Ari Siegel is not your average entrepreneur, and it makes sense that his business, History by Mail is not your average business.
In today’s world, one of the most sought-out business models is the subscription—where you offer a product or a service on a monthly basis. However, Ari’s is unique—so unique that one may wonder how he built the business.
History by Mail was born by accident. Ari saw a rare, then unknown letter by Abraham Lincoln and sent it to some family and friends. They liked it. A lot. Ari took that idea and now History by Mail sends out high-quality facsimiles of rare historic US documents that tell the tale of American history. Every month Ari and his team send out hundreds of thousands of documents to his subscribers.
Ari’s (then) small business was picked up by the Shark Tank business show. Unlike most people who appear on the show, they asked him to try out for it, which he did. He went on the show and landed a deal.
Since then his business has taken off more than he expected.
Ari shares his journey, both in Yiddishkeit and business, and reveals a behind-the-scenes look at an “overnight” success story. Enjoy!
—Nesanel
I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I’m the fifth generation of my family to call it home. My great-great-grandfather immigrated from Ukraine in 1881 and established our family’s jewelry store, which has now been in business for over 135 years. Today, my father and uncle still run Siegel Jewelers—a true fixture in the community.
“I’m the youngest of three children, with one older brother and one older sister. We grew up in what you might describe as a traditionally Reform household. We observed certain holidays, but not according to halachah. For example, we held two Sedarim on Pesach, but we only observed seven days—following the Reform movement’s practice of eliminating the second day of Yom Tov. Our traditions were less about law and more about family continuity, doing what had been passed down through the generations.
“Given our last name, Siegel, I suspected we might be Levi’im. It actually took me five years of genealogical research to confirm it. In the Reform movement, tribal identities like Levi or kohen were often set aside, so there was no trace of it on birth or death certificates, or even on headstones. It took time and digging, but eventually, I discovered that we are, in fact, Levi’im.
“We always knew we were Jewish—especially growing up in a predominantly evangelical Christian area where we definitely stood out. Still, our practice was mostly secular. My mother would light Shabbos candles occasionally, and we’d sometimes have challah on Friday nights. At the same time, we’d have lobster on X-mas to mark the end of the retail season. I became a baal teshuvah at the University of Michigan when I was 19. That experience marked a major turning point in my life.
“Siegel Jewelers is well known in the area—thanks in part to my father’s frequent radio ads, which made his voice recognizable just about everywhere we went. The store employs 15 people, including my father and uncle, and many of the staff have been there for decades. My grandparents were also deeply involved; my grandfather worked there until he was 93.
“One of the most meaningful projects I’ve done was recording 12 hours of interviews with my grandparents. We walked through each decade, beginning in the 1890s, discussing what life was like, how the store evolved, and what it meant to be Jewish in America through the generations. It’s a remarkable archive, and one day, I hope to turn it into a coffee-table book.
“I was entrepreneurial from an early age, though, to be fair, so was just about everyone in my family. We were always hustling in one way or another, whether it was lemonade stands or little ventures to earn extra money. When my Latin class offered a school trip to Italy, I saw an opportunity. I bought candy in bulk from Costco and sold it to classmates to help pay for the trip. It was going well—until the principal found out and confiscated the money. My parents backed me up in a meeting with him, asking why he’d shut down a teenager’s attempt to make a dream trip affordable. It was my first lesson in how entrepreneurship doesn’t always fit neatly into the system.
“In college, that entrepreneurial streak only grew stronger. I was either working for entrepreneurs or launching something of my own. When Amazon and eBay first took off, I jumped in, buying and reselling products—everything from disposable cell phone batteries to lacrosse sticks. Eventually, I got into manufacturing, sourcing items from China. I even traveled there several times and ended up studying abroad in Beijing.
“I went to the University of Michigan and majored in business. The program offered two study abroad options: Berlin or Beijing. I chose Beijing. While there, I took business school courses, and I later traveled to Vietnam, where I worked for a few months at a startup called Vietnam Works, essentially Vietnam’s version of Monster.com. The company had significant American investment but struggled with organizational issues, so I helped streamline their operations by working closely with different managers.
“That same summer, I interned on Capitol Hill for Senator Carl Levin of Michigan. He chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Subcommittee on Investigations. I assisted with investigations into offshore tax shelters and financial misconduct—a totally different kind of problem-solving.
“After college, opportunities kept drawing me back to China. A friend of mine who sold equipment to B&H couldn’t attend a trade show there, so he asked me to go in his place. My friend arranged for me to have a translator who had lived in Shanghai for two decades. He’d earned a PhD at Harvard and had written about the Jewish circle surrounding Mao Zedong. During his time in Shanghai, he became frum through Chabad and launched a liquor company based on the Chinese liquor Baijiu. He brought me on to help pitch the product to a Chinese government-owned company. We even traveled together for that meeting. For two days we only ate fruit, to the extent that our Chinese counterparts asked us what religion it was where we could only eat bananas!
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