Innholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2019 i Entrepreneur Magazine

WHAT DOES SUCCESS look like at Uber? The company has famously had its share of scandals, and its IPO earlier this year disappointed investors, but in a letter to his staff, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi wrote that “our true north will be determined over the long term.” Much of that long-term vision is explored here, in a recently renovated industrial complex in San Francisco called Pier 70, which once housed shipbuilders and ironworkers but is now home to Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group. The employees in this space work on projects far outside Uber’s core ride-hailing business—they’re designing and developing self-driving vehicles, plans for aviation sharing, and the company’s JUMP bikes and scooters. And they get out of the office a lot: Working on transportation often means going along for the ride.…

Gemma, wait!” Rachel Blumenthal orders the blonde blur that is her 4-year-old daughter with the zoomies. “You have a raspberry smoothie unibrow!” There are leggings and bows and 8-year-old Griffin to get out the door for school. But it’s all good. Breakfast has been accomplished, workouts done, emails answered, lunches packed, assistants coordinated between his company and hers—and now, wipe in hand, a unibrow crisis averted. And it’s only 7:30 at the Blumenthals’. Neil and Rachel Blumenthal, 38 and 39, met freshman year at Tufts University and married in 2008. By then, she’d already started a jewelry brand, Rachel Leigh. He followed suit in 2010 by cofounding Warby Parker, the industry disruptor that sells trendy prescription eyeglasses for $95 and has grown to nearly 100 stores and 2,000 employees with…

Increasingly, franchise companies have their sights set on not just national expansion but bringing their brands to the whole world. More than 60 percent of the companies that applied for Entrepreneur’s 2019 Franchise 500 ranking told us they were offering franchises outside the United States. International franchising comes with unique challenges, but franchisors aren’t deterred—and those that met those challenges and are reaping the rewards can be found here, in our annual ranking of the top global franchises. The ranking is based on our Franchise 500 formula of 150-plus data points that we then adjusted to give extra weight to international size and growth. Other factors we took into account included costs and fees, franchisee support, brand strength, and financial standing. Companies that indicated that they are seeking new franchisees…

PAPA JOHN’S INTERNATIONAL presence has grown exponentially since the opening of its first unit in Mexico City in 1998. It reached 500 international units a decade later, then 1,000 in 2013, and earlier this year it doubled that again, opening its 2,000th international restaurant in Moscow. Altogether, Papa John’s is in 48 countries and territories—12 of those just in the past three years—and Russia is one of its fastest-growing markets, with more than 200 locations.…

LAST YEAR, Focus Brands celebrated the opening of its 1,500th international location, an Auntie Anne’s in Liverpool One Shopping Centre, the largest outdoor mall in the United Kingdom. The soft-pretzel franchise’s first international location opened in Indonesia in 1995, and its largest international presence is in South Korea. Focus, which also franchises Cinnabon (#123), Carvel, Jamba Juice, Schlotzsky’s, McAlister’s Deli, and Moe’s Southwest Grill, has stores in more than 55 countries and regions.…

Gwyneth Paltrow has played many public roles—most notably, of course, first as an actress and now as the creator of Goop. Her lifestyle business and content platform launched in 2008 and has grown to a $250 million company by selling Paltrow-endorsed health-and-wellness products that shoppers swear by (even when the medical community cries foul). But here’s a role she’s less well-known for: Behind the scenes, she mentors female entrepreneurs. Sylvana Ward Durrett is one of them. She’s a former Vogue staffer who for years produced the annual Costume Institute benefit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then went on to cofound the children’s e-commerce site Maisonette in 2017. Today, Maisonette is a fast-growing business with more than $18 million in funding, and Ward Durrett often leans on Paltrow for…

Christina Stembel had a 70-item to-do list and no time to tackle it. So in 2018, she decided to eliminate all distractions. She’d get an Airbnb cabin in Ojai, Calif., with limited cell service, and spend a weekend alone with her work. She mentioned this plan to another founder she met at an Ernst & Young award ceremony, and the woman asked to come along. Stembel reluctantly agreed. Then the woman invited a friend. And with that, Stembel thought her time away would devolve into a social free-for-all. But as the three founders settled in at their cabin, Stembel discovered an unexpected benefit. All three women ran companies that create tangible goods and generate millions to tens of millions of dollars in revenue: Stembel founded Farmgirl Flowers, which ships…

Q When it comes to customer acquisition, how important is paid social media compared with other digital channels?—JOHN L., HOUSTON SOCIAL MEDIA has created a beautiful opportunity for entrepreneurs: It’s never been easier to get your message in front of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people. But if you want to reach all those people, it’s going to cost a lot. It’s a simple case of supply and demand, and social media platforms are limiting the supply. Organic reach—that is, your ability to speak directly to the audience that chooses to follow and interact with your business—has dwindled to almost nothing. On Facebook, for example, organic reach touches less than 5 percent of your audience on average. Facebook simply doesn’t show your posts to most of your followers…unless you…

1/Prioritize Anytime, Anywhere Payments From Kenny Wu, director of corporate marketing, Scorpion If you’re a quick-service or retail franchise, a traditional sale means a customer is entering a physical store and purchasing an item. But customers’ expectations of convenience keep getting higher, so we’re seeing many of the franchises on Square leverage self-service kiosks, e-commerce, and mobile apps to facilitate payments anywhere. For example, we work with Ben & Jerry’s, and if you’re a franchisee, a great place to sell is outside the store in the summer, or at the local high school football game. When you’re looking for a merchant service provider, be sure to choose one that can, in any circumstance, allow you to accept all forms of payment: mag stripe, chip cards, mobile payments, and gift cards.…

LAST SEPTEMBER, KFC encouraged team members around the world to perform 128,000 acts of kindness in honor of what would have been Colonel Sanders’ 128th birthday. Franchisees and employees in 18 countries participated in the first annual Acts of Colonel-ness event. KFC South Africa expanded a program to donate surplus food to local community organizations. Two hundred schoolkids in India got to enjoy a birthday party thrown by KFC India. And franchisees in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE gifted delivery drivers with “coolness kits” filled with cooling products to help them beat the heat.…

RUBEN MOODLEY became Color Glo International’s master franchisee for South Africa in 2002, and he has spread the surface repair brand not only throughout that country but also in Cyprus and, most recently, the U.K. In 2004, his training facility became the first outside the U.S. to be certified by Color Glo, and he and his team have since trained franchisees from all over the world, including Australia, Ireland, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, France, Greece, and the Netherlands.…

There’s something about working with dough that’s calming and therapeutic. I learned that from my mother, Beverley. As a child, I’d be by her side as she’d make cookies, brownies, breads, lemon bars, and pies—all from scratch. I’d then spend hours in my bedroom in a make-believe kitchen, replicating what I saw with my Little Chef toy oven. Years passed. I grew up. After two decades and a career in banking, I decided, Heck, I’m going to give baking a shot instead. In 2003, my friend and I put in $500 each, stocked a space in a commercial kitchen with supplies, and started baking pies. We wholesaled to about a dozen local food stores and sold directly to customers at nearby farmers’ markets. Thing is, though, starting and running a…

Mary* was doing well as VP of business development at a San Francisco tech company. She’d been hired to create goodwill within the community, and she was a perfect fit. But her work had started suffering. Her CEO had asked her to take on a new project in Brazil, which would require her to spend at least a third of her time there. Her instinct was to say yes; she didn’t want to lose her CEO’s approval, and the opportunity was an honor. But realistically, she couldn’t be in South America and do what she’d been hired to do in San Francisco, too. When I met with her, I recognized the problem immediately. I’ve been an executive coach for more than 25 years, and Mary had made one of the…

LIKE MOST OF ITS STORES, the Papa John’s on Wells Street in Milwaukee is primarily a carryout and delivery operation. The lobby fits only four chairs. So when 30 people crowd in, as they do on a recent Thursday afternoon when Shaquille O’Neal shows up for an impromptu pizza party, the sleepy joint suddenly feels like a nightclub. “Shaq! Sign my shirt!” screams a grown man in a blue polo. “Sign mine, too!” echoes one of the store’s cooks. Outside, people are pressing their noses against the plate-glass window as a man snaps a picture of his blond-headed son standing next to the 7'1" NBA Hall of Famer. But the dad’s hand is shaking so violently that the few photos he fires off turn out blurry. “Why are you shaking?”…

After two decades climbing the corporate ladder at tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris, Lisa Locker needed a change. She cherished her time there and learned how to lead a strong team, but she also found the environment to be limiting and, at times, unsupportive of working mothers like herself. The self-described fitness junkie tried out jobs in real estate and cannabis before taking a leap of faith and signing on as a CycleBar franchisee in 2017, purchasing six territories throughout the Denver metropolitan area. Now she operates two thriving studios, with plans to open a third this summer. And while she entered franchisee life with plenty of business acumen, she learned that running a local, service-based business required a new mindset. Was it difficult to transition from the corporate world to…

MCDONALD’S HAS restaurants in more than 100 countries, often with menus that cater to local tastes and cultures. Now Americans can sample some of the most popular dishes from McDonald’s around the globe without leaving home. In June the company introduced its new Worldwide Favorites menu to participating restaurants with items such as Spain’s Grand McExtreme Bacon Burger, Canada’s Tomato Mozzarella Chicken Sandwich, Australia’s Cheesy Bacon Fries, and the Netherlands’ Stroopwafel McFlurry.…

THE FIRST LITTLE GYM opened in Bellevue, Wash., in 1976, but founder and educator Robin Wes was inspired in part by his childhood in South Africa—and his negative experiences with the competitive way sports were taught there. He sought to create a more nurturing environment and movement-based learning programs that were fun rather than competitive. Today, The Little Gym International has expanded to 32 countries—and this fall it will come full circle and open its first location in South Africa.…