Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2018 i Entrepreneur Magazine

Daniel Miller is at a disadvantage. As the cofounder of Empowered Staffing, a boutique recruitment firm in Evanston, Ill., he has to go head-to-head with giant rivals who have greater name recognition and a bigger media presence—not to mention resources that his tiny team of seven will never be able to match. To keep his pipeline filled, he has to get creative. When Miller kept seeing the same jobs being posted by one big rival over and over again, he decided to find out why. After some sleuthing, he discovered that his rival was having problems. It was assigning inexperienced recruiters, who, Miller says, weren’t getting adequate training, to large client accounts. As a result, the candidate selection was consistently missing the mark, causing the job searches to drag on…

Steve Vicario married young, bought a house young, and had to work three jobs just to keep the bills paid. But despite the pressure, he had ambition. “I told my wife, ‘One day we’re gonna have our own shore house,’” he says. “ ‘We’re gonna have the things we want.’ ” She believed him “one hundred percent,” he says. “She knew the type of person I am. I don’t believe in failure. For me it was just a matter of grinding and grinding, and at some point something will click.” The Jersey shore held a special significance for Vicario. His parents used to take him and his three brothers there for vacations, renting or staying with relatives. Eventually his father’s South Philly auto body shop got successful enough that he…

Kurt and Melissa Godwin didn’t have much in common—at least, not professionally. Kurt was an airline pilot, and Melissa had spent decades working for the state of Pennsylvania. But the married couple wanted to take control of their careers and spend more time with family. By running their own business, they figured, they’d be able to accomplish both. So they decided to focus on a subject they both had experience with: outdoor pests. Melissa is a self-described “mosquito magnet”—so much so that she avoids spending time outside on summer nights—and Kurt’s oldest son battled Lyme disease twice as a child as the result of tick bites. In 2013, the two signed on as franchisees of Mosquito Joe, which provides outdoor mosquito, tick, and flea treatment services. Today the Godwins cover…

Urban Air is more than just a Trampoline Park – it’s an Adventure Park offering attractions and services to a wide range of deeply loyal customers. Ranked Top 25 New Franchises by Entrepreneur, Urban Air will work with franchisees to develop an Adventure Park with unique attractions tailored for each market. Top 25 New Franchise “We are proud to be recognized as a Top 25 New Franchise. At Urban Air, we strive to provide a fun and innovative approach to the guest experience along with the structure to maximize profitability for franchisees.” Michael Browning, CEO Uplifting Support Our goal is to design an Adventure Park that meets the individual needs of the franchisee, building space and market demand in order to become profitable as soon as possible. In order to…

MULTIPLE FRANCHISES have popped up in recent years offering resales and repairs of electronic devices. Experimac sets itself apart from the crowd by focusing on just one brand. Normally that would be a disadvantage—but not when that brand is Apple. The franchisees benefit from the fanatical demand for everything Apple by buying, selling, and trading Apple computers, iPhones, iPads, and Apple TVs. Experimac also offers repairs and upgrades, even on “vintage” Mac computers (those five years old and older) that the Apple Store deems obsolete.…

AS THE NAME IMPLIES, you can get a burrito at Bubbakoo’s or choose from other Mexican food favorites like nachos, tacos, and quesadillas. But alongside traditional fillings like carnitas and ground beef, the restaurants covered in Jersey shore decor offer crispy fried chicken and vegan Boca patties. Guests can also add flavors like sriracha ranch, buffalo, General Tso’s, and Southern- style barbecue. And for something even more original, try the chiwawa—a rice ball breaded, fried, and smothered in cheese.…

Most people know Steven Soderbergh as the legendary director of the Ocean’s Eleven franchise, Erin Brockovich, Magic Mike, and more recently, The Knick. Few know that he’s also the first American to import singani: an obscure, grape-based Bolivian liquor dating back some 500 years. Soderbergh fell in love with singani during a film shoot, and he spent six years securing a license to distribute it—an effort complicated by the fact that the U.S. government had no existing category for the stuff. The tenacity paid off. His product, called Singani 63, is now in nearly 1,000 establishments in 22 key markets. And to keep growing, Soderbergh says, he’ll use the same skills he learned from making films: storytelling, collaboration, and a willingness to be wrong. You’ve been a director for a…

It should go without saying: Do not neglect customer service. It keeps customers happy and cash flowing, and it helps maintain the sort of robust and running conversation you need to better understand your customers and your industry. And yet experts say they see it all the time: As founders struggle to monitor the overwhelming number of moving parts involved in growing a company—product, marketing, office space, cash flow, supply chain, staffing, distribution, sales—they slack off on customer service. Or they treat it like whack-a-mole, dealing with angry customers as they arise. Or they farm it out and forget it. Whatever they do, the end result is bad. Fifty-four percent of customers stop buying from certain companies because of poor service, according to a study published in January by Aspect…

1/ The money man “I’m petrified of my accountant. Coming from a creative background, I’ve long managed to avoid dealing with finances. Now as CEO of a denim brand, I have to manage P&L statements and ensure that we are optimized at every level. Setting a standing appointment with my accountant every two weeks has made it a little less intimidating. Plus, every morning I check the previous day’s sales so we can actively adjust spend in real time and make smarter decisions.” —SARAH AHMED, founder and CEO, Warp + Weft 2/ The stage “Public speaking. It turns out I’m shy. People who know me never believe that, but when it comes to speaking in front of a crowd, I get very nervous. Some people are naturals, needing no prep…

Franchisees occupy a precarious niche in the business ecosystem, caught between the twin pincers of labor and management. They’re not employees, but they often lack real power to steer the course of their own businesses—which is why many franchisees choose to band together and form independent associations. “The job of independent associations is to give franchisees a voice and help them communicate with franchisors,” says Christy Williams, CEO of Elevanta, a management company that runs many franchise associations, including those for Burger King, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Qdoba franchisees. These associations are entirely separate entities from the franchise itself, which makes them different from, say, franchisee advisory boards, which many franchise brands create themselves. Franchisors sometimes see these associations as adversarial, particularly if there’s a dispute between franchisees and the…

In 2011, Jason Smith opened his PuroClean franchise in Annapolis, Maryland with just two trucks and a dream to create financial freedom for his family. Today, he has two PuroClean offices and is on his way to creating his PuroClean empire. After growing his franchise into a more than $1.75 million business, he sold the office. This year, Jason opened two new locations, bringing PuroClean to Naples, Florida and Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Jason plans to continuously grow his enterprise in both cities. He has two production vehicles and expects to purchase more. Additionally, he plans on expanding into four neighboring territories in both markets. How is he building a multi-state empire? “PuroMetrix, the internal claims software, and other operations protocols that the PuroClean team at the Home Office has in…

BARRELL HALL ISN’T YOUR TYPICAL EMPLOYEE CAFETERIA. When Shopify holds company-wide meetings, staff gathers here, in a cavernous space with whiskey barrels stacked to the rafters. The e-commerce platform developer’s Waterloo, Canada, office was formerly a Seagram’s distillery, and the building’s intoxicating history is still showcased and celebrated. Shopify, of course, has updated the space to make it work-ready. Individual phone booths, pods, flexible work areas, and even a video-game room where employees can escape combine to create a uniquely productive space for Shopify’s employees—all of whom spend their days working to improve commerce for business owners large and small. And we bet they have one hell of a happy hour. JULIA BOWEN/ Sales lead “A lot of people see culture as corporate values or free lunches. But it’s so…

When Gil Addo’s grandmother was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1998, she traveled from her home in Barbados to Boston for surgery, where the best care was available. The treatment was a success, but for the next five years, she had to regularly repeat the exhausting trek north for post-op care from a medical specialist. Addo knew there had to be an easier way. “Most medical specialists’ expertise is centralized in big cities, and they’re overbooked and costly,” he says. “And almost half the reasons a patient goes to see a specialist could be handled by their primary care physician.” So along with his cofounder, Carlos Reines, Addo created RubiconMD, a digital platform that allows primary care physicians to consult virtually with top medical specialists around the country within…

When Hurricane Maria raked across Puerto Rico last September with wind speeds of up to 155 miles per hour, it left a path of unprecedented destruction. The storm flattened houses and forests, flooded towns, and made hundreds of thousands of people homeless. It knocked out most of the island’s power grid, leaving nearly all 3.7 million residents in the dark, and severed 95 percent of cell networks as well as 85 percent of aboveground phone and internet cables. Eighty percent of the island’s crops were decimated. Once the hurricane moved on, an all-too-common aftermath unfolded. Local emergency responders became overwhelmed. There was, memorably, public fighting among political officials—San Juan’s mayor versus President Trump. Relief agencies and volunteers flooded in. People who wanted to help could find long lists of organizations…

Jay Yim’s family has long been in the business of sweets. His grandfather owned bakeries in South Korea, and when his family moved to the United States, his father opened a chain of bakeries across Southern California. As a kid, Yim worked every job the bakeries had to offer, from sweeping the floors to baking bread to eventually managing locations. Years later, Yim decided to follow suit and open an ice cream shop. He knew he needed to stand out, so he thought back to a unique street vendor he’d seen in South Korea. He was selling ice cream made with liquid nitrogen, which flash-freezes creamy mixtures to produce an ultra-smooth treat and a playful smoke show that delights customers. After two years of tinkering and testing in his garage,…

Ray Titus wishes he had known. It’s not like he’s some novice. He’s the CEO of West Palm Beach–based United Franchise Group, or UFG, which owns Signarama, Fully Promoted, Transworld Business Advisors, and Jon Smith Subs. Franchising is in his blood. His father founded Minuteman Press International, and taught him well. “I got my best lessons at the dinner table with my dad,” Titus says. Those lessons set him up for two straight decades of growth. Still, that sort of education gets you only so far. When the recession hit in 2008, Titus was caught off guard. “We saw a slowdown, but we didn’t see it hitting us as hard as it did,” he says. If he’d had a more formal business education to ground him in the principles of…

AFTER SEEING its social media numbers, we had to ask: How does a restoration company gain more than a half-million followers? The answer: boxes. Lots and lots of boxes. Each of the company’s locations uses almost 10,000 boxes a month to safely pack up the contents of customers’ homes and businesses, and then return them good as new—and every box is branded with 1-800-Packouts’ name and social media info. It also encourages franchisees to build social media presence with contests to see who can get the most people to follow or contact the company on Facebook.…

THE MOST INNOVATIVE thing about HomeHealth24x7 may be its price tag. Previously the company charged a $49,000 franchise fee—comparable to other home-care franchises—but recently it decided to drop it down to just $500. Why? Because it wants to attract people with a healthcare background, like nurses—especially since its franchisees offer not just companionship services but also medical and hospice care. Realizing that these types of candidates may not be able to afford a high franchise fee, HomeHealth24x7 chose to prioritize personal experience over a person’s financials.…