Innholdsfortegnelse for April/May 2020 i Entrepreneur Magazine

WILL TSO/senior product manager, wedding planning tools “I’ve worked at some really intense places, and the great thing about Zola is that there are really smart, sharp people, but everyone is also genuinely kind. One of our fellow product managers got a concussion recently, and our team got her a football helmet and signed it. I haven’t seen those sorts of little moments working anywhere else.” KATHLEEN DETURRIS/senior manager, recruiting “I love the townhouse [the name for Zola’s showroom for registry products] because it feels like home. It has a beautiful view, and it’s great if I ever need to walk away from my desk and get a bit of a breather. My head’s in my computer a lot, so the townhouse is a nice place to relax.” AUDREY DJIYA/customer…

First there was Chillhouse. Then there was Chillology. And then things were not chill. It started with Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton, founder and CEO of Chillhouse, which is a Manhattan-based “new-age spa.” The company has attracted more than 100,000Instagram followers who love its modern aesthetic and self-care ethos. In October, one of those followers alerted Ramirez-Fulton to another brand’s account—and it looked eerily similar to Chillhouse’s. This other account was for a different self-care destination, called Chillology. It copied specific Chillhouse posts and captions; its products, services, and packaging showed alarming overlap; and the marketing for a Chillhouse pop-up at Miami Beach’s Art Basel was being used to promote Chillology in New York, the only tweak being the variation in brand name and a lower quality in execution. “It wasn’t just that…

Q I have a great team, but I’m worried about people leaving. How can I incentivize them to stick around? —TOM, AUSTIN, TEXAS ENTREPRENEURS KNOW how to make customers happy: We learn their needs and then create products and services to match. But too often, we don’t do the same thing with our employees. We make incorrect assumptions about what workers value—and, in the process, overlook what will give them long-term stability. It’s based on good intentions, but the delivery is bad. For example, some employers offer profit-sharing incentives. People like more money, right? But in the U.K., when researchers surveyed more than 13,000 employees across nearly 1,300 workplaces, these profit-sharing incentives got mostly bad reviews. Why? Because profit sharing is based on the company’s overall performance. Employees don’t feel…

Ben Weprin, CEO of the company behind Graduate Hotels, is standing tall on the unfinished rooftop of the building he has spent four years willing into existence. Once complete, this will be the only hotel on Roosevelt Island, a two-mile crust of grass and concrete that runs alongside Manhattan’s eastern shore. “Every time I’m up here, I still can’t believe this is happening,” Weprin says. “It’s unreal.” Many New Yorkers might say the same. For most of them, Roosevelt Island is little more than a curious patch of land they cross over while driving from Manhattan to Queens. A hotel there? Why? As Weprin stands on the roof, he seems to revel in the counterintuitiveness of it. Today’s sky is wet and heavy, and in the distance, the Chrysler Building appears…

1/Stress Your Unique Needs From Frank Leggio, audit & assurance partner, Deloitte & Touche You need a firm that can support your specific operation and structure. It must understand the franchise model and have experience with multi-state, multi-region, or even global growth models. As you talk with firms, be sure they’re committed to at least quarterly communication. Know ahead of time which practitioner will be assigned to your account, and confirm that those meetings are part of client service and not something additional you’ll be billed for. Think of your accountant as more than a resource for tax planning, auditing, and bank lending. They also provide advice on business processes and technology—which is especially important as a franchise grows. A franchisor’s standardized model should be vetted early, because a model…

THE AVERAGE INSURANCE agent is in their late 50s, so there’s ample opportunity for new talent to join the industry. The challenge, as Goosehead’s founders see it, is attracting that talent. They’ve done so by representing more than 80 insurance companies so agents have plenty of choices to offer their clients, and by providing back-office support so agents can focus on marketing and sales. This strategy has attracted hundreds of franchisees already, with even more in the pipeline.…

BRANDON LANDRY and Jack Warner came up with the idea for Walk-On’s Sports Bistreaux while playing as walk-ons (student athletes who are not recruited or offered scholarships) on the Louisiana State University basketball team. They opened their first restaurant in 2003 near LSU’s Tiger Stadium. The concept spread across south Louisiana over the next nine years, and in 2012 it was named #1 sports bar in America by ESPN. Walk-On’s franchise program began in 2015, the same year NFL quarterback Drew Brees joined as a co-owner. He recently appeared along with Landry on CBS’s Undercover Boss.…

CARD MY YARD helps people celebrate their big days. Having a birthday? A baby shower? Finishing chemo? Welcoming a member of the military back home? Card My Yard will rent out and install giant, colorful, customized signs in anyone’s yard. The company was started in 2014 by two moms of three who met at Bible study, and it encourages franchisees to give back to their communities. After last year’s deadly shooting at an El Paso Walmart, local franchise owners created an #elpasostrong graphic, sales of which raised $5,000 for a victims fund.…

The brand story is almost too perfect: One day in Portland, a 31-year-old woman stands in her kitchen, eight months pregnant, DIYs a natural deodorant, pours it into a mason jar….and turns it into a multimillion-dollar business acquired by Unilever for nine figures. No sweat. Or if there is sweat, it smells like ylang-ylang, or maybe rose. Well, not quite. Jaime Schmidt didn’t have a business plan in 2010 or VC funds ever. But she knew who she was, and that propelled her through the handicaps and copycats, the hard decisions and costly mistakes, the broken machines and crumbling products, on the way to building Schmidt’s Naturals into a personal care line sold in Walmart, Target, and Costco. Today, she’s still involved in Schmidt’s, but she also has a new…

Daniel Sokolovsky doesn’t bother with laptops. He’s the founder of the last-mile delivery company Jitsu and travels around San Francisco constantly. Wi-fi connection can be spotty or slow, so he can’t rely on a device that needs it. Instead, he operates his business using an Apple iPad and an iPhone with LTE. It’s fine, but what he really wants is a laptop that’s just…always connected, like a smartphone. No wi-fi necessary. Now, with the rollout of 5G laptops across the industry, he can get his wish. 5G is widely available in many cities, from Spokane to Boston, and companies like Lenovo, Dell, and HP are debuting 5G-enabled laptops. Their promise: No matter where a user is, they can open a laptop and instantly use the internet—thereby reducing fuss and increasing…

Give Thanks “The Five-Minute Journal (2). Each page provides a quotation to start your day followed by sections for you to write out three items of gratitude and three goals for the day. It’s a very grounding exercise to start the day, and a catalyst for perspective and focus. Best of all, it really does take five minutes.” —NICK BROWN, founder and CEO, Soludos Armor Up “I spend a lot of time out in the sun. Great for vitamin D levels, but not so for the skin. I swear by Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Moisturizer with SPF 30 (5). No-nonsense, high-quality ingredients, smell is great, and it’s universal enough for daily use.” —JEFF JOHNSON, cofounder and creative director, The Arrivals Chill Out “I don’t have much time for a proper morning…

“THERE IS A BEFORE,” says Dany Garcia, “and there is an after.” Here is before. It’s around 1998, and at the time, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson is a burgeoning wrestler in the WWE. Garcia is about halfway through a career at Merrill Lynch. They are newly married, eating dinner at a restaurant, and discussing Johnson’s path. “I was having a little bit of a challenging time turning the corner in terms of my fame,” recalls Johnson, “because I just, by default, am more reclusive and quiet. And I also can’t hide.” Let’s be clear: He can’t hide because he’s enormous. His biceps, then and now, are the size of other men’s heads. People were recognizing him from across airports and creating a mob scene. So, sure, he had fame, but it…

In 2012, Billy Duncan retired from a decades-long career at Dow Chemical. Six months later, he knew he hated retirement—and that he had to get back into the business game. But this time, he wanted to build his own operation, something that could create generational wealth for his family. So in 2014, he opened a Real Property Management franchise in Zachary, La. Now, at 65, he runs it with his 28-year-old daughter, Tayla Duncan. Together they manage more than 200 residential properties, working to keep owners and tenants happy. The family affair has been a learning experience for both generations—but one they’ve navigated together, embracing each other’s skill sets and keeping an eye on the future. Billy, what was so tough about retirement for you? BILLY: I’d been going 150…

BROTHERS DAVID AND Josh Coba knew the beauty world well from working in their father’s hair salon. So when they opened their own salon in Aventura, Fla., in 2004, they chose to focus on one service that had proven particularly popular: waxing. They began franchising European Wax Center just two years later, offering membership options and a “first wax free” policy. In 2019, CEO David Berg announced the company headquarters would be moving to Plano, Texas, to make corporate staff more accessible to franchisees around the country.…

SINCE 2018, Mosquito Hunters’ locations have grown tenfold, from eight to more than 80, and the company expects to double its size again this year. The company attributes its exponential growth to the fact that its corporate team manages all the marketing and call-center-sales side of the business, freeing up franchisees to focus on developing relationships in their communities, serving and retaining customers, training their technician teams, and scaling their operations.…

FRIOS GOURMET POPS CEO Cliff Kennedy started out as a franchisee of the company in 2018, with the intent of just running his locations as a side business. Within a few months, though, he saw the potential of the brand, pitched to investors, and raised enough money to buy the company. To fuel growth, he moved to a larger manufacturing facility with better equipment and more freezer space. He also inked deals to make Frios the “official popsicle” served at University of Alabama and University of Tulsa sporting events.…

THIS YEAR DID NOT START WELL FOR BRICK-AND-MORTAR CHAINS. In January, Pier 1 Imports announced it was closing up to 450 stores. Later that month, two other prominent retail brands—the high-end audio manufacturer Bose and the paper-goods chain Papyrus—reported their own significant closures. And yet, on the same day that Macy’s announced it was laying off 2,000 workers and closing 125 stores, I was arriving at the San Francisco offices of a startup called Le Tote…where a very different kind of thinking was going on. Le Tote is not a brick-and-mortar business. It’s a fashion-rental company. Users subscribe by the month and can rent and return (or buy) entire wardrobes. But last November, seemingly out of nowhere, this eight-year-old startup purchased the 194-year-old department store chain Lord & Taylor for…

At first, Dave Lavalle didn’t realize how much he cared about Dryer Vent Wizard. He’s a serial entrepreneur, and Dryer Vent Wizard was just one of more than 10 companies he’d launched throughout his career. But after he sold it, he really missed it—so he embarked upon one of the most unique comeback stories in the franchising industry. Lavalle became a Dryer Vent Wizard franchisee, then worked his way back up to the top. Everyone has grown in the process: The franchise now has nearly 100 locations in North America, and Lavalle has learned to identify his limitations as an entrepreneur. Was the journey difficult? Absolutely. But, Lavalle says, both he and his company are stronger for it. Dryer vent cleaning and repair is a super niche service. What first…

What are the top full-service restaurants? What about the top personal-care brands, or children’s businesses, or home-improvement providers? Those are the kinds of questions we answer every year with this, our annual “best of the best” list. We’ve crunched the numbers from our 2020 Franchise 500 list, identifying the 113 companies that performed best in their categories. Among them, you’ll naturally find a lot of familiar names—companies that have dominated their categories for decades. But you might be surprised at how many relatively new concepts worked their way to the top as well. Whatever the story, all the companies on this list have something to teach about how to overcome competition and achieve franchising success. As always, remember that this list is not intended as an endorsement of any particular…

While the franchise world is filled with brands that have been around for decades, there’s also no shortage of newer concepts looking to expand through the franchise model. In fact, it’s estimated that around 300 new franchise companies are launched annually. So if you’re attracted to the built-in systems and support that come with buying a franchise but want the thrill of growing something from the bottom up, opportunities abound. More than 23 percent of the 1,105 companies that applied for Entrepreneur’s 2020 Franchise 500 ranking started franchising in just the past five years (since 2015). On the following pages, we’ve gathered the top 100 of those newcomers. They’re ranked here based on the scores they received through our Franchise 500 formula, which evaluates each company on more than 150…

HOMMATI JUST STARTED offering franchises in 2018, but founder Jerry Clum is no newbie to the industry. More than 20 years ago, he founded senior-care franchise Comfort Keepers, then grew it to 750 units and $350 million in annual revenue before selling it off. Now he’s thriving in a different kind of service with Hommati, which helps real estate agents market their listings more effectively with 3D and VR tours, aerial videos, video slideshows, and augmented reality.…

I am the daughter of a very successful Chinese businessman, and growing up I was taught that if you work hard, success will follow. So in 2008, at 24 years old, I founded a clothing company called Iconix China. It grew to include 12 brands with more than 1,000 stores. I sold Iconix in 2015 and found myself at a crossroads. I wanted my own success to be defined by more than the success of the company I’d built, but I wasn’t sure what that might look like. I went in search of clarity and traveled to Nepal to explore, reflect, and connect with nature. My days were spent hiking, doing yoga, and meditating. One day, near a local temple, I stumbled upon a monk drawing a geometric design. I…