 "Sunny Leone")
For 35-year-old Sunny Leone, Bollywood is not the end destination that she wanted to reach. Instead, she realizes that this journey could come to an end any day, and is always prepared to do something next.
“It can end like tomorrow,” she told Mint in an interview. And it is based on this thought that she keeps branching out.
Meet Sunny Leone the businesswoman, with investments in several instruments including real estate. In a chat with the newspaper, she revealed her ideas for investments, managing finances and having a clear business sense, keeping the brand and image in mind.
Here are the top quotes by Sunny Leone from the interview to Mint.
Portfolio talk
In the US, we have invested some of our money in very stable stocks and some mutual funds. We also have some IRAs (Individual Retirement Accounts). We have bought our home there. We have invested a lot of our money in real estate. We do love the idea of getting into real estate a bit more. We are also interested in investment homes. And we obviously save a lot of money.
When this whole Brexit happened, we lost some money, which was not fun. But I do believe that it will steadily go back up and back to normal. This is just a shock to everybody. I didn’t think that this would affect us, but it did.
Realistic investments
I am pretty calculated. If I am not 100% convinced that this is going to be financially viable, I won’t take the risk. If I know that it is a risk and if it doesn’t work, I am okay with what is lost too. I think I am realistic when it comes to investments.
It takes at least a year to three years for a business to turn profitable. I don’t believe in any business that is fast paced. If it is moving very fast, it doesn’t seem right to me. I like the idea of growing slowly and steadily and making the roots of the company strong.
Early start
I was 8 or 10 years old when I used to go to the street with my brother and a neighbour in Canada, and shovel snow in the driveways and earn a dollar a piece. But the snow was two-feet high and we thought we should charge more because it was double the work
I was the girl who sold things for my basketball team and soccer team. That was before I even went to high school (Leone routinely put up lemonade stands during summers and shoveled snow in the winters to earn money)
From the basics
When I went to high school in California, I joined a club called Future Business Leaders of America. That is when I started learning a lot of things about marketing, and supply and demand. I took different classes around business and economics. We would go to young entrepreneurial conferences in that area and that’s kind of where everything started
Adult content
When I became an adult, I realised that (adult content) was a business. But more than that, I wanted to own a website and run my own company.” She used to handle everything. “If I have to be in this industry, I want to make all the money—every dollar. After all, it is my body, my image and my brand
Understanding Business
I would do everything from start to finish. That was when I learnt about website traffic. In a digital world, traffic is the best thing you can have. I learnt where to send this traffic and how to capitalise all of it.
Taking the India leap
We had the viewership and the reach details. We started doing further research. I think at that time Bigg Boss was watched by 25 million people in 10 different countries or something. It was huge. By the time I finished researching, we both came to the conclusion that if we didn’t take this chance, it might be one of the biggest regrets we would ever have.
Keeping options open
It can end like tomorrow...Once we got a handle of how it works in India, after signing a bunch of movies and doing different brand endorsements, we have tried to think of ways to branch out
Understanding social media
Every day, we use social media to get across something that we want to say. A brand will call and say we want you to tweet about our brand once, which we do...For instance, we do movie promotions. There have been some directors who come and say ‘I want you to keep tweeting every 20 minutes the same thing over and over’. I say it is not going to happen because you are not going to get traction with this. It is not going to work. You are not even letting it get absorbed before having me tweet again. We don’t want to block them (the followers) or get them to unfollow.
Startup valuations
I have been hearing a lot of information about start-ups and how they are getting evaluated. Personally, I think it is a very interesting business model that I don’t think is going to last very long. My husband might think completely opposite. I think it is great if it is a start-up that stays true to what it is, instead of getting evaluated and getting into selling some big dream to somebody else.
