themes many business owners will
recognize after the past two years’ losses.
Mark started filming before the you-know-what hit but kept the cameras rolling in the months
going forward.
He struggled to maintain business ventures that included F45 Training gyms, the Municipal
clothing line, his Unrealistic Ideas production company and his family’s Wahlburgers restaurant
chain.
“I got the bug,” he says in the show, “the bug for business.”
A rapper turned Calvin Klein underwear model turned actor turned producer is trying to
go through another transformation into health, fitness and lifestyle brand developer.
Throughout the series, the star wears clothes with the names of the businesses he backs.
The series itself is a walking advertisement for those companies, even as it shows them
struggling.
Wahlberg is known for his toned body and rigorous workouts in his personal gym.
But to ensure the business he is investing in is impactful, he attends one of his business
ventures, F45, a global fitness community specializing in innovative, high-intensity
group workouts.
By being part of the F45 community, the actor can understand the product and the message.
He wants to open multiple studios to help people stay as healthy as possible because
he believes the community will be meaningful for many people’s lives.
Wahlberg’s confidence runs high in the early episodes.
He envisions new F45 franchises, new designs for Municipal, boasts about the incredible
growth of Wahlburgers and flirts with investing in a health-conscious convenience store business
called Green Zebra.
He even flies to Portland to see the owner Lisa Sedlar and check out the stores and their
kombucha smoothies.
The business ideas he chooses are those he does not get in the way of but instead adds
value to.
The best pitches are the ones that tell a story and that are relatable.
Wahlberg loves Lisa’s leadership and passion for healthy eating and is inspired by her
story as a single mother.
Then the pandemic hits.
Sadly, Lisa lost funding because of the financial impact of the you-know-what.
Many F45 studios close temporarily, and Municipal loses a major funder.
Mark spends all day on depressing Zoom calls.
He and his business partners invest more of their own money.
The actor admits to feeling depressed at times.
Viewers glimpse a little of the pressure that comes with being one of the wealthiest guys
in the room.
After seeing what he considers much waste in the empty corporate offices of Wahlburgers,
his patience gives out.
“If people just assume, ‘Well, don’t worry, Mark’s got deep pockets,’ they’ve
got another thing coming,” Wahlberg says in the show.
“I don’t think anybody should be deciding where or when they’re going to spend my
money.”
Harry Arnett , the CEO of Municipal, called the show a realistic portrayal of the challenges
the company faced after launching.
He hoped that Wahlberg’s promotion of the series would help raise the apparel brand’s
profile.
“There’s no separation from ‘Wahl Street’ and all the other businesses he’s involved
in—they’re tied together,” he said.
Wahlberg shows his close friendships with many of his business partners.
He believes professional experience is essential, but creating trust and a healthy partnership
is vital to keeping a business afloat.
Mark, who grew up one of nine children in a working-class family in Boston, said he
tries to stay aware even in his own movie stardom.
“I don’t know if it’s because I come from nothing, if there was anything that I
wanted to be able to do or accomplish I had to go out and do the work for it,” he said
in the interview.
“Even if you’re the most passionate artist, you’re still taking somebody else’s money.
They’re investing in you to create something that’s going to be profitable for them.”
And before there was Wahl Street, there was Wahlburgers!
The story of Wahlburgers begins with the name.
A restaurant in Rochester, New York called Tom Wahl’s was famous for its burgers called
Wahlburgers.
Tom Wahl had taken out a federal trademark on his burger’s name.
The Wahlberg family then licensed the name to use for their restaurants.
And Wahl made good money out of it!
Mark was not a fan of the name and had concerns that it would hurt his brand as an entertainer.
Hamburger restaurants don’t exactly bring cachet to dramatic film roles.
However, he agreed to the name as long as they made a reality show about the restaurant
to build the brand.
Wahlburgers officially opened in 2011, serving burgers, hot dogs, and sandwiches.
The reality show followed in 2014 and ran for eight seasons.
Though Mark and Donnie appear on the show, the main character is Paul, who does the day-to-day
running of Wahlburgers.
“I’m not doing it to be on TV.
Self-promotion is my least favorite part of the job.
But the show is an opportunity to build the business and promote all my other brands,
too,” Mark said.
In 2012, Wahlburgers faced legal issues.
The brothers and their company CEO, Rick Vanzura , sued their former business partner, Edward
St. Croix , for breach of duties.
It alleged that St. Croix was guilty of, according to the suit, “improper conduct, gross mismanagement,
and breach of duties.”
A year later, St. Croix and William Leonard , another business partner from the original
Wahlburgers location in Massachusetts, counter-sued them.
They claimed that the Wahlbergs had mismanaged company funds, using them for private expenses,
including paying salaries to Paul’s wife and their mother and renting a private jet
for Mark.
This was not Wahlburgers only legal trouble, though.
A lawsuit was filed against Wahlburgers for skimming wages from employees at the Coney
Island location of the restaurant.
And that’s still not the end of it.
St. Croix and Leonard also alleged that the Wahlberg family had cut them out of the reality
show.
They also claimed the Wahlbergs left them out of plans to franchise, even though they
had worked on designing the interior and menu for the restaurant, and came up with the idea
for Wahlburgers and to do a reality show.
Even with these legal troubles, Wahlburgers remains a popular restaurant.
And though “burger” is in the name, Wahlburgers caters to their vegetarian customers.
So in 2018, they added a menu offering called the “Impossible Burger,” made with vegan
ingredients but is still supposed to taste like a real burger.
The brothers later even expanded their brand to sell their speciality beef blend in supermarkets.
They started with fresh beef because Paul, who has an extensive culinary background,
insisted on it, but Mark and Donnie “talked him into doing frozen” too.
“Fresh beef is great, but a lot of families can’t afford to just buy fresh hamburger
patties that aren’t going to keep and last,” Donnie said.
Occasionally Mark will ask himself why he doesn’t just focus on film and TV and skip
the rest.
“When I think about it, I had a pretty damn good career going on,” he said.
Yet, at the same time, Mark described feeling an obligation to the brand-building he has
begun.
“It’s not one of those things where I just throw my name on it, if it works great,
if not, on to the next,” he said.
In this HBO Max series, Wahlberg shared a piece of advice that he lives by and tells
his children, claiming, “The goal is to not let anyone down.
Never compromise the effort you’re putting in.
We leave nothing to chance.”
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