June 25, 2008 11:02AM

‘Maxim’izing on a Simple Idea

By Alexis Glick

This morning I met the man behind the Maxim empire: Felix Dennis, chairman of Dennis Publishing. What a story! A college dropout who, decades later, becomes one of the 100 richest people in the U.K. At one time, he owned as many as 240 magazines. Today he owns 50 magazines and multiple websites after the sale of the magazine that put him on the map — Maxim — along with other well-known magazines including Blender and Stuff for reportedly $240 million to a private equity group.

So you wonder why did he create Maxim back in 1995 in the U.K. and then the U.S. in 1997? Simple he says. American magazines for men were basically split into three kinds: cars, boats and guns. Then you had service magazines like GQ and Esquire followed by porn magazines like Playboy and Hustler. If you put bikinis back on the girls two things would happen: A-list starlets would appear and advertisers like Coca Cola and Ford would run ads in your magazine. Pretty smart if you think about it.

Today, Dennis joined me on Money for Breakfast to talk about his new book How to Get Rich: One of the World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets. It’s a great story. Very inspirational. Everyone who saw him interviewed today or in studio was shocked by his demeanor and appearance. For some reason, they thought they were going to see Hugh Heffner. Instead they saw a charming, self-deprecating gentleman who clearly has enjoyed the journey as much as the success. He’s the true American Dream!

Here is a quote from his book.

“I went from being a pauper-a hippie dropout on welfare living in a crummy room without the proverbial pot to piss in, without even the money to pay the rent, without a clue as to what to do next-to being rich. And I am certainly no business genius, as my rivals will happily and swiftly confirm. Yet the odd thing is, I’ve ended up far richer than most of my rivals.”

Watch the interview.