Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2019 i Entrepreneur's Startups

When Mariam Naficy launched Minted in 2008, she wanted to create a niche business, one that would crowdsource stationery designs from independent artists, ask consumers to vote for their favorites, produce and sell the best-performing creations, and share a portion of revenue with the original designers. But Naficy underestimated consumers’ interest in what she was building, and she soon found herself at the helm of a massive venture-backed design platform that was growing far beyond her original vision. So she rolled with it—adapting right alongside her company. Now Minted’s team is 400 strong and the company is generating revenue in the “hundreds of millions of dollars.” Naficy talked with Entrepreneur about letting the business lead the way, carefully selecting strategic partners, and building a team that doesn’t require hand-holding. Minted…

There’s an old saying that floats around the internet, always popping up in those collections of inspirational phrases: “Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.” Did Pablo Picasso say it? The Dalai Lama? Alexander McQueen? All have been cited as the source, but whatever—its origin doesn’t matter. It endures because it’s true. Entrepreneurs are rule breakers, too, but the smartest among us know that you don’t go smashing windows just because. We don’t break rules for the fun of it. We break rules when we understand the systems that created those rules—and then, with careful thought and steely resolve, we can see bending that system to our will. We learned the rules. We know what we’re doing. And that’s why, when the time…

A curious email rolled into my inbox recently. The subject line was “Write article.” And here was the entire message: “Hi Jeff. I wanted to write an article, who do I speak with? Thanks.” Maybe you have some questions. I do! What kind of article does this person want to write? What makes them qualified? Why would I want to publish it? When did my name become Jeff? And that’s just the start. But let’s focus on the most telling word in this email—the one that explains what went wrong, and should serve as a warning sign for us all. The word is wanted, as in “I wanted to write an article.” The email writer led with what he wanted, not with what he could provide. And although his email…

Remember Slice? Not the pizza. Not the Grandmaster Slice hip-hop guy. The soft drink. Even an answer of “kinda sorta” could mean money in the can for the people bringing back Slice, the ’90s PepsiCo pop. The twist: It won’t (sorry, diehards) deliver that sinfully sweet blast of sugary, citrusy nostalgia—nor will it be made by PepsiCo. The Slice hitting the shelves in 2019 is a 25-calorie sparkling water made purely with organic juice, and it’s based on a bet by two eagle-eyed entrepreneurs who wrested the trademark away from its original owner: Given how important branding has become, their theory goes, a startup can gain an instant advantage in the marketplace if it’s using a brand name that consumers are already familiar with…even if the product is different from…

Cannabis had just been legalized for recreational use in Oregon, so I and everyone else in my town lined up, sometimes for an hour, outside the busy dispensaries. When I finally got to the counter, I had mere minutes to read the menu and even less time to discuss it with the budtender and make an informed decision. It was a terrible customer experience. That’s when it hit me: What if I could just go online, educate myself about the products available at each dispensary, determine which was right for me, click a but ton, and have them delivered straight to my home? The concept wasn’t completely random. In my previous life, I ran and sold two online food-ordering companies. The first I helped start in college, after I noticed…

Put 10 entrepreneurs in a room, and you’ll hear the same mantras recited: Hustle. Focus. Do more with less. Survive. As inspiring as those words might sound, they can’t ensure success. There’s a reason that more than 50 percent of startups fail in the first five years. Creating efficiencies means establishing an infrastructure that can help your business in multiple situations. After all, failure isn’t always a by-product of a bad idea or a bad team. Sometimes everything is going right until it goes wrong: the website that gets too much traffic and crashes, or a product so in demand that inventory needs can’t be met. I even read about a restaurant that after being voted best burger in America shut down due to the crowds. These examples are everywhere,…

Chad Laurans was convinced he’d made the perfect product for the perfect customer. He’d done his research, refined his marketing, launched a home security company called SimpliSafe with high expectations—and then was promptly disappointed. “Things were going pretty slowly,” he says. “It felt like we were headed toward this middling outcome where we could spend years and maybe decades and not have much to show for it.” To save his business, Laurans began asking himself a difficult question: Did I build the wrong product, or target the wrong customer? It’s a puzzle many entrepreneurs face as their businesses evolve, and as they seek what investor Marc Andreessen famously calls “product-market fit”—that is, the right product for a good market. Entrepreneurs may think they know the answer, but until they launch,…

Looks like sunny weather ahead: Brainstorms still have their place in the workplace, but a newer technique is clearing the skies for heightened productivity, greater equity among team members and a faster decision-making process. Brainwriting—so called because it emphasizes written brainstorming contributions that ladder up to oral contributions and a final decision—is one of the techniques that is becoming more popular in leading organizations. One variation making the rounds in the tech world is a brainwriting exercise in which people individually make notes of their ideas, then vote on them as a group. It boils down to six key steps: 1. Team members write down their ideas for five to 10 minutes, individually, without discussion.2. Each person reviews his or her list for two minutes, selecting one or two favorites—again,…

SHIRA BERK Founder and CEO, Goodie Girl ADVANTAGE Grow faster Shira Berk had spent most of her career as a publicist, but in 2010 she started making gluten-free cookies and selling them at her children’s preschool. Five years later she was selling $25,000 worth of Goodie Girl Cookies a year, and she wanted to go bigger—fast. “I didn’t want to take the time to raise the money,” she says. As it happens, a manufacturer, Greg Toufayan, of the bakery company Toufayan, wanted to get into the startup game. So they came up with a plan: Toufayan would invest in Goodie Girl and focus on production, logistics, and financing, and Berk would focus on sales and brand. In one year, sales shot to $1 million. “I’m able to go into retailers…

Alexis Courtney had spent eight years as a high school teacher when she became pregnant with her second child and quickly realized that life as an educator would no longer cut it. “My income was pretty much a wash once my husband and I factored in daycare for two kids,” she says. “We decided that if I was going to be working, we wanted it to benefit our family.” Her husband, Neal Courtney, had been a longtime exec with Famous Brands International, the parent company of TCBY and Mrs. Fields Cookies, and the couple wondered if they should launch their own business. But neither had the bandwidth or a fool-proof idea. Then Alexis took their daughter for a haircut at Cookie Cutters Haircuts for Kids, one of the only kids’…