Entrepreneur, the Magazine That Sues Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneur Media Inc. sells the idea of the self-made little guy getting ahead. Based in Irvine, Calif., EMI, as the company is known, publishes , a monthly magazine with a circulation of 607,000 and a colorful history. According to newspaper reports, the periodical's founder and former owner, Chase Revel, once tried robbing banks for a living. Today, EMI conducts seminars revealing "business success secrets" of a more mainstream nature. It markets instructional CDs and sells advertising to package deliverers, health insurers, and franchisers such as Wahoo's Fish Taco restaurants. In other words, EMI caters to all things entrepreneurial. Strangely, it also smashes the dreams of the self- starters it aims to serve.

Daniel R. Castro, a serial entrepreneur in Austin, Tex., received a stern letter from EMI's lawyers last September ordering him to "cease and desist" using his new website, EntrepreneurOlogy.com. In his day, Castro, 50, has started a law firm, a mortgage company, and a real estate-lending outfit. He employs a half-dozen people full-time and coordinates the work of a platoon of brokers. He also delivers motivational speeches to other business owners and hopes the new website will provide an online home for a workshop series. "I was dumbfounded," he says of the cease-and-desist letter. Like a lot of people who work for themselves, he doesn't like to be told what to do. "Their problem," he says of EMI, "was that they didn't know who they were picking on."