Eric Horbacz is an absolute giant in the food and leisure industry here in North Carolina and he is someone that has found great success in a number of endeavors. I was very fortunate to catch up with Eric at a recent conference which was help in North Carolina to talk about the food and beverage industry, where Mr. Horbacz is considered almost like royalty. During our conversation we talked about a number of topics such as the state of the industry and I was also able to pick his brains about how he has found so much success within the industry along with working with successful startups and of course his own company StoolDuel Inc.
Love Affair
Eric believes that he was lucky because he was born with a passion for both business and for the food, beverage and leisure industry and that since an early age he knew that this is what he wanted to do. The hard work and the deception which he puts towards his companies and anything that he is involved in comes directly from this love of the industry.
Creative
Instead of simply becoming a cog in the wheel Eric was convinced that he could be the person to bring some real creativity to this industry. During the early years of Eric’s career, the food scene in North Carolina was almost non-existent and that played right into his hands given the type of creativity that he wanted to implement through his companies.
Business Acumen
Eric tells me that he would always have been involved in business in some way or another, even if the chance to work in the food and beverage industry had never arrived. We can see from his history of product management, high performing sales, Saas development and the work which he has done with startups that business acumen is obviously something which he has flowing through his veins. Take his own startup for example StoolDuel a new and exciting entertainment feature for bars and restaurants which saw Eric become a crowdfunder in order to get things off the ground, it seems whatever he turns his hand to becomes golden.
Kindness
Eric talks about how much he hates those who think that in order to be successful in business you have to turn into some slave driving monster and instead he prefers to kill people with kindness. Joking aside he does admit to being used a little by others in the early days as a result of his kind natured approach, so he did have to develop a more stern side. With this being said that side of Eric is rarely seen and he attributes much of the success that he has found to the fact that he knows how to be nice to people, which invariably gets him what he wants.
If you don’t know about Eric then I urge you to research what he has done both in North Carolina and beyond, a truly inspirational man.