Entrepreneur Magazine January - February 2017

I GET A LOT OF EMAILS FROM TEEN- agers who’ve started businesses. And moms who’ve started businesses. And companies that donate one of their product for every one sold. And, well, many other broad types of entrepreneurs. They’re easy to instantly categorize in my inbox. For example, here are actual subject lines from emails I’ve gotten recently: “Young Entrepreneur” “Teen Entrepreneur’s Kickstarter” “Millennial Entrepreneur Encourages Peers to Build a Business” “17-Year-Old Entrepreneur Wants to Go Public” The emails from moms, one-to-one-giving companies, and others are just as predictable. These entrepreneurs had the right idea: They were trying to highlight the detail they thought set them apart. But they picked the wrong detail. Rather than making themselves look unique, they made themselves part of a crowd. And repetition is an editor’s…

When it comes to finding mentors, I hear you’re a big fan of the cold call. Yeah, I have no shame in it. I may have fear in my belly, but I just push past those nerves. Years ago, I read Delivering Happiness, by [Zappos CEO] Tony Hsieh. I was struck by how he saw company culture, and I knew I wanted to build a business like that one day. So I picked up the phone and dialed his number. He didn’t believe it was me! Over time we developed a friendship, then a mentorship. I’ve learned so much from Tony. Especially the HR nuts and bolts. Richard Branson is also a mentor of yours. How did you meet him? I dressed as him for Halloween! [Laughs] My makeup artist…

Eyes are big with Tyra. Any Next Top Model fan can recite her “smize” tip (smile with the eyes!). But her focus goes far beyond making good photos. “If someone is asking me for modeling advice, startup advice, business advice, entertainment advice,” she says, “and I answer them but I see their eyes glaze over because I’m not giving them the answer they wanted, I know not to invest any more time in that person. When you see them go, ‘Uh-huh, yeah, oh, uh-huh,’ I’m like, Uh, OK! Moving on.” This isn’t just a Tyra thing. This is an established body-language thing. The eyes can convey many messages, and quickly impress (or turn off) a future mentor or partner. There’s a formula to it: “Maintaining eye contact for roughly 60…

Q I recently changed my company’s name, but I read that when I rename my Face-book page, I lose all my likes and reviews. Is there a way to do it without starting all over again? —Rich D. A: Facebook “pages”—which are for organizations, as opposed to “profiles” for people—can be confusing for entrepreneurs. That’s understandable: You’ve spent years building a following, panning for likes, and creating posts to entice your customers, but you don’t actually own any of it. Face-book does. And Facebook is a bit of a black box. In 2013, it began to drive down the natural reach of pages, forcing businesses to pay to “boost” posts to the fans they had previously been hitting for free. Such moves create, as Rich knows well, misinformation and micro-panics…

LAST SPRING, JOEL GASCOIGNE realized he’d made a big mistake. He’s the CEO of Buffer, a social media management company, and business was doing so well that he aggressively staffed up—going from 34 to 94 employees in just more than a year. But although Buffer was still bringing in $875,000 a month, the increased salary burden was eating up all that money and more. “We didn’t get the productivity impact or growth we thought we might get from hiring that many people,” says Gascoigne. Buffer was likely to be broke in five months. So in June 2016, he laid off 10 recent hires. Then the 29-year-old CEO faced an even more daunting challenge: He’d have to explain all this—how he failed, how the company’s finances suffered, and how he’d fix…

FARAH SHEIKH PROJECT MANAGER “There’s a resistance to the idea of project management because of the misconception that you just set deadlines and schedule meetings. Here, the role is to build up your team so they can succeed, not to hold them back.” JOHN BRANCH IV CUSTOMER OPS TEAM LEAD “The special part of this office is how it fosters employee engagement. We don’t connect just on projects but also through events. And we have a game room. My favorite is Super Smash Bros. Melee.” KELSEY ROSE SOFTWARE ENGINEER ON THE COMMERCE TEAM “The industry is full of places where there are a lot of handoffs without collaboration. Here, I can start a conversation with a project manager or designer in five minutes.” MATTHEW ZITO DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT “The design…