Behind every Broadway hit is a business machine.
Audiences see the lights, the performers, the music, the standing ovations, and the final polished production. What they rarely see is everything that happens before opening night: years of development, millions of dollars in capital, difficult decisions, team building, marketing, rejection, uncertainty, and the constant possibility that an idea everyone believed in simply may not work.
For Sue Gilad, a Grammy and five-time Tony Award-winning Broadway producer and co-founder of In Fine Company, that uncertainty is not a flaw in the business. It is the business.
In this episode of the Glovisor Podcast, Sue pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to turn an unproven idea into a Broadway production—and why producing a show is remarkably similar to building a company. Her experience with productions including Moulin Rouge!, The Outsiders, Jagged Little Pill, Angels in America, Buena Vista Social Club, and the upcoming Purple Rain offers lessons that extend far beyond theater.
The central lesson is simple but powerful: you do not need certainty before you begin. You need the courage to build the thing, test it, listen to the response, adapt, and determine whether the idea—and the team behind it—is worth continuing.
Broadway Is Entrepreneurship at an Extraordinary Scale
Sue describes Broadway producing as entrepreneurship in one of the most unpredictable businesses imaginable.
A producer has to assess risk, assemble a team, raise capital, market a product, manage personalities, respond to failure, and ultimately persuade customers to leave their homes and pay for an experience they have never had before.
Every production is effectively its own startup.
That distinction matters. The success of one show does not guarantee the success of the next. A producer cannot simply take the formula from a successful production and assume it will work again. Every new show brings a new concept, a new team, a new audience, new financial requirements, and a new set of unknowns.
Sue points out that approximately 80% of Broadway productions do not make their money back while they are on Broadway. That reality forces producers to think differently about what "success" means.
The Broadway opening may be only the beginning.
A successful production can move into North American tours and international markets, potentially reaching audiences in London, Australia, Germany, Japan, Korea, and elsewhere. A show therefore has to be considered not only as an opening-night event, but as intellectual property and a long-term entertainment business.
For entrepreneurs, the parallel is clear: the first version of a business may be only one stage in a much larger opportunity.
The Best Ideas May Take Years to Prove
One of the most surprising aspects of Broadway is how long a production can take to reach the stage.
Sue explains that a typical Broadway musical can take five to ten years to develop. During that period, the concept may change repeatedly. Writers, composers, directors, choreographers, designers, producers, performers, and other creative professionals all contribute to the final product.
That means the original idea is rarely the finished product.
This is an important lesson for founders. Entrepreneurs sometimes believe that having an idea is the difficult part. In reality, an idea becomes valuable through development, testing, feedback, execution, and refinement.
Sue looks for what she calls evergreen titles and evergreen topics—stories with the potential to remain meaningful across generations rather than being tied exclusively to a particular moment.
That long-term perspective changes the question.
Instead of asking, "Will people care about this right now?" the entrepreneur can also ask, "Could people still care about this five, ten, or twenty years from now?"
That is a fundamentally different way to think about building something with lasting value.
Test the Idea Before Betting Everything on It
One of Sue's most practical insights comes from how Broadway productions are developed.
Producers do not simply read a script and immediately spend millions of dollars putting it on Broadway. They use developmental readings, workshops, and out-of-town productions to see how the work actually performs in front of an audience.
And Sue pays close attention to the audience.
She watches for the moment when people lean forward because they are completely engaged. She also watches for the opposite reaction—the moment people become restless, reach for their phones, or begin paying attention to something other than the production.
Those moments are feedback.
For entrepreneurs, the equivalent might be a customer interview, prototype, pilot program, beta launch, sales conversation, website test, or first version of a product.
The lesson is not to protect the original idea from criticism.
The lesson is to expose it to reality early enough that feedback can still make it better.
Your Audience Will Tell You Things Your Spreadsheet Can't
Business leaders often rely heavily on financial projections, market research, analytics, and strategic planning. Those tools matter, but Sue's experience highlights another form of data: human reaction.
A spreadsheet can tell you how many people attended.
It cannot necessarily tell you when they leaned forward.
That distinction matters in businesses where the customer experience is central. Sometimes the most important information comes from watching what customers actually do rather than listening only to what they say.
A Broadway producer can learn from an audience's reaction before committing additional resources. Entrepreneurs can do the same.
If customers consistently hesitate at the same point, ask the same question, fail to understand the same feature, or become excited by the same unexpected benefit, those reactions are telling you something.
The job is to notice.
Raising Money Is Also a Test of the Idea
Broadway productions can require extraordinary amounts of capital.
Sue explains that while Broadway musicals historically might have required $10 million to $20 million, production costs have increased significantly. Today, raising $25 million to $30 million for a Broadway musical can be part of the landscape.
But the interesting part is not simply the size of the investment.
Sue says that when she struggles to raise money for a project, she takes a hard look at the project itself.
Maybe the production is wonderful.
Maybe it looks good on paper.
Maybe it is objectively talented.
But perhaps it simply is not her show.
That is a powerful distinction for entrepreneurs.
Difficulty getting funding, customers, partners, employees, or other resources does not automatically mean the idea is bad. But persistent resistance can be a signal worth examining.
Sometimes the answer is to improve the idea.
Sometimes the answer is to change the strategy.
And sometimes the answer is to recognize that the opportunity is not the right fit for you.
Sweat Equity Changes the Conversation
Sue also describes how Broadway financing evolves as a project becomes more tangible.
Early-stage "front money" is extremely risky because the production may not even happen. As the project develops, however, the risk profile changes.
A completed script, a workshop, a stronger creative team, and eventually a Broadway theater provide evidence that work has been done and progress has been made.
The closer the production gets to reality, the more the terms can change.
This reflects a principle entrepreneurs encounter everywhere: uncertainty has a price.
When an idea is purely conceptual, investors, customers, and partners have very little evidence to evaluate. As you create something tangible, you reduce uncertainty.
You cannot eliminate risk.
But you can replace some uncertainty with evidence.
Every New Venture Requires Its Own Team
A Broadway production is not the work of one person.
Sue describes a deeply collaborative process involving writers, directors, choreographers, designers, producers, performers, investors, managers, and many others.
She also emphasizes the importance of finding people whose strengths complement your own.
Her producing partner Larry, whom she has known for decades, brings strengths that balance hers. He can see a rough idea and identify the universal potential within it. Sue describes her own strength as recognizing what is missing as the project becomes more developed.
Neither skill is sufficient by itself.
Together, they create a stronger decision-making system.
This is a lesson many entrepreneurs learn the hard way: building a great company does not mean surrounding yourself with people exactly like you.
It means finding people who can see what you cannot see, challenge what you assume, and strengthen the areas where you are weakest.
"Write the Thing"
Perhaps the most immediately useful advice Sue gives entrepreneurs and creators is remarkably simple:
Write the thing.
Do not spend years talking about the idea.
Do not wait until every obstacle has been solved.
Do not keep polishing the concept in your head.
Create something tangible.
For a writer, that means finishing the script. For an entrepreneur, it might mean building the prototype, creating the offer, launching the website, calling the first customers, recording the first episode, or putting the product into the market.
Sue emphasizes the importance of finishing.
"The end" is powerful because a completed work can finally be evaluated.
Once something exists, other people can respond to it. They can criticize it, improve it, challenge it, or recognize something in it that you could not see yourself.
An unfinished idea can remain perfect forever.
A finished idea can become better.
Feedback Is Not the Enemy
One of the biggest challenges Sue describes is putting your heart and soul into a project and then discovering that people do not care about it.
That rejection can be devastating.
But feedback can also become one of the most valuable development tools available.
Sue points out that reactions from audiences, critics, and even online communities can sometimes reveal problems that need to be addressed. Early criticism can influence the trajectory of a production and help make it stronger.
For entrepreneurs, this creates an important mindset shift.
Feedback is not necessarily a verdict.
It is information.
A negative response does not automatically mean you should abandon the idea. It may reveal a messaging problem, product problem, audience problem, positioning problem, or execution problem.
The key is learning to separate criticism that improves the work from criticism that simply distracts you.
Rejection Is Part of Building Something Meaningful
Sue is unusually candid about rejection.
Theater, she says, is an industry of closed doors and "no." Productions fail. Projects do not reach Broadway. Shows can struggle to find an audience. Investors may decline. Critics may respond negatively.
The rejection is real.
But Sue's early experience as an actor helped prepare her for it. She describes being rejected frequently and eventually learning to use rejection as fuel.
That resilience is critical for entrepreneurs.
Building something meaningful almost guarantees periods when the market does not respond the way you hoped. A pitch will fail. A customer will say no. A partnership will disappear. A product will underperform.
The ability to continue learning without allowing rejection to define the entire journey is one of the most important entrepreneurial skills.
Know When to Trust Your Gut—and When to Walk Away
Perhaps Sue's most important advice is about knowing when something is not your project.
She describes experiences where her head told her she had a responsibility to continue while her instincts were telling her something was wrong.
Her advice is to pay attention.
If the project is consistently moving in the wrong direction, entrepreneurs need to ask whether they are working with the right people, pursuing the right idea, or simply refusing to let go because they have already invested so much.
Sue uses the metaphor of a "bad apple" within a project.
The goal is to identify the problem as early as possible. If you cannot remove the problem, sometimes you have to remove yourself.
This is not about quitting at the first sign of difficulty.
It is about distinguishing between productive persistence and expensive denial.
There is a difference between staying committed to a difficult project and staying trapped in the wrong project.
The Right Team Can Change Everything
Sue's relationship with her producing partner illustrates another critical entrepreneurial principle: the right partnership can make difficult work more rewarding.
She describes their complementary skills, their trust, their shared history, and even their ability to enjoy the process when things go wrong.
That last point is easy to overlook.
Entrepreneurship is difficult enough that the people you build with matter enormously.
You will celebrate wins together.
You will deal with losses together.
You will make mistakes together.
You will face uncertainty together.
The right team does not eliminate those problems. It changes how you experience and respond to them.
Sometimes the Right Move Is to Find a Different Market
One of Sue's most practical observations comes from Broadway itself.
Not every show belongs on Broadway.
A production might work better in London's West End. Another might have a strong regional audience. Others can become successful touring productions without becoming traditional Broadway shows.
That idea translates directly into entrepreneurship.
Not every product belongs in every market.
Not every business needs to target every customer.
Not every idea needs to become the largest possible version of itself.
Sometimes the problem is not the product.
The problem is the fit.
Entrepreneurs should be willing to ask whether they are trying to force an idea into a market where it does not belong—or whether another audience, channel, geography, business model, or customer segment might be a better fit.
Build for What Happens After the Launch
Broadway also offers an important lesson about thinking beyond launch day.
Opening night is a milestone, but it is not the entire business.
Once a production opens, the focus shifts toward sustaining audiences, selling tickets, expanding markets, touring, and potentially taking the production internationally.
That is remarkably similar to entrepreneurship.
Launching a product is not the same as building a sustainable company.
The real work often begins after launch.
Can you retain customers?
Can you expand?
Can you enter new markets?
Can you improve the product?
Can you build a team that can support growth?
Can the business continue creating value years after the initial excitement fades?
The best entrepreneurs think beyond the launch.
What Broadway Can Teach Every Entrepreneur
Sue Gilad's Broadway career reveals a business model built around uncertainty.
You start with an idea.
You assemble a team.
You invest time and money.
You test the concept.
You listen to the audience.
You revise.
You face rejection.
You decide whether to continue.
You find the right market.
You build relationships.
And if the idea works, you continue developing it long after the initial launch.
That is not just Broadway.
That is entrepreneurship.
Whether you are building a company, launching a product, writing a book, developing a personal brand, or pursuing a creative project, the same principles apply.
You cannot know everything before you begin.
You can, however, create something tangible, gather evidence, listen carefully, surround yourself with the right people, and make better decisions as you learn.
That is where growth happens.
The Entrepreneurial Courage to "Write the Thing"
The most memorable takeaway from this conversation may be the simplest one: write the thing.
Finish it.
Put it into the world.
Let people respond.
Then make it better.
You do not need to know that your idea will become a hit before you start. You need enough conviction to take the first meaningful step—and enough humility to listen once the world responds.
Sue Gilad has spent decades turning uncertain ideas into productions that reach audiences around the world. Her experience demonstrates that success is rarely about eliminating risk.
It is about learning how to manage risk while continuing to move forward.
And sometimes, the biggest risk is not trying.
For more conversations with entrepreneurs, leaders, creators, and experts who share practical lessons about growth, communication, personal development, and business, explore the Glovisor Podcast and discover more ways to start, grow, and build a business that works for you.