Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2017 i Entrepreneur Magazine

IN THE SPRING OF 2015, Chris Mears was in supermarkets handing out samples of his new premium, M&M–style candies, called Little Secrets. “Oh,” one woman said, “this is perfect for my kids.” Another customer ate a chocolate and said, “I didn’t think it would taste this good!” Both were meant as compliments, but they made Mears anxious. His candy wasn’t for kids. And quality shouldn’t have been a surprise. The problem was easy to diagnose. “When people say things like that, it’s clearly a packaging issue,” he says now. The premium-chocolate market is full of self-serious brands like Ghirardelli, and he’d wanted something more welcoming. He imagined his candy appealing to 30-somethings after a long workday, so he created a bright, busy bag. To riff on the name (a nod…

Founderkit Founders seeking a super-specific tool know all too well that Google and Product Hunt will only get you so far. Want tried-and-true solutions in categories like engineering, analytics, and APIs? Look no further than this curated selection of tools for startups, which features in-depth reviews that come entirely from other founders. (founderkit.com) Neonode AirBar Ever wish your computer could swipe and zoom? It can! This USB attachment sits at the bottom of your Mac or PC laptop monitor, endowing it with a tablet-like ability to do just that—along with handling taps, touches, and pinches. It’s great for touchy-feely types and developers looking to test upcoming apps. ($79; air.bar) Cassette Few tasks are as mind-numbing as transcribing audio. This new iOS app makes it easy, automatically transcribing meetings, interviews, and…

Keep it dry. Nothing is worse than a slimy palm. If you’re at a party, wrap some extra napkins around your drink. The innermost will absorb condensation; the rest are your wipe. Keep it vertical. Offering your palm up is considered by some to be a submissive or weak gesture, whereas forcing someone into the palm-up position by putting your hand out palm down can be seen as domineering. Be firm. How can you tell if a peach is ripe? You squeeze until you feel a tiny bit of resistance. Same goes for people. Squeeze until you feel their muscles tighten, and then stop. And never give someone a limp hand—it’s deadly for rapport.…

Hold it. Eye contact during a conversation increases brain stimulation and, as a result, recall of the conversation. But it doesn’t take much: A 2006 study found that maintaining eye contact just 30 percent of the time significantly increased a listener’s memory. But not for too long. Research shows that holding eye contact longer than three seconds without taking a break can be interpreted as aggressive, causing listeners to feel defensive and resistant to what you’re saying. And take breaks. Eye contact and word generation share cognitive resources, according to a 2016 study. That means maintaining too much eye contact can sap your brain and impact your ability to verbally respond.…

“Most people don’t really do too many things because they’re afraid they’ll fail. Nobody is going to notice your failure. Your failure will be boring.” The new season of Silicon Valley is airing now. How have people who work in the real Valley reacted to the show? They never think it’s about them. They think it’s about the people around them. They’re like, “Oh, yeah, you guys are so right—these people are crazy.” And we’re like, “No, you’re crazy.” Which is kind of perfect. No one is offended, but everyone thinks it’s accurate. Is it true you were part of the tech world before you got into comedy? Yeah. I worked at the University of Chicago for a couple of organizations that did research on public…

MOST NEW BUSINESS OWNERS worry about getting customers through the door. Not Andrew Blackmon, cofounder of online tuxedo rental service The Black Tux. He was worried about getting trampled by them. When The Black Tux launched in June 2013—born out of Blackmon’s own “terrible” wedding experience with the tuxedo rental industry—the company was equipped to fulfill roughly a thousand orders per weekend. But then GQ magazine gave The Black Tux a positive mention, triggering a surge in demand. Overnight, they sold out for the entire fall wedding season. And the orders kept coming. “I remember my cofounder, Patrick Coyne, and I sitting in his apartment, just looking at each other in horror, wondering what we were going to do next,” says Blackmon. “It felt like we had reached the pinnacle—and…

ELAN ZIVOTOFSKY is not your typical investor. Rather than just choose where his own firm’s money goes, he makes decisions that also influence thousands of smaller investors. That’s because he oversees investments at OurCrowd, an innovative digital equity crowdfunding platform that’s part Kickstarter, part venture capital firm. First, Zivotofsky’s team vets thousands of potential deals. When a company is picked, OurCrowd invests its own partners’ money, and then the deal goes onto the OurCrowd platform, where 17,000 members can choose to invest with as little as $10,000. In four years, OurCrowd has raised about $400 million for 110 companies. What draws his eye? Experienced, passionate entrepreneurs with big ideas and focus. He also loves founders who create “deep” technologies and disruptive business models. Here’s why he said yes to three…

EMBRACE THE UNKNOWN SURF THE CHAOS SCALE YOUR BUSINESS MAYBE EVEN SAVE THE WORLD PHILOSOPHER KING MAVERICK INVESTOR HOST OF THE NEW PODCAST MASTERS OF SCALE Dan Lewis has been wrestling with one of the most common, and critical, bottlenecks that bedevil every tech startup seeking to scale fast: How can his company staff up quickly enough to cope with expected growth without blowing through cash unsustainably? Lewis is the CEO and cofounder of Convoy, an on-demand trucking startup headquartered in Seattle, so the first idea he had felt obvious. He should open up a second office in a city that’s way cheaper than Seattle. But he just wasn’t sure. Which is why, on a Friday evening in early March, he’d trekked down to Silicon Valley to meet a man…

Stop fidgeting. “You’ve got to eliminate tapping your fingers, shaking your leg, tapping your feet,” she says. Those are signals that you’re insecure and uncomfortable. And appearing insecure makes others less inclined to engage with you. Easy on the blinking. When we’re nervous, we blink more than usual, Glass says. “Your nerves are firing rapidly, your subconscious is working overtime, and your eyes dry up to compensate.” Be sure to lean in. “If you’re leaning away from someone in conversation, that’s a huge body code saying, ‘I don’t want anything to do with you.’ Lean into the conversation to show your comfort level.” Mind the goods. People tend to unconsciously cover their genitals when they stand up. “Your natural human instinct is to protect the most vulnerable parts of the…

Lesley Donna Williams saw the bus only a second before it made impact. She was driving fast across Johannesburg, South Africa, trying to make it to an important meeting, when she turned at an intersection without checking for oncoming traffic. The bus T-boned her. Williams was whipped around like a rag doll. The car was totaled. That’s when she did what she describes as “the most ridiculous thing.” She got out of the car, surveyed the damage, called the cops, called insurance, and went to the meeting. These were stressful times at Williams’ company, the Johannesburg arm of Impact Hub, a global network of business incubators and coworking spaces. She was pulling 16-hour days and feeling alone and adrift in a sea of risk. She barely saw her family. Friends…

PAT SWISHER USED TO CARRY HIMSELF WITH A COCKY SELF-ASSURANCE. He figured it was his due for being a successful, self-made man. Then he went to jail. “I’ll never forget walking into the dorm,” he says. The first person he met was a huge, heavily muscled inmate with gold teeth. Swisher is a former college football player, but he’s not an intimidating man—about 5-foot-9, with a carefully combed coif of reddish-gold hair. As the inmate approached, Swisher remembers thinking, This guy’s going to beat the hell out of me. Instead, “he put his arm around me and said, ‘I got you, man. If anybody messes with you, tell ’em to come see me.’” Swisher chokes up at the memory. “It turned out that this was the most genuine, sweetest man…

“I used to like to come up with inventions because I hated working so much when I had my day job,” Kumail Nanjiani says. “I thought, All I need is a great idea and I’m out of here.” Since many entrepreneurs have the energy and the desire to do something big but not always the idea, we asked him for a few of his. EDIBLE CANDLE “I always wanted to make a birthday candle that’s made of caramel, so when it melts, it just melts onto the cake, and then there’s no wax on the cake.” “FLIRTR” (AN APP) “It’s like a Cyrano de Bergerac kind of thing, where if you’re talking to someone, it will suggest interesting topics to you and give you some funny lines.” “TREMBL” (ALSO AN…

Sleep! A recent study showed that when workplace leaders don’t get a good night’s sleep, they’re more likely to act like “jerks” (the study’s technical term), causing their team’s level of engagement to plummet. Write what you mean. In a study that reviewed email exchanges, recipients accurately detected seriousness or sarcasm just 56 percent of the time. Best to be clear. If you’re a manager, sending mixed signals can cause employees to disengage. Stock up on fruits and vegetables. Their nutrients increase our bodies’ production of dopamine, which is integral to keeping us motivated and engaged—and engaging—throughout the day. Listen to nature. To drown out unwanted office noise, skip anything with a strong backbeat and try listening to a recording of nature sounds. Researchers find it optimizes concentration and cognitive…

“I felt so alone as a small-business owner. Now I have a franchise coach. I have people I can turn to.” BIANCA BAHRI grew up in the franchising world. Her parents owned multiple H&R Block units, and her family’s community—Catholic Iraqi immigrants in the Detroit area—was full of entrepreneurs who had used franchising as a way to get settled in America. “It’s all I’ve ever known,” she says. But after she went to business school, she couldn’t find a franchise that matched her passions. She’s a fitness fanatic, and she wanted to help women who felt uncomfortable working out in front of men. So she decided to strike out on her own. Bahri founded Fit2Fight Studios in Troy, Mich., ran it for two years, and even auditioned for Shark Tank…

Founder of Daisy Yoga I was in bed, light-headed, feverish, and bleeding to death. A few weeks earlier, I’d been diagnosed with a life-threatening condition called ectopic pregnancy—a fertilized egg implanted in the wrong part of the body. The treatment was risky and involved multiple terrifying medical procedures. Now my recovery seemed uncertain, and in what I feared might be my final seconds of consciousness, I began to count my regrets. There were many. I’d settled into an easy life, taking a backseat to my husband’s career while I lost my sense of self. I’d had ambitions, but they’d shrunk to cooking us dinner and teaching yoga part-time. If I ever escape this bed, I decided, I’ll prove to myself that I can do more. I’ll never settle for less…