For several years, people throughout Hudson County may have seen a truck driving through their neighborhood carting a billboard.
This was an innovation of Eric and Craig Wurtenberg, of Mid Reality in Kearny, who – an entrepreneurs – wanted to add advertising to their portfolio of services, although for the most part, the billboard on wheels has served as a good way to promote their own realty company.
“We bought in North Carolina,” Eric Wurtenberg, during a telephone interview.
Although the brothers were born and raised in Kearny and work out of North Arlington, Wurtenberg’s father became a Bayonne legend as the owner of Judicke’s Bakery, famous until he sold the shop about six years ago for its sprinkled donuts.
“My father owned bakeries in Bayonne, Hackensack, and Kearny,” Wurtenberg said. “But every where I went I ran into someone who remembered my father’s donuts from Judicke’s in Bayonne. I went to Loyola and someone asked me about the donuts. I even met a Jersey City woman in Florida who remembered the sprinkled donuts my father made.”
During those days, Bayonne people used to line up around the block to get the donuts – and though the shop is still popular with Bayonne residents, Wurtenberg’s father seemed to have had the magic touch that made the place a local legend. Wurtenberg said he learned a lot about business from his father.
“Seeing him work and how it paid off created a strong business ethic in me, but he never wanted us to go into the bakery business,” Wurtenberg said. “He said the hours were too long and sent me to college.”
Eric and brother, Craig became entrepreneurs, working various businesses, trying to find that one that fit them best. One such business called Celltradeusa.com, helps people get out of unattractive cellular phone deals without losing their deposits. They also got involve with an import business as well as other efforts.
“We have a blast,” Wurtenberg said, and though this venture with the billboard truck was designed to draw in advertisers it seemed most successful at promoting their own real estate efforts. They have done advertising for parades and other events, but get most of their activity by driving around in Hoboken or the Newport area of Jersey City.
They got the idea for the truck from seeing others around and contacted a friend in North Carolina that constructed one for them.
“The day we brought it back from North Carolina we were driving it around Hoboken without any advertisement on it,” he recalled. “We stopped near Starbucks for about an hour and a half and four people knocked on our window to ask what the truck was. One guy was from a real estate company and that turned on a light bulb in our heads.”
The two brothers got into the real estate business about eight months ago and found the truck has produced clients when they drove it around.
And what does their father think of their activities?
“He’s very supportive,” Wurtenberg said.