Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2020 i Inc. Magazine

On a recent podcast, the host and I were discussing the challenges we’re all facing at the tail end of 2020, and I said something about being hopeful for the future. Paul Blanchard, the man interviewing me for Media Masters, wasn’t having it. “Well, I’m British,” he said, “so I’ve no interest in staying around. I’m actually miserable, and quietly looking forward to death’s sweet kiss.” Now, compared with a polished presenter like Paul, I might be a bit of a colonial hayseed, but I’m pretty sure he was working some of that dry-in this case, six-feet-of-dirt dry- British humor, and being a little sarcastic. After all, the Brits have stiff-upper-lipped it through two world wars in little more than a century; they endure. And yet he was definitely reflecting…

After a car accident in 2012 left Ruby Taylor with a brain injury, she was forced to retire as a school social worker and faced eviction from her condo. The parent of a former student was helping Taylor with some financial and legal advice and asked her if she had any investments to fall back on. She didn’t. That moment gave her an idea for a business: “I realized that generational wealth is a major problem within the Black community-and it’s not because of working. We work hard,” says Taylor. The problem, she says, is that “some of us do not have the financial literacy to be able to make the decisions needed for us to close the wealth gap.” Taylor once used card games as a social worker to…

“I was never great at going to the gym,” says 32-year-old Ankur Jain, founder and CEO of investment firm Kairos. “I prefer the group experience–the teachers, the music. I want to get a cardio workout and just escape an otherwise really intense workday.” Getting that group experience was impossible once the pandemic closed exercise studios in March. So two weeks into quarantine, Jain bought himself a $2,500 SoulCycle bike: “They really did a great job in terms of the quality of the content,” he says of the bike’s creator. “It feels like you’re in a studio for real, from the sound quality, to the music and the courses.” And the bike has been a big productivity booster: “When you spend all day on calls, working through problems, at some point…

POWERED BY POETS&QUANTS HOW DO YOU REJUVENATE AN INDUSTRY? GIVE AN ENTREPRENEURIAL-MINDED MBA A CRACK AT IT. THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY. Over the past decade, bookings have risen as do-it-yourself digital platforms made travel more accessible. Standing out in an already crowded marketplace is the stuff of Entrepreneurship 101: You target an underserved niche like extreme sports enthusiasts. That’s the sweet spot for Mapo Tapo. The firm’s founders include a trio of 2020 INSEAD MBA graduates: Alessia Fontanari, Daniele Packard, and Anuj Karkare. Mapo Tapo started out like most ventures: a group of climbers fused their passion for extreme sports with something larger, sparking economic growth in underdeveloped communities in an environmentally-responsible way. In response, they created a sports tourism platform, where consumers book novel experiences with local guides and hosts.…

STEFANIA MALLETT ezCater Stefania Mallett thinks like an engineer-a legacy of her computer science graduate degree from MIT-so it’s no surprise that when founding ezCater in 2007, she created “a system for everything.” Customers visit the website and order a tasty spread from one of 80,000 restaurants and caterers, and ezCater coordinates fulfillment for any event in which a group of people want to nosh while they work. Mallett credits her success to creating clever systems to entice the right talent to join her, and then nourishing their hearts and minds. “My purpose is to create jobs that people want to have,” says Mallett. Job candidates complete mock exercises to get a feel for the work they’ll be doing. One example: translating a printed menu into an appealing digital layout.…

JOHN N. FRIEDMAN is professor of economics and international and public affairs at Brown University and a founding co-director of Opportunity Insights at Harvard University, which has been tracking the real-time impacts of Covid-19 on the U.S. economy. YOUR TEAM SURFACED data that shows what’s happening with the economy as a result of the pandemic. Some experts, including you, have said that we’re facing an economic downturn that’s worse than the 2008-09 financial crisis. How so? Friedman: This recession has been quite different from most past recessions. It was so acute in its immediate impact. There wa; a sharp response to the pandemic among consumers from high-income households. They pulled back on their spending most severely. That especially hit local small businesses in affluent areas. Why did that happen? It’s…

ZACH SIMS is co-founder and CEO of Codecademy. The company has taught millions of people how to program since launching in 2011 and has worked with organizations like Google, Amazon, and IBM to train and place talent. DID YOU SEE A jump in people wanting to learn coding during the pandemic? Sims: Yes. As the pandemic peaked, we saw more than a 70 percent increase in sign-ups to Codecademy. And we’ve seen that increase in sign-ups continue over the course of the year. The pandemic forced a lot of small-business owners to learn new skills so they could, for example, build a website to bring their restaurant online and start doing delivery. These skills aren’t just for people looking to become software engineers. They’re for people looking to use technology…

AT INC., WE TOO ARE IN the soothsaying business. Five years ago, for example, we wrote that more of us would be working from home in 2020. Well, we got that right-though nobody guessed that all of us would be working from home in 2020. Anticipating the future is tricky. But over 40 years, we’ve built this brand based on the accuracy of one key prediction: Entrepreneurs will find a way. And you will. Here, Inc. columnists and advisers offer a few more prescient thoughts to light your path. -Inc. staff MARIA HAGGERTY On Winning at Shipping and Logistics Strategy CEO of Dotcom Distribution Long term, labor and warehouse space will continue to command premium pricing. In our research, we’ve learned that 48 percent of shoppers who’ve been doing more online…

“I only want to answer to my customers and employees. Building a long-term great company competes with the demands of building short-term profit. I’ve turned down more than a few seven-figure offers. -FOUNDER OF AN INC. 5000 CYBERSECURITY FIRM” PASSING ON THE BUCKS Venture capital funding isn’t the holy grail for startups that it’s often made out to be. While many Inc. 5000 honorees found it worthwhile to pursue funding, 41 percent of them ultimately turned it down. As an entrepreneur, you must weigh how badly you need the cash and if your business can succeed under the terms you’re offered. The biggest issue, though, is whether giving up some control of the business is a tradeoff you’re willing to make.…

40.9% SAID RECRUITING GREATTALENT IS THEIR FACTOR FOR INNOVATION. TEAM BUILDING Innovation depends heavily on research and development, creating strategic partnerships, and interfacing with customers. But the most important element, Inc. 5000 founders say, is getting the right people into your organization. That means constantly finding new ways to identify the talent you need. “We always grew organically in the past. We knew people. People knew us,” says Richard Steinberg, founder of Nationwide Mortgage Bankers. “Now we’re recruiting for…

X Social Media (XSM) isn’t like other marketing agencies. Sure, it delivers cost-effective results for clients at scale. But its real purpose is to help abuse survivors and victims of corporate greed fi nd justice by connecting them to relevant civil lawsuits called mass torts. Since 2015, XSM has used Facebook and Instagram advertising to connect more than 500,000 people to legal representation across a range of injustices. XSM fights to end racial discrimination, sexual abuse, human trafficking, and injuries caused by prescription drugs and manufactured devices by holding companies and people accountable for their actions. Founder and CEO Jacob Malherbe was inspired to start the firm after he successfully used digital media to make a difference after the BP oil spill. Today, XSM is Inc.’s 159th fastest-growing business with…

Buy an Old Phone Number When brothers Berek and Josh Awend took over American Drapery Systems from their parents four years ago, they learned a local competitor in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area had changed its phone number after being acquired by a larger company. Josh also learned that for $10 a month, they could have any and all calls placed to the old number forwarded to their company. It’s been such a solid pipeline of leads that the brothers have bought two other competitors’ abandoned numbers as well. Talk to Shelf Stockers When launching his coconut water brand—Harmless Harvest—in 2010, Justin Guilbert showed up at 6 a.m. to help workers at two Manhattan Whole Foods unload trucks and stock shelves. By talking to the people with intimate knowledge of the…

I detest the term work-life balance. Life doesn’t work that way. I much prefer to treat life as a series of choices, which I make using my priorities–professional and personal–as the filter. For example, when my family was living in Dallas and I got a new job in Silicon Valley, I moved there alone. My daughter was in high school, and instead of uprooting her life, I opted to live separately, flying back to Dallas almost every weekend for three years. In my new book, I share my story and what I’ve learned from 30 years in the tech industry–14 of those as one of its first female African American CEOs. The book contains actionable strategies for succeeding in business and in life. READ MORE OF ITS KEY LESSONS AT…

Since starting a venture capital firm a few years ago, I’ve met plenty of entrepreneurs who are being led astray by others—hungry vulture capitalists, misinformed mentors, and three-office-hours-a-week professors who love to give everyone A’s. But enough about those guys—for now at least. Let’s talk instead about the entrepreneurs who lead themselves astray. They spend years careering down a bumpy road, certain that success is just around the bend, when what they really need to do is pull over, get out of the truck, and take a long, hard look at the map. I’m guessing that with all that’s happened this year, some of you are already doing that. And yet it’s amazing how fixated entrepreneurs can be. Because every day is devoted to their quest, it becomes a part…

Most companies have adjusted to pandemic life—they’ve refitted their existing organization to the new environment. But rather than simply adjust, think about the giant opportunity you now have to completely reboot—to take all the promise and unfulfilled potential of your team on a six-month journey toward 10x transformation. Before the pandemic, you were hopeful, but hungry for fast and focused collaboration and constructive and candid discussion. You were eager, but impatient to see signs of agility from your senior team in the face of change—or to initiate disruptive change. The potential for exponential growth and unrealized innovation maybe felt just out of reach. Look back on the past six months and your team likely did some extraordinary things. But what about the next six months? There will be great fortunes…

ACCEL-KKR Menlo Park, Calif. AE INDUSTRIAL PARTNERS Boca Raton, Fla. ALPINE INVESTORS San Francisco ARGENTUM New York City BOYNE CAPITAL Miami BRENTWOOD ASSOCIATES Los Angeles BRENTWOOD ASSOCIATES “This team has cared for our company and collaborated with us in a way that no accolade could ever accurately capture.” –Lauren Bailey, co-founder and CEO of Upward Projects CLAYTON, DUBILIER & RICE New York City CLEARVIEW CAPITAL Stamford, Conn. ENLIGHTENMENT CAPITAL Chevy Chase, Md. FULCRUM EQUITY PARTNERS Atlanta GAUGE CAPITAL Dallas GRANITE CREEK CAPITAL PARTNERS Chicago GREAT HILL PARTNERS Boston THE TOP 50 FOUNDER-FRIENDLY PRIVATE EQUITY FIRMS HCI EQUITY PARTNERS Washington, D.C. JMI EQUITY Baltimore and San Diego KIAN CAPITAL PARTNERS Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C. “They will push you to build the best business you can and will be very, very transparent.”…

ONE OF THE MOST telling definitions of entrepreneurship, courtesy of Howard Stevenson, a professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, is also one of the simplest: the pursuit of opportunity beyond the resources controlled. And let’s face it: In 2020, no one has been controlling anything. Whether it’s a pandemic, government-mandated business shutdowns, or unheard-of forest fires, the uncontrollable has erupted at a global level and filtered down to the trivial details of daily life. But, as Stevenson tells us, if anyone has experience with the uncontrollable, it’s entrepreneurs. In spite of the challenges, entrepreneurs continue to do what they do best: improvise, adapt, and make something from nothing. In the pages that follow, the women on Inc.’s annual Female Founders 100 list show how to do just that. As our…

IMAN ABUZEID Incredible Health With Incredible Health, Iman Abuzeid has created the fastestgrowing career marketplace for health care workers. And she’s done it by empowering nurses, who are right up there on the pedestal with Mom and apple pie—and too often have about as much negotiating power. Abuzeid was well-positioned to see exactly what was wrong with the employment market for nurses. As an MD, and then as a management consultant working in hospital operations and strategy, Abuzeid understood the impact of the nursing shortage. In her personal life, many of her family and friends are doctors, and would complain about understaffing. Yet her co-founder’s sisters are both nurses—and would often lament that although they are experienced and qualified, it would take them months to find new jobs. Abuzeid raised…

There will be days when you’re bootstrapping your business, and you pay everybody but don’t pay yourself, but somehow you still have the energy and excitement to get up and go back to work the next day. That’s when you know you’re an entrepreneur. When you’re a founder, and you believe it and live it, it becomes a part of your fabric or quilt that you’re building for your life. It’s a journey; it’s not a sprint. It’s about believing in yourself and having a mantra. If I didn’t struggle, I wouldn’t have an appreciation for what’s possible. A wise woman told me that when you do what you were meant to do on this earth, you will help millions of people. It will not be a job. It’s what…

1 Stop thinking. Build a habit around a single activity–a five-minute walk, making coffee, taking a shower, meditation–that gets your mind off your current stressors. 2 Celebrate your wins. Each night, write down at least three positive moments for you and your team that day–like a gratitude journal, but for wins. 3 Narrow your focus. Stay dedicated to one big goal per day. Three big goals per week. Don’t get trapped by your never-ending to-do list.…

PETER Q. BLAIR is on the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he co-directs the Project on Workforce. He also serves as a faculty research fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research and the principal investigator of the Blair Economics Lab. NOW THAT THE LABOR market has loosened, how can entrepreneurs retain the kind of talent they need to succeed? Blair: Communicate clearly and transparently with the team. For booming entrepreneurs, whose short-run objective is worker recruitment, I prescribe a large dose of humility. Start with the personal sacrifices you are willing to make for the well-being of the team. A servant leader lays the foundation for the team to co-develop a plan of shared sacrifice that prioritizes the well-being of the most vulnerable team members.…

KAREN G. MILLS was a member of President Obama’s cabinet, leading the Small Business Administration from 2009 to 2013. Now she is president of MMP Group, which invests in financial services, consumer products, and technology. She is the author of Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream: How Technology Is Transforming Lending and Shaping a New Era of Small Business Opportunity. WHAT ROLE HAVE fintechs played in the lending space since the onset of the pandemic? Mills: The really interesting thing that happened is that fintechs got approved for delivering loans. Fintechs are not banks. So Square and Intuit and Kabbage and PayPal needed to get special Treasury and SBA approval. That turned out to be very fortuitous, because they spent the three weeks while they were awaiting approval building…

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING The first thing that grabs you is the numbers: Revenue totaling $209.7 billion. Nearly 600,000jobs created. Four- and even five-figure revenue growth rates. All it takes is a quick look at the recently released 2020 Inc. 5000 to crystallize the astonishing success of America’s fastest-growing businesses. ///// But as remarkable as they are, the stats don’t give a full picture of what these companies have achieved. The Inc. 5000 list comes out once a year; running an Inc. 5000 business requires unwavering dedication, savvy management, and employee buy-in every single day. You don’t get the accolades unless you first do the work. ///// A closer look inside the numbers also shows that there’s no single path to becoming the leader of a fast-growing company. The Inc. 5000 comprises…

There is too much complacency in the consumer apparel industry, says Jay Barton, founder and CEO of ASRV, a sportswear and training apparel brand. He believes people should expect their clothing to improve their performance all day, in and out of the gym. Barton had the idea for ASRV in 2014, when he couldn’t fi nd apparel to fit his entrepreneurial lifestyle-clothing that could take him from the coffee shop, to a client meeting, to a workout. He sold nearly $750,000 the first year and knew he was onto something. Since then, ASRV has about doubled in size every year. Today, it is an Inc. 5000-ranking company-a premium brand with more than 250,000 customers, including professional athletes and celebrities. WEAVING IN SMART TEXTILES Customers often discover ASRV on Instagram. But…

Engineering school trained brothers Ashot and Vazgen Avakyan to be problem-solvers, but their entrepreneurial instincts were already sharp in grade school. Growing up in Armenia, their father would pay them for every book they read. They also earned money by washing vehicles for him and his business partners. By the time they had immigrated to Philadelphia at ages 14 and 12, earned their degrees, and worked a while in corporate jobs, they had an itch to start their own business. With their research pointing to signs of an accelerating demand for business-to- consumer and business-to-business shipping, they saw an opportunity in trucking. They decided to become a contractor with Federal Express, providing delivery services in the Greater Philadelphia area. In 2013, they opened Urartu Logistics, named after a kingdom in…

No matt er how much unconditional love furry pets provide, the vast majority come with a frustrating trait: fur that sheds. Dog, cat, bunny, and guinea pig owners routinely grapple with removing their pet’s cast-off fur from their homes. That situation is how Aaron Muller, CEO of Word Ape, LLC, the manufacturer and marketer of the ChomChom Roller brand recognized the need for a better pet hairremoval device. While staying at his business partner Tetsu Liew’s house in 2009, he would fi nd fur from Liew’s two cats covering nearly everything he owned. No matter what he used to try and get rid of it - lint rollers, sticky paper, brush - it was never quite good enough. Recognizing Muller’s frustration with his cats, while in Singapore on business in…

“We’ve been more judicious in our deployment of capital for growth activities, and in general are running our business more efficiently. –FOUNDER OF AN INC. 5000 IT SERVICES AND INVESTMENT FIRM” CHANGE ON THE FLY The Covid-19 pandemic has caused widespread retrenchment among previously fast-growing businesses. Investment has slowed; deals have been scotched and hiring plans scaled back. But for some, the upheaval has been a blessing in disguise. If you embrace it as an opportunity to increase your company’s agility, cut unnecessary spending, and rethink processes, you can emerge from the crisis stronger than you were before it.…

FORGE YOUR OWN PATH It’s hard not to think about the potential riches that can come from starting a business, but that’s not the primary reason most people take the leap. Whether you have a can’t-miss business idea or just a burning desire to venture out on your own, eventually the pull may become too strong to ignore. When that happens, be ready to go all in, certain that you’re fully committed to what you’re getting yourself into. Or, as one Inc. 5000 founder puts it, “make persistence part of your DNA.”…

“In my experience, the hardest thing about being a founder is the peaks and valleys of motivation that one experiences. I regret not pushing harder at times. I regret times when I was complacent and content with mediocre results. Self-discipline is an absolute must-have for a founder who wants to build something that lasts. -FOUNDER OF AN INC. 5000 STAFFING AGENCY” MAINTAIN FOCUS Even if your inspiration flags sometimes, that doesn’t mean your workload will. In those instances, you need to find an outlet that helps you keep pushing forward. It might be a new exercise regimen, a cooking class, or a session with a mentor. Whatever it takes for you to return to (and stay at) optimum productivity, take advantage of it as soon as you can. There’s nothing…

MOMPRENEUR Shazi Visram INFANT NUTRITION Visram founded New York City-based organic baby food company Happy Family in 2003. THREE-YEAR GROWTH SPURT Happy Family, a B Corp, debuted on the Inc. 5000 in 2011 at No. 68, and made the list again the following two years. HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! French food giant Danone acquired 92 percent of Happy Family on Mother’s Day 2013, reportedly for more than $250 million. No entrepreneur can predict the future, but that shouldn’t stop you from making an educated guess. While still in business school, this founder identified a potential buyer for her company-even though she hadn’t started it yet. Ten years later, the fanciful notion proved to be prophetic. What made you feel ready to sell Happy Family? It wasn’t a milestone as much as…

TRISTAN WALKER: “I got to know Roz Brewer four or five years ago. She was the CEO of Sam’s Club at the time-one of the very few large-company CEOs of color- and right away I knew she was a force to be reckoned with. 1 remember when 1 invited her to come speak at Walker & Company. One of my colleagues asked her, ‘Is it possible to have it all?’ Roz’s response was, ‘Yes. Just not at the same time.’ Which makes you think, right? She meant that, as we progress through our lives, our priorities shift. Faith, family, work: We optimize tor them differently at different times. It means that you don’t have to bite off more than you can chew, and you can still be wildly ambitious and…

Since 2014, Baltimore in a Box has been crafting and mailing care packages full of local goodies like Utz crab chips, Berger Cookies, and Natty Boh beer koozies. With everyone stuck at home this year, business has been booming. Insider wondered just what goes into running a gift-box business, and asked the company’s founder, Ross Nochumowitz, to run the numbers for us. –sophie downes 18 Number of local businesses whose products are sold by Baltimore in a Box. Aside from snacks and coffee, customers can send coasters, T-shirts, Maryland-flag facemasks, and even steamed crabs. (The crabs are shipped directly from popular local restaurant Jimmy’s Famous Seafood.) 10 Number of flavors developed with local ice cream maker Cream Cruiser, which include many of the treats available in Baltimore boxes. They include “I’m So…

“THE OLD RESTAURANT MODEL IS DEAD. IT NO LONGER MAKES SENSE TO PAY FIXED RENT FOR SPACE PEOPLE CAN’T SIT IN.” SETH GOLDMAN Work Experience: Honest Tea 1998-2020 Co-founder of healthy tea startup, which sold to Coca-Cola Coca-Cola 2011-2020 Innovation catalyst for emerging brands Beyond Meat 2015-2020 Executive chair for plant-based-meat brand Eat the Change 2020- Co-founder of nonprofit that distributes grants to planet-friendly food startups and makes mushroom jerky PLNT Burger 2020- Co-founder of vegan fast-casual chain Insider Food delivery has grown in the past six months as much as it had in the previous five years. What are the implications for real estate? Goldman It no longer makes sense to pay fixed rent for space people can’t sit in. I think you will see a lot more ghost kitchens–restaurants that offer only pickup…

Thinking back on it, the fruit flies should’ve been a warning signal. My company, Iodine, had the quintessential San Francisco startup office: ground-floor loft off an alley in the South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood. The space was great—except that the building’s garbage room was right off our front door. Thomas Goetz (@tgoetz) is an entrepreneur and journalist. In 2016, he sold his digital health startup, Iodine, to GoodRx, where he now serves as chief of research. Our neighbors (who ran another, far less spectacular startup) were not diligent about properly disposing of their lunch leftovers, and during warm weeks, that garbage room became a breeding ground for fruit flies, which would inevitably swarm their way into our office by the hundreds. Gross. So, every few months, I would arm myself…

When Charlie Olson stepped onto Stanford University’s campus to start the fulltime MBA program in the fall of 2015, he didn’t consider himself an entrepreneur. Those were the “hyper-creative” types who had the ability to build something out of nothing — a mindset, and a skill set, he just didn’t have. Or so he thought. That began to change early in Olson’s second year at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business when he met Eric Lax, who was studying for both an MBA and a master’s in data science. “He had the brightest, most creative, most innovative mind that I had ever met,” Olson says of their first meeting. “I thought, ‘Hey, you know what, I actually have a shot at entrepreneurship as long as I pay attention to Eric.’” Pay…

Gregg Renfrew, the founder and CEO of Beautycounter, a pioneering business in “clean beauty,” lives in Santa Monica, California-not far from Hollywood. So it’s no surprise she would be inspired by a movie. And she was, though not by a traditional Hollywood blockbuster. She was motivated to start Beautycounter by An Inconvenient Truth, the 2006 documentary that details former vice president Al Gore’s efforts to warn people of the rising threats of environmental destruction and climate change. “I realized that a lot of what I was doing in my life was detrimental to the earth,” Renfrew says. “At the same time, people I knew were being diagnosed with differ- ent types of cancer. I just put two and two together: Some of the things that were causing challenges to the…

TRACEE ELLIS ROSS Pattern is the hair care line she’d always wanted but no one had created—until now. As an entrepreneur, Tracee Ellis Ross would seem to have some clear advantages: She’s an award-winning actor, producer, and activist-and the daughter of Diana Ross. Yet her first steps into starting her own business brought her the same frustration and rage that so many founders-especially female founders-know all too well. A few years ago, Ross brought the idea for Pattern, a hair care line for curly, coily, and tight-textured hair, to her contact at her talent agency. “She made me cry,” recalls Ross. “She was like, ‘Why would anyone want hair products from you? You’re an actor.’ ” Like many entrepreneurs, Ross was motivated by her own experience: She knew, from years…

SARA MENKER Gro Intelligence Ticker prices and stock symbols surrounded Sara Menker when she worked as a commodities trader in the 2000s. But she noticed one field was lacking in data: agriculture. “Nearly every part of our lives depends on this multitrillion-dollar industry,” she says, “and it didn’t have a data platform.” Menker built one. Gro Intelligence pulls global agricultural data from thousands of data sets, and then uses artificial intelligence to create forecasts for supply, demand, and pricing. Wondering how much pork will cost in China next year? Gro crunches tens of thousands of data points- weather, international trade volume, projected soybean and corn yields (i.e., pig food)-to produce an answer that makes sense to both pig farmers and hedge fund managers. Using publicly available satellite images from space…

When Tyler Haney appeared on the cover of Inc. two years ago, the direct-to-consumer athletic apparel company she founded, Outdoor Voices, was one of the hottest startups in America’s hottest startup city, Austin. At gyms and on college campuses, OV’s signature color- blocked leggings had become a kind of athleisure uniform for the Instagram set. Shortly after our story appeared, The New Yorker followed up with a long meditation on the brand’s appeal. No less than Mickey Drexler, the so-called Merchant Prince who’d turned both the Gap and J. Crew into retail icons, invested in OV, and became its chairman in 2016. OV had 130 employees when Haney appeared on our cover, and by late last year it had opened 11 brick-and-mortar stores around the country. Then came news of internal…

PREDICTION: TOMORROW IS BRIGHT Yeah, we said it. Now get ready to make it come true. RENITA KALHORN is an executive coach, trained concert pianist, and black belt in martial arts. She works with visionary leaders and their teams to help them perform at the top of their game. The Covid-19 pandemic hit the U.S. like a severe weather event: Fueled by adrenaline and urgency, most business owners stopped everything this spring to hunker down for what we hoped would be a very temporary crisis. Then, we held our breath for months, waiting for signs that it was OK to start planning again. But as we continue to steer our businesses through the pandemic- and social unrest, natural disasters, and more economic uncertainty- it’s become easy to wonder: Is “all…

JULIAN BASS is a 20-year-old theater major at Georgia State. His visual-effects video has been viewed on social media more than 35 million times since April and caught the attention of Hollywood dealmakers, including Disney’s Bob Iger. Bass is now represented by ICM Partners. DURING THE pandemic, you went from doing what you loved and posting it on TikTok and Twitter to grabbing the attention of Hollywood executives and landing representation. How did you make that happen? Bass: I’m a very active person and I like to be out there doing things, but during the pandemic, I was home in this small room. Still, I could churn away at some work on the computer, have a lot of creative freedom, and reach people on social media-people who had time to…

GET READY FOR SOME PAIN… REBECCA RYAN is a futurist, economist, author, and the founder of Futurist Camp. A lot of companies will go out of business because of this downturn, but a good number of those closures will have been avoidable, because they will be caused by fear alone. I’m a futurist, but I’m a small-business owner, too. Most of us are used to some kind of seasonal planning. Right now, the normal planning cycles for many business are … messed up. Things we thought we could maybe put off, we can’t. Decisions that we never felt we would have to make, or felt we would have to make, or felt we wouldn’t have to make for a long time, are right up to our noses. When the human…

‘‘Our team has pivoted to virtual events. All the teams got together and became experts to develop, sell, and service this new product in less than eight weeks. I can’t know what will happen next, but I can confidently say that my team will be ready for it and adapt to any disaster that comes our way. -FOUNDER OF AN INC. 5000 EVENT SOFTWARE COMPANY„ PLAN AHEAD Entrepreneurs can’t prepare for every event that significantly affects their business. The best ones, though, put the right people and processes in place to deal with all manner of unforeseen situations. When a big customer leaves, an economic downturn occurs, or even a pandemic hits, they’re ready. Organizing early might make the difference between struggling to survive and discovering a new business opportunity.…

The founders of Aptive Environmental had a bold aspiration: to become the largest residential pest control company in the United States. Just four years after the company’s launch, it proved to be a serious competitor for the title by taking the No. 7 spot on Pest Control Technology’s Top 100 list for 2019. If one company on the list that does commercial business exclusively were eliminated, Aptive would be No. 6 in the residential market, notes Co-Founder and CEO Vess Pearson. With 43 branch locations, the company’s workforce more than tripled between 2016 and 2019. From the start, Pearson and his business partner, David Royce, were determined to make Aptive Environmental extraordinary. “We brought a white-collar approach to a bluecollar industry,” he says. WOW CUSTOMERS AND WORKERS Pearson says Aptive…

“We’ve chosen to take this opportunity to lead. We have made Juneteenth a holiday, have increased recruiting at HBCUs, and have created a new philanthropic partnership with Black Code Collective to ensure we’re recruiting a diversity of candidates and supporting the industry. -FOUNDER OF AN INC. 5000 CONSULTING SERVICES FIRM” RETHINKING RECRUITING Conventional efforts to improve diversity hiring practices are mere table stakes for businesses today. Creating a truly diverse and inclusive workplace requires a full-on, top-down reimagining of your company’s mission, rules, and culture. Those who neglect this critical aspect of their business are destined to be left behind by competitors-and everybody else.…