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I’ve always liked entrepreneurs who view business as a battle. One of the original McDonald franchisees was once greeted the day before his grand opening by the owner of a neighboring burger joint. The competitor introduced himself with a friendly “there’s lots of business around here and if you ever run out of buns or need anything, let us know.” The McDonald’s franchisee response was priceless “We’re going to run you out of business.” Guess who’s still standing.

Fred Franzia is another entrepreneur who always related business to war. He’s the man who’s turned Bronco Wine into the fourth largest wine company over the last 30 years. He hates his competitors and takes pleasure in underselling them and then buying their bankrupt businesses. Okay, I don’t think everyone should act the way he does, but he’s very good at what he does.

Bronco specializes in making good wine very cheap. His leading brand Charles Shaw goes for $2 a bottle and has been nicknamed “Two Buck Chuck” by his customers. He thinks people are crazy to pay more than $10 for a bottle and even has a $6 cabernet made from the same grapes as competitors $75 bottles.

He keeps his costs low by watching every dollar. When the guy who rents the portable potties for the field workers raised his prices, Fred fought back. He bought his own. In his words “To you, that’s a sh*tter, to me it’s a profit center. It’s a sh*tter war. You got to have war at all times.”

So even though I wouldn’t want to work the 100 hours a week that Fred does, or have an entire industry enraged at me because of my attitude towards them, but I have to respect a man as tenacious as him. He’s a shrewd businessman and patient, as he says “Success is easy if you think of it like rust; It’s inevitable if you keep at it.”

-Craig Sharkton