Meet Mark Burke | Owner of Mad World Records

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mark Burke and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mark, what’s the most important thing you’ve done for your children?
I believe that one of the most difficult aspects of being a small business owner is the sheer amount of time it takes to run a successful business and the toll it takes on the family. I had a small business for 7 years before my wife and I had our son, Wren. I don’t know if the business would have made it through the first few years if I needed to worry about children at home while running a complicated retail business.

We moved the store to another town and changed the main focus from CDs back to records the same year Wren was born in 2010. Moving the store was a good idea for the long run, but those first few years juggling a baby and the store was very difficult. For the first year of his life, I worked everyday open to close [11-9pm] and then came home to a baby in bed. Wren did not sleep much the first two years of his life, so I would take the overnight shift with him until he started sleeping better. I rarely saw my son in a normal day to day environment and it was taking a toll on me an on my wife.

I had to become creative in order to spend time with my family. Reliable employees allowed me to spend more time at home, but I still had to schedule myself in a way that gave me quality time with my family. Maria and I wanted Wren to witness us working a lot so he could understand from a young age that work is important. We set up an area in the back of the store for him to relax while we worked. As he got into elementary school, we had him “work” behind the counter a couple hours a week This allowed him to spend quality time with us while learning skills and meeting dozens of strangers in a safe environment.

I didn’t successfully figure out how to spend enough time with my family until the pandemic hit. I could tell fairly quickly how frustrating it was going to be to keep the brick and mortar store open while Covid was spreading around. Most people were considerate, but some people were just nasty. I decided to become an online only store in the summer of 2020. This decision was more about the safety of employees and my family than it was about business. I were all handed a strange situation with the pandemic, but I decided to take advantage of that and pivoted accordingly.

I have now settled on a routine that allows me to spend a good amount of my time with my family. The store does far less business than it used to, because we no longer have walk-in traffic, so we have to be creative as always. Wren, who is now 14, can help us with day-to-day responsibilities. We raised him knowing that we should all help to make the store successful. I pay him his allowance, based on how much he works for the store. With this current business model, I am able to teach him skills, teach him responsibility, and show him how to get satisfaction out of finishing his weekly jobs.

Like all parents and business owners, we had no idea how we were to navigate the business and family at first. It has taken 14 years of trial and error to find a routine that works for us. The important thing I needed to discover is that there is no point in working all the time if you can’t learn to balance home life too. I know it’s important to teach my son these work skills, but I also keep the dialogue going about the difficult parts of owning a small business. Wren has grown up to understand that we are supposed to be working to help us live, not living to work.

What should our readers know about your business?
I’m not a business man. I never set out to become rich. Opening a record store for someone like me is nuts. I just love music and love getting music into other music lover’s hands. I worked for many different record stores over the years, but the decision to open my own was a complicated affair. There are no sure things in retail and when I opened up I had many obstacles, but I chose this life anyway.

In 1991, I was a teenager working in my first record store. We had CDs, Records, Tapes, and VHS at that point. If someone needed help finding music, it was all brain power that found it. We had no good resources and no internet to help us with music knowledge. It did not take long for me to realize that I could help people figure out almost any song with limited information. The feeling of satisfaction I got from finding music for people became addictive.

The power of music to transport a person to specific moments in their past is so incredible. Songs have been embedded into our psyche to trigger memories and emotions that have often been forgotten. It’s a great feeling when you help find a song for someone. You can see the gratitude and appreciation for helping bring back whatever feelings of nostalgia that person needed that day. I knew in 1991 that music stores were a perfect career path for me, but I decided to go to college at the same time, to make sure I didn’t find something I enjoyed more.

In 2002, I graduated from the University of North Texas with a degree in Anthropology. I loved Anthropology! I love studying people and culture. I love the idea of throwing absolutes out the window and looking at people and philosophies with an open mind and a fresh take. When I graduated, I suddenly had 2 choices. I could continue with my education and become an Anthropology teacher, or I could do what I know and open my own record store. I decided on the latter, so here we are.

The weird thing about deciding to open a record store in 2002, was that most of the CD/Record Stores in our area were all closing down. File sharing and big box stores suddenly made music cheap to free for a whole new generation of kids. I realized that with all these stores closing, there would be a vacuum in the music retail market and the music collecting population was still going to need place to buy and learn about new music. Don’t get me wrong, I knew that it seems backwards to open a business when so many others were failing, but I had ideas and an attitude towards music that I believed people would enjoy.

I was able to buy everything you need to run a music store from all of these stores closing. I got product, fixtures and even employees from these closing stores. This allowed a poor college kid to open a full store without financial backing. I just need to break even for a few years and then the store would support itself. That is kind of what happened, but there have many poor decisions, hiccups and unforeseen obstacles made along the way.

There is something very special about going into a CD/Record store where the employees are nice and knowledgeable and the inventory represents everyone. My Anthropology training came in handy. I no longer thought about what music I personally liked and started focusing on having an inventory that covered every genre, every decade, and at a price that was competitive. It was my job to guide people to music they enjoy, not what I believed they should enjoy. This created a retail environment that allowed people to like what they want to like with no judgement and I could tell that this was not the norm for other record stores.

In 2020, we decided to take the store online only. We continued to carry the same variety of music, but I no longer had the interactions with people all day, everyday. Now we successfully run the store out of a house that doubles as a warehouse. We deliver locally for free and we package all our orders within 24 hours 99.9% of the time. Being online is a totally different experience, but it is what works for us now.

The internet has drastically changed the music industry over the years. I no longer need to be the goofy guy behind the counter who can figure out the songs you’re looking for. The internet took that job from me. What I can do is keep getting music into people’s hands, which in turn helps create memories and feelings that could stick with them forever.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
One of the nice things about living in North Texas is there are tons restaurants.

-La Laguna (Denton, TX). A little family-owned Mexican restaurant inside of a little market.

-Yummy’s (Denton, TX). Delicious Greek place with kind owners that have served Denton for over 20 years.

-Picone (Denton, TX) New Italian restaurant – casual dining with upscale menu.

If we have kids visit…

-Meow Wolf (Grapevine, TX)

-More Fun Comics! and More Fun Toys! on the Denton Square. More Fun Toys! is our local pickup location.

We love to go to all of the antique malls spread out through DFW.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There would be no Mad World Records without my wife, Maria. She has a reliable job as a speech therapist, so even during slow times she can keep things going at home. Without her support and hard work, we never would have been able to stay afloat for so many years with such a finicky retail business. The store is open because of Maria and will probably close when she decides it’s time.

Website: https://madworldrecordstx.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madworldrecords/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/madworldrecords/

Image Credits
Maria Burke