Indholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2024 i Entrepreneur Magazine

1/The 2-in-1 thermos. Here’s how to travel lightly, stay hydrated, and cut down on single-use plastic: Just pack the CamelBak MultiBev [$52; camelbak.com]. The full thermos can keep 22 ounces of water chilled for hours—but the real genius is the lower portion, which screws off as a separate 16-ounce cup. Use it to carry coffee without a paper cup, to brew in your hotel room, or help keep a regular-size can cold. The MultiBev’s two-part lid holds a reusable silicone sipping lid to prevent spills. Unlike those massive, insulated thermoses, this one fits into your car’s cupholder. 2/Slick surround sound. Want surround sound to fill a room with music, or to make your presentation audible from anywhere? Pack the svelte Sony HT-AX7 Portable Theater System [$500; electronics.sony.com], which creates an…

A million dollars sounds sexy. But what is it, really? For some, a dream. For others, a goal. A million in profit is a form of financial security—or at least the freedom to take some risks. A million in revenue is a marker point where business models are proven and investors start calling. For experienced entrepreneurs, a million dollars might be a unit they now measure in the tens or hundreds. But however many millions you have, it’s always a metric of note. On the following pages, we’ll chart many paths to getting there—from founders, investors, fundraisers, and other experts. You’ll learn how to build a $1 million business in a weekend, how to earn your first million tax-free, how to ask for a million dollars, and how a number…

According to the latest OECD growth forecast, India’s economy is projected to grow by 6.2% in 2024, followed by a further 6.5% in 2025. With its robust demographic profile as the world’s most populous country, combined with modest inflation rates and substantial government support, India emerges as an enticing investment destination for those seeking alternatives to China. To keep pace with India’s rapid population growth, the government is investing heavily in healthy food initiatives such as the National Nutrition Mission and FIT India. This has caused demand for affordable protein sources to surge. Although poultry currently dominates the scene, the remarkable growth of India’s seafood industry has sparked interest worldwide. Since India’s aquaculture industry kicked off in the 1990s, the country has surged to become the world’s third-largest fish producer,…

When Cuban immigrant Nicolas Estrella Sr. started selling auto insurance in Miami in the 1970s, he had an opening line: His last name meant “star” in Spanish, so he and other Latino immigrants could bet on the same shooting star—the American dream. “He realized he could fill a void in the marketplace for the greater Hispanic community,” says his son, Nicolas Estrella Jr. Estrella Jr. took over as president of Estrella Insurance in 2006. At the time, the business had 40 corporate stores and three franchises, left over from a previous attempt at franchising in the ’90s. But when Estrella Jr. took a closer look at the franchises’ finances, he was surprised by what he found. “They weren’t doing well,” he says, “but they were doing very decently without any…

ENTREPRENEURSHIP is an endless series of hard decisions. I’m sure you’re facing one right now. Sadly, I can’t give you the right answer—but I can offer you something new to consider. To really appreciate this, I first want to tell you about someone who faced a gut-wrenching choice of his own. I’ll call him Steve. He’d stolen things, served time in prison, and wanted to turn his life around. Finding a job was hard, but he eventually landed some freelance work for a big company. He threw himself into it, outworking everyone and getting noticed. After a few months, a senior leader called Steve into his office. They talked for 20 minutes. Then the leader offered Steve a fulltime job. “So just fill these forms out,” the senior leader told…

1/Spotting the red flags in dream clients “I underestimated the importance of discernment. Early on, we had what seemed like a dream client—but red flags started to emerge. They were going through some internal strife, and their executives were contradicting each other, which bled onto our team. Winning the business took precedence over my intuition, and ultimately, the politics of our client pushed our work to the side. It taught me that winning can feel like losing if you aren’t careful who you help.” —LILLIAN MARSH, cofounder and managing principal, TinyWins 2/Actively listening to customers “I never imagined how important active listening would be. It means being attuned to additional context, what’s not being said, and refraining from attachments to what you want to be true. For example, I shared…

You may have heard this question before: “What advice would you give your 16-year-old self?” I know this is a popular way to package the “wisdom” of someone with experience or success, and as Google’s first chief innovation evangelist, people asked me this sometimes. But I never got it. Why would I ask my older self what my younger self should have known or done? The missteps I made or the odd turns I took back then are part of who I am now. Offering someone else a road map of my own pitfalls and speed bumps would give them a defensive strategy, at best. No one’s gaining any yards by looking in my rearview mirror. But I do think it’s useful for people to do a retrospective on their…

Sam Parr and Shaan Puri think in millions. They’ve both had notable exits for many millions (Parr sold his newsletter company The Hustle to HubSpot, and Puri sold his video streaming company Bebo to Twitch). Together, they cohost the chart-topping podcast My First Million, where they kick around business ideas with successful entrepreneurs. Both agree: A million dollars sounds sexy, but it’s not an end goal. “When you have a million bucks, you’re not making tons of investments,” Puri says. “You can’t just live off it forever, unless you’re living a really minimalist life. So you should ask the question, ‘At what thresholds do things actually change, versus what are the arbitrary numbers that just sound good?’” Here, they discuss the true value of a million dollars, and the strategic…

Want to meet the people who can accelerate your growth? You might need to make $1 million in revenue first. “I think there’s something magical about a million dollars in terms of just showing progress and scalability of the business,” says Laura Held, a partner at the investment firm Shamrock Capital. She says $1 million in revenue before EBITDA—interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization—is a noteworthy metric that puts you on the map for everyone from angel investors to debt financiers. Case in point: Marilyn Adler, a founder and managing partner at Mizzen Capital—a group that invests debt into lower middle market companies, which usually generate from $1 million to $10 million of EBITDA—says $1 million in EBITDA is the minimum a company must hit for her to even consider funding…

Short of running an online scam, how do you get someone to willingly fork over $1 million? The magic happens somewhere between dumb luck and intelligent strategy, says Wanda Urbanska, who does it regularly. She’s the director of philanthropy for North Carolina State University’s College of Engineering, and brings in large gifts for the school—but she’s also done it for other causes, including her PBS series, Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska. No matter what you’re raising money for, she says, the same basic rules apply: RULE 1/Don’t let the zeroes faze you. “One of the biggest mistakes,” Urbanska says, “is to be intimidated by wealthy donors. Walk into the room as an equal, with the attitude that you’re here to explore an opportunity of philanthropic engagement. Of course you want…

I love franchising. This industry helps people achieve their dreams of business ownership. It helps founders scale their brands into national or international successes. It can be a pathway to personal satisfaction and financial freedom. To achieve all that, franchises must act responsibly—and the vast majority of them do. There are hundreds (or even thousands!) of brilliant, energetic, innovative, responsible brands. But at the beginning of my career, I worked for a brand that was none of those things. It tortured me. This was 2017, and I had taken a job in franchise sales, scaling a decades-old service business by signing up new franchisees. I was taught: If a prospective franchisee has $30,000 in the bank, try to sell them five units. Some of these people were in their 60s or…

When I began my career in marketing, a mentor told me this: Resilience is key. I nodded at the time, thinking I understood what he meant—that nothing is easy, that the strongwilled survive, and so on. I struggled with confidence during my early career, but over time I grew bolder, well-respected, and accomplished. Wasn’t this resiliency? dI thought I’d learned my mentor’s lesson. But I did not understand resilience at all. That became clear in 2017, when my father unexpectedly died. He was a stable, inspiring force in my life—and with him gone, I felt in free fall. I started isolating myself. I lost focus at work. My decades of experience and confidence slipped away. Months after his death, I discovered one of his handkerchiefs in his study. For as…

Will people buy cheap food to help save the planet? The answer is yes—and no. This was the idea behind Flashfood, an app-based marketplace that aims to divert food away from landfills, and to families in need. It collects food nearing its best-by date, places it in refrigerators at more than 2,000 grocery stores, then sells the food to users at a discount. Since launching in 2016, it’s diverted more than 90 million pounds of fresh food and saved shoppers more than $200 million. But when chief customer officer Jordan Schenck began listening closely to customers a while back, she heard a disconnect. Flashfood’s marketing and branding were all mission-oriented—with a leaf logo to signal sustainability, and phrases like “Help us reduce food waste” splashed across their fridges. “But when…

Japan ASIA’S LEADING POST-PANDEMIC ECONOMY If 2023 marked Japan’s breakout, 2024 could herald the beginning of a decadelong ascent as Asia’s premier investment destination. Clear indicators abound, notably the Nikkei index’s historic surge beyond its late 1980s peak, surpassing 40,000 for the first time in history, alongside a significant rise in wages at major firms—the highest percentage increase seen in 33 years. Equally significant, albeit less apparent, is the 23% discount Japanese stocks offer compared to their US counterparts as the Nikkei index reached 40,000. Additionally, the minimum investment required to trade Japanese blue chips is now approximately oneseventh of what was needed during the Nikkei index’s previous peak. These indicators collectively affirm Japan’s ongoing economic resurgence with promising prospects ahead. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Global Macro Conference in…

UNLOCK/When you hit a wall, revisit your bigger idea. When Ben Witte launched his brand Recess in 2018, his mission was simple: He wanted to make nonalcoholic relaxation beverages. CBD was hot at the time, thanks to the recent passage of the Hemp Farming Act, so he launched a line of CBD-infused sparkling waters—and then hit a problem. Consumers liked the drinks, but many retailers wouldn’t stock CBD, because the FDA hadn’t offered guidance on it. Witte faced a choice: Double down on CBD, or expand elsewhere? To make that decision, he reflected on his mission. His goal was to make nonalcoholic relaxation beverages—and CBD wasn’t the only way to do that! He looked for other ingredients and discovered magnesium L-threonate. “In 2020, no one was talking about magnesium, so…

Noah Kagan was the 30th employee at Facebook, the fourth employee at mint.com, and has started many successful businesses of his own. Now, his company AppSumo does nearly $100 million in annual revenue. Along the journey, he says he’s discovered something: Success isn’t about long-term dreams; it’s about immediate action. His new book Million Dollar Weekend lays out a plan for just that. He explains. People often say they want to start a business, but they don’t have an idea. I think ideas are bullshit. That’s a hot take. Ideas are bullshit! There’s so many articles out there with business ideas, so how come more people haven’t become millionaires? The reality is, the idea isn’t the problem. The person is afraid—that’s the problem. They’re not prepared to ask people to…

Kayla Opperman made good money at her engineering job. But when her daughter was a baby, she got tired of long hours in the office. She also recognized there was a limit to how much she could make working for someone else. “I’d worked hard to get an engineering degree,” she says, “so I didn’t want to let that go completely. But I started researching if there were any franchises that involved engineering. And that’s when I came across Snapology.” Snapology is a kids’ STEM and robotics brand founded in 2010, and now has 130 locations around the country. But in 2018, there were no locations in Colorado, where Opperman lived, and she viewed that as a big opportunity. When she visited headquarters, she loved how happy everyone seemed, so…

A franchise is most successful when it reaches a wide variety of communities—and to do that best, it needs to bring a diversity of voices and experiences into its franchisee and corporate-level ranks. That’s why, for the third year, we’ve chosen the 100 franchises that we think are doing the most to expand opportunities for all. Typically, our franchise lists are created by gathering and crunching a lot of data, and then ranking brands based on the results. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts can be difficult to quantify, so we’ve chosen the companies on this list editorially, and they’re listed alphabetically instead of ranked. To determine which brands to include, we considered a number of factors, including: any incentives offered to franchisees from underrepresented groups; diversity among franchisees; diversity…