Innholdsfortegnelse for October/November 2021 i Entrepreneur Magazine

I BELIEVE WE experience change in four phases: panic, adaptation, new normal, and “wouldn’t go back.” The first three are about being forced to make changes we wouldn’t have previously considered. That last phase is when we realize how valuable these changes were. We start to say, “I wouldn’t want to go back to the way it was before.” As I’ve talked to entrepreneurs over the past year and a half, I’ve heard many “wouldn’t go back” stories. People found new opportunities and embraced new experiences. They reconsidered what they once believed was impossible. This is a powerful process but also a humbling one. I’m learning that for myself right now. Some background: My wife and I live with our two little boys in a small apartment in Brooklyn. But last…

Q What are innovative ways to scale a business that most people don’t discuss? —DIANA, CHICAGO THE FIRST RULE of scaling a business is “Don’t worry about the rules of scaling a business.” If you’re copying others, then you’re always following their lead, which means you pick up breadcrumbs instead of getting the loaf. Instead, look for the leverage only you can create. That requires an innovative strategy on three fronts: positioning, pricing, and people. Let’s start with positioning. Look at your three biggest competitors and make a list of the problems they solve and why they exist. Now add yourself to the list, but don’t think about how you’re better than them. Think instead about how you’re different—because remember, you don’t want to be competing. Positioning yourself as different…

Cofounder/Our Place Shiza Shahid came to the U.S. from Pakistan for college. Her partner is also an immigrant—born in Iran and raised in California. “We found our places in America by cooking and sharing food,” Shahid says. “People would come over and argue over whose cooking was better, and we realized there’s something really incredible about how cooking brings people together.” That realization led Shahid to launch Our Place in 2019, six years after she cofounded the Malala Fund to support girls’ education worldwide. Our Place is a “mission-driven kitchenware brand designed to reimagine products for the modern, multi-ethnic American kitchen,” she says. Its pots and pans come in dreamy millennial pastels, and the brand’s hero product is the Always Pan, which went viral on Instagram and was sold out…

In college, Arian Simone launched a clothing boutique in a mall in Jacksonville, Florida—but when she went to raise capital for it, she realized there were very few people to pitch who looked like her. “I was sitting on the floor before the grand opening,” she recalls. “And I said, ‘Arian, don’t you worry, because one day you’re going to be the business investor you were looking for.’” It took nearly two decades, seven months of homelessness, and a few reinventions, but she kept that promise to herself. Simone cofounded the Fearless Fund, the first investment fund run by women of color for women of color. Now it’s a $25 million to $30 million fund with a portfolio of earlystage companies, recently landing a $1 million investment from Costco Wholesale…

Cofounder and CEO/Caribu Max Tuchman’s grandparents met in a Holocaust survivors’ camp before escaping to Cuba. “My family would always say, ‘The only thing you can take with you when you flee in the middle of the night is what’s in your head,’” Tuchman says. “You take what’s in your mind, your education.” In 2017, Tuchman launched Caribu, an app that brings families together virtually for educational playdates. “There’s an in-app library with thousands of books, coloring sheets, activities, and games,” she says. “Grandparents tell us they’d never been able to engage on a video call for two hours before.” In 2018 Tuchman became one of the first Latina founders to raise more than $1 million in VC funding, and in March 2020, Caribu’s user base grew 10 times in…

Cofounder, president, and chief innovation officer/Siete Family Foods For Veronica Garza, starting Siete Family Foods took a bit of familial encouragement. “My brother Miguel told me that if I didn’t do it and then saw one day that someone else had, I would be really upset with myself,” she says. “I pictured that moment happening in my mind, and I didn’t want it to happen in real life.” Several years before, Garza had struggled with autoimmune issues, and in solidarity, her whole family had adopted a grain-free diet. Though many of Garza’s symptoms improved, she missed the Mexican foods she grew up eating in the family’s home in Laredo, Texas. So she started tinkering in the kitchen to come up with an almond-flour tortilla recipe. “It was just something for…

“Gone are the days of ‘retail’ or ‘e-commerce’ shopping. Soon enough, if you see it, you can buy it—from scanning a sweater on a friend’s back to texting a number on a screen and buying your granola bar from the aisle. Technology and what we know as ‘distributed point of sale’ are evolving, so why do I have to go to a website or a store to purchase a product? Why do I need to enter my payment information every time? Looking ahead, we’ll move away from the traditional shopping experience, where browsing and perusing was the norm, to the one-click to purchase—from anywhere, through any platform.” —Laura Modi Cofounder and CEO/Bobbie, an organic infant-formula brand “The best opportunities are discovered through a pain point that you’ve personally experienced. You…

Founder/Urban One Before Cathy Hughes was able to buy her first radio station in 1980, it took her several years to secure a license and approval from the FCC. Once she got approval, she needed a million-dollar loan—and the bank charged her 28 percent interest. Seven challenging years later, her balance sheet turned black. “I called my accountant and accused him of making an error,” Hughes recalls. “He laughed and said, ‘No, that means you made money this month.’” Urban One is now the largest diversified media company serving African American and urban consumers in the United States. Urban One’s subsidiaries include Radio One, which owns and operates 55 broadcast stations in 13 markets. “At least 85 percent of our staff are people of color,” Hughes says. “Issues of diversity,…

Eric Monroe had decided: He would not expand his business. He was fed up. Monroe owned a Martinizing Dry Cleaning franchise in Fort Worth, Texas, which was supposed to free him from the frustrations of being an employee. He previously worked in corporate regional sales, but in 2017 he decided to make the switch to franchise ownership. He knew he’d need lots of support, which Martinizing promised. After a short honeymoon, though, that support stopped. “The only person I consistently heard from was the lady who collected my weekly franchise royalty,” Monroe says. But this past April, that all changed—because Martinizing and several of its sister companies were bought by a competitor. The buyer was Lapels Dry Cleaning. When the deal closed on April 5, it went from having about…

“Finding the right people. We are more focused on that than rapid growth—although, ironically, because we have found such incredible people, we are able to grow faster than we expected. We set up an incredible amount of support so franchisees don’t have to be professionally trained chefs; they just need to be kind and passionate, and to see our students for who they truly are—brilliant little humans needing a positive, joyful, supportive environment. That means more to us than anything, because we can train for everything else.” —Felicity Curin Founder and president/Little Kitchen Academy, a Montessori-inspired cooking academy for kids aged 3 to 19 “The pandemic intensified some of the biggest issues facing the healthcare sector and showed us how important it is to keep the most vulnerable safe at…

Cofounder/Togethxr I saw a statistic that about 40 percent of all professional athletes are women, but they only receive 4 percent of sports media coverage,” says U.S. soccer star Alex Morgan. “That’s a big blank space.” So in March of this year, Morgan joined with fellow U.S. Olympians Chloe Kim, Simone Manuel, and Sue Bird to launch Togethxr, a media platform and commerce company centered on the stories of women athletes. Togethxr describes itself as a place where “culture, activism, lifestyle, and sports converge” by way of YouTube documentaries, written profiles, and Instagram posts. “It makes us jealous—in a good way!—that girls and women get to grow up now with a platform dedicated to women for and by women,” Morgan says of herself and her cofounders. “We never had this…

When Toyin Ajayi, MD, began practicing family medicine in Boston, she cared for a patient for several years. “She had a number of chronic physical health diagnoses and a long history of mental health challenges, and she was often hospitalized because she hadn’t taken her medicines,” Ajayi says. “One time, when I was following up with her after yet another hospitalization, she told me, ‘I just want you to know, I am not noncompliant and defiant.’ In healthcare we develop language that is not person-centered, and is sometimes even disparaging, and she had heard people label her that way. That was really profound for me, and it helped me formulate ideas about what it looks like to earn the trust of people we serve. It also started me down a…

“The murder of Mr. George Floyd was a tipping point for corporate America. But diverse people in general, and Black people in particular, are still having to deal with racism and toxic, hostile work environments. Startups can immediately diversify by creating an inclusive board or an advisory board. They can also partner with a community-based organization that serves people of color, invest in professional development training focused on bias and cultural competence, or consider the kind of ‘fractional’ chief diversity officer we offer at Diverse & Engaged.” —Dee C. Marshall CEO/Diverse & Engaged, which helps businesses navigate diverse workforces and consumers “We often talk about who is in the room making decisions—or who has a seat at the table, or any number of other clichés—but we rarely talk about who…

Cofounder/Inamorata When I was 25, I would always get the question, ‘Where do you see yourself in 10 years?’” says Emily Ratajkowski. “I didn’t do well with that question, because I didn’t know.” At the time, Ratajkowski had plenty to keep her busy; she was one of the most sought-after models in the world. But as she gained more experience with brand partnerships and licensing deals, she started paying closer attention to the levers of power. One day she had an epiphany: “These companies were relying on me heavily for creativity—it wasn’t just my image but my way of selling things using Instagram. And I realized, Wait; if I’m making this much money from 4 percent of the profits, then what are they making?” That revelation led Ratajkowski to found…

“VC firms need to promote women. As of February 2020, only 13 percent of decision-makers were female. Women investors are more likely to invest in female founders, and data shows that private tech companies with womenled teams generate a 35 percent higher ROI than teams led by men. We should protect policies like California’s Senate Bill 826, which requires publicly held companies to have a certain number of women on their boards. Finally, let’s use our purchasing power to support women-founded brands. When their companies do well, they will be more attractive to VC firms.” —Nikki Eslami Cofounder/New Theory Ventures, which invests in women-led personal-care brands “Be consumer-centric. At Imaginary, we want founders who put consumers first and reach them through content, community, and culture—and women are very good at…

“Our first motto was ‘Saving the Earth, one fabulous bag at a time.’ To the world, it was tongue-in-cheek, but we meant it. Last year we commissioned a study to answer the question: ‘Does a Chanel bag ever end up in a landfill?’ What we found was that luxury handbags are not only owned longer but more likely to be resold than their fast-fashion and even mall-brand counterparts. In fact, luxury handbags are also cared for better and more likely to be professionally repaired when needed. So our biggest impact has been creating a market for a product that was already sustainable.” —Sarah Davis Founder and president/Fashionphile, a preowned-luxury-handbag purveyor “A business with the size and diversity of Amazon scales by creating mechanisms. In 2019, Amazon cofounded the Climate Pledge…

1/Build business before buzz. “It’s enticing to spend on sexy things like PR and events. But while awareness is great—and needed—you want to make sure you have the distribution set up to fully take advantage of the awareness. Early on, we spent on those things to build buzz, but we didn’t have enough retail distribution to support it. We jumped the gun a bit when we should have waited to make sure our full ecosystem was in place.” —JENNIFER ROSS, cofounder, Swoon 2/Say bye to the office. “We anonymously polled our employees about the return to office post-COVID, and every single person was either neutral or against going back full-time. The pandemic has proven that productivity doesn’t suffer when you’re working from home. Also, as a company based in L.A.,…

Jason Alvarez-Cohen spends hours a day coding, and this summer was his crunch time. He was redesigning his app Popl, which helps people share their contact information digitally with others. As he sat at his desk working, he wanted to see as much of his code in front of him at once. That’s why he loves using a monitor that, to some, might look like it’s been accidentally tilted 90 degrees—which is no accident. “Having the vertical monitor to manage the code on Visual Studio Pro is key,” Alvarez-Cohen says. Vertical monitors are not new, but many entrepreneurs are still discovering their benefits. “They lay out a document better than a horizontal monitor does,” says Rob Enderle, principal analyst and owner of the Enderle Group. Top monitor manufacturers are increasingly…

Founder and CEO/Kinlò It’s been exciting—if sometimes uncomfortable—to finally speak up and do what my gut tells me,” says Naomi Osaka. For anyone who has been paying attention to the world’s highest-paid female athlete and No. 2 women’s tennis player, that should come as little surprise. This was the year that Osaka, 23, found her voice and started using it with all the power of her grand-slamming serve. She opened the Olympics, starred in a Netflix documentary, and was named cohost of the Met Gala. In May, after wearing seven masks at the 2020 U.S. Open, each with the name of a Black victim of racial injustice, she announced that she would skip her media obligations during the French Open because it messed with her confidence. When she was fined…

“The pandemic showed us the power of community, and our ability to shift from in-person to digital and social engagement. Digital community accelerates the flywheel of education, facilitates fast information sharing, crowdsources knowledge, and is capable of highlighting and surfacing personal and authentic stories, at scale. Technology leaders can’t afford to not think about how to engage their community. This transformation will enable the next generation of great companies to be not only vendors but economic platforms of opportunity.” —Linda Lian Founder/Common Room, a customer journey platform “Consumer shopping patterns have shifted, and so have expectations of the checkout-and-payments experience. When I first arrived in the payment processing industry, I was constantly told, ‘That is how things have always been done.’ That was music to my ears. I quickly discovered…

Founder and CEO/Catch & Release After Analisa Goodin got her MFA in art history and art theory, she stumbled into doing photo research for advertising agencies. Her work involved surfing the internet for “found content”—anything from YouTube videos posted by professional documentarians to random pictures on Facebook—and then negotiating licensing agreements. “I developed a pretty decent spidey sense about whether or not a piece of content could be licensed,” Goodin says. In 2015, Goodin decided to build a business around that spidey sense and founded Catch & Release. The company is a Pinterest-like curation platform that brands and creators can use to search the internet for images and videos to use for commercials. When they find something promising, Catch & Release assigns that content a “licensability rating,” considering questions like:…

Cofounder/LaunchGood We’d bought one-way tickets, said our goodbyes, and were about to leave for Syria when a friend was like, ‘You’re not going anywhere,’” recalls Amany Killawi. “It was 9/11.” Killawi was 8 at the time, living in Detroit with her family, and that day changed the trajectory of her life. Instead of moving back to her parents’ home country, the family stayed in the U.S., and Killawi grew up in an era of intense Islamophobia. She was always looking for how she could change the narrative and give back to the world. Finally, in 2013, she found a way to do it. With Chris Blauvelt and Omar Hamid, Killawi cofounded LaunchGood, a crowdfunding platform for the Muslim community that is on track to help raise $85 to $100 million—for…

Alot of people ask me, ‘Why would you be the CEO of an alcohol company?’” Ann Mukherjee says. It’s a fair question. Mukherjee, 56, is the chairman and CEO of Pernod Ricard North America, the wine and spirits powerhouse with brands that include Absolut, Jameson, and Avion. When she was 14, Mukherjee saw her mother killed by a drunk driver. She was also a victim of sexual abuse in which alcohol played a part. So why would Mukherjee want this job? “I know what that pain is like,” she says. “I don’t want others to go through it. If you really want a seat at the table to make change, you’ve got to walk into the fire.” Mukherjee is an Indian American woman in a white-male-dominated industry, and she credits…

Want to make a great podcast? The CEO of the powerhouse podcast network Wondery, Jen Sargent, knows a thing or two about that. “Put yourself in the listener’s shoes,” she says. “Everybody is really busy, and you’re asking for people’s time, which is their most valuable asset. So why should someone listen? You’d better have a strong answer.” Sargent’s team consistently produces strong answers in the form of hit shows like Dirty John, Dr. Death, and Business Wars. It’s one of the reasons why, this past February, Amazon officially acquired Wondery for a sum reported to be around $300 million. The move transformed Wondery from an independent studio into a key asset in Amazon Music’s battle against Spotify. It also meant big things for Sargent, who was COO at the…

In just more than a year and a half, COVID-19 has claimed the lives of more than 630,000 Americans and more than 4.5 million people around the world. It has wreaked havoc on the global economy and caused untold pain and suffering. Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have been trying my best to provide guidance to Americans—on the air at CNN, in my column for The Washington Post, and one-on-one with my patients—but the future was unknown and prospects were often grim. I experienced uncertainty myself, giving birth during the pandemic and then caring for my family members when they became infected with the coronavirus. Throughout all this, one thing has been clear: Our single pathway out of the most devastating public health crisis of our time was…

When franchisees buy into a system, they can generally rely on the parent brand’s name recognition and business processes. But here’s something a franchisee should not rely solely upon: the parent brand’s social media marketing. Why? Because doing so misses out on the real opportunity of social media. It isn’t just to build a brand—it’s to actively drive business and engage with customers. That must happen on a local level, with local social media accounts operated by local people. I’m the VP of communications at Rallio, a social media management company, and we see this mistake happen all the time. Franchisors typically create social profiles on behalf of their franchisees and syndicate corporate content to these pages. Franchisees then believe that their parent company’s social media content covers all their…

My sales career was almost cut short by my parents. I was 11, a member of the Girl Scouts, and preparing to sell my first Thin Mints. I had just participated in what I would later recognize as my first sales meeting, when our leader moms gave us our mission. “We get a lot of funds from our cookie sale so the troop can plan fun activities,” they said. Our goal was to sell at least 50 boxes each, which would make us eligible for the prizes. I did the math in my head. If I went to every house on my street and each neighbor bought at least one box, I would be halfway to my goal. Then I’d venture farther out, knocking on strangers’ doors and hoping to…