What inspires Culotti’s worldly approach to design?
Her upbringing and the number of cultures and experiences she was exposed to as a child.
To create a million dollar business in 90 days with just $100 in their pocket.
How did Elaine Culotti’s childhood influence her career?
So I can look at something old and tell you if it’s real or if it’s not.
I don’t know why.
There’s something about me that knows that it’s more than just looking at it.
It’s the texture.
And I can see the patina, and the wear and tear and history.
I see like the whole story.
And if something doesn’t have a story, then it doesn’t feel authentic to me.
What’s your story?
I remember I saw a movie once about that.
And I really identified with that.
And so for me, my story is what brought me where I am.
The things that I learned when I was young that are so part of my cloth.
They’re my clan.
And there’s many things that will stay with you as an adult.
When I’m angry, my little English accent comes out, but not when I’m not.
And when I sleep, I like feathers and down.
So it just feels like the womb to me.
But German, I don’t know, it just…
I think I dream in it sometimes.
It’s not even in my daily life, but it’s something that’s in my DNA.
Something that is so consistent from such an early age.
It’s amazing how we retain that kind of information.
Well, a lot of people believe too, it’s generational, in that it’s historical from…
I don’t know.
But I love to ride them and I’m not afraid of them.
And I come off them all the time, and I think that’s part of the process.
If you’re like, “you’ve got the option to’t fall off the horse.”
Well, if you fall off the horse, you get back on.
It’s part of the process.
I saw that you got your hands on the House of Rock here in L.A. Well, I had an inkling that I would do design work when I was very young.
And it used to drive them crazy, but I was always about my environment and my space.
And in technical terms, everybody has their magic superpower.
And I always could see empty space full in my head.
It didn’t matter how big it was.
And I would say, “I don’t know.”
He said, “The room for improvement.”
So my House of Rock was not about the house.
It was full of music.
I saw it as a giant recording studio.
And it was an idea, not a thing.
It was an art project, an installation of music, which brought a home to the house.
And they would play music all the time in the great room.
And it had a Romeo and Juliet.
I mean, it screamed rock and roll to me.
It was just this place of people…
Many things had gone on in history there that weren’t there.
We didn’t have them.
So I recreated it.
It’s super magical.
We lose the imagination if we can always go back and refer to it.
And we’re an electronic era.
I get reminders now of what happened a year ago.
I mean, I should be able to remember that.
Did Elaine Culotti watch Undercover Billionaire to prepare for her season?
Did you watch the first season to get some inspiration as to what it was going to look like?
So, this is the truth, honestly.
And I didn’t want to pirate anything that Glenn had done.
Because I was having none of it.
I was like, they’re following me, I’m doing what I’m doing.
And it’s not so simple.
Because they had to pick where we were going.
We have no say in any of it.
But they did the right thing.
They picked the right place.
And then they gave me the best discovery is like…
I can’t even tell you like.
Because I was scared a little about reality television, like what are they going to do?
This is learning something in school.
You could take three classes at a university, at a top notch university.
And they would be Business 101, entrepreneurial-ism, right?
Those three classes would cost you an absolute bundle at a college.
And a lot of homework and a lot of testing.
And you could literally watch the show and graduate from those three classes.
That’s the takeaway of this.
We give you a sensei interview and we say to you, “This is my strategy.”
You’re not explaining yourself.
They’re like, “What are you doing?”
And I’m like, “I’ve got it all figured out.”
You’re not teaching anybody anything.
You’re just running and doing.
“This is what I’m thinking I’m going to do, I think.
I’m on this trajectory and this is my goal.
And this is how I think I’m going to get there.”
Oh, it’s impossible.
Can you run one more time through there?"
Because they want to get it from here and they’re just running one more time.
Because it’s non-scripted reality.
It’s just real.
I almost had to sleep in my car.
Downtown Fresno during the pandemic was not pretty.
But the team was like, “No, Elaine, you’ve got to find a place.”
Because, as a woman, it’s irresponsible.
And who knew where I found would turn out to be what it was, it was insane.
But let me say, it could’ve gone either way the entire time.
I could have been in my car, down in a camp city with tons of people.
I mean, anything could have happened.
And we mustn’t sugarcoat that.
Because what we’re doing, the neutered States of America, we mustn’t, we mustn’t.
It’s very important that we embrace not just our femininity as women, but also our sexuality.
We have to take control of when we’re being destabilized.
And all change comes with adversity.
All good things are hard to get to.
There’s no easy path and there’s no right path because it’s new.
We’re learning as we go, we are.
And we’re such a new country, right?
Think of our progress.
Because no one’s perfect.
I mean, we get a little crazy, I think, expecting change to happen so quickly.
And so the beginning of the feminist movement was not Harvey Weinstein for God’s sakes.
It’s an old…
When I was in high school, it was the ’80s.
I was like shoulder pads and Madonna.
I was like bobby socks and stilettos.
I was a girly girl.
I had curly little permed hair.
And we used to put the white eyeliner on.
Who would think of such a thing?
And remember the big belt kind of slung low?
These are moments in time that were so much fun.
So what did I do wrong?
And so now then, that comes into your adulthood and you start working in a corporate world.
And so now how do you harness that femininity without being abusive?
What was Elaine Culotti’s early career like as a young, professional woman?
How difficult was it for you to navigate the work field, especially in your younger career?
It was just a walk in the park.
Because I was very sure of myself and I was sure of my femininity and my sexuality.
And if I needed to use that tool, I did, my whole life.
And I am the feminine woman that I am.
I can’t take that out of me.
That’s who I am.
And I raised a very incredible, beautiful daughter.
It could become her No.
1 skillset, or it could become her asset.
The most important thing was to teach her confidence and to be smart.
And that beauty is just… First of all, it doesn’t last.
Let’s be real.
It doesn’t last.
It’s not going to get you all the way there.
So to be aware of that.
In construction and in design, it’s just a door opener.
It doesn’t do anything else.
It’s an incredibly strong position.
To be a lot smarter than everyone thinks you are, that’s completely fine.
Do not strive to be the smartest person in the room.
You’ve got nothing to prove.
You’ve got nothing to prove.
It doesn’t matter, because now we’ve taken a lot of that out of the workplace.
How did Elaine Culotti’s experience in a military household impact her life?
My dad was gone all the time, fighting for our freedom in this country and incredible.
Our armed service is the most important thing we have.
It’s just incredible, so incredible.
And I went on this trip, I went on the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier.
I got to fly out and spend time on this boat.
It’s a two-night overnight stay.
It’s limited to very lucky, lucky people.
It was all plastered.
And it said, “Walk quietly and carry a big stick.
Walk quietly and carry a big stick.”
And I thought, “Gosh, that’s so manly.”
And then I thought about it and I thought about it.
And I thought about it.
And the big stick is not to…
It’s not that.
That’s not what it’s about.
And so I’ve tried to observe when I’m learning and speak when I’m teaching.
It’s not because you have to keep yourself in a routine.
What was Elaine Culotti’s favorite part of production?
I’ll circle back a little bit to the show.
My favorite part of the show has not happened yet.
It’s going to come up.
The most important takeaway for me was the value in building a second family.
And it’s because I didn’t have to.
I’ve always been the one that people rely on.
I’m always the one that has to write the checks.
I’m always the one that has to come up with the ideas to do everything.
And it just feels… You’ll see as the show goes on.
And plus we had COVID, so we’ve got a whole team.
We had people in our team that were terrified of COVID.
We had people in our team that didn’t care about it.
It’s about them.
And we mustn’t scare people."
It’s doesn’t matter.
We’re not talking about you for a minute.
It’s not about you.
So it’s very expensive.
When really it should be less expensive and readily available to absolutely everybody.
The problem is supply chain.
We need to work on that.
I think, that’s what a lot of our problems boil down to.
If you think of the age of communication… To get to anything, you just Google it.
I’m like, “What are you doing?”
She goes, “I can’t get ahold of anybody.
I don’t want anybody in here.”
And she’s got the toilet off.
So let’s just think about that for a minute.
They have made educational television.
Our production company has made educational television.
We need to make educational television, but we need to make it fast enough for the millennial.
How are we going to do that?
We’re going to put a grant and a name together.
I mean, you’ve got the option to have popcorn.
It’s very entertaining.
Did you kind of see that as competition?
Did that really motivate you to create this new business in such a short period of time?
I can’t get away from that.
That’s my DNA.
So whatever business you’re in, if it’s brick and mortar, right?
You want to think about the highest and best use of the space.
I know we’re trying to sell groceries online and it’s going okay.
And people get them delivered and everything else, and you could probably get away with it.
you’re able to order a mattress online and you’re able to lay down on it.
But those big old mattress stores and laying on all those beds, it’s kind of fun.
You’re not going to take shopping away from me.
I like putting different clothes on and standing there and looking at it instead of ordering it online.
I mean, I don’t mind ordering it online if it’s something utilitarian.
I want to try a gown on.
I want to smell perfume.
I want to smell all of it.
I love trying on makeup.
The makeup people and like getting your makeup done.
It’s an experience.
And it’s such a sensory thing that I think so many of us are really craving right now.
No, gosh no."
I did what I had to do.
These people needed to make money.
I needed to get to a million dollar valuation in 90 days, with zero resources.
It was a tall order.
If I had to fix something, construction, whatever.
The last thing I wanted to do was what I did.
Obviously, I could go online and have a go at sell something online.
But what about this concept of American pride?
What about all these people with all their businesses?
I wanted to help small business.
Food, feed you.
Sleep, where do you sleep?
Where do you shower?
How clean are you?
How clean is your food?
We don’t know.
We do not know.
It’s a complete fallacy that we know.
We don’t know.
We don’t know in the grocery store.
We don’t know.
It’s critical we get our… Look, we couldn’t have survived pandemic without Amazon.
I’m very grateful to the teams that pivoted and the people that drove, all the delivery companies.
But you’re not going to take away a kiss from me.
It is what it is.
And it’s just the most basic thing.
But when you hug a friend, and kiss somebody, pick up a baby.
Well, I can tell you that I don’t sell my truck.
And for whatever reason, I don’t sell the truck, and the truck is a nightmare.
It becomes a big nightmare and I don’t sell it.
I don’t sell my truck.
We’re not allowed to say if we get there or die trying, and everything.
And I encourage people to visit them.
But I encourage people to go on and see what these people are doing in a closed city.
We didn’t just have COVID, remember, we had the Yosemite Fires.
An entire community was devastated in the middle of all of it.
And I mean, it was heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking.
I can barely speak about it.
It was so incredible.
Nobody was in trouble.
Firefighters were taken care [of].
People stopped, they gathered what they could, and they drove and helped.
Kids were in the back.
“We need to go help.”
And it’s not a spoiler alert.
It’s just so empowering to me how incredibly persevering Americans are.
Californians, “Drop what you’re doing right now, there’s something more important.”
What does Elaine Culotti want viewers to take away from Undercover Billionaire?
I have one final question for you.
But aside from that, what are you really hoping that viewers will take away from your season?
I would like very much that they would take away that the American pride concept is alive and well.
And that we are an incredible nation.
We are not divided.
We are indivisible, it’s in the pledge of allegiance.
And see through the smoke, find the forest through the trees.
Everyone should own a home.
Everyone should start a business.
Everybody should have security and feel safe and everyone should know what their superpower is.
You know, it’s very important to know what your existential value is.
What do you do best?
Because that is very different than money in the bank.
That’s money coming in.
Money in the bank’s money in the bank.
If you’re able to’t keep it or make more, it doesn’t matter.
It makes no difference what’s in your checking account.
It doesn’t matter.
Or your savings account.
If you could’t create more on you and your superpower, it makes no difference.
Undercover Billionaireis now streaming on discovery+.
