From Singing Waiter To Ecard Entrepreneur: Bill Kurasz Shares His Story
“I’ve always enjoyed making people laugh,” says Bill Kurasz, creator of UsendU.com, an online interactive video greeting card website with all sorts of ecards to choose from, including funny ecards, love ecards, birthday ecards, Christmas ecards and more.
“In Catholic school we had a day called Father Pastor Day,” says Bill of his grade school days. “That’s when hundreds of students and faculty would gather in the auditorium for a show. “They would push this little guy out on the stage,” says Bill. “That little guy was me and I would sing ‘God Bless America.’”
“They knew I had it and this ‘it’ has always sought me out.”
As a young man, Bill Kurasz joined a Polish dance troupe for which he was a singer too. With 17 other dancers, he traveled to Poland for three weeks and performed all over the country.
Then in 1978, while vacationing in Arizona, Bill fell in love with Jerome, an old mining town with a big tourist attraction. He moved there, opened a store and watched his new business soar.
“I took a craft class and learned how to do stained glass,” says Bill. “Everything I made sold,” and not just stained glass pieces. “I designed Jerome’s first souvenir t-shirt,” Bill says. He couldn’t make them fast enough and ultimately sold the business.
On the heels of his success in the Jerome retail business, Bill opened a restaurant in Sedona, yet another Arizona tourist destination that is popular for its red rock scenery. Bill named his one of a kind Italian restaurant with Chinese décor Marco Polo’s. “I didn’t know how to cook,” says Bill, “so I would call my mom for recipes.” He ultimately sold this business too though he didn’t stay out of the restaurant business for long.
Bill opened a new restaurant with a blues singer who was in the first USO all-girl traveling show during the Vietnam War.
“We opened a nightclub called The Plump Hen and the Rowdy Rooster,” says Bill. “And we were hot! We sang and entertained in the Rowdy Rooster (that’s me) Lounge.”
Then one night they got a call after the show.
“The Jerry Lewis telethon wanted a cassette!” says Bill. “We sent them three songs and they wanted us to do all three, at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas!”
Performing on the Jerry Lewis telethon was a huge highlight in Bill’s life, and he actually moved to Vegas. Not a good decision at that time.
It took some time for Bill to bounce back from that experience – personally and professionally – but ultimately he ended up right back on track.
“I saw an ad for singing waiters at the Hyatt in Scottsdale,” says Bill of his move back to Arizona. “I opened my mouth and sang and they gave me the job.”
At first the restaurant did a lot of opera but Bill says it was boring. “I just started singing a parody one day and it was a hit. I told the general manager we need to do parody and that’s exactly what we did!”
For 16 years Bill wrote the lyrics, trained the singers and touched people’s lives at the Hyatt in Scottsdale. “The most well-received songs were the special occasion songs,” says Bill. “It became one of the 10 top-grossing restaurants in the Hyatt chain.”
Soon Bill started doing TV spots and commercials. “You don’t belong here,” people would say to me. “You belong on Broadway.”
Though Bill didn’t pick up and make the move to New York, he did make a decision that changed the direction of his career forever. In 2001, he launched AcapellaFella.com, the first online vaudevillian greeting card service.
“I didn’t know anything about computers,” says Bill. “One of the bus boys was taking computers in college and he helped me build it.” Since then thousands of ecards have been sent from AcapellaFella.com, all featuring parodied songs written and sung by Bill himself.
Bill couldn’t find a way to make money off of AcapellaFella.com, but “I have that entrepreneurial spirit that is insatiable,” he says, and UsendU.com was born.
UsendU.com features one of a kind ecards through which you can send you singing, saying or doing anything you’d like to share with friends, family, colleagues or customers. From Christmas ecards and love ecards, to funny ecards and birthday ecards, you can create original video ecards any way you like through UsendU.com.
“I know this is what I’m supposed to be doing,” says Bill of helping others create original greetings of love and laughter. “I’m going to leave the results to a higher power.”
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