What It Takes?from $20 to $200 Million ― Jerry Azarkman's Memoir

What it Takes, from $20 to $200 Million is the true story of a man who with $20 in his pocket took a product and started selling it door to door, with ADD, not speaking English nor Spanish, but with the determination of making it happen. He identifies an underserved niche and develops a multimillion dollar operation, selling in Spanish in USA. This is the story of his family, the struggles and achievements and in a few steps it takes all from the start to the developing of a multimillion dollar business.

Jerry was born in Iran to Jewish parents who immigrated to Israel when he was little. He spoke Persian and was soon shocked to discover a new language, Hebrew. He struggled in school until a new teacher gave him the motivation to learn, to stay focused and confront the challenge of his internal battle with Attention Deficit Disorder. Jerry went on to become the top student of a class of 40. Jerry went to high school at a military academy in Israel—he remembers that only 68 pupils were accepted out of 3,000 applicants. He would wait for the mailman every day until he received the long awaited acceptance letter. He was in the Yom Kippur War and saw, firsthand, destruction and the loss of life, including the death of one of his best friends. This experience made Jerry change his philosophy of life and how he viewed weapons and warfare. He decided to move to the United States and start a business; he had no money, so with $20 in his pocket he started walking door-to-door in downtown Los Angeles, selling Pong, the first electronic game. In a largely Hispanic neighborhood where he didn’t speak English or Spanish, Jerry took his first steps towards what is today a multimillion dollar operation. He discovered an underserved, neglected niche of immigrants with many needs, and opened their first lines of credit and sold them the products they had dreamt of one day owning. Mostly immigrants from El Salvador and Mexico became his first customers and first employees. Many of Jerry’s ideas have changed the way most think of doing business, as he is an innovator in customer service, marketing and credit. The way Jerry sees the relationship with the customer is exceeding his consumer’s expectations. Jerry would say, “Never offer more than what you can deliver; this is a simple way of losing your customers.” Jerry has three kids, Daniel, Erick and Ilanid and resides in Los Angeles, California and He works every day in the business, in areas of marketing and finance for his new adventure Star World.

Ruth has been writing since she was 12 years old, when the first diary was given to her by her Mom. She has collected all of these diaries from her teen age years, her first kiss, her peers, stories of her travels. Ruth was appointed Consul General of Costa Rica for the entire U.S. West Coast. During her Consulate years Ruth met Jerry Azarkman, co-owner of Curacao, who became one of the supporting businesses for community events that she organized. After her tenure in office as Consul General came to a close, Jerry asked Ruth to become part of his company. She became the Advertising and Marketing Manager where she developed the chain of megastores that offers 85,000 products, as well as services such as local and long distance phone calling, Internet in Spanish, money transfers and exports to Mexico and Central American products. Ruth was part of the company for more than 17 years, during its major growth period and as an expert in targeting markets she created many successful promotional campaigns.In addition to being the spokesperson for Curacao’s TV segments, she was the creative head of messages and concepts for all of the company’s campaigns. Ruth is the founder of several programs as: Fundraise for a Cause a program for organizations for crowd funding, she created “Learn to Read-Read to Learn” a tutoring program for second graders, the Creative Hub where kids learn art projects and oversaw the company Foundation. Ruth is a member of NAPW, the National Association of Professional Women, with over 850,000 members across the country, and is currently the President of its Los Angeles Chapter, she oversees 16 States for the organization and member of the board for Women’s National Book Association. She was recently honored with ImpreMedia’s Distinguished Woman (Mujer Distinguida) award and Civic Service Leadership Award by League of Women Voters of Los Angeles.