Starting a new business is an ambitious endeavor. Keeping it relevant and growing year-after-year is even more daunting. That’s why we’re proud and excited to reach our 20th anniversary in a challenging business.

To get an up-close and personal view of this remarkable journey, with all its twists and turns, we sat down and interviewed Sophie Terrisse, CEO of STC Associates. Focusing primarily on the dramatic turning points of the last 20 years, here is a brief outline of STC’s remarkable history.

How it all began. Often, entrepreneurs will say that they started their business in their parent’s garage (Steve Jobs) or some other exotic spot like the kitchen table. STC started in a closet. In 1992, while Sophie was holding down two jobs, one as a full-time PR intern, and a second as a restaurant manager, she founded STC: moving from the closet, to the bedroom, to the living room of her Soho apartment.

Soon, STC was handling freelance projects for Cross Border Enterprises, including Balmex and Gold Bond Baby Products. Rapidly, clients in the luxury and wine/spirits industry followed. “For two-and-a-half years, I was strictly a business and communications consultant who told clients, ‘this is what you need to do to bring American products to Europe and vice versa’. I would create introductions, establish relationships and help to launch brands in new markets. Then I would disappear until the next project”.

Moving up, doing more. A fortuitous meeting with Laurent Bourscheidt, who had a Master’s degree in architecture from the Beaux Arts School in Paris, and is now STC’s Creative Director, resulted in a sea change for the fledgling agency. With Laurent’s design sensibilities and Sophie’s business acumen it was possible to expand the scope of the business. “We focused on creating new mediums for our clients,” says Sophie. “For example, we created a series of books on the annual collection of luxury watchmaking–a first in the U.S. that remains in publication today.”

First global step. During this period, many of STC’s clients were household names. But, the big breakthrough came with their first telecommunications account, Trans Global Communications.

This was quickly followed by engagement by Global Crossing. “We made our pitch in a room with 12 people from the company’s board of directors,” explains Sophie. “They hired us on the spot and we started driving database marketing and DGMs around the world within weeks. The four-year relationship with this client was a turning point and resulted in STC moving from a national agency to a global contender.

Crossing time zones. Because of STC’s experience with Global Crossing and telx, the agency was approached by an affiliate of Indian incumbent, VSNL, with aspirations to become a key global player in the telecommunications industry. VSNL needed a partner that could commit to an aggressive and continuous growth path, while ensuring their brand would perpetually stay ahead of the curve. “I found myself on a 19-hour flight to Singapore with my three-year-old son,” says Sophie. “At first, we worked out of one of Tata’s offices, but then we acquired our own space and started hiring people”.

Soon, offices in Singapore, India and Europe were thriving. All of STC’s offices, both in New York and abroad, are a reflection of the same concept: open, friendly spaces for easy back-and-forth exchanges of creative ideas. No closed doors, Actually, no doors at all.

20 years. Hundreds of STC’ers and clients. Millions of frequent flyer miles. More horizons conquered than ever expected–and more to conquer–than the view from the closet could ever have dreamed.

The following is a continuation of the blogs about Steve Jobs that appeared on December 6, 2011 and February 2, 2012. As in the previous write-ups, the facts and figures below are taken from the book, Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson.

The wilderness decade was over

On December 2, 1996, Steve Jobs returned to Apple’s offices for the first time since his dismissal 11 years earlier. His title was “advisor” to the chairman and, on December 20th, Jobs made it official in front of 250 cheering employees at Apple headquarters.

Bringing Apple back from the brink

On his return, Jobs began by asking, “What’s wrong with Apple?” Not waiting for an answer, he said, “The products suck! There’s no sex in them anymore!” His goal was to build a company that would endure. Lasting companies, he noted, know how to reinvent themselves.

Drastic cuts: products and people

Apple was churning out multiple versions of each product. Jobs cut 70% of the product offerings and decided to focus on four areas: two professional (the Power Macintosh G3 and the Power Book G3) and two consumer (the iMac and the iBook). He also laid off more than 3,000 people.

In September, 1997, Apple lost $1.04 billion. “We were less than 90 days from being insolvent,” Jobs recalled. For the full fiscal year of 1998, it would turn a $309 million profit.

The computer in jelly bean colors

Jobs first launch was the iMac in a Bondi Blue plastic casing — so named after the water at the famous beach in Australia. Other colors were added later. To ensure that the colors were correct the Apple people elected to visit a jelly bean factory to study the candy’s translucent colors.

The iMac went on sale in August, 1998 for $1,299. It sold 278,000 units in its first six weeks, and would see 800,000 by the end of the year, making it the fastest-selling computer in Apple history.

A bold move: freestanding Apple stores

In 1999, Jobs decided he didn’t want an iMac to sit on a shelf between a Dell and a Compaq, while an uninformed clerk recited the specs of each.

Initially, the Apple board of directors were opposed to freestanding Apple stores. After all, Gateway had tried and failed. Why would Jobs succeed with this venture?

Proceeding carefully, Jobs decided to secretly build a fully furnished mockup of an Apple store in a vacant warehouse near the company’s headquarters. Then, every Tuesday for six months, Jobs and his top executives held an all-morning brainstorming session there.

Eventually, the decision was made to organize the store not around the products, but instead, around what people could do with them — meaning: the computer as a hub for all digital activity. This was a major breakthrough that required adding an extra three months to the opening data.

A glass staircase, bleached wood floors

The first Apple store opened on May 19, 2001. By 2004, Apple stores were averaging 5,400 visitors a week (Gateway had been averaging 250).

Ten years later there were 326 Apple stores around the world.

Update: The dazzling, new Apple store in Grand Central is the company’s fifth store in Manhattan. It is 23,000 sq. ft. and is located on the east and northeast balconies. It has 315 employees and is furnished with sleek, white tables for product testing. The white Apple logo can be easily seen from Grand Central’s Main Consourse.

It is reportedly the largest Apple store in the world.

In the Financial Times of 12/18/11 an eye-opening article by Lucie Greene and Vanessa Friedman explores the clout of fashion bloggers coupled with the visibility of style-conscious celebrities. Here’s a brief recap of their findings.

TRUE STORY#1

In 2011, Express, a fashion chain in the U.S. known for its colorful, funky attire, sent a dress with navy-and-red stripes to a few celebrity friends, namely: Zoe Saldana, Emmy Rossum, Amanda Seyfried, Nicky Hilton and Olivia Munn.

Coincidentally, and in the space of four weeks, all wore the dress in public. Before you could say, “What a cute outfit,” blog sites such as SheFinds.com, Celebuzz and inTheirCloset.Com had written about this sartorial mind meld.

Express Hits Pay Dirt

Within a week of their posts surfacing, all 600 Express stores, as well as their e-commerce site, had nearly sold out of the $49.90 item which means: they moved in excess of 10,000 dresses.

Celebrities vs. Bloggers

Did this sell-through occur because celebrities were shown wearing the dress and consumers want to be just like those celebrities? Or, was it because key fashion bloggers picked those particular pictures to feature?

Last year, the answer would have been “celebrities” but one fashion maven has no doubt that the bloggers were the biggest reason the striped dress became so coveted.

Moving With the Times

Today’s fashion bloggers are not necessarily the same ones who first gained the fashion industry’s attention a couple of years ago. This new breed of bloggers is different.

Focusing on red carpet events and celebrities, they play into several contemporary trends: a fascination with famous people, our desire to acquire information quickly and the ability of online sites to drive sales.

The Power of Bloggers

For example: the blog/website called WhoWhatWear, set up by two former fashion editors, charts celebrity fashion with links to retailer sites. With 4,000,000 visitors a month, the twosome says that they “direct millions of dollars of revenue to retailers.”

Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Channel

A fascinating TV series called “All On The Line” is currently appearing on the Sundance Channel in New York. It is hosted by Joe Zee, the creative director of Elle magazine who works with new or established fashion designers to put their business on the right and/or different track.

Reinventing a Label

Nichole Miller, a very successful “specialty” designer of prom-and-cocktail dresses and evening/bridal gowns for the past 10 years, was looking to expand her business by attracting young buyers for her sportswear line.

High-energy Joe Zee felt that Nicole Miller was not grasping the impact of the fashion bloggers so, within a matter of weeks, he proposed a totally new approach for New York’s upcoming Fashion Week. Ultimately, Nicole’s fashion show, a six-figure expense, can set the tone for the year ahead.

A “Wow” Finish

The new approach included: (a) creating a cool, hip line targeted to a younger audience, and (b) reserving the show’s front seats (formerly for editors from glossy fashion magazines) for the bloggers.

This was a risk, or as the CEO of Nicole Miller notes, “bloggers are loose cannons — with their live tweeting and blogging during the show.”

Fortunately, they raved about the collection and, most important, a senior executive from Neiman Marcus bought the line. This was a win-win all around.

The following is a continuation of the blog about Steve Jobs that appeared on December 6, 2011. As in the previous write-up, the facts and figures below are taken from the book, Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson.

The shock of being fired

In May, 1985, Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, the company he founded. The Apple board, who believed that Jobs immature and rough-edged personality was a negative element in the company, voted to fire him.

The future at age 30

Jobs owned 6.5 million shares of Apple stock worth more than $100 million which he sold within five months after being fired. In August, 1985, Jobs founded a company that would not compete with Apple. It would specialize in creating and marketing powerful, personal computers to universities.

The next computer

For his new company, Jobs wanted a world-class logo so he hired the dean of corporate logos, Paul Rand, who, when asked by Jobs how many options he would have to choose from, replied, “I do not do options. You will pay me a $100,000 fee to get one design.” Rand changed Next to NeXT and designed a logo that tilted at a 28-degree angle. Jobs loved it.

The Texas billionaire

In September, 1986, NeXT was hitting a financial wall so Jobs approached a number of venture capitalists to raise money for his struggling company. All turned him down, except Ross Perot, who saw Jobs as a “soul mate” and invested $20 million.

Perot traveled in elite social circles and invited Jobs to a black tie dinner where he was introduced to King Juan I of Spain. When Perot asked Jobs (the master salesman who could sell ice to the Eskimos) what they talked about, he replied, “I sold him a computer.”

The high-priced NeXT computer, for a variety of reasons, did not take off. The factory was primed to turn out 10,000 units a month. As it turned out, sales were about 400 a month.

The move to animation

In 1986, Jobs also invested in the computer division of George Lucas’ film studio. His belief that ordinary consumers would love to do 3-D modeling on Pixar software turned out to be wrong.

However, that was soon replaced by an instinct that turned out to be right: that combining great art and digital technology would transform animated films more than anything had since 1937, when Walt Disney had given life to Snow White.

Two years later, Jobs had poured $50 million of his own money into Pixar and was still losing money at NeXT.

The creation of a smash hit

On the verge of bankruptcy and needing a deal with Disney far more than Disney needed a deal with Pixar, Jobs joined with Jeffrey Katzenberg, the head of Disney’s film division to produce Toy Story. Both principals were described as “tyrants with an amazing gift of gab.”

Toy Story went through endless rewrites and editing. “I can’t tell you the number of versions of Toy Story I saw before it came out,” says Larry Ellison, Oracle’s CEO. “It eventually became a form of torture.”

In November, 1995 Toy Story had two premieres: one in Los Angeles for Disney and another in San Francisco for Pixar. It was a blockbuster commercial and critical success. The cost of production was recouped in the first weekend. And, it went on to earn a total of $362 million worldwide.

The IPO occurred one week after the opening and generated $1.2 billion. Or, about five times what Jobs made when Apple went public in 1980.

Update: In the New York Post of 1/25/12, under the heading, “Exploding Apple” it was reported that, in its first fiscal quarter this year, Apple generated $46.33 billion in revenue and a profit of $13.06 billion.

Creativity itself is an enigma. What triggers thinking that’s “outside the box”? In the workplace, one often uses brainstorming: a free-form activity where lots of ideas are generated in order to come up with a unique concept or solution.

Memory plays a significant role in creative inspiration. People, places, sights and sounds all come into play.

In New York, one of the most inspiring nature displays is found at the New York Botanical Gardens. This 250-acre paradise features more than 1,000,000 plants, including 30,000 magnificent trees, thousands of them over a century old. Best of all, the Gardens are only a 20-minute train trip from Grand Central on the Metro North railroad.

The variety, uniqueness and spectacular colors of some of this vegetation are especially inspiring. One can marvel at 25-inch water lilies, gaze deeply into a reflecting pool, gasp at a fantastical Weeping European Beech tree or just enjoy the fun of Munchy, the 30-foot caterpillar.

Since it’s open all year, pay a visit and take pictures. Be inspired.

Munchy, the 30-foot caterpillar, a whimsical, giant topiary

Weeping European Beech Tree

“My garden has given me a philosophy about life that translates into everything I do.”

Oscar de la Renta, Financial Times, Sept. 18, 2011