Tony Cuccio launched his venture with a modest $200, marketing beauty items on Venice Beach. Subsequently, he popularized gel nails, building a business valued at $2 billion.

Cuccio, a Brooklyn native of Sicilian descent, experienced two unsuccessful ventures prior to achieving significant success—initially with a confectionery shop, followed by an enterprise dealing in beer and beverages. However, by the age of 25, he was seeking a venture that would prove enduring.

“Sometimes accidents happen or you’re in the right place at the right time,” Cuccio said during a recent interview with The School of Hard Knocks podcast.​

Together with his spouse, Roberta, they established a small booth measuring five square feet on Venice Beach, generating between $500 and $600 in makeup sales each day. In the evenings, they would relocate to Westwood Boulevard, positioning their business outside a Hallenstein’s apparel shop, aiming to attract the nighttime shoppers.

The turning point occurred as patrons began inquiring about wholesale arrangements. Cuccio required a business designation for an SRRA number to process checks. “We said, I don’t know. And they said, Who owns it? I said, Stephen, Tony, and Roberta. That’s Star Nail,” he stated. Consequently, Star Nail emerged.

Gel nails formed the foundation of Star's enterprise. Although scientists had developed the chemical compounds many years prior, Cuccio recognized the market viability that others overlooked.

“When I say I invented them, I want to clarify that for all your viewers because I’ve seen a lot of people say a scientist invented them in 1950. Gel nails were not popular until ’81. We put calcium, we put fiberglass in them, we made them more durable,” he said. “I marketed them and made hundreds of millions of dollars on gel nails.”​

Starting small

Cuccio's operational strategy centered on expansion and strict management. He launched with a modest $200, which he leveraged into $1,000, while ensuring expenses remained low. For a span of two years, the sole funds he withdrew from the enterprise were for his housing costs. All other revenue was reinvested into stock.

“I never took a line of credit from the bank. I never had a mortgage. I never borrowed money. I’ve never taken money out of a bank,” he said. “Banks are to put money in, not to take money out.”

Cuccio also distinguished himself from rivals, who mostly remained within their home markets, by journeying to 90 nations beginning in 1984—and funding his sales representatives personally. “I finance a lot of my 90 countries. So, I’m the bank. They call me BOC: Bank of Cuccio,” he stated.

Brazil was his initial focus—and two decades and a half after establishing a production facility there, it has become his most lucrative market, bringing in approximately $15 million annually.

Choosing not to seek outside investment or become a publicly traded company was also a conscious decision. “The only time you go public is when you need to scale really fast and it’s millions or billions of dollars and you have to hit something really quick,” he stated.

“I only sold one thing in my life. I never sold a product. I never sold a widget. I never sold a beauty product. I did seminars in 90 countries on how to make money,” he said. “If you make other people money, then you’ll make millions of dollars or a lot of money. The whole goal is to sell yourself.”​

Running an empire in his 70s

Now 71, Cuccio states he still gets to the office at 5 a.m. “It’s 95% perspiration and 5% luck,” he commented in a recent TikTok. However, as his grandmother advised him in his youth, “if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life,” he remarked.

“I’m going to Dominican Republic at 71 years old next month. In the first two days, I’ll be working with my dealer with their people, teaching them how to scale their business personally,” he said.

His vast enterprise is built upon allegiance and reciprocal contributions. Approximately 41 years prior, Cuccio stated he employed a 22-year-old individual and granted her a 5% stake in the business upon its sale. “What it did is it put golden handcuffs on her because people offered her a lot of money through the years, but she wanted that 5%. She now owns 14%. And without her, there’d be no company.”

Cuccio stated that over a forty-year period, he's kept a fundamental team of workers with service records spanning three and four decades. “Without good people, you can’t do it yourself. You can run the ship. You can make the calls. You can guide the direction to scale up, but somebody’s got to run your company,” he commented.

Roberta, Cuccio’s wife of 48 years, has also been instrumental.

“If it wasn’t for my wife—I’ve been with my wife since I’m 12, so 58 years; married 48 years—I think I’d be in jail or dead,” he said.

The opposing perspective on loyalty

Yet, loyalty has limits. When hiring salespeople, Cuccio uses a single litmus test: commission or salary? “Anybody who wants a salary automatically gets thrown out of the interview because you didn’t ask me how much commission,” he said. “If I’m going to give you 90% commission, you wouldn’t know unless you asked.”​

Cuccio stated that over the last four decades, he's brought on board more than 2,000 individuals. The most challenging ability he's cultivated is discerning the appropriate moment to end relationships. “If I know that they’re not a worker and I know they don’t want to make more money, I have to make the decision on the people that I know aren’t for you and aren’t loyal and aren’t willing to put the work in. The hardest thing is to cut them loose fast. And I do that without even thinking,” he commented.

“The most important thing I could teach young people is if somebody screws you in business or in life, just walk away,” he continued. “Don’t give them the opportunity.”​

From fake nails to real estate

Cuccio's affluence goes beyond gel nail products. He's made substantial investments in tax-exempt municipal bonds and commercial property, both of which he attributes to yielding the most significant profits.

At the age of 27, he was informed about tax-exempt securities by a prosperous business owner and understood that these instruments provide secure earnings alongside fiscal benefits. “I started with a million dollars and it’s up to 40 million. And all I did was keep rolling the tax-free bonds,” he stated.

Cuccio's understanding of property ownership developed through a different route. A colleague and business partner, Larry Petraelli, questioned him about why he continued to pay rent instead of acquiring the property and directing payments to himself. Cuccio seriously considered this suggestion. “My last building I bought 22 years ago for 4 million. It’s worth 40 million,” he remarked.

His approach to property investment is straightforward: acquire superior assets with half the price upfront, avoid excessive borrowing, and retain ownership indefinitely, he stated. “Your rent goes up. Your mortgage goes down and you give the buildings or the rental property to your kids. That’s why they call it real estate. Why would you sell it?”

For investors who are younger and have more time available, the benefit increases. Property markets generally go through cycles every seven to ten years—a longer period now following the 2008 economic downturn. “If you’re 25 years old, you’re going to go through at least six different cycles. So if you buy and hold, you’re going to go 6x because you have the time,” he stated.

His inclination toward industrial buildings—vast warehouses designed for online commerce—mirrors evolving circumstances. “When Amazon moved in, it went from $200 a square foot to $400 a square foot,” he stated.

Personal finance, retirement planning, and the money trap

Cuccio has emerged as an unexpected champion for financial literacy. He established IRAs for ninety of his staff members, providing them with a $7,000 loan on January 2nd annually and withholding modest sums from their wages throughout the year. “One girl is with me 25 years. She’s a Mexican girl. She has $200,000 in it,” he stated.

Individuals earning below $250,000 yearly will find Roth IRAs particularly beneficial. The money contributed is deducted from your total earnings before taxes are calculated, reducing your taxable income, and any investment gains grow without incurring taxes until you reach 65 years of age. “The government’s saying to you, kid, I’m going to let you put $7,000 in. I’m going to give you $3,000 back. I’m going to let you make interest until you’re 65. And then I’m going to let you take it out with no taxes. And you say, I don’t have the money. Find the money. Borrow the money,” he stated.

Cuccio stated that for the initial six decades of his existence, he associated financial gain with achievement. He opted for economical accommodations and was frugal in all aspects, convinced that greater riches would bring him contentment. This proved untrue.

“I realized one thing about money. I thought it was God,” he said. “Don’t do what I did.”​

Cuccio now views finances in a distinct manner. “The only time money is important is when you don’t have it. When my mother would cry because the refrigerator broke and she didn’t have $300 to get a new refrigerator, that’s when money was important,” he stated. He honored a half-century pledge to his mother; whenever he had the means for first class, he would forward her the surplus.

“It gave me more gratification to help my mother,” he said.​

You can watch Cuccio’s full interview with The School of Hard Knocks below:

For this story,  Coins2Day  generative AI assisted in creating a preliminary version. A human editor confirmed the data's correctness prior to its release.