Nutri-System founder speaks

Harold Katz, founder of Nutri-System and owner of the Philadelphia 76ers explained his secret of business success in a campus speech yesterday afternoon. His secret -- "the permanence principle" -- is the entrepreneur's ability to take his ideas and thoughts and transform them into reality, Katz said. "I take myself seriously," Katz told the 50 students attending the speech. "I mark everything down, set goals, mark them down and cross them off. When I have a thought I go out and make it work." This self-confidence and enterprising spirit led Katz to success. He told the students in the audience that he never had the educational opportunities that they did. At age 17, when his father died, he was forced to take over his father's grocery store in order to support his family. Katz said that after selling several different products within a few years, he remained unsatisfied with the rate of his success. "I knew I could do it and make it big, but I just didn't know how to do it," said Katz. He began to meet his own standard of achievement in 1971, when, capitalizing on the common problem of losing weight, he opened his first Nutri-System center. He credited the success of his program over other weight loss programs to the franchise's offering medical supervision in combination with more standard aspects of weight loss like exercise and special diet food. By 1979, Nutri-System grew to one of the most successful franchises in the country, and in 1980, the company went public and Katz looked to other areas for investment. In 1981 he bought the Philadelphia 76ers, and within two years he combined his dreams of a successful basketball team and a profitable business by winning the world championship. "It is no fun making money without winning," Katz said. "Fun has become a very lucrative business." After opening up the floor to qustions from the audience, Katz answered questions concerning business, basketball, and Nutri-System. He assured die-hard 76ers fans that he is not looking to trade Charles Barkley, and he defended his rigid financial control over the team. "No one should have authority to do whatever they want with my money," he said. "No one in any sport has it or should." Wharton sophomores Vivian Wu and Kulwadee Wangkeo, vice presidents of the Wharton Entrepreneurial Club, which sponsored the event, said they were pleased with the speech. "The speech was really interesting as far as how he started and where he ended up," said Wangkeo. College senior John Winther said he enjoyed the speech but he said he was disappointed that basketball questions and Barkley stories overshadowed business issues in the question-and-answer period.

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