Innholdsfortegnelse for October/November 2022 i Entrepreneur Magazine

With so much uncertainty these days, it’s important to find peace of mind wherever you can—especially when it comes to your home. A brand like Thermador knows this well, having helped pave the way for today’s kitchen by delivering breakthrough, innovative products to culinary-obsessed and tech-savvy clients since 1916. This can be attributed to its commitment to anticipating consumer needs—a specialty of the organization’s leadership. In a sit-down with Beatriz Sandoval, Head of Thermador Brand, Rebecca Cottrell, Head of Refrigeration, and Janina Forberger, Head of Industrial Design, the Thermador inner-circle shares where they’ve been, where they’re going, and why being an innovator always matters. Thermador has been a leader in the home for generations. What does it mean to contribute to the direction of a brand with that legacy? Sandoval:…

1/ Think big, and small. “The aviation industry is one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonize. So we created Alaska Star Ventures to invest in emerging technologies that can accelerate our path to net-zero, like advanced air mobility and green energy. But there are smaller ways to improve, too. Replacing single-use plastic bottles with Boxed Water, for example, removes 1.8 million pounds of plastic from our aircraft over the next year.” —DIANA BIRKETT RAKOW, senior vice president of public affairs and sustainability, Alaska Airlines 2/ Map out the journey. “There were many things we were able to change to become more sustainable, like shipping our products in bags made of biodegradable corn. But as a small company, there are still some things out of reach. So we’re signing on…

There are different approaches to innovation: You can either create something completely revolutionary, like Snapchat. Or, you can develop a product that people are somewhat familiar with, watch how they use it, and then lean heavily into building out the features they enjoy most. From what I have seen, the latter has a higher chance of success. It’s what has guided my career in consumer apps—including my time as president of Musical.ly in 2015 through its ByteDance acquisition and rebranding as TikTok in 2017, to my current endeavor building new products that connect people, like Wink (a friend-making app with 2 million users) and Summer (today’s fastest-growing new dating app). Think of innovation like this: Imagine you are a DJ and there are 500 people in the audience. If you…

Jennifer Lopez remembers the moment, decades ago, when her first perfume passed the billion-dollar mark. Glow by JLo—with its curvy, frosted glass bottle, its namesake’s initials dangling from delicate, layered chains—had become the best-selling fragrance in America, and was on track to making $2 billion. Her partners on the project were giddy. But when Lopez heard this news, the reality of her situation snapped into focus. She was being told the sky was the limit, but— “I’m thinking to myself, Wait a minute,” Lopez says. “I didn’t make but 0.01% of that.” She reflected on what got her to that point. She was certain her creative vision was what made the perfume popular. She’d decided how it would smell, how it would be marketed. And before any of that, she’d…

Giana Amador Cofounder/ Carbon180 Giana Amador grew up in California’s Central Valley, where her family owned an almond orchard. The Central Valley is a region—and community—that produces a quarter of the U.S. food supply. To most, that’s an abstract amount of food. But in 2015, as California suffered through one of its worst droughts ever, Amador saw exactly what was at stake—for her home, her family, and the nation. By then, Amador was an undergrad at the University of California, Berkeley, studying climate change and frustrated by the slow rate of reform. While reading a lengthy, dense report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, she noticed a solution that seemed critical but was, oddly, barely mentioned: “removal of the destructive mass of carbon dioxide already in the air.” As…

Wan Kim has this strange ability to raise the gooseflesh. He doesn’t look like he could do it. He’s all slight build with glasses and mild manners. And yet: Goosebumps. Every time you talk to him. He’s the owner and CEO of Smoothie King, which, again, doesn’t suggest a hair-raising lifestyle. But the business of blending fruits and protein powders is also, in its own way, the business of life and how to lead it. For Kim, it goes way beyond some “healthy-first” influencer-speak, or even the actual nutrition his smoothies provide at more than 1,300 locations around the world. For him the business of life and how to lead it is about pursuing something almost transcendent, the oldest of human quests: Our need to evolve, to rise above our…

1 Snap-on Tools Professional tools and equipment STARTUP COST $175.1K-$411.9K FRANCHISE FEE $8K-$16K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 4,555/216 VET INCENTIVE $20,000 off cost of startup inventory 2 Dream Vacations Travel agencies STARTUP COST $1.8K-$21K FRANCHISE FEE $495-$10.5K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,618/0 VET INCENTIVE 30% off franchise fee; training fee waived for business partner and first veteran/military spouse associate, reduced by 50% for additional veteran/military associates 3 Budget Blinds Window coverings, window film, rugs, accessories STARTUP COST $140.5K-$211.8K FRANCHISE FEE $19.95K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,320/0 VET INCENTIVE 15% off initial franchise and territory fees 4 FastSigns Signs, graphics STARTUP COST $234.3K-$322.5K FRANCHISE FEE $49.8K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 763/0 VET INCENTIVE 50% off franchise fee 5 Matco Tools Mechanics’ tools and equipment STARTUP COST $76.8K-$309.1K…

I joined my father’s homebuilding business out of college, and alongside my two brothers, I had the pleasure of working with him for 24 years. He taught us the fundamentals of honest business. When he passed away earlier this year, we resolved to carry on his legacy and his ethics. A few weeks after his death, one of my brother’s neighbors found three nail bags in his basement. They’d come from the lumber yard that my father started in the early 1970s—and when the neighbor gave us the bags, it reminded us of just how powerful and profitable our father’s ethics could be. Here is the story of his lumber yard. My father began building homes in the 1960s, and for years, he purchased lumber from the same local supplier.…

MY FRIEND IS a photographer, and she was recently hired to shoot one of the best restaurants in Los Angeles. She was working there late one night, and she was hungry. Food was everywhere—well-constructed, beautiful, delicious food that people usually spend hundreds of dollars on, just sitting around untouched. But the chef would not let her eat it. Why? To torture her? No, he said. It’s because he wants her to truly understand his restaurant, and she cannot do that by eating the food alone. Come another night, he said. Bring a friend. Dinner on the house. But tonight, the food is just a prop. Here’s my question to you: Is this guy just cruel, or does he understand something that others don’t? Before you answer that, consider one other…

In 2012, Tye Caldwell thought he knew everything about the hair business. He’d started cutting his seven siblings’ hair with his school Fiskars scissors at age 11 and opened his own salon in Plano, Texas, in 2001. That’s even where he met his wife, Courtney, when she came in for a cut. But one day, a phone call briefly stumped him. It was a stylist asking if she could rent a chair in his salon by the day. That was crazy talk; back then, this kind of arrangement was done by signing long leases. But the truth was, Tye had empty chairs. Better to collect dollars than dust, he figured. So he said yes—a decision that inspired Tye and Courtney to launch ShearShare, a platform that now helps 40,000 hair…

1/ A better battery backup. Unlike power bricks that stay in the wall, or portable power packs that remain in your bag, the 2-in-1 Anker GaNPrime 733 Power Bank [$99.99; anker.com] goes everywhere. Plugged into the wall, it’s a 65-watt charger that’s likely faster than the adapter that came with your laptop, tablet, or phone, and it has one USB-A and two USB-C ports to power three devices simultaneously. Heading out? Pull the 733 out of the wall, fold up the prongs, and it’s a TSA-friendly, 10,000-mAh battery that charges an iPhone 13 twice. 2/ Shades that switch. These smart sunglasses serve many senses. First, the lenses: Thanks to electrochromic technology and tucked-away batteries, the water-resistant Ampere Dusk smart sunglasses [$295; ampere.shop] can go from a slight tint to sun-blocking—with…

As of this July, Grameen America had given out $2.6 billion in capital—800,000 microloans—to women entrepreneurs in communities of color, along with financial education courses that help members build business strategies and credit scores (the loan repayment rate is 99.8%). In its partnership with Lopez, Grameen America will disburse $14 billion in loans—along with 6 million hours of financial education—to 600,000 Latina entrepreneurs by 2030. Below are five Latina women in the New York City area who have benefited from Grameen’s program. Diana Larrazabal, Aroma D’Angel DIANA Larrazabal and her husband once sold perfume door-to-door in Manhattan. Their lack of credit disqualified them from getting loans, but they persisted at the ground level—carrying perfume in their backpacks or in the bottom of their 3-year-old son’s stroller. Now, after multiple Grameen…

Sallie Krawcheck Cofounder and CEO/ Ellevest Sallie Krawcheck has never been afraid of heights. She scaled her way up Wall Street into the CEO suites of places like Citi Private Bank, Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch, and Sanford C. Bernstein. She launched her own fintech company aimed at helping women build wealth. She raised $100 million. And then, suddenly, she came to a sheer drop-off that’s little-known, but quite common. She calls it “The Series B Cliff.” Krawcheck’s company is Ellevest. If she’d learned anything from more than 25 years in the financial industry, it was that money is power—and she wanted to invite all women in, no matter their economic situation. At Ellevest, there is no investment minimum, and memberships begin at $1 a month. The platform uses an algorithm…

Laura Behrens Wu Cofounder/ Shippo Laura Behrens Wu was just trying to ship some handbags. This was 2013, and she and her cofounder, Simon Kreuz, had launched an online store selling bags from upstart designers. They found a wealth of tools to drive sales and process payments—stuff like Shopify and Stripe—but could not find a good solution for actually shipping products. It was all post office lines and difficult-to-compare alternate carriers and pain. “Every e-commerce store needs to ship—there is no way around that—and we couldn’t figure it out,” Behrens Wu remembers. Not then, at least. But over the following years, the two shelved the handbag business and focused on this problem instead. Now their shipping software company, Shippo, is used by over 120,000 online stores and is valued at…

Ava DuVernay Filmmaker and founder/ ARRAY Ava DuVernay is talking about the old days—back when she first started making films. She’s saying how there weren’t many role models for Black women filmmakers, no safety net for the kinds of projects she’d become known for: Selma, 13th, When They See Us. And then she stops suddenly to marvel: “I’m talking like I made films 40 years ago—it was about 10 years ago when my first film was released! But there was no one to look at and go, ‘Oh, this woman, she’s made 10 films.’” So in 2011, DuVernay created her own safety net. She founded the independent distribution company ARRAY (then known as AFFRM), which has since grown into a narrative collective offering content, production, programming, distribution, and nonprofit services…

After Christopher Harvey left the military in 2009, he did what he felt like he was “supposed to do”—get a job in corporate America. But he knew he was capable of more. So he proved it: Despite many financial struggles, he started an insurance company, then became a Jeremiah’s Italian Ice franchisee (because he’d loved the brand as a kid). As both businesses thrived, he reflected on the lessons he’d learned, and wanted to help others like him. So he founded Franchising For Heroes (FFH), a mentorship program that guides veterans, first responders, and law enforcement officers through the franchising system. Jeremiah’s Italian Ice is the first franchise to test pilot the FFH program. Here, Harvey explains why he wants to open doors for others. You’ve thought a lot about…

VIETNAM VETERAN Mark Furlan was named Dream Vacations’ ambassador of veteran affairs last year, and he now helps the brand expand its military outreach through speaking engagements, networking, and mentoring. He and his wife, Kathy, started their Dream Vacations franchise in 2005. They offer custom vacations for other veterans and military groups, such as a fundraising tour to England and France that benefited the March Field Air Museum, and a group tour with current and former guards of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to celebrate its 100th anniversary.…