Being a comedian is one of the most expensive and hardest businesses to start
Being a comedian is an art, but also a business. And much more of a business than an art. Being a comedian is a super expensive, super difficult business to start. It is 10 times harder than starting a tech company and 20 times more expensive. I was cash flow positive within months of starting my tech company. The low barriers to entry for comedy plus the intense competition and low market value make a comedy business so ridiculously hard to do. I was very happy to have been a successful entrepreneur with multiple years of funding before I started my comedy business.
As a part of our series called “Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Professional Comedian”, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Tony Zorc.
Tony Zorc is a comedian, political activist, author and entrepreneur. In 2008 he started a successful accounting software company named Accounting Seed, which he sold in 2021 to a private equity firm to become a full time political activist. Using the funds from the sale of his private company, Tony started Congressman Curly in 2023. It is a live political comedy show using traditional stand up comedy, music, storytelling and sketch to promote a BiG Idea in politics: Upgrade the US Political system by forming new teams, with new players under new rules. Tony is currently performing the show in the NorthEast and Florida and has plans to launch an Off-Broadway musical comedy in January of 2025.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I grew up in the Western suburbs of Chicago in a town named Hinsdale. I was born in 1973 and graduated from high school in May of 1992. Despite Hinsdale being an affluent town, my family did not match the socio-economic demographics of the area. I was raised in a very traditional middle class American home. I had to eat everything on my plate at dinner, because food cost money. And if I asked for extra things, my parents’ response was: “Go get a job! At 11 years of age I started my first business mowing lawns and learned a ton about business and being an entrepreneur at a young age.
I was also a highly competitive gymnast. I trained 6 days a week through my middle school and high school years to become a State Champion gymnast in Illinois. I also competed nationally in both the high school and club gymnastics circuits. In my high school years I set a goal to go to the Olympics and started training for the games. Unfortunately my flexibility, or my lack thereof, became the limiting factor for me to be a real Olympic contender. However, I truly became the best gymnast I could be training as hard as I did. The training and discipline also gave me a lot of confidence in my ability to set goals at different levels and timelines and recognize which were in my control and which were out of my control with regards to achieving them, which is helping me be successful to this day.
After graduating college in 1996 with an accounting degree I became a certified public accountant (CPA) in Michigan. I climbed up the corporate ladder until I started my own technology consulting business and then a software company in 2008. In 2021 I sold the software company to become a political activist full time.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path as a comedian?
My son Ethan died unexpectedly on March 27, 2019. The electrical system in Ethan’s heart stopped working in the middle of the night and he died VERY unexpectedly. His death was a visceral shock to our whole family. He was only 20 years old. On this day my life changed permanently. My wife and our three surviving daughters were barely able to function for about 6 months. After about 9 months I told my wife Caroline I wanted to sell our tech company and work to solve what I saw was the biggest hurdle facing my kids future. A divided USA on a path to self-destruction. Ethan’s death made me understand how short life is, and it also made me fearless with regard to the risks I was willing to take socially. I thought the best way to start healing our national divide was to start a movement for unity with a run for President. So in 2022 I announced my candidacy for President in the 2024 election. However, it did not go well at all.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Running for President showed me first hand how Washington, the political parties and our media works. It showed me that our system of government is broken foundationally at the Constitutional level. However it also showed me that the vast majority of Americans are not participating in our democratic process. They have checked out of politics because they are disgusted with the whole scene. It helped me understand that real unity means we get together and agree on the rules of the political game despite what your position on the issues are. And if we want real change in Washington we need to form new political parties with new players under new rules. A change such as this is so big, that it is really just a Big Idea right now and if I wanted to get the 80% of Americans who are running away from politics interested, it would have to be in a fun way, like making them laugh. So I pivoted my approach to becoming a stand up political themed comedian.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
So one of the biggest lessons I have learned being a comedian is the difference between satire and superiority in comedy and how comedy in film is very different from live, stand up comedy. In film satire works very well, when it often doesn’t really work much at all in a live environment. So starting out as Congressman Curly one night I performed at a venue that was full of a very traditional Blue Collar demographic. And I was trying to use satire to mock Congressman Curly as being privileged, elite and rich and it did not come off funny to the audience, they thought I was mocking them, instead of my character. The room was so quiet as my act bombed quickly. I was wondering if I was going to get out of there alive. I learned though how to position Curly is stupid, lucky and criminal and got the same audience laughing weeks later.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I am very thankful for my comedy coach Jerry Corley, from Stand up Comedy Clinic based in Los Angeles. Jerry is a great writer, coach and encourager.
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?
Anyone can learn to do stand up comedy well with enough grit. It is about learning the constructs and principles, which there are just a handful of, and getting out there and failing. Failing is the ONLY way to succeed in Comedy and it’s as simple as recording each of your sets, studying them intensely afterward and keeping what got laughs, smiles and snickers and chopping out what didn’t and building off your success.
You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?
We are building an off-broadway musical comedy for Congressman Curly with a planned launch in January of 2025. One thing that is unique to us is we have music, comedy and a story to tell. So we think a musical is the perfect instrument to further activism in ending our political cultural divide.
What do you do to get material to write your jokes? What is that creative process like?
I seek the comedic truth in what is happening in the news and political media, but also in our culture. I try to make a super technical, depressing and complex thing like politics relatable to people who are disgusted by it and ignoring it. When I hit this chord right: funny & relatable, it works well.
Super. Here is our main question. What are your “Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Professional Comedian” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
Ok, I ranked these from least to most important.
#5 Feel good about failing
With comedy you’ve got to feel good about failing despite how much it hurts to bomb. This requires a commitment to letting logic and discipline overtake your emotions. Bombing is a part of the process and the greatest comedians are not immune from it. I think some advice from Bill Burr was the most helpful in that he explained “you get better at bombing. Sometimes it’s you, sometimes it’s the audience, sometimes it’s the place”. Bombing well also requires improve skills which are really worth developing and different from traditional rehearsed bits.
#4 Being likable is as important as being funny
Your audience needs to like you. They most often like you by feeling superior to you. They are frustrated and often not feeling good about their own lives. When you’re performing they need to feel smarter and more successful than you. Comedians like George Carlin can make the audience feel superior to whoever he is mocking, but this is really advanced level comedy. Starting out it is easiest to make fun of yourself. Build a solid foundation around self-deprecation before you mock too many other people.
#3 What is funny on film and social media isn’t necessarily funny when performing live
In film your audience does not need to like you as much. Film is more abstract than live performances which is why so many more comedic constructs are available. Don’t start building a stand up routine based on jokes that work on your social media or in skits.
#2 Every comedian will have a target market. Find yours as fast as you can
I wrote my whole routine for GenZ and Millennials thinking they would have the most interest in my character and political reform. It was shocking to me to see Gen X and Boomers were the ones coming to my shows and enjoying the content the most. I felt blessed that it only took 2 shows to understand this. After finding my target market my comedy and delivery on expectations started improving so much faster.
#1 Being a comedian is one of the most expensive and hardest businesses to start
Being a comedian is an art, but also a business. And much more of a business than an art. Being a comedian is a super expensive, super difficult business to start. It is 10 times harder than starting a tech company and 20 times more expensive. I was cash flow positive within months of starting my tech company. The low barriers to entry for comedy plus the intense competition and low market value make a comedy business so ridiculously hard to do. I was very happy to have been a successful entrepreneur with multiple years of funding before I started my comedy business.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Arnold Schwartzenegger explains well how you need to fire the naysayers in your life to be successful. This is the truth as they bring you down so they need to be eliminated, no matter who they are in your life. I ‘ve had several friends and family that I stopped talking about my comedy journey with. It created a natural wedge that phased these relationships out, but awesome new ones formed as well.
There is a difference between people who believe in you and are trying to give you helpful advice on what not to do versus people who don’t believe in you at all and sometimes it is hard to distinguish between the two. Be on the watch for naysayers, but give people the benefit of the doubt before you make a decision to fire them from your life.
You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
My ultimate goal is to inspire Americans to join a political movement to fix their government by forming new teams with new players under new rules.
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
Probably Taylor Swift. She is powerful enough to make my goal a reality if she were to get behind it.
Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?
Through traditional channels such as Instagram, Facebook, X, Linked In, YouTube and TikTok. However, it is best to subscribe to our email newsletter on our website.
This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
Thank you so much Yuri!
Tony Zorc: Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Professional Comedian was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.