Innholdsfortegnelse for Fall 2017 i Entrepreneur's Startups

THINK AHEAD. “If I’m traveling through time zones, I prep my body by taking on that eating schedule 24 hours before I get there. I don’t have time to feel jet-lagged.” SETTLE IN. “Great wi-fi is key—I’ve even brought my Eeros with me on trips where I’m staying in Airbnbs. If I’m in a hotel, I make sure there’s a decent gym and a great café nearby. Having a small routine on the road helps it feel less foreign.” HYDRATE. “I stay awake on international flights and pound water so I’m adjusted when I land. It’s a hard reset. My colleagues hate it because I get a ton of emailing done without distractions.”…

I run a small business and need to hire in order for us to grow. What’s the best approach for bringing on the right people? —SHANE, Toronto SHANE, the strength of your team is the strength of your business. But the opposite is also true—hiring the wrong people can pull down your operation and cost you money. When I was in the corporate world, I tried to buy an all-star team. I focused mostly on résumés and achievements. It didn’t work out too well. Later, when I started my own business, I couldn’t afford to buy that kind of team. That forced me to focus on the bigger, tougher question: What actually makes a good employee? Uncovering the answer made me better at finding the right talent. I learned that,…

Pat Swisher used to carry himself with a cocky self-assurance. He figured it was his due for being a successful, self-made man. Then he went to jail. “I’ll never forget walking into the dorm,” he says. The first person he met was a huge, heavily muscled inmate with gold teeth. Swisher is a former college football player, but he’s not an intimidating man—about 5-foot-9, with a carefully combed coif of reddish-gold hair. As the inmate approached, Swisher remembers thinking, This guy’s going to beat the hell out of me. Instead, “he put his arm around me and said, ‘I got you, man. If anybody messes with you, tell ’em to come see me.’” Swisher chokes up at the memory. “It turned out that this was the most genuine, sweetest man…

You never know whom you’ll find working at Checkers. Take Nick Nasrollahi, a part-owner of seven locations. He fled his home country of Iran in 1985, when he was 18—making a seven-day journey across the mountainous desert on foot, by camel, and eventually in the back of a sympathetic smuggler’s pickup truck. He almost didn’t make it. A group of soldiers detained him on day three and took his money. On day six, they left him in an underground bunker with nothing to eat but a rotten orange. The smuggler got him out, though, and by donning a woman’s burqa that completely covered him, Nasrollahi snuck past Pakistani border guards. He sought asylum in Pakistan and soon made it to the U.S., where he built a career in the quick-service-restaurant…

ADVERTISING/ MARKETING SERVICES 99 Dollar Social • • + Social-media management • D NO. OF DEALERS: 500+ COST: $99/mo.+, Financing: No Perks Nearby • • + Daily-deal websites • L NO. OF LICENSEES: 150 COST: $995, Financing: Yes Social Xpand • Social-media management • L NO. OF LICENSEES: -- COST: $299, Financing: No Today’s Senior Magazine • Magazines for seniors • L NO. OF LICENSEES: 3 COST: $14.5K, Financing: Yes True North Business Development (TNBD) • Email-list-building service • L NO. OF LICENSEES: 0 COST: $5K, Financing: Yes APPAREL & ACCESSORIES Cariloha Bamboo apparel, accessories, bedding, and home decor • D NO. OF DEALERS: 45 COST: $150K, Financing: No Del Sol Color-changing apparel and accessories • D NO. OF DEALERS: 45 COST: $150K, Financing: No AUTOMOTIVE AMSOIL • Synthetic lubricants…

INBOX INFINITY The day I realized my email was not my to-do list but just other people’s to-do list for me, I had this incredible realization: Constantly managing an inbox is like doing someone else’s homework! The minute I stopped running my day based on my email, I immediately became more effective. And it’s not about ignoring messages; being responsive is really important, and it’s indicative of your work ethic. Of course, there’s a line between knowing your priorities and being responsive. I start every day with a list of the three to five critical things I need to do and slot them into my calendar. When I feel like I’m on track to achieve them, I’ll check my email. I delete anything I know is marketing and then look…

MATURE “A lot of coworking companies seem built to fulfill the fantasies of male 20-something engineers,” says Jamie Hodari, INDUSTRIOUS’s CEO. Industrious offers inclusivity instead. The company’s 12 locations across the country have private rooms for nursing moms to pump milk, and, she says, “our regional director in New York took three hours to help a member prepare for her citizenship test.” LOW-COMMITMENT CROISSANT is an app that allows remote workers to “rent” desks at established coworking spaces in New York, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berlin, and London, among other cities. It offers monthly subscription plans that range from $29 to $249, depending on the city. FANCY! BUSINESS DISTRICT is for professionals who care more about the flagship office’s brag-worthy home in an I.M. Pei–designed building than free beer.…

Haney was bringing two unexpected things to the table: a photo of Girls star Lena Dunham jogging in head-to-toe Outdoor Voices wear, and a shiner. In 2015, Tyler Haney showed up at the Crosby Street Hotel for one of the biggest pitches of her life. She was meeting David Fialkow, of General Catalyst, to add him to a Series A funding round for her startup clothing brand, Outdoor Voices. And she was bringing two unexpected things to the table: a photo of Girls star Lena Dunham jogging in head-to-toe Outdoor Voices wear, and a shiner. The night before, Haney, a former track star, was jogging her usual route down Manhattan’s West Side Highway, her favorite place to clear her mind, and a spiritual path of sorts for her company: It…

AH, THAT SMELL! The scent of featherlight, just-out-of-the-fryer doughnuts covered in a sugary glaze. The aroma so good it drew lines of single-minded devotees, zombie-like, to the wholesale factory during the only time they were allowed to buy them—between midnight and 4 a.m., through a window cut into the wall. Even the name was delicious: Krispy Kreme. That’s how the iconic company started, in Winston-Salem, N.C., in the 1930s. How it nearly ended, decades later, is a case study in how franchises can stumble. First there was the sale, in the 1970s, to an international conglomerate so big it peddled everything from luggage to bras to window treatments. For the new parent company, a doughnut chain was a handy way to unload products made by its other myriad divisions, including…

Welcome to the most comprehensive list of franchise and non-franchise opportunities we’ve ever assembled. As the more than 1,300 companies listed here show, there are plenty of business enterprises to suit almost anyone’s passion. From children’s entertainment and development to food or fitness or technology, opportunity awaits. Dive in and find yours. The companies listed on these pages are seeking ambitious and hardworking people who yearn to be their own boss. And many are willing to help; hundreds of them offer qualified candidates financing through in-house or third-party programs. With so many options to consider, there’s bound to be a business that matches your interests and passions. This list is not intended to endorse, advertise, or recommend a particular company. Be sure to do your own thorough research: Consult with…

Home-based/mobile Kiosk/express option D DEALERSHIPS/ DISTRIBUTORSHIPS Individuals or businesses are granted the right to buy wholesale and sell retail the products of Business XYZ, but are not entitled to use XYZ’s trade name. An authorized Apple Computer dealer, for example, may have an Apple sign in her window, but she cannot call her business Apple Computer. While the terms distributorsand dealersare often used interchangeably, there is a difference between the two: A distributor may sell to a number of dealers, while a dealer usually sells to a retailer or consumer. L LICENSING OPPORTUNITIES Trademark/product licensees receive access to the seller’s trade name as well as specific methods, equipment, technology, or products. If Business ABC has a special method for detailing cars, it will teach you its method and provide you…

Bianca Bahri grew up in the franchising world. Her parents owned multiple H&R Block units, and her family’s community—Catholic Iraqi immigrants in the Detroit area—was full of entrepreneurs who had used franchising as a way to get settled in America. “It’s all I’ve ever known,” she says. But after she went to business school, she couldn’t find a franchise that matched her passions. She’s a fitness fanatic, and she wanted to help women who felt uncomfortable working out in front of men. So she decided to strike out on her own. Bahri founded Fit2Fight Studios in Troy, Mich., ran it for two years, and even auditioned for Shark Tank in an effort to score the funding and publicity necessary to expand to more locations. But during the audition process, she…