Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2016 i Entrepreneur Magazine

I once saw a painting called Contemplation on Emptiness, and it fulfilled me. It was so insanely gorgeous—the colors, the subject, the pure grace of the piece—that my soul was rocked. Unfortunately, buying it would also rock my bank account. I fought the urge. I battled my internal voice. And then, well, I snuck it into our family’s budget, and I bought it. Very sneaky on my part. About 24 hours after the painting arrived, I sent the artist, Quang Ho, a note, thanking him for the joy he brought me. He responded quickly: “Thank you, Amy. Your note made me think about that piece and about pulling all the parts together and about changing course with colors and meaning, but I will never forget how much love I put…

Q How can I reduce my company’s insurance costs? A It’s simple, in theory: The less risky your business seems, the less your insurance company will charge you, says Michael Turpin, an executive VP at New York City–based brokerage USI. 1. Think like your insurer. “A good risk manager first seeks to identify all risks, then eliminate and mitigate those practices that might give rise to a claim,” Turpin says. Those can include undocumented human resources practices, financially unstable vendors or the absence of compliance procedures. Catch those problems before your insurer does. 2. Hire by experience. Don’t settle for your insurance-selling brother-in-law. Find a broker or agent with expertise in your industry; they’ll know how to negotiate the best rate. An uninformed agent, Turpin says, “can translate into significantly…

I MAJORED IN BIOLOGY in college and thought I’d become a doctor. But I also wanted to travel. So as a way to do both, I spent years with international humanitarian organizations. The work was satisfying, but the social life was challenging: My colleagues would go back to their hotel at night—in part because they were almost all older than me, but also because they were fearful of the potentially unsafe, unfamiliar cities we were in. I didn’t want to be this far from home and not experience a place fully, so I often went out. And I discovered amazing things. From a rooftop party at an advertising agency to road- tripping across the country for a DJ set, I was exposed to a side of Africa I’d never seen…

THE BEST BARS TO MEET WITH A VC Burritt Room + Tavern, San Francisco It’s on the second floor of the Mystic Hotel—just elusive enough to keep tourists away. Request one of the six private booths with velvet curtains so you can plot world domination over a Berlinetta (bourbon, Cynar, Carpano Antica). Multnomah Whiskey Library, Portland, Ore. The public generally has to endure a long wait to recline in the rich leather club chairs and Chesterfield couches; only members can make reservations (memberships run $600 a year, and there’s a wait list). But once inside, the exhaustive wall of whiskeys and other spirits evokes unlimited possibilities. MILK ROOM, Chicago Nothing says “exclusive opportunity” like this eight-seat microbar on the second floor of the new Chicago Athletic Association, serving designer cocktails…

Business born of martinis “My good friend and I were sitting at a bar in a Chicago steakhouse, drinking dirty martinis and commiserating about the pressures of never being able to get anything done with small kids around. After a round she said, ‘What if we created a concierge service that helped parents get stuff done?’ I was like, Yes! Of course! As the martinis flowed, so did the ideas, and the next day we started the business.” —Natalie DuBrow, cofounder, Momeeze Cocktail courage “I attended a financial planner conference in New Orleans, hoping to get guidance on starting my own firm. I’m an introvert, but I signed up for the brewery and cocktails tour. We went to the first place, where I had a beer, and then the second,…

PINBALL HAS BECOME one of the startup set’s favorite office toys, a welcome antidote to staring at screens and dealing in digits. “When you dedicate long hours and weekends to your work, a pinball break lets you unwind just enough that you’re ready to jump back in full swing,” says Steve Martocci, who founded GroupMe and Splice, and brought a classic machine into both offices. So who you gonna call for one? Might we suggest Stern Pinball, the oldest and largest company still in the business, which just released this Ghostbusters machine? Despite this summer’s reboot, it’s based on the ’80s classic—with original artwork and newly recorded voice call-outs from Winston himself, actor Ernie Hudson. Your boss can wait: Slimer needs bustin’. ($5,995 to $8,795; sternpinball.com)…

As a travel nurse recruiter and placement firm, we find nurses their ideal jobs as well as good housing. We used to line up the housing ourselves, but now we use Travelers Haven, a short-term corporate housing provider with accommodations nationwide. The move saved us $305,000 in rent, which we were spending on empty apartments, and freed up more than $217,000 in cash flow by eliminating the need to pay security deposits.…

ANDREW PARKS Parks profiled the dynamic couple behind Lucky’s Market ( pg. 22 ). He’s currently driving cross-country, running the online music magazine self-titled and readying a new travel and culture site called Cartogramme. MICHAEL FRIBERG Given his base in Salt Lake City, Friberg, who photographed our Lucky’s Market feature, can’t help but bring a Western sense of light to his subjects—an approach that’s landed work from Apple, Bloomberg and GQ .…

Q I need to close my company and file for bankruptcy soon. We’re still finishing up a few projects, so when should I tell my team? And my clients? A SORRY YOU’RE GOING through this, but as you know, now is not the time to wallow. It’s a time for action. Ideally, you’d have begun telling your employees within a day or two of deciding to shutter the company. If decision day is long past, then today is the day. Chances are, your team already senses a problem. They’ll be relieved to know. And you should do it before the rumor bonfire has scorched your relationships. Be honest and helpful to your employees. It’s the right thing to do—but also, frankly, you need them to stay and assist you. Talk…

1 Avoid the windows. Researchers find that when we’re warmer, we’re more likely to judge people as trustworthy and to be generous. Don’t order a round of hot mulled wine, but do sit far from drafty doorways or windows. 2 Pick a smooth table. For a study in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, participants touched rough or smooth surfaces before judging social interactions. Those who’d touched rough ones viewed others as more difficult and adversarial. 3 Find a soft seat (for them). When researchers from Harvard, MIT and Yale asked people to haggle over the price of a car, participants who were parked in a wooden chair held out for more money than those seated in cushioned chairs. Take the hard seat and put its rigidity in your…

THE BEST BARS TO... STAFF YOUR STARTUP Meadhall, Boston Located near the Kendall/MIT subway station, this massive beer hall buzzes with MIT and Harvard seniors, joined by an after-work crowd of biotechs and engineers. The average IQ in this place will outshine the best job fair—even with the numbing influence of 100-plus craft brews. CLOSE THE DEAL WITH A PUFF Aretsky's Patroon, New York City Pluck a cigar from the Spanish-cedar-lined private humidor and take in the skyline views from the rooftop terrace of this midtown steakhouse. The private Match Room showcases Cuban cigars and vintage cigar-themed artwork for the true enthusiast. DO WORK IN THE BURBS Buffalo Wild Wings With free wi-fi and locations in all 50 states (and now Dubai), B-Dubs has the ubiquity of Starbucks with the…

CUSTOMER SERVICE Twitter can be dangerous for brands. It’s a way to build trust—customer-service requests made there increased 2.5 times since 2014—but also a public forum for mudslinging. So Twitter launched two features to encourage quieter discussion: With DM Prompt, a brand can add links to tweets that, when clicked by the user, generate private, direct messages; and a survey tool called Customer Feedback lets people privately share their opinions on those interactions. “A lot of times the real resolution [on Twitter] happens after a business asks a customer for personal information and that information is exchanged,” says Jeff Lesser, a Twitter product marketer. “Customers can be uneasy about sharing that data publicly. Now there’s a safe and easy way to pass it along.” —Matt Villano CELLPHONE BILL Between the…

WHEN ENTREPRENEURS NEED new equipment for their business, they should ask a basic but challenging question: “How much can I afford—both in dollars and the time spent financing all this?” A Burlington, Mass.–based company called LeaseQ attempts to change that equation, making equipment easier to get at a lower cost. LeaseQ is an all-in-one platform. It works with more than 100 equipment-leasing companies around the country that serve roughly 25 industries, from construction to salons to restaurants. It then pools lenders to spread their risk—enabling LeaseQ to work with entrepreneurs with no (or bad) credit history. Roughly more than half of applicants are approved, with repayment due in two to five years. Interest rates range from 4 to 38 percent, depending on a person’s FICO credit score. Take a look…

WHEN JOSEPH LEDINH’S grandfather passed away, in 1998, he and his father went casket shopping. “Every funeral home in New Jersey had the same product,” he says. “Hillenbrand, Matthews International and Aurora controlled the market. It was frustrating, but there was nothing we could do—we had to buy that day.” Ledinh figured there was a business in making modern caskets, but the timing was wrong: He was focused on becoming an automotive designer. He soon got a job at Honda, which was less glamorous than he expected. “In the beginning, you think you’re going to be designing the coolest car, but I got put on the Honda Accord,” he says with a laugh. “Working on that project, however, I understood it’s their bread and butter. You can’t design a product…

BILL DICKINSON had earned a vacation. It was the 1980s, he was in his 40s and he’d worked hard to build a thriving psychology practice in Savannah. But holidays left him frustrated: When he wasn’t seeing patients, he wasn’t making money. “I knew I had to figure out some way to make a living and be able to take time off,” he says. That’s why he was intrigued when, in 1988, a friend approached him with an investment idea: The guy’s brother was going to start a daiquiri bar called Wet Willie’s. These watering holes, with their colorful swirling machines, were mostly a beachside novelty—but what if they were taken inland for everyone else to enjoy? Dickinson bought a 22 percent stake, and its first location opened near his office…

• Mexico A large (and growing!) middle class, plus proximity to the United States, boosts prospects in larger cities like Mexico City, Guadalajara and Puebla. • Panama: The country has a local currency but also uses the American dollar. It’s relatively safe, full of tourists and supportive of businesses. • Costa Rica It has political stability, a strong tourism base and an increasing standard of living. • Colombia The nation is technologically advanced, and markets like Medellin, the Silicon Valley of South America, are ripe for new brands. • Dominican Republic There has not been a lot of franchise investment here yet, but brands in higher-income areas and shopping centers do well.…

IN A WORLD MADE SMALLER by travel and technology, brands have a chance to be bigger than ever. Take Anytime Fitness, which took the number one ranking on our list of the top 200 global franchises. It recently opened its 3,000th location, a mere 13 years after it started franchising—far fewer than it took the likes of Subway, McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts to reach that milestone. That impressive expansion is due in part to the company’s concerted efforts to grow outside the U.S. To wit: Anytime’s international growth outpaced its domestic growth for the first time last year, and now almost a third of its locations are international—including that 3,000th gym, in Stroud, England. To compile our list, we took each company’s 2016 Franchise 500 score—based on our objective, quantifiable…

MOST DOMESTIC COMPANIES start their international expansion by staying in the neighborhood, playing it relatively safe by venturing into Canada or maybe Mexico. Moran Family of Brands is taking a different route, one that stretches 5,972 miles from the automotive repair and maintenance franchisor’s Midlothian, Ill., home, all the way to Lagos, Nigeria. That’s where, this past March, the company broke ground on its first foreign franchise, a 38,000-square-foot facility that will serve as both a cobranded Mr. Transmission/Milex Complete Auto Care shop and headquarters for master franchisees Temi Adelu-Davis and Glen Davis. Temi is a native of Nigeria who came to the U.S. to earn her MBA while Glen ran an auto repair store in Houston. Now relocated to Lagos, the couple will be responsible for operating their shop…

Whenever I got a new project, an old assistant of mine would always ask, “What do they want?” How the hell do I know what the client wants, what the world wants, what will sell or be popular? We have no control over others’ ideas, emotions or tastes. Even with all the focus groups in the world at your command, it’s still just a guess. An expensive guess. My own guess is that the world wants you. It wants your weirdness. It wants your complexity and screwball perspective. It wants your opinion, your humor and your history. It wants all that’s beautiful and tremendous inside you. Don’t try to please other people. Just make work that matters—that reflects what you’re deeply passionate about. This enthusiasm at the cellular level creates…

MOST PROTEIN BARS have an image on their wrapper. Gatorade, PowerBar and Nature Valley show the food itself, often coated in chocolate. Clif Bar shows a rock climber. But Exo’s packaging is minimalist, with no image. That’s because its founders feared drawing too much attention to its special ingredient: crickets. It’s not as if Exo hides anything—“cricket powder” is on the package, though in a smaller font than “protein bar.” But when it launched last year as part of a boomlet of cricket-selling startups, nobody knew what Americans would swallow. So Exo was understated. Then paleo diet and CrossFit enthusiasts embraced crickets, Exo netted $4 million in Series A financing and Exo became a leader in this burgeoning industry. Now Exo thinks it’s time for a new strategy: Flaunt those…

ALWAYS BE ON “When you’re bartending, someone is always watching you. You may have had a terrible day, but you never let it show. And when conducting business, you're also on a stage and need to put everything into your performance and maintain the positive energy.” —Simon Ford, cofounder of spirits brand The 86 Co. STAY AHEAD “You have to be prepared. If you don’t come in early and do your prep work, then you’re going to be toast. Most people think that entrepreneurs are big risk- takers, but a more important trait is to be detail-oriented. Bartenders thrive on that.” —Henry Sidel, founder and president of Joto Sake LOVE YOUR AUDIENCE “It’s important to relate to everybody on some level. Just like in a bar, it’s the people who…

Are you drinking an alcoholic beverage? Yes No Can you “hold your liquor”? Yes No Is everyone else having a third drink? Yes No Hey, bartender, are Frangelico and Mrs. Butterworth’s, like, sisters or what? Yes No ANSWER KEY: If you answered yes or no to any of the above questions, you should not be having a third drink.…

I’M A FINANCIAL STRATEGIST. I tell people how to manage their wealth. But I have a confession to make: I didn’t have my own personal-finance aha moment until several years ago. For decades, I had blissfully blurred the line between “wants” and “needs”—until I got a divorce, which is when those two things were put in stark relief. To maintain my predivorce lifestyle, I realized, I needed to immediately bring home five figures each month. I didn’t need or want that kind of pressure. Each of us may have a moment like this. You may think you’re protected from it; I did, too. But here’s the thing: Even if you do avoid a life-changing financial shake-up, you should always understand how you use your money. And you can’t accomplish that…

JONATHAN SIEGEL has launched 20 companies. Two led to eight-figure exits—hooray!—and 16 went bust. But one failure from 2005 informed a success a decade later. The flop was PostASAP, which sent letters for users who didn’t want to deal with printing, envelopes and the post office. It died in a year. Today he owns Earth Class Mail, a $5 million platform that scans, shreds or processes businesses’ snail mail. Here’s how he got from one to the other. —Michelle Goodman What was the first sign of trouble for PostASAP? The week after we launched was an amazing letdown. We got some press and plenty of traffic, but nobody was signing up and staying. At the time, people weren’t as comfortable invoicing or writing important documents online. And they didn’t want…