Founded in 1979 and acquired in 2005 by Mansueto Ventures LLC, Inc. is the only major brand dedicated exclusively to owners and managers of growing private companies, with the aim to deliver real solutions for today’s innovative company builders.
A few months ago, I met a woman who I thought was brave. She had started her career as an engineer a few decades ago, back when there were few women engineers and even fewer engineers who were women and, as she is, African American. Though she was well enough regarded to ride out her time in the corporate world and end it with something like S’s and V’s and P’s in her job title, she turned her back on that success and stability to start her own business, a line of skin care products. The recipes for her products were inspired by home remedies from her grandmother’s garden, and she wanted to share their benefits. Oh, she did this, by the way, while raising three children as a single…
Why put just one impressive founder on the cover when you can feature seven? That’s what felt most appropriate for this year’s Female Founders 100, a celebration of powerful women across a range of industries. In August, Inc. brought together Amy Fan, Allyson Felix, Sophia Wang, Pinky Cole, Dany Garcia, Cameron Diaz, and Katherine Power in L.A. for our cover shoots with photographer Cara Robbins. “There’s always something so incredible and motivating about being around inspiring women,” Felix says. “The whole day reminded me to keep working hard for women.”…
EXPERT ADVICE FROM INC.’S INNER CIRCLE THERE ARE PLENTY of behaviors that can get you banned from a shopping mall—most of them unfit to describe in print. But for Illumix CEO Kirin Sinha, banishment is a small price to pay to get ahead: “I’m a huge believer in ‘launch early, launch fast, learn quickly,’ ” says the augmented reality game maker. That guiding principle is why Sinha and her two co-founders spent much of 2017—their company’s first year—testing products. But instead of asking formal focus groups for feedback, they hit up mall walkers. The Illumix team would approach random shoppers in two San Francisco-area malls, handing them smartphones programmed with 30 seconds of AR gameplay and observing their real-life reactions to the games’ virtual worlds—looking at simple mechanical details like…
CRUNCH FITNESS CEO Jim Rowley has seen many fitness fads come and go. The former Marine spent 15 years as an executive at 24 Hour Fitness, founded three gyms of his own, and has been at Crunch for 13 years. So when he says to jump on a trend, know that his opinion carries weight. What trends will shape fitness over the next year? Ten years ago, 90 percent of the people doing dead lifts were men. Now we’re seeing many more women doing them. I’ve been in the business for 30 years and I didn’t see that coming. But what I do see coming is post-Covid demand for personal training. People, especially now, want fast results and customization. There’s always something they want to change about their body, whether…
When Access Holdings was founded eight years ago, Kevin McAllister started with a specific vision in mind: purposeful investing. Rather than just pursuing businesses for sale, his team focuses on identifying fragmented markets characterized by stability and growing demand, then seeking out small and midsize companies that stand out in their sectors. Often, Access Holdings ends up providing the first institutional capital these businesses see. “Owners of these companies have been highly successful but face challenges scaling and innovating their organizations and undertaking programmatic M&A,” McAllister says. “We are not just buying these companies; we are providing the capabilities and technology solutions needed to bring their ventures to the next level to better serve their customers, employees, and communities.” The Access Holdings process starts with extensive research into industries it…
IF YOUR BEST ideas come to you in the shower, you might need a new way to brainstorm, given how record droughts are driving up water bills. Or, like Carlos Gomez Andonaegui, you could view the climate crisis as a market opportu nity. Back in 2010, he was CEO of a chain of high-end gyms in Mexico City. With 25,000 customers showering each day, Gomez Andonaegui found the company’s profits evaporating as a result of costly water bills. The low-flow showerheads he tried produced a less-than-pre mi um experience. So he asked his father, a former engineer, to build a showerhead that would use less water without sacrificing temperature and pressure. The 84-year-old Emilio scaled down a fluid compression nozzle used in rocket engines to do just that. To improve…
