Innholdsfortegnelse for October/November 2020 i Entrepreneur Magazine

Eliza Blank Founder and CEO/The Sill Eliza Blank runs a thriving brand that sells plants, and she’d just hired a head of retail when COVID-19 struck…when all her stores temporarily closed. It was terrifying at first; even though her e-commerce sales were spiking (thanks to locked-in consumers’ new interest in plants), she was losing money across her five shuttered locations. Still, along with her new head of retail, she spotted an opportunity. “We had solicited feedback from our retail team in the beginning of January, and a lot of them didn’t feel like they had enough time to train before being put in front of the customer, and they didn’t have clarity around career trajectory and growth paths,” Blank says. “So we used those 12 weeks when we were shut…

Ashley Merrill considers herself one of the lucky ones. Her luxury sleepwear brand, Lunya, will count 2020 as a successful year. “I can’t take credit for it,” she says. “We just happen to be selling the right item for this time. Our goal for the year was to be profitable, and we’re gonna hit it.” But Merrill is being humble; she can take credit for building a profitable e-commerce and retail business since Lunya launched in 2014. That’s partly why she signed on for an even greater challenge this year, when she became chairperson of beloved-but-struggling athleisure brand Outdoor Voices. In February, the brand’s founder and CEO, Ty Haney, stepped down following reports of crumbling financials. Merrill, a fan of the brand’s and Haney’s, reached out. “It was a company…

Episode after episode, Top Chef fans wait to hear “Please pack your knives and go”—Padma Lakshmi’s signature sucker punch as host of the Bravo hit for 16 seasons. But it’s Taste the Nation—the new show she created this year for Hulu—that has given viewers an even truer look at the power of Padma. Lakshmi, herself an immigrant from India at the age of 2, conceived of the series back in 2016 as she watched in horror as families were forced to separate at the U.S. and Mexico border. Taste the Nation would be a way to wrap thorny politics in mouthwatering dishes, with Lakshmi visiting, cooking, and talking history with people in various cultural pockets. In some ways, it’s a triple whammy of her success as a celebrity food expert,…

Cofounder and CEO/Fairygodboss Back in January, Goldman Sachs announced that the bank would no longer take a company public unless its board had at least one “diverse” member. Its CEO, David Solomon, also said that IPOs of companies with “at least one female director” outperformed companies with all-male boards. And in 2018, the state of California passed a law requiring that publicly traded firms in the state have at least one woman on their board of directors. The changes were exciting news for advocates for gender equality. They sound like progress! But take a step back. These initiatives are the equivalent of treating a symptom, rather than getting at the fundamental illness of the talent pipeline. Mandating diverse boards is an incredibly powerful move to rattle the status quo—but the…

President/Sonic Drive-In The year 2020 was supposed to be a big one for Sonic. We were in the midst of rolling out our brand relaunch, including a new identity, with a logo, icons, and colors as well as a new creative campaign and drive-in prototype design. When the pandemic hit, you’d think our core model (the drive-in!) would make us perfectly suited to the moment. And it did. But of course, nothing in 2020 was that simple. We closed our patios and limited indoor dining spaces to be fully compliant with local, state, and federal guidelines. And we took immediate action to create a COVID-19 task force, while communicating frequently with our franchisees and operators. Still, we’d often say, “This is the right thing to do today. Two days from…

“Taking a partner-centric approach to accelerate market adoption of Arrive Outdoors’ rental model. We’ve built strong operations and logistics and a phenomenal customer experience to support the growing trend of experience-based consumers in outdoor travel. Industry leaders want access to these consumers, so a partnership model allows us to work with parks, brands, and retailers, helping them engage with this segment, use our rental expertise, and promote a sustainable model for accessing the outdoors.” —Rachelle Snyder Cofounder and CEO/Arrive Outdoors, an outdoor travel gear rental company “We invested a disproportionately high amount of our resources into staying connected with our customers. This was key to understanding how to serve them during unparalleled times and providing them with not just skin-care products but a support system. We implemented Instagram Live events…

On April 24, 2013, an eight-story building called Rana Plaza collapsed in Bangladesh. Inside the building were clothing factories, apartments, and various shops. The building was structurally unsound. More than a thousand lives were lost. I had recently returned home to California after spending months in western India interviewing women, some of whom were garment workers, as part of my master’s thesis research, gaining intimate insight into their family life, culture, and healthcare issues. When I heard about the collapse, I felt shattered. I was angry that so many individuals were killed by sheer negligence. I began reflecting on a book I’d bought during my thesis research, called Khadi: The Fabric of Freedom. It’s a rare tome about the history and uniqueness of a handspun and hand-woven Indian fabric known…

A FEW YEARS AGO, for some occasion I don’t recall, my parents bought me a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. I love scotch, especially if it costs north of $200, so I wanted to save it for something special. I waited and waited. I assumed the right time would come. But the longer it sat, the more it felt like the right time had to be really right. Then the pandemic arrived. My family and I left our home. That bottle is sitting back in our living room. Who knows when I’ll see it? Really, it might as well not exist. I turned 40 a few months ago, and my parents bought me another bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. So this time, I opened it immediately. Pours for everyone!…

BASIC ChatterBoss Website/chatterboss.com Price/$25 per hour for administrative services HANDLES simple duties like scheduling and email. Manages your existing process. Offers plans to become part of your team, use Slack, and develops a new process. ADVANCED Double Website/withdouble.com Price/$40 per hour for tasks and projects PERFORMS complex tasks and projects. Offers project templates for you and the assistant. Matches you with a VA who has a similar work style and personality. POWERFUL Delegated Website/delegated.com Price/$45 per hour for team integration WORKS with your team on Slack and in Trello. Checks your email for you. Reschedules appointments and can make sales phone calls.…

When I’m passionate about something, I get like this,” the award-winning actress Taraji P. Henson explains via Zoom from her home in Los Angeles, hands cupped closely around the sides of her stunning face, leaning into the camera, vibrant, fiery red block braids styled atop her head. “I’m laser-focused until that thing is done.” With a global pandemic disproportionately affecting Black and Brown people, unemployment devastating many households, and anguish and anger reverberating across the country over police brutality and racial injustice, “that thing” for Henson is now improving mental health in Black communities. In 2018, she started a nonprofit named after her father, the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, to erase the stigma around mental health. “[We need to be able to say] ‘I’m human and right now I’m hurt,…

Lisa Lewin’s relationship with education company General Assembly goes back years. “When I launched my own tech company, I had to build everything myself,” she says. “I needed to refine my skills in development and design, and I took a GA course to do just that.” Fast-forward to August and Lewin stepped in as CEO of the company, following a career centered on the education space. And she’s got her work cut out for her. “We are seeing trends that were already under way get accelerated and pulled forward,” she says of remote work and learning. “Right now, the challenge is ensuring that students feel supported online. Particularly for people trying to get up a rung on the economic ladder, and for those who recently lost employment or work in…

“Be authentic. Do not create a campaign to woo new customers or to placate current customers. Do it with pure intentions, and make sure your entire organization is clear on the stand you are taking. Ben & Jerry’s has been doing it right for a very long time, before it was trending. Do a case study on their culture to see how they have been able to successfully navigate this terrain without losing any of their customer base.” —Mahisha Dellinger Founder and CEO/Curls, a natural hair care brand “I come from the Roald Dahl school of entrepreneurship—a place of wonder and action and opportunity and bold, nearly punk rock kindness. Maybe that’s why I believe that building a company is building a community. If you want to sell something, it…

“I used to be a big believer that office time was essential for productivity, but remote working during the pandemic has proven me completely wrong. Not only has productivity increased—so has happiness. Equally important, we are free to hire the best people anywhere, rather than being limited by geography. Going forward, I highly doubt that we will ever go back to a five-day-a-week office culture.” —Frida Polli Cofounder and CEO/Pymetrics, a hiring platform that uses AI and behavioral science to create talent matches and increase diversity “Medable has been working to disrupt the clinical trial process for a while, but with the onset of COVID-19, everything became urgent. We worked night and day with our partners, doing remote training from our own living rooms with sponsors and clinicians worldwide. Prior…

In 2018, when Pinky Cole launched Slutty Vegan—a meat- and dairy-free burger joint in Atlanta—she decided to lead with her conscience. “I don’t care about money,” she says. “It doesn’t matter what the bottom line is going to look like—I put people in place to monitor that. My mission here is to help people reimagine food and uplift our community.” Slutty Vegan has since grown into a beloved regional chain, with multiple locations and a food truck, both of which attract long lines of hungry customers. As the business finds new levels of success, Cole stays true to her original mission. She set up the Pinky Cole Foundation to empower entrepreneurs and equip them with financial literacy, and this year, as coronavirus gripped Atlanta, the foundation raised money to help…

AFTER TRAVELING all over the world during his 20 years and 13 deployments with the Navy, Jaime “Jimmy” Ochoa (center, holding scissors) came back to his hometown, Bensenville, Ill., to open his UPS Store franchise. Last year Ochoa was one of the first winners of The UPS Store’s Mission: Veteran Entrepreneurship program, which waived the company’s full franchise fee for 10 selected veterans. The opening of his store in May was the realization of a longtime goal for Ochoa, who had previously worked in another UPS Store in order to research the opportunity.…

Global tech firms don’t typically recruit at community colleges, but Ravi Kumar wanted to try. He’s a president at Infosys, the $12.7 billion global IT services company based in India, which in 2017 announced it would create 10,000 jobs in America. He hired a lot of four-year-university graduates for roles like programming but needed employees in operations roles that didn’t require as much tech knowledge—and by hiring community college students, he reasoned, he’d have access to a more diverse range of workers, who could eventually move up into more senior roles. But there was a problem. “We were not getting a lot of excitement at community colleges,” Kumar says. “It was surprising because we paid more than what other jobs there pay.” He started interviewing the few students who did…

Q I have a startup idea…but how do I know whether it’s worth my time to pursue? —NIA, CHICAGO THAT’S A VERY important question. In fact, it might be the most important question—and many entrepreneurs bypass it on the road to independence. We’re so excited by our 2 A.M. epiphany that we don’t want to know the answer. We fear that this is our one and only shot, and that another great idea may never come. But if you skip this self-audit, you may face massive consequences for years to come. The consequence is this: opportunity cost. When starting a new endeavor, we focus so much on what we might gain that we overlook what else we might have done. Despite all the deification of entrepreneurs and the glorification of…

“The first lesson I learned when I was very young: When you fall off the horse, get back on. (It’s a matter of when you fall, not if.) Resilience is what you need to tackle the challenges associated with a time of tremendous uncertainty. The second lesson is the importance of running the business like it’s in startup mode. Ariat is in its 27th year, and we have 550 employees worldwide, but we emphasize being flexible and agile, and we keep risk and opportunity top of mind. We work together to emerge stronger.” —Beth Cross Cofounder and CEO/Ariat International, an equestrian footwear and apparel company “Early on in my career, I was paralyzed by ‘no-win’ problems and couldn’t find my way to decisions. But it’s less important to make the…

Founder and CEO/CEEK Virtual Reality As companies talk about closing the diversity gap, they’re quick to announce a charitable donation. Google, PayPal, and SoftBank have all committed large amounts of money to supporting Black-owned businesses. In May, the well-known investor Jason Calacanis posted on Twitter that he’d hire engineers to build a Facebook clone…and give the proceeds to Black founders. This thinking is troublesome. It assumes that Black entrepreneurs are a charity. They are not; they’re in business. Let the Black entrepreneur be an entrepreneur. While charitable donations may be well-intended, the funds do not go to founders in almost all cases—plus, the starting point can feel the same as racism. The fact that someone is Black can precede everything else about them. If you think of a great painter,…

“I founded my company in 2009, in the midst of the last economic downturn. A lot of the lessons I learned then are applicable today, but most come back to the team. It’s vital to hire those driven by and committed to your mission, who embrace wearing many hats and learning new things. By constructing the right team, we remain lean and versatile, with a low burn rate, to keep pace with economic curveballs. This is critical for most startups, but as companies are forced to navigate major market fluctuations, it is key to maintaining business continuity.” —Pooja Sankar Founder and CEO/Piazza, an online educational platform “Both our customers and our employees are parents, and it is really hard to be a parent right now. Our goal is to be…

“I was most pleasantly surprised by the peer-to-peer connection and coaching that developed as a result of working remotely. It’s something our team of four initiated—via Slack!—and it’s helped them manage the physical and emotional isolation as time wore on. At such a young stage, we’re still flexible and loosely structured, so these relationships are part growth and performance goals for the company, part compassionate support as they meet personal challenges.” —Karen Young Founder and CEO/Oui the People, a premium shaving products company “We built The Laundress with the spirit of grit and agility, and our culture today is a testament to our boot-strapped days. As founders, there’s no job Lindsey and I have not done or would not do. These fundamentals guide our team, so a hard operating pivot…

Dawn Ostroff always asks herself: What’s next? She finds the answer in youth culture. That’s led her to help create the CW Network and to launch publishing giant Condé Nast’s video network. Now, at Spotify, which reportedly loses nearly 75 percent of its revenue to music licensing deals, she’s driving the business into podcasting. She’s scored exclusive deals with the Obamas and Joe Rogan and acquired studios like Gimlet and The Ringer, but her vision goes beyond flash. “The [podcast] business is so fragmented, both on the creative side and the revenue side,” she says. “The goal is to aggregate the industry and help drive important change” by fostering talent and developing technology to make podcasts easier to find and monetize. “It’s good for Spotify,” she says, “but we’re not…

Patrick Mock used to fly across the country with takeout containers of chicken and gyro. “I’d smell up the whole cabin just so I could bring some platters back for my friends and family in California,” he says. He was picking up those platters at The Halal Guys, a food cart on the corner of 53rd Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Mock ate there regularly when he lived in New York and worked as a management consultant. Then he moved to California, and the cart became a rare treat. Whenever he was back in town, he’d visit the cart, put in a big order, and stuff it all into a carry-on bag before heading to the airport. Mock’s friends, many of whom he had personally introduced to the brand,…