By All Means

In our first Mentor Series pairing, Chuck Runyon, co-founder of Anytime Fitness, the world's largest fitness franchise chain, and its parent company Purpose Brands (formerly Self Esteem Brands), which includes Orangetheory Fitness, Waxing the City, and several other franchise businesses in beauty and fitness talks about transitioning out the CEO role to board chair. He offers advice to Melanie Richards, founder and CEO of goGLOW. Richards started her spray tan business in 2011 and with seven corporate stores open, she started franchising in 2024. Now with 78 units sold across the country, Richards is navigating the change from scrappy founder to leader of a national brand. Plus: Office Hours wtih the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University. Economics professor Louis Johnston offers advice to founders on knowing what you're best at, what to hire out, and the importance of telling the story of your business.

A chemical engineer turned community development organizer, Anthony Taylor shares the career journey that led him to founding Melanin in Motion, a Community Wellness Center program that connects children of color—and their families – with active pursuits like skiing, cycling, kayaking. Melanin in Motion was a Twin Cities Business 2024 Community Impact Award winner. “I noticed my white friends, when they think about preparing their kids for law school, they're putting them in the woods. That's the secret for making more lawyers,” Taylor says. “I want all communities to realize the benefits of municipal, state, federal investment in natural places that can show up in children being resilient, confident, and collaborative.” Taylor talks about how working for successful Minnesota wellness companies, Life Time and Aveda, helped him become a well rounded leader, and what he learned from his own startups, Spa One and Simply Organic Beauty, that led him to shift course and work for the Loppet Foundation and as president of equity outdoors for the YMCA of the North. “Melanin in Motion really is the culmination of that idea, where we see culture as an asset,” Taylor says. He also gives us a preview of his next venture: RiverNorth Development Partners, a social impact development group that is working to create a business district in North Minneapolis that prioritizes “equity driven employers” that agree to create skilled jobs for area residents who have been marginalized. Ion Aerospace is first to sign on, with plans to open on West Broadway in 2025. Following our conversation with Taylor, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship where associate professor Alex Johnson teaches entrepreneurship. He talks about the pros and cons of starting a venture on your own versus within a larger organization, and explains the difference between an inventor and an innovator. “Inventors create things. Innovators identify the problem, the value, and build a solution.”

Peter Mogck and Matt Frakes turned their love of Minnesota lake life, and their desire to start something of their own into Paddle North, a water gear manufacturer best known for its inflatable paddle boards. The company marks its 10th anniversary this year, now with a team of 25 employees, and a line of products that has expanded to include kayaks, utility docks, and apparel The founders share keys to their successful partnership—Frakes is a mechanical engineer; Mogck runs marketing and branding, and both say they have “short memories” when disagreements occur, keeping in mind that they always know they both want the same thing: to continue scaling this company. They each put in $15,000 to start it, and have grown without outside investors, utilizing pre-orders to pay for manufacturing, outsourcing some production to keep their overhead low, and through grassroots marketing, from popup shops to social media. Even on the most challenging, demanding days, Frakes says the two never lose site of how lucky they are: “Our day to day business is making toys for the water.” Following the conversation, we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Seth Ketron is an assistant marketing professor. He talks about the importance of crafting a brand story. “How do you come up with a message that resonates with people, that they're willing to spread, and how do you make it easy for them to spread, and make sure it's something that really matters to people.”

Pet Evolution is a fast-growing pet supply chain that started with one locally owned store in Woodbury, Minn. back in 2012 and has really picked up steam in the last couple of years since it started franchising. There are now seven stores in the Twin Cities and St. Cloud, and 15 nationally. By the end of the year, 24 are expected to be open, from New York to Oregon. In the $147 billion dollar pet industry, Rian Thiele saw a space between big box stores and mom and pop shops to create a chain focused on premium food and services. What's perhaps most interesting about Thiele as an entrepreneur, is that he didn't grow up thinking about business. He always dreamed of being a police officer, and worked for the Carver County sheriff's department. He talks about the decision to leave his dream job to pursue a passion project and why he believes Pet Evolution can scale to 500 locations. Following our conversation with Thiele we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Erica Diehn is an associate professor of management and faculty director for the undergraduate program. She talks about the growing frequency of career transitions, especially among younger professionals, and offers advice for managers whose employees are more likely than ever before to leave for a passion project. “Understand what motivates that employee, what kinds of opportunities for learning and growth and challenges at work could keep them really excited.”

Dr. Aho is a surgeon and scientist with an insatiable appetite for invention and more than 20 patents to his name. He was still in his surgical residency at Mayo Clinic when he spotted an opportunity that led him to develop a medical device now in use around the world. Tension pneumothorax is a life-threatening emergency that occurs when air builds up between the lungs and chest wall. It's not especially common, but it's one of those medical situations that TV medical dramas often act out because the way to treat it is to jam a large needle into the chest and wait to hear a gush of air. It occurred to Aho: there had to be a better way. He developed the Capnospot, a device that provides visual confirmation that treatment of tension pneumothorax has been successful. The Capnospot is now standard equipment on ambulances and in emergency rooms everywhere, from Minnesota to Poland. It's the first product to be released by Aho's parent company, Pneumeric. But it took five years to get here, and challenges persist, from manufacturing to marketing. Aho walks us through the long, expensive process of earning FDA approval for a medical device. “I would have raised more money, earlier,” he says. “Everything takes twice as long, and costs twice as much as you expect.” He's raised $2.2 million to date. Aho says venture capital for medical devices tends to go to the really big ideas, rather than “little innovations,” like the Capnospot, that improve on everyday treatments. We discuss the opportunities, and the challenges, of being both practicing surgeon and entrepreneur. “Being a doctor, you get to help people,” Aho says. “Doing a medical device, I get to help people on a system wide, national and international scale.” Following our conversation with Aho, we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Dan McLaughlin is a senior executive fellow who teaches health care management. He explains why Aho's path to successful medtech developer is unique; most medtech innovation comes out of big companies that employ teams of scientists. He points out the value of basic business training in helping entrepreneurial thinkers turn their ideas into business.

It started as a fun project with his kids: creating the “best hot cocoa in the world.” After countless tries, Dean Packingham thought he had succeeded, and everyone who tried his instant cocoa mix agreed. Named for his kids, Mike & Jen's Hot Cocoa debuted at specialty shops in their hometown of Duluth. Today, it's sold in more than 1,300 stores nationwide including Costco, Target, and Meijer. Packingham has grown his home project to a regional brand with just one partner and no outside investors. “It's a little bit of a sleeper category, hot cocoa—there wasn't much in the premium part of the category to compete with,” Packingham says. It may have started as a hobby, but Packingham went all in: selling his house, living in a trailer, leaving a 27-year career in meteorology, and even buying a fitness franchise to fund the hot cocoa business. He talks about scaling, from finding a co-packer to planning for a seasonal product to being disciplined about not adding other products too quickly. Mike & Jen's has already attracted some interest from larger companies, but Packingham says he's in no rush to be acquired. “As long as we're having fun, we're happy to keep doing this.” Following our conversation with Packingham, we go back to the classroom with Jay Ebben, an entrepreneurship professor at the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. Ebben talks about the challenges of scaling a consumer products goods business without raising money. “It forces you to figure out what the selling equation is and how to get it done,” Ebben says. “Raising money… might take away some of the financial stress, but at the same time, right now, they've got the freedom to grow as they like, operate as they like, and not feel some of the pressure that comes along with having investors on board.”

“People think, oh, it's just a catchy slogan. No. If marketing does it's job, it's what does your brand stand for and how do you buy things. If we do that really well, we're the number one growth driver of a business.” Margaret Murphy is the founder and CEO of Bold Orange, a Minneapolis-based marketing agency focused on customer experience, growth, acquisition, engagement, and retention. Her company frequently shows up on “best workplaces” lists and she herself has won numerous accolades for leadership. She learned the ropes at Carlson Marketing Group, and co-founded Denali Marketing, which was acquired by Olson. At Olson, she served as president and chief operating officer. Following an “adult gap year,” Murphy started Bold Orange in 2018. Today, she leads a team of more than 120 serving clients such as Target, eBay, and CitiBank. Murphy offers advice on mentorship, marketing, leadership and work culture. “Action changes everything,” Murphy says. “If you have good ideas or a good thing the market needs, don't keep talking about it. Make something happen. That's entrepreneurial.” Following our conversation with Murphy, we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Gino Giovanelli is a marketing professor. “I think grit is so undervalued,” he says. “That's the biggest differentiator between people being successful and not.” Grit is tough to teach, but Giovanelli shares lessons in successful leadership approaches, which leads to quality work in marketing, or any other field. “It's investing in the relationships.”

“I thought, you know what I could do? I could make games.” Julien Sharp is a game inventor and industry executive who moved to Minnesota in 2022 to head up the U.S. division of Paris-based Asmodee Group, a global game company with a portfolio that includes Catan, Spot it!, Ticket to Ride, and Star Wars X-Wing. An avid game player, who can solve a Rubik Cube in 45 seconds (which she says is amateur stuff), Sharp started out in the industry as the inventor of several games including Disruptus and Juxtabo. She sold her company, Funnybone Toys, to FoxMind Toys & Games, and went on to work for popular names including What Do You Meme? And Spin Master toys. Sharp takes us inside the fast-growing $13 billion global industry, from the challenge of creating a game that endures to the power of play—for both kids and adults. Sharp says games are played every day in the Asmodee office in Lino Lakes, Minn. But her work is not all fun and games. “Budgets, logistics, sell-throughs—there's all the aspects of business,” she says. “But if you're going to do all that, why not do it in games?” Following our conversation with Sharp, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business, where Tera Galloway is an associate professor in the Department of Management—and an avid game player who is working to incorporate games into her business classes. “The idea of gamification in learning is huge. There's the collaborative component, which is good for mental health and it increases [feelings of] belonging.” Galloway is currently working on teaching methods that use board games to teach leadership, cultural change and strategic thinking.

Lisa Lavin is on a mission to change the way the world cares for the people we care about. “We don't have enough resources to take care of the number of people that are aging. So how do we do that? We leverage technology.” Lavin the founder and CEO of Ōmcare, a digital health company that pioneered the Home Health Hub, an interactive telehealth solution which monitors patients taking medication. It makes remote care possible and more efficient for health care professionals and those caring for an aging relative. Ōmcare is now available direct to consumer and through some health care systems. But it's taken Lavin more than a decade to get here. She charts the course, from the patent that inspired the idea to a testing phase with pets to raising more than $12 million in venture funding and releasing the product this year. “We have big visions on how we can actually change the way the world cares,” Lavin says. “And it is beyond what we're doing today.” Following our conversation with Lavin, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Mike Porter is a senior clinical faculty member in the marketing department. He calls out a few of Lavin's smart moves: - Thinking ahead—working on patents while still trying to get the first product off the ground - Conducting a low-stakes test drive of the product with pets - Making telehealth easy and approachable

If you spend any amount of time in or around the startup community in the Twin Cities, you will no doubt hear the name Daren Cotter. Today, most people know him as an investor and advisor—his personal portfolio includes more than 100 startups—primarily software as a service and tech. But before Cotter could focus full time on investing, he had to have an exit of his own. That was InBox Dollars, the rewards-based digital advertising platform he built in his college dorm room, scaled to a peak of $25 million in annual revenue, and sold, some 15 years later in May 2019, to a leading market research and insights firm, Prodege. Cotter shares his entrepreneurial journey, from concept to acquisition, as well as his investment philosophy and advice for founders—including not raising funds prematurely. "My personal viewpoint is a founder is often much better served by building the product, finding a few customers, proving that they're solving a real problem that the customer is willing to pay for, and then they think about raising capital." Takeaways Following our conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. Professor John McVea who talks about the entrepreneurial mindset. "It's a stance you take towards problem solving and getting things done that is distinctly different." Key traits, McVea says, include, "A comfort, a joy in ambiguity, in dealing with problems, being drawn to messy situations that are hard to solve...and the relentless ability to pivot from those learnings and to take a different direction."

Laura Roos started Minny & Paul as a way to take the hunt out of discovering high-quality, locally made goods. She launched in 2016 with a selection of themed gift boxes that she thought would be popular with bridal parties or for housewarmings. But very quickly, businesses started requesting large orders of boxes for clients or staff. Today, 80% of Minny & Paul's business is B2B and the company has gone beyond Minnesota to spotlight makers nationwide and offer curated gift boxes as well as ready-to-order options. The creative side drew her in, but Roos talks about the logistics and leadership that have made Minny & Paul a success. A request for a customized Minny & Paul box filled with CBD products inspired Roos' next startup, the new Mary & Jane, which sells microdose cannabis products. “I love a challenge,” Roos says. “I think the most important thing to keep in mind as you're building any business is problems are going to come up all the time and it's really just about how you react to them and your creative problem solving that's going to fix them.” Following the conversation with Roos, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Seth Ketron is an assistant professor of marketing and has studied the subscription box market. His advice to those thinking of starting one is ask yourself: “What's your product? What are you trying to do?" If you're working with something that people…know they're going to use every month, a subscription could be functional. But if it's just for the sake of a gimmick, you probably want to think that through.”

Ashley Hawks was a successful working model, in print and on runways around the world. But when she thought about her goal of making a magazine cover, she realized, “I'll still be promoting somebody else's brand, somebody else's lipstick, somebody else's clothing line. And it was this light switch of, I want to be on the cover because of something I did, because of something I built. I want my name next to my picture.” For her first startup, Hawks built on what she knew. Style & Grace offered training for models and pageant queens. She made money, but realized the business wasn't scalable—all of the students wanted to work with her directly. Her next venture took her back to her childhood, working in her mom's bridal boutique. Hawks launched Forever Bride in 2012 as a tool to support the local wedding industry online. She created a network of small businesses and built a national following for her online platform and boutique market experiences. Halted by the pandemic, she took a shot and reached out to the CEO of David's Bridal, who not only responded, he became a trusted ally and eventually acquired Forever Bride in 2022. (They renamed it Pearl.) Hawks went to work for the national wedding retailer, but after a year, realized her entrepreneurial spirit didn't mesh well with a corporate setting. Her latest venture is Soar Leadership Groups, creating forums, events, and adventures for business leaders. Following our conversation with Hawks, we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Erica Diehn is an associate professor of management. She wasn't surprised that Hawks didn't stay long at David's Bridal. “It's really tough to find entrepreneurial experiences in larger organizations.” “We call that person-organization fit,” Diehn says. “Not only does the job fit your skills and abilities, but the broader context of the way work is done, the culture of that organization, their mission and purpose. If that's not a strong fit with you as an individual, that's a hard one to overcome.”

“We're going to be helping hundreds of thousands of patients with our device and that's probably more than a lifetime of patients I could see as a physician.” By the time Allisa Song started medical school at Mayo Clinic in 2018, she was already the founder of an active medical device startup company called Nanodropper. The idea came to her in 2017, when she happened to read an article titled: "Drug Companies Make Eyedrops Too Big, and You Pay for the Waste.” “It really felt like we were letting people down,” Song says. “We have these great medications that are vision saving, and we're dangling it in front of people, saying that you have to pay this amount if you want to keep your vision.” The cost, the structure of benefits—it all felt “unfair,” Song says. But rather than go for the big industry-wide fix, she approached the wasted eye medicine problem with a harm reductionist mentality. “I was just trying to think about how can we develop a solution that we could put directly into the hands of patients.” That, for Song, was an eye drop bottle adapter with a smaller opening for less waste. The product, which sells for $19.99, is now available direct to consumer online and through thousands of medical clinics nationwide. Song talks about leveraging student startup competitions to fund the business, and juggling entrepreneurship with medical school. “Taking that first step in bringing your idea to life is a really powerful feeling.” Following our conversation with Song we go Back to the Classroom with Dan McLaughlin, senior executive fellow at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business, with a focus on health innovation. “One of the things I teach in my operations management class is how do you improve processes?” Often the best way to make a big impact is by addressing something small or seemingly mundane. Look for the opportunities, McLaughlin advises, in your daily routine.

Sean Higgins knew he was spending too much time on his phone—going down a YouTube rabbit hole when he meant to go for a run, or call his mom. But rather than fighting the ever-present phone, he imagined a new way to utilize the technology that sits in the palm of our hands—a better way, if you will. BetterYou is a digital coach that uses artificial intelligence to map how we spend our time and make suggestions to fulfill the goals we set for ourselves, like more exercise, more sleep, or calling mom every week. Higgins started BetterYou with partners in 2018, using seed money from his first start up, ilos, a video platform that was acquired by Paylocity and became VidGrid. He quickly realized the real opportunity for an app designed to “harmonize technology with wellbeing” was B2B. The first organizations to sign on were schools, which offered BetterYou as a service for students. BetterYou ended 2023 with a $6 million Series A funding raise. It's still early days, but this app is showing traction with users and Higgins is hopeful the company could hit profitability by the end of 2024. Higgins offers advice on going all in, knowing when to pivot, and vetting an idea without falling for false enthusiasm from those around you. He also talks about digital wellness in the age of AI. “We should be optimizing our lives around the things that matter most—not watching random ads.” After our conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship where Jay Ebben is a professor. He offers perspective on how AI is creating new startup opportunities, but cautions founders to make sure they're not just using technology for technology's sake, rather “doing something beneficial that can help our daily lives.”

What happens after a founder appears on Shark Tank, and walks away from a $250,000 offer? For Beth Fynbo, her Busy Baby activity mat saw six weeks worth of online sales in in three days. “And two weeks later,” she says, “no one had heard of us.” “I thought Shark Tank was going to be life changing, and it was—just not in the way that I thought.” Fynbo, an Army veteran and former health care account manager, was a new mom when inspiration struck. Kids were constantly dropping toys off their high chairs. Her Busy Baby silicone suction placemat keeps toys, teethers, and utensils secured in place. In 2023, two years after her Shark Tank appearance, Busy Baby logged $5 million in sales and introduced new add ons to its core product. Now with two years of growth and perspective since her national television debut, Fynbo talks about what it's really like to go on Shark Tank and what it's really like to build a business from the ground up, including raising money, creating an advisory board, navigating the waves of social media marketing, and charting a path to profitability. “You're never too old, and it's never too late to chase a new dream,” Fynbo says. “I was in the army for 10 years. I had this corporate career for 10 years. I had given up on being a mom, but became a mom and a business owner after 40. And I know that probably 50 or so, I'm going to start the next thing. I just want anyone who is stuck in something they don't love to know: you can change.” Following our conversation with Fynbo, we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship where Alec Johnson is a professor. Johnson talks about overcoming the limitations of a “dysfunctional belief system”—that's the idea, he says, that you have to be creative or you have to be an expert to be an entrepreneur. “You can grow into it. You just have to be a good problem solver.”

“Where passion meets frustration creates motivation.” Erin Pash is the co-founder and CEO of Ellie Mental Health—one of the fastest growing franchise chains you've probably never heard of—yet. The Mendota Heights-based company opened its first franchise clinic in July 2022. Now there are more than 200 Ellie Mental Health clinics open around the country with another 450 sold and under development. Pash is driven by the desire to destigmatize mental health care by building a national mental health care brand that makes care accessible and fun while also creating a flexible work environment for therapists. Pash is a licensed therapist who saw a bigger opportunity. “We wanted to create a hybrid employment model where we could give therapists safety, security and support while providing them with the culture, creativity and compensation they could get in their own private practice.” Pash talks about barrier to mental health care, the rising demand for services and how that's driving more therapists not to accept insurance, which creates barriers to entry for those who need it. She talks about building her business, one practice at a time, and coming to identify herself as an entrepreneur more than a therapist. “There are two paths to successful business. One is you're an entrepreneur and you try 20 things and one sticks. You're passionate about entrepreneurship. The other is you're passionate about one thing and because you're so passionate, people can't help but want to join you. That's me.” Following our conversation with Pash, we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Mike Porter is a marketing professor. He talks about the importance of a passionate founder and the marketing conundrum in the mental health field. “Not everybody wants to talk about mental health or say, oh, I went to this amazing clinic.” Porter talks about why franchising makes sense. “She's starting with community."

When your arteries are blocked, you see a cardiologist. For cancer, there's the oncologist. But for the 13.5 million Americans dealing with a serious wound—from surgery, an injury or disease, an ostomy bag, or old age—there's often no one coordinating care until the problem becomes a crisis. Nima Ahmadi saw the white space, and co-founded The Wound Company in 2022 with the intention of creating a coordinated, cost effective solution that supports health care providers and improves healing for patients. The Wound Company partners with medical practices and benefits companies to provide focused patient care through a combination of telehealth, AI diagnostics and in person care. Already the data shows that Wound Co. patients heal 60% faster for a 15 to 20% reduction in cost. Ahmadi, who studied bioengineering and worked on other software-focused health startups, walks us through the process of recognizing the problem, devising a solution, and actually bringing it to market. He talks about the challenges of scaling a health care startup and why he believes the big health care companies need to think smaller. Following the conversation with Ahmadi, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Mike Porter is a professor of marketing. He talks about the problems caused by a diffusion of responsibility. “What this business is really doing is owning accountability and expertise and aggregating those things in one place…for this very specific outcome.” Porter, who teaches reputation management, also talks about the public's growing confidence in telemedicine and how that can benefit new innovations like The Wound Co.

Kristen Denzer is the founder and CEO of Tierra Encantada, a Spanish immersion daycare that is on its way to becoming a national brand. Currently there are 11 locations in four states—two of them are franchise centers, and an additional 20 franchise units have been sold. It's already a $22 million business, and Denzer is just getting started. Tierra Encantada is actually her third startup; Denzer started her career in nonprofits, but saw business opportunity everywhere. When she got engaged and realized how expensive it would be to plan a wedding, she started her own event rental business. As an animal lover, she co-founded a doggy daycare. So when she went looking for a daycare center for her own children and coulnd't find one that met her criteria: Spanish immersion, inclusive, healthy meals, quality programing, she started her own. Tierra Encantada started in Eagan in 2013 and within a year, Denzer was working on expansion. She shares what went right, the mistakes she learned from, and why she made the decision to franchise. Denzer's advice on entrepreneurship “Just do it. So many people think about doing something for so long…you're not going to get everything right and it's ok because you'll learn from your mistakes.” Following our conversation with Denzer, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. Associate Dean Danielle Campeau talks about the “entrepreneurial mindset—an individual who able to see opportunity in a space and take it.” Here are some key indicators, and ways to make the most of it. - Curiosity. “A willingness to develop expertise. It's especially important when you're launching a business in an area that's new to you.” - Product-market fit. “You can understand an opportunity based on your own experience, but then you've got to do your homework and make sure there's really a need for what you want to do.” - Diverse viewpoints. “Collaboration with partners is key to success. IT's another way that individuals can fill in their own knowledge gaps.” - Perseverance. “A no today is not necessarily a no tomorrow. Those that are entrepreneurial thinkers recognize that and they're going to persevere through the ups and downs.”

Behind many popular drink brands—Mike's Hard Lemonade, Celsius Energy Drinks, Pabst Blue Ribbon—is BevSource, a St. Paul based company that provides beverage development, sourcing, and production—everything from supplying the can that holds your beer to helping develop and test an entirely new drink idea. Today BevSource is one of the largest packing and ingredient distributors in North America, with $250 million in annual revenue. Janet Johanson started the company in 2002 when she was just 24 years old, with three years of experience in the industry. “I just said yes,” she says. Johanson talks timing: from knowing when to take on private equity and start a board to knowing when it was time to step away from the day-to-day operations. “As CEO, I got stuck in detail,” she says. “By cutting my hands off, it made me think differently about who we partner with…and how I can make an impact.” Following our conversation with Johanson, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Tera Galloway is an associate professor in the Department of Management who studies the craft brewing industry. She explains the idea of “coopetition,” where companies realize is better for their industry to work together than to compete. She talks about the importance of building a network and the critical moment for entrepreneurs, when they realize their out of their depth. “It doesn't mean you have to leave; you need to get more help.”

"We call it the health care system, but really, it's the illness-burden-treatment system. There are so many things we can do to improve in health care." Tony Miller and Dave Dickey are serial health benefits entrepreneurs who've built and sold multiple companies, leading the way toward consumer-driven insurance programs. The most recent is Bind Benefits, an on-demand, zero-deductible program that was acquired by UnitedHealth Group in 2021. Recently renamed Surest, the benefits plan is UHG's fastest growing product with a net promoter score nearly three times higher than its competitors. Miller and Dickey, who no longer work for Surest, talk about how to change health care coverage in America, starting with Miller's first startup, Definity Health, which he sold to UnitedHealth Group in 2004 for $305 million (not $300 million as widely reported, and he tells the story behind that). Miller is managing partner of Lemhi Ventures, a healthcare investment firm, which put the first $12 million into Bind. Between Definity and Bind, he build Carol Corp., which he also sold to UHG. Dickey an early Definity Health employee and co-founder of Bind, was also a co-founder of RedBrick Health. An employee benefits expert and seasoned sales pro, he consults and advises sales teams and entrepreneurs. Packed with insights on business of health care, Miller and Dickey also dole out advice on entrepreneurship and disruption. Following the conversation, we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Kjrk Ryerson teaches healthcare innovation. He frames up some of the key benefits advances Miller led, and frames up questions any entrepreneur should ask him or herself before diving in: 1. Do you have a great idea? 2. Do you keep evolving that idea? 3. What is the driving difference? 4. Is there a personal motivation that's driving you forward? 5. Do you have the power to make something better?

"We call it the health care system, but really, it's the illness-burden-treatment system. There are so many things we can do to improve in health care." Tony Miller and Dave Dickey are serial health benefits entrepreneurs who've built and sold multiple companies, leading the way toward consumer-driven insurance programs. The most recent is Bind Benefits, an on-demand, zero-deductible program that was acquired by UnitedHealth Group in 2021. Recently renamed Surest, the benefits plan is UHG's fastest growing product with a net promoter score nearly three times higher than its competitors. Miller and Dickey, who no longer work for Surest, talk about how to change health care coverage in America, starting with Miller's first startup, Definity Health, which he sold to UnitedHealth Group in 2004 for $305 million (not $300 million as widely reported, and he tells the story behind that). Miller is managing partner of Lemhi Ventures, a healthcare investment firm, which put the first $12 million into Bind. Between Definity and Bind, he build Carol Corp., which he also sold to UHG. Dickey an early Definity Health employee and co-founder of Bind, was also a co-founder of RedBrick Health. An employee benefits expert and seasoned sales pro, he consults and advises sales teams and entrepreneurs. Packed with insights on business of health care, Miller and Dickey also dole out advice on entrepreneurship and disruption. Following the conversation, we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Kjrk Ryerson teaches healthcare innovation. He frames up some of the key benefits advances Miller led, and frames up questions any entrepreneur should ask him or herself before diving in: 1. Do you have a great idea? 2. Do you keep evolving that idea? 3. What is the driving difference? 4. Is there a personal motivation that's driving you forward? 5. Do you have the power to make something better?

Nora and Jay Schaper are serial entrepreneurs with a big idea: rid the world of single use plastic bottles—starting in the bathroom. Experts told them salon-quality shampoo couldn't be produced in solid form, but that only made them more determined to come up with a winning formula. They did, and HiBar launched in 2018. The line, which has grown to include face wash and deodorant as well as solid shampoo and conditioner, is now sold in more than 10,000 stores. To date, HiBar says it has eliminated nearly 5 million plastic bottles and conserved over 800,000 gallons of water. To turn their product into a successful business, the Schapers partnered with an entrepreneur experienced in consumer brands: Ward Johnson, who built and sold the pet food brand, Sojos. A fourth founder is no longer involved. We talk to the three partners about the challenges of building a mission driven business, from engineering to marketing. “People who are committed to sustainability are willing to make sacrifices…but don't mess with my face and hair,” Johnson says. “We realized quickly: the product needs to not just be sustainable, it needs to perform as good or better than salon quality, professional grade products.” Following the conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Jason M. Pattit is a professor of management. He talks about the added challenge for mission-based businesses. “There's a dual tension that happens in the growth phase where you're trying to scale quickly, which may mean sacrificing mission.”

Feeling homesick drove Argentinian native Belén Rodríguez into entrepreneurship. But grit and tenacity have helped this first-generation immigrant take her grandmother's empanadas recipe from backyard parties to farmers markets to the frozen foods case of major grocery stores in just five years. By the end of 2022, St. Paul-based Quebracho Empanadas expects to be in 250 stores throughout the Midwest, with plans to reach 3,000 stores nationwide within five years. The Spanish pastry filled with savory ingredients captures the flavors of Rodríguez's childhood in the Argentine Pampas, adapted for modern convenience. Healthy frozen foods used to be an oxymoron, but Rodríguez says Quebracho Empanadas is part of a movement to bring better-for-you ingredients to the freezer case. On the precipice of launching this fall with Cub Foods, Rodríguez talks about her unlikely path from medical interpreter to founder and CEO of a fast growing consumer product goods, and how the pandemic completely changed Quebracho's business model. She walks us through her measured approach to growth, and explains why Quebracho, which she and her husband own 100%, is just now starting to pursue investors. Some keys to Rodríguez's success so far: - Leveraging advice from mentors and local organizations with a mission to assist entrepreneurs - Turning “no” into an opportunity to make a change; she convinced the state to amend a food licensing law to simplify the startup process for new brands - Balancing the heart of the brand with the realities of scaling—figuring out what can be outsourced, and what is fundamental “For us, there's such an emotional component to our brand and founder story,” Rodríguez says. “We bring this authenticity. And the innovation. I want my grandma's empanadas to be the go-to handheld food in the U.S. It's very close to home.” Following our conversation with Rodríguez, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. Professor of entrepreneurship Jay Ebben talks about the challenges of scaling a CPG brand. “It's one thing to sell at farmers markets; very different to be on the shelves at grocery stores.” He says listening to customers, leaning on mentors and taking a measured approach are all fundamental to Quebracho's forward momentum.

Adam Turman is one of Minnesota's most prolific working artists today, known for capturing state icons like Paul Bunyon and the Stone Arch Bridge in vibrant illustrations. He's also unapologetically commercial, selling his drawings on giftware, apparel, prints, and murals seen around town from Surly Brewing to his latest, and largest, yet: a 220 foot by 40 foot scene on the side of a parking ramp for the new Corsa Apartments in St. Louis Park. He's managed to do what most artists only dream of: pursue the creative projects that fuel him, and turn it into a successful business that includes licensing deals, custom projects, brand work, and art prints. “I've always really liked having a reason to make the art I make,” says Turman, who started his career as a graphic designer for creative agencies. “I'm just trying to make things people really enjoy.” Turman offers a peek behind the canvas and into his company, from licensing deals to corporate collaborations, and how he's embracing AI. For broader perspective, we go Back to the Classroom with Shinwon Noh, assistant professor of entrepreneurship at the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. "Often, we believe arts and commerce are conflicting concepts, that you're bound to sacrifice one to achieve success in the other. That's not true," Noh says. "Find a sweet spot between what you want to do and what your audience wants to see. Art is a passion-driven career. Self-awareness is a must."

The Surly Brewing story is the stuff of entrepreneurial legend in Minnesota, but in recent years, founder Omar Ansari has had to contend with an industry wide decline of beer sales, diversification of the adult beverage market, pandemic shutdowns, and changing employee expectations. “Things have changed and we're having to change with it,” Ansari says. Over the summer, Ansari got back to his roots: visiting neighborhood bars that sell Surly, connecting with fans, and telling the story. In this wide ranging conversation, we go back to how it all started, and then talk about how Ansari had had to come around to doing contract brewing and introducing new beverages like hop water and a THC seltzer to stay competitive. “If that's where we're at, that's what will do.” Then we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. Assistant professor Casey Frid has conducted research on the craft beer industry and talks about how the market saturation can chip away at a brand's character. “Previously, craft brewing was about independence,” Frid says. “Now you do what have to to survive.”

Zoë Levin saw opportunity in the toilet paper aisle to create a high design brand committed to sustainability. Armed with a $10,000 Kickstarter fund and a whole lot of moxie, she believed she could compete against the likes of Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark. Bim Bam Boo, made of fast-growing bamboo fiber and packaged in colorful paper wraps, launched in 2018 at a direct-to-consumer brand. Levin quickly learned that even the savviest online shoppers rarely order toilet paper online—it's one of those staples people tend to run to the store to pick up. She was limping forward, trying to elevate an everyday product by promoting the benefits bamboo and cautioning consumers that 27,000 trees are flushed down the toilet every day in the U.S. And then the Covid-19 pandemic drove people into lockdown/stock up mode, setting off the great toilet paper shortage of 2020. “Suddenly I knew: I had the most wanted product in the entire world.” With very little inventory on hand, but a manufacturing process in place utilizing a highly regenerative material, Levin was able to step up production and get on the shelves at Whole Foods. Today, Bim Bam Boo is sold in 1,800 stores nationwide including select Target and Fresh Thyme stores. Levin says she's just getting started. She recently added bamboo wet wipes, paper towel and facial tissue to the collection and is in the midst of raising her first $1 million seed round. “The future of the supply chain—the future of the paper industry—is at a crossroads,” Levin says. “I truly believe that we will be one of the major players solving the climate crisis through paper.” Back to the Classroom Innovating on basic products is becoming commonplace, driven by consumer demand, says Danielle Campeau, incoming associate dean of the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Thomas. “Students tend to think about big, flashy tech ventures, but we always encourage them to think about innovation in unique, underestimated areas.” Consumers crave socially minded brands, giving Bim Bam Boo an opportunity to disrupt a category that is owned by large companies. “Sustainability is the new standard,” Campeau says.

From farmers market novelty to grocery store mainstay: Minnesota-made Maazah, a line of Afghan-style chutney sauces, is poised to break through through the global foods aisle to become a mainstream condiment, much like Sriracha. Founder Yasameen Sajady takes us from her mom's kitchen, where she got the idea to bottle up the flavors of her family dinners that weren't readily available at Western stores, to inflection point: Maazah is now sold in more than 150 stores nationwide and expects to double that by the end of the year. “The industry is ripe for this shakeup—a woman-run, global product on the shelf," Sajady says. "It represents so much that we do: the way customers are shopping, and eating. Sajady talks about the benefits of accelerator programs, raising her first venture round, the challenge of relying on co-packers, spending on a publicist, and scaling up for a national opportunity with Kroger stores. “Every three or four months, everything gets so much bigger,” Sajady says. “And it takes capital and knowledge.” Following our conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. "We've reached a point where people in society have become impatient with inauthentic brands,” says entrepreneurship professor John McVea. “We have this hunger for authenticity. People have reached the point where they're saying to big companies: we want access to real brands.” And Minnesota, with its depth of large companies in the agriculture and food manufacturing space, is an ideal place to build startup food brands, McVea says. “We should be the Silicon Valley of the food business. There's so much expertise here.”

Appearing on a TV remodeling show may be the quickest path to notoriety in the interior design space today, but Bria Hammel is more interested in building an enduring business. She's leveraged social media to cultivate a following of more than 200,000, which helped to build St. Paul, Minn.-based Bria Hammel Interiors into a national design firm. In 2018, she parlayed her expertise into a retail business, Brooke & Lou, specializing in “life friendly furniture.” And that success has led to licensing deals with other brands. “I am a risk taker, but I'm a cautious risk taker,” Hammel says. She talks about running two distinct but overlapping businesses and how EOS (the Entrepreneurial Operating System) helps in running an efficient team. She talks about the online design service that was born out of Covid, and learnings from her first brick and mortar retail pop-up. Plus, design advice including the trick to successfully styling a bookcase and why she's glad to see the Midcentury modern trend fade in popularity. After our conversation with Hammel, we go back to the classroom with marketing professor Mike Porter at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. He talks about the challenge of scaling a service business, and what Hammel is doing well. “She emulates best practices in saying, what do I do, and what can I hire someone else to do.”

Amin Aaser was an entrepreneur in search of a problem, and then he realized the problem that had been with him his whole life: feeling different. Embracing his faith as a Muslim while also living his best life as an American. Aaser, along with his brother, launched Noor Kids with the goal of “raising Muslims who build a better world.” Initially, that took the shape of a magazine. Then came books, and more recently, video programming, which is drawing a global audience and setting the stage for a new chapter of growth for the Minneapolis-based social enterprise startup. To date, Noor Kids has published 140 titles and reached more than a quarter of million people with its content, which is available under a “freemium” model—some is free; subscriptions can be purchased for full access. The latest product is “Noor Kids Muslim Treehouse”—think of it as Mr. Rogers for a multicultural, international audience that interacts over Zoom. You can watch it now on YouTube, and don't be surprised if you see it soon on a streaming service, or maybe even a network. Aaser talks about turning his passion project into a full-time job, how he applied his corporate and business school experiences to his entrepreneurial mission, and how to know when it's time to raise money. Following our conversation with Aaser, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship where professor AnnMarie Thomas teaches entrepreneurship. She talks about the value of following your heart in entrepreneurship. “In this day and age, we know that kids are really struggling in a lot of ways, trying to find meaning,” Thomas says. “With social and emotional learning, they are tapping into something families are really looking for.”

Years before chatbots burst into the mainstream, a trio of Minneapolis-based fishing enthusiasts launched a data-driven e-commerce shopping platform for anglers that gets smarter the more people use it. Omnia Fishing, founded in 2018 is disrupting the $5 billion dollar U.S. and Canadian tackle industry by offering a shop-by-lake e-commerce experience that connects customers to the gear they need based on where they're fishing, what they're fishing for, and even the time of year. Co-founders Matt Johnson (CEO), Chris Morgal (COO), and Dan Wick (CTO) each bring a unique skill set and prior startup experience to Omnia. They walk us through how they're setting up the company, which is not yet profitable, for big success, from raising $1 million right out of the gate to figuring out how to set up a warehouse and deliver merchandise to leaning on user-generated content. All told, Omnia has raised more than $6 million to date to build its tech-intensive, space-based shopping platform. “There's so much being bandied about with AI,” Wick says. “It's great in a vacuum, but unless you apply that to a business case, it doesn't really matter.” Omnia fishing is poised to hit eight figures in sales this year. The company employs 25 and features more than 25,000 products and information on at least 20,000 lakes on its site. ”We truly believe we are building a better experience,” Johnson says. Following our conversation with the founders, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Gino Giovanelli is a marketing professor and thinks the growing awareness of AI is making consumers more trusting of information provided by a site like Omnia Fishing. “The smartest thing they did: they had a lane, stuck to it with three different personalities and skill sets,” Giovanelli says, For startups, that can be tricky. Set out with big goals in mind and said it's going to be hard, but that's the only way to make it.

"If I had listened to people around me, I wouldn't have proceeded after three months. This is a risky business and maybe it isn't going to work and I'm going to look back and say I spent $300,000 and four years of my life, but I do believe the end is in sight." David Swan is the founder of PUR Golf—that stands for Producing Unmatched Results. PUR golf is a training aid designed to help golfers improve their swing. Just hitting the commercial market this year, the PUR Golf trainer was named "one of the three items golfers need in 2023" by the PGA . It sells online exclusively. Swan started his career as a basketball coach, first college, then for a professional team in Norway. His career has been a winding road since he retired from coaching in 2002. Real estate, software sales, motivational speaker, founder of Bright Day Energy, a Minneapolis-based company that specializes in LED and solar lighting. Only in the last few years did Swan add product inventor to that list, when his golf game started to tank. David is an entrepreneurial thinker, and in improving his own game, he came up with a product that would help others as well. When it didn't work, he tried again, and again. On the 300th, he says PUR Golf finally ready for consumers. His friends think he's nuts, but then, isn't that the story with most successful founders? Swan doesn't let the doubters get him down. He says this is just the way he's wired. Following our conversation with Swan, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. Professor Alec Johnson differentiates inventors from innovators. "Inventors have a solution and go out seeking a problem to solve. Innovators listen to the voice of the customer and adapt their solution to fit the market. That's what David did by going to golf pros to make his product better." Johnson will teach a class next year on making the transition from inventor to innovator.

Isaac Lien was a college student in California who wanted to stay in touch with his grandma in Iowa. When popular video conferencing programs proved too complicated for her, Isaac decided to develop his own simplified software tool. It worked. Issac's father Scott Lien immediately recognized the potential. Scott was a career corporate technologist who had worked for Target, Best Buy, and Bank of America before taking the leap to become a startup co-founder with his son. Together, they launched GrandPad as a platform that makes it easier for seniors to connect with families, friends and caregivers. Grandpad has reached 1.6 million in 120 countries so far. The company, based in Hopkins, Minn., employs 165 and has raised $31 million to scale its technology—both hardware and software, with human-centered around-the-clock customer service to back it up. The Liens talk about working with family, moving from mission to profitable company and why they believe helping people over 75—super seniors as they call them—with technology isn't a market soon to evaporate. Following our conversation with the Liens, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Kjrk Reyerson teaches Health Innovation and says the GrandPad story is a testament to the importance of knowing your customer. "There are tons of great ideas, but do you have the right opportunity, the right focus and mindset. This story is about passion. Knowing you have to solve this obstacle for grandma, realizing no one has done this. Tech is the enabler to create that connection."

Frustrated that pills weren't making her heart patients feel better, Minneapolis-based cardiologist Dr. Elizabeth Klodas went looking for other answers. She started with a simple question for her patients: “What are you eating?” and was shocked to find more than a decade ago ago that she was often the first medical professional to ask her patients that question. “All of a sudden it dawned on me: we talk about food as medicine, what if we took that concept and interpreted it literally? A dose of food.” She started experimenting with foods naturally high in fiber, antioxidants, plant sterols, omega-3 fatty acids and created a cereal that she shared with patients. They started feeling better. That led to the creation of Step One Foods, an e-commerce snack food brand based in Eden Prairie, Minn. that has seen 40-fold revenue growth since 2017. Of course, Dr. Klodas wanted scientific proof that her food products could improve heart health, so she sponsored a clinical trial at the Mayo Clinic, where she had trained. The study, published in the Journal of Nutrition, 2022, proved that Step One Foods could lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of cardiovascular events in patients who ate it consistently. Today, Dr. Klodas continues to see patients while also running her fast-growing food brand. It's definitely not the journey she expected when she went to medical school. “I did it because no one was solving the problem I was seeing,” she says. “There's a huge gap in care that needs to be filled. I'm one small company. If you think of the breadth of health conditions that could benefit from targeted nutrition interventions—that field between drugs on the one end and food on the other is vast.” Following our conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where marketing professor Mike Porter says many an accidental entrepreneur like Klodas is made by being open to discovery. Starting a food business was not her goal, rather a means to help patients. “Purpose was the accident, but everything she did after that was purposeful. If, then. The purpose drives her.”

"If you're someone who can express yourself, be an expert, gain the trust and be an authentic with an audience, there are unlimited outlets. Media in some ways is more interesting than ever. In other ways, it's harder than ever." Straight out of journalism school, Stephen Regenold turned his passion for outdoor adventure into a newspaper column called GearJunkie. A few years later, in 2006, he launched gearjunkie.com, which built up a large and devoted audience for its expert product reviews, and became an authority on all things travel and adventure for both experts and novices. In 2020, he sold the brand to Lola Digital Media, now AllGear Digital, and became vice president of strategy. Now he identifies other niche websites to acquire and grow. Regenold talks about what audiences and advertisers are looking for, and how to build an engaging content hub today. Following our conversation, we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Alec Johnson teaches entrepreneurship. He says Regenold's story speaks to the importance of being focused, disciplined, and networking. "Always focus on content and audience, and work really really hard to understand who that audience is."

Twin brothers Rob and Ryan Weber famously started their first company, Freeze.com, out of a St. Cloud State dorm room. They had their first exit before graduating, and a decade later, sold tech startup NativeX to mobile ad platform mobVista for $25 million. All told, the Webers have been involved in more than 50 startups. Today, they're focused on funding them through their venture capital firm, Great North Ventures. They are fierce champions of entrepreneurship—particularly in greater Minnesota, and small towns that don't have all the resources. They share advice on being scrappy and determined; not raising too much and not selling too early; and the billion dollar idea they're still searching for. After our conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. Professor Jay Ebben teaches entrepreneurship from the investor side. "We teach students to think like investors," he says. "What stands out most about Rob and Ryan is the authenticity with which they operate. That's under appreciated in the VC world, and it's a big part of their story."

It took nearly a decade for Tim Murphy and his father Dennis to build Softies into a modestly profitable women's loungewear brand, and just one mention by Oprah to catapult it into a whole new stratosphere. A career manufacturer's rep specializing in women's apparel, Dennis Murphy decided to start his own company in 2006. Inspired by his wife Peggy who was battling leukemia, Dennis Murphy created a line of super soft, moisture wicking sleepwear. His son Tim Murphy joined the business, based out of their Edina garage, in 2008 and together, they built a decent following. "It was enough to live on, but we were at the point where it was stagnant," Tim Murphy says. Six years ago, at a Dallas trade show, the Softies Snuggle Lounger caught the eye of Oprah's longtime creative director Adam Glassman. Softies debuted on Oprah's Favorite Things list is 2017 and has managed to stay on the list every year since. How does a small company prepare for an Oprah-sized spotlight and not buckle under the pressure? Tim Murphy, who has served as president since his father retired, talks about how Softies has leveraged the attention to keep growing—from hiring a CEO to expanding the product assortment. He shares advice on leadership, perseverance, and product development. "You have to make a quality product, you have to sell a product you believe in. If you don't believe what you're selling, no one else is going to believe you.” Following our conversation with Murphy, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Marketing professor Mike Porter points out that Softies didn't just get lucky in making the Oprah list; the company positioned itself to get recognized and was ready to make the most of the opportunity. “That's just good business,” Porter says.

She may be the only beauty industry executive who is also a veterinarian with a Ph.D. in molecular biology. In 2009, Dr. Simone Xavier founded Sigma Beauty with her husband Renee Filho, while working as an assistant clinical professor within the University of Minnesota's College of Veterinary Medicine. By day, she led a lab that developed vaccines and diagnostic tests. By night, she studied beauty influencers on YouTube to learn what products they liked and where holes in the market existed. Sigma Beauty started with makeup brushes, which Xavier sent to beauty YouTubers for feedback. They responded by sharing the discovery of the new indie line making high quality brushes at prices lower than the leading brands of the day, and Sigma Beauty caught fire. Today, the company brand based in Mendota Heights, Minn. produces around 300 products including makeup, brushes and cleaning items. Sigma is sold in 70 countries around the world and in major department stores across the U.S. Xavier and her husband bootstrapped the company and have no interest in selling. “We have a vision, a plan, a lot of growth coming up,” Xavier says. That includes a partnership with Disney, a new skincare line, and a move toward clean cosmetics. Xavier talks about the evolution of influencer marketing, product development, and building a consumer brand. “The biggest misconception is that you need millions,” she says. “Stop. Just relax. Come up with your product, fine tune it the way you feel is best, show your passion online, and you will connect with the audience.” As for her nontraditional background in veterinary medicine and science? Xavier says she wouldn't change a thing. “My training was critical. You learn so much of critical thinking, trend analysis, research. All of that, I use today on this business and could have used on any business.” Following our conversation with Xavier we go back to the classroom with University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business marketing professor Gino Giovanelli who offers advice on how businesses can leverage social media. Don't go for the influencer with the biggest audience, he says; you're better off partnering with someone authentic who has smaller numbers. And beyond amplifying your brand, leverage social media for brand feedback that can inform product development.

“Art is about exploration, process, potential.” A glassblower by training, Jackson Schwartz is an entrepreneur by instinct. A graduate of the Australian National University, renowned for its glass program, Schwartz returned to the Midwest to teach, and co-founded the Hennepin Made glass lighting studio in 2012 with the goal of creating jobs for his students, and himself. Today, Hennepin Made manufactures lighting for Room & Board and sells direct to consumer while also growing its business clients in commercial architecture and luxury residential design. You'd think that would be enough to keep the artist-turned-business owner occupied, but Schwartz set his sights on broader goals. He purchased a 30,000-square-foot industrial building on the edge of downtown Minneapolis to give the business plenty of room to scale, and also, to transform an underutilized pocket of the urban core, which he helped to name the Root District. “I want to see artistic production in the city,” Schwartz says. “We have the opportunity to weave it into the fabric of the neighborhood and what happens to downtown. We can show the business community what art does.” With passion comes a tendency to “go both feet in really fast.” Schwartz talks about opening a café and event space at Hennepin Made's headquarters, and realizing he was in over his head. “I've learned that there's only so much you can provide for altruistic reasons; you've got to really understand the implications for the existing business.” The café closed and the events business has been recalibrated so that Schwartz can find balance—professionally, and personally. That means getting back to the thing that inspired it all: a love of blowing glass. To further examine the relationship of art and business, we go Back to the Classroom with John McVea, a professor at the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. “The separation we tend to make between art and business is not very healthy and will be even less important in the future,” McVea says. “Businesses that are closer to the arts are probably the future for employment in an economy like ours. Arts are the things that mean the most to us and are hardest to replicate by machines.”

The decision Lisa Hannum made back in 1998 to leave the world of large communications agencies and start her own, to find balance as both a mother and professional, proved prescient as she scaled through the years. It made her agency especially adaptable when the pandemic hit. Beehive Strategic Communication had always been a hybrid workplace, where employees knew they could get a haircut in the middle of the day without being judged. But flexible and responsive does not mean fully remote. Beehive opened a new office in late 2022 that prioritizes gathering space, wellness, and technology. Hannum expected employees to come in one or two times per week, but they're showing up even more than that, and clients want to meet at “The Hive” as well. Hannum walks us through the process of designing the office of the future, and creating a culture that makes employees feel trusted. “If you talk to your employees about flexibility and then don't deliver, they will leave,” Hannum says. “Our team is so invested in the space because they designed it. When we trust in our people, it is repaid in immeasurable ways.” There's no going back to the way work used to be, Hannum says. “We're wired for change. What we need to understand as leaders, regardless of if your company is micro sized or global, it's always about the people.” Following our conversation with Hannum, we go Back to the Classroom with Mike Porter, marketing professor at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business, who discusses the importance of culture. “To the degree you have an established culture, you can take forward what's working,” Porter says. “If you don't have an established culture, be intentional about it.” Culture is your magnet, Porter says, and don't get hung up on catering to everyone. “You don't want everybody. You want the ones who want to play with the kinds of clients, work, environment you have. It's just a new variable in the way we do that.

"There was no one better positioned to build a solution than the three of us," says Jazz Hampton, co-founder and CEO of TurnSignl, a tech platform that provides on demand legal advice to drivers with the goal of deescalating police interactions and ensuring that everyone "gets home safe." The app launched in 2021, a year after the murder of George Floyd at the hand of a Minneapolis Police officer. At that time in Minneapolis, Hampton was working as a corporate attorney. His partners were also in rising stars in their careers, both with MBAs: Mychal Frelix worked in sales for Sony Electronics; Andre Creighton worked for major accounting firms and Cargill. Three Black professionals. "I spoke on so many panels," says Hampton," But it wasn't enough. I felt guilt as a Black lawyer in [Minneapolis] representing large companies. There were so many more opportunities to use this degree in a way that could help people." TurnSignl is now live in 25 states and expects to be in all 50 this year. In addition to selling annual subscriptions to consumers, the bigger opportunity is selling to businesses that are starting to offer TurnSignl as an employee benefit. Built as a dual-sided marketplace, TurnSignl charges its on-call lawyers. Some join for altruistic reasons, the partners say, others use it to find new clients. The next frontier: partnerships with car makers that want to build TurnSignl into vehicles. "In the same way people say 'I Ubered home,' we want people to say, I was pulled over, but I used TurnSignl," Hampton says. Adds Creighton, "it's the want that everyone has: to get home safe." Takeaways Following our conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with Sheneeta White, associate dean of the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship for a conversation about social enterprise. "They're using business as a vehicle for social change," she says. "It's everything we teach about social entrepreneurship." The keys to making it work: spotting a need in the community, having a vision for improvement, and then creating a sustainable business to meet that need."

"A white haired gentleman came in the door and said I heard about this deal at the Minneapolis Club and I want to invest. And I'm sitting there going, I don't see and women—white haired or otherwise—knocking on the door saying I heard about this deal and I want to invest."  In 1998, Cathy Connett co-founded one of the nation's first angel investment funds. Sofia Fund invests in high-growth, women-led businesses. Connett stepped away from a successful corporate manufacturing career with giants like Proctor & Gamble and 3M to buy a company of her own and in the process realized that women were being left out of dealmaking—an inequity she hoped to rectify. “We hope we're making progress,” she says. Connett offers advice for would-be investors and founders, who, these days, she says, are often too quick to try to raise money. Following our conversation with Connett, we go Back to the Classroom with University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business finance professor Mary Schmid Daugherty. “Women are still underrepresented in deal making,” she says. Even though there are now more women entrepreneurs than men, fewer women are entering investment-related careers. “We need to speak to these women earlier. When they come up through finance, they almost all go into corporate work. We just have to fight the tide."

Dan Mallin and Scott Litman have become synonymous with entrepreneurship in Minnesota. Together, they've co-founders several successful technology startups starting with Imaginet in the 1990s and moving on to Magnet 360, a marketing tech firm they sold to Mindtree in 2016 for a reported $50 million. In all, they've had four exits of their own, and advised countless others. Beyond their own companies, Litman and Mallin may be even better known as the founders of the Minnesota Cup, the state's largest startup competition. Launched in 2005, it's become the gold standard for startup contents—a rite of passage for many Minnesota companies that have gone on to great success and exits of their own. For the last six years, Litman and Mallin have been building another tech company: Lucy. Unlike their previous service-based businesses, this one is a product: an AI-powered management platform designed to help businesses keep track of internal files and documents and find answers quickly. But beyond innovation, this is a story of relationships—the enduring partnership of two independently minded founders, their encouragement of thousands of other aspiring entrepreneurs, and their commitment to building both businesses and an entrepreneurial ecosystem in Minnesota. “This is the best place to build companies,” LItman says. “Everything we've ever touched is really around entrepreneurism. People working hard to achieve a mission. Not letting hurdles or pitfalls get in their way. Hopefully that rubs off on others.” Adds Mallin, “The best ideas are not because of a great idea alone. It's a great idea executed by a great team with the passion to do it.” Following our conversation, we go back to the classroom with University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship Professor John McVea who picks up on the idea of being “born entrepreneurs,” to point out that we all are. “Innovation is a natural trait. Human beings are naturally inventive.” But successful entrepreneurs don't just make something cool—they do it to add value. “It's an inherently social process and we do that uniquely well in Minnesota.”

“I didn't start The Stable for it to be big. But it probably had to be big because we had a big idea.” Chad Hetherington is the co-founder and CEO of The Stable, a “next generation” retail rep group that was acquired by Accenture in the summer of 2022, after just seven years in business. The Stable takes an omnichannel approach to launching products and has help digitally native brands such as The Ring and Quip go to market both online and in stores. Hetherington shares his path from Adaliade, Australia to sales rep for Quirky, a platform that crowd sourced product ideas and developed them. That experience opened his eyes to the need for a new approach to retail rep groups that would take multiple channels into a account. The Stable launched in Minneapolis in 2015 and within two years expanded to Seattle and raised venture capital—a rarity for a service agency. By the time Accenture made an offer, The Stable had grown to more than 500 employees with offices in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Bentonville, Arkansas, six acquisitions under its belt, and expertise in Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, and social media. Now running the company under Accenture, Hetherington says “I'm on the phone with people all over the world, trying to solve issues and problems their clients are facing around commerce.” He talks about what's next in retail. Following our conversation with Hetherington, we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Gino Giovanelli teaches digital marketing. He talks about “the power of scale” and advises businesses and founders to change their thinking if they want to achieve the sort of growth The Stable has enjoyed. “Don't think tactically about marketing,” Giovanelli says. “Think strategically.”

For 8 million K-12 students and their parents, Infinite Campus is as essential to schooling as pencil and paper. The software platform serves as an administrative support tool for more than 2,000 school districts across the country—managing class schedules, tracking grades, collecting lunch money, scheduling conferences—all to minimize paperwork so that teachers can focus on teaching, and parents can get a real-time glimpse at how their students are doing. Charlie Kratsch started Infinite Campus in 1993—long before kids had their own iPads in the classroom. As his vision evolved, the company grew, and grew. Today, Infinite Campus, based in Blaine, Minn. employs 500 people and continues to perform at the forefront of ed tech—a category that has been growing by leaps and bounds since the onset of the pandemic. “Prior to the pandemic, it was tough to convince school districts they needed a learning management system,” Kratsch says. “Suddenly, a reluctant marketplace showed up at our door.” Kratsch talks about what its like to operate as a mission-driven for-profit company, succession planning, the accelerating pace of ed tech innovation, and about how technology has the potential to make good teachers great. He offers this advice to other entrepreneurs: - If you're starting something from scratch, find a job in that world to learn everything about it first. - Find something you're interested in. Because it's going to be aggravating and you're going to lose money. But passion will pull you through all that. - Most entrepreneurs are jacks of all trades, not specialists. You don't have to be great at anything; you need to be good at lots of things. Form the vision, and find people who can specialize in different aspects of the work. - If you're not willing to risk your own money on the business, don't expect other people to put money in. Following our conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Lisa Abendroth, the academic director of business in a digital world, discusses how technology can be used to enhance learning. She says technology is most useful when we think of it as a problem solving tool rather than the focus. “We can use technology to personalize and democratize learning,” Abendroth says. “To make interactions with teachers more human. To take a whole student approach to learning. There's so much potential.”

Just a little over a decade ago, Emily Pritchard's job didn't exist. As an undergraduate entrepreneurship student, she noticed that her friends were communicating over social media, but businesses weren't meeting them there. In 2011, straight out of the University of St. Thomas, she and a partner launched The Social Lights, a social media agency that helps brands with strategy, content, and optimization. Today, the Social Lights works with big brands including General Mills, Pentair, Cargill, and Polaris. In just the past year, the agency has grown its revenue by 87% and its staff by 70%, now up to 43 employees. Keep in mind, Pritchard has never had a boss. She's never worked for an advertising agency. The role of social community manager—now commonplace at many companies—did not yet have a name when the The Social Lights launched. Today, the agency offers a training program for corporate social media managers. “What we're doing is actually having implications on traditional agencies that have been doing things the same way for a really long time, and now we're disrupting that,” Pritchard recalls realizing early on in the formation of her own company. “We really wanted to double down on exploring what we could build rather than what we could do for an [ad] agency.” Pritchard talks about learning to lead on the job, the evolution of social media, and the role it can play in building and supporting businesses today. After our conversation with Pritchard, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship where Professor John McVea teaches entrepreneurship. “Emily's story shows how entrepreneurship… can be molded and directed if people have the skills, talents, and interest. Entrepreneurship is not only a viable career, it's also a noble one – you do make an impact on people and make things better," McVea says. "Entrepreneurship creates opportunity for outsiders.”

On Indigenous People's Day 2021, Minnetonka –the 76 year-old non-Native owned company known for its moccasins, publicly apologized for appropriating native culture and promised to make reparations. Guiding that work was Adrienne Benjamin, an artist, community builder, and member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. Benjamin was suddenly thrust into the spotlight as news of Minnetonka's apology and reconciliation work made national headlines. Since then, Minnetonka has released two hat collaborations with Benjamin and beaded moccasins designed by a native artist. The company has also donated money to Native organizations, hired Native workers and continues its journey to own and repair generations of hurt. You can read more about that at tcbmag.com. In this episode, we discuss what it means to be a reconciliation advisor, including Benjamin's unexpected path from her childhood on a reservation to channeling her own struggles into art and unexpectedly finding her way into business. We talk about whether or not it's possible for a brand built on appropriating Native American culture to make reparations, and what that ongoing work entails. “It takes guts to stand alone in that,” Benjamin says of a company like Minnetonka owning mistakes of the past. “We're opening that door and that bridge for other organizations to feel safe, to feel like it's possible. These companies can do the right thing and have an impact where at least some families will feel the economic impact. It's changing the landscape of what it looks like in business.” After the conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Christopher Michaelson is a professor and the Academic Director of the Melrose and The Toro Company Center for Principled Leadership. He talks about the challenge in separating art from commerce. Building on past art and culture can be an artist process, Michaelson says. But, "when it's done in a way that exploits someone else's culture, or misrepresents them, that's when it becomes a problem. "I don't think it's possible strictly to make reparations to those harmed, in many cases, those harms are permanent and the people harmed are no longer here," Michaelson says. "But that doesn't mean we can't find a way to move forward together in a just and collaborative way.”

What happens when that corporate leadership path leaves you a bit unfulfilled? Amanda LaGrange got involved in the creation of a social enterprise designed to reduce waste and create jobs. Two years later, she exited the Fortune 500 career she thought she wanted to run that new social enterprise. LaGrange is the CEO of Repowered, formerly Tech Dump. Established in 2011, Repowered is now one of the largest collectors of e-waste in Minnesota and has processed more than 35 million pounds of electronic waste while also providing jobs and training for people facing barriers to employment, and building a marketplace for affordable refurbished electronics. That's what the nonprofit calls a “triple bottom line.” “Impact work has to be financially stable,” LaGrange says. “Where there's no margin, there's no mission.” LaGrange talks about the role of founder vs scaler. She offers insight on the pros and cons of being a non-profit vs a social enterprise business. She talks about the "pile of denial" lurking in our closets and junk drawers, and the importance of giving those discarded electronics a second life. And she discusses the challenge of serving multiple needs. A recent rebranding, led by Minneapolis-based Knock Inc., helped Tech Dump become Repowered, and clarify its pillars of people, planet and technology. “When they presented the phrase ‘powering forward,' I literally couldn't speak on the Zoom call," LaGrange recounts. "I felt so seen of the work that we do.” Following our conversation with LaGrange, we go back to the classroom with Jason Pattit, associate professor of management at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. He lays out the value and challenge of being a missionary driven leader.

Scott Olson is the founder of one of the most iconic lifestyle products to come out of Minnesota in the 20th Century: the Rollerblade. He didn't invent the inline skate, but he improved on a design that had virtually no market traction and made it an international fitness phenomenon and a product that endures still today. Launched in 1980, Rollerblade steadily grew into a hot commodity. But by 1986, Olson was out of the company. Just 19 when he started working on the product, he had the vision and drive, but lacked the business know-how to scale the brand. Money problems forced him to sell to Robert Sturgis and Robert Naegele, who soon took over the company and eventually sold it to Nordica, which is now a division of Technica Group and still the parent company to Rollerblade. "I was bummed out for a day or two," Olson recalls. But I had to regroup. I still had the goal of being successful with this product." And despite the disappointment, he considers his Rollerblade run a success. It's the product that defined his entire career and allowed him to pursue other dream products, including his latest focus, the human powered Skyride, another invention at the intersection of fitness and thrills. "The entrepreneur and inventor seldom see anything—they can never hold on long enough to see the rewards. I held on to a little piece," Olson says. "I've been lucky enough to keep doing what I love to do: innovating and inventing." After our conversation with Olson we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship where Alec Johnson chairs the entrepreneurship department and makes sense of Olson's business journey. "The transition from idea to running and growing a business is something a lot of founders don't make easily," Johnson says. "It's a bit of the Field of Dreams approach here—if I build it, they will come. My advice to founders: be prepared for the fact that they don't always come. What are you going to do to bring them in?"

“Know what your mission is and what your values are. You can't engage in everything. If there's an issue that affects your mission and values, you better speak out. You better be behind it.” Bill George is the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, and currently a professor at Harvard Business School. He's the author of several books on leadership. The latest, "True North: Emerging Leader Edition," coauthored by millennial entrepreneur Zach Clayton, calls on executives to lead with their hearts. In a wide-ranging conversation, George recounts his own path to leadership, and what he's learned about success. Driven by Medtronic's mission to “alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life,” the company's market capitalization grew from $1.1 billion to $60 billion during his tenure from 1991 to 2001. “You're here on earth for a short time and you want to make a difference. I felt like leaders can make the greatest difference because they have such a powerful impact on people. It can be for good or it can be for ill. And I wanted to be one of those people who had a very positive impact on people I worked with.” George offers advice on leaders taking a stand on social issues, creating an inclusive workplace, adapting to an employee driven culture. And he shares why he thinks younger generations are well equipped to take charge. “Leaders today have to understand how to work in a multi-stakeholder environment. Leaders have to male bold moves. You're going to have people who disagree with you,” George said. “If you stand for something, people will respect you for being who you are. In the end, isn't that what we all want?”

“We are trying to build a really amazing company founded on principles of equity that makes money…and that delivers a new future for what work can look like.” Kate Downing Khaled is the founder and CEO of Imagine Deliver, a Minneapolis-based consultancy that specializes in workplace transformation. She takes us inside her process of finding new ways forward by putting people who have experienced a problem in the design chair. “Change is really hard,” Khaled says. “Sometimes an outside perspective can really help leverage what's new.” She's also using technology to solve for the current workplace challenges around recruitment and retention and shares a preview of her new software platform Mailroom, designed to help companies maximize the potential of their own employees. “The future of our workplaces is going to be determined by the people who work there. We can't hold tight fisted to the old ways of being,” Khaled says. “There is no going back.” How does one learn to become a change agent? In Back to the Classroom, University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business marketing professor Gino Giovanelli talks about overcoming imposter syndrome and embracing who you are. “Having a fresh set of eyes is valuable to an organization. Don't try to be something you're not,” Giovanelli says. “If you want to be a change agent, you've got to have the gusto to just swing for it.”

“I didn't have a business model. I had an idea. And I refused to give up.” Former pro athlete Tyrre Burkes is on a mission to make youth sports safer. His Minneapolis based company, Players Health, provides a platform for coach credentialing and training, injury reports, management, and abuse investigations. The company has raised $30 million since its 2016 formation. But Players Health really hit its stride just a couple of years ago when Burkes realized a huge opportunity in becoming an insurance brokerage. In 2021, Players Health sold $7 million in insurance policies; this year it expects to top $40 million. Already one of the top 10 providers of youth sports insurance, Players Health serves 60% of U.S. youth soccer teams and more than 50,000 teams across sports in North America. Burkes' entrepreneurial journey is one of perseverance and pivots. The child of a single mother who grew up on the south side of Chicago, he credits sports with saving his life and taking him all the way to Winona State University and the Canadian Football League. But his career was disrupted by a series of injuries, which got him thinking about what he could do to improve youth sports. He started in 2012 with a sports communications app and shifted to player safety. He moved his fledgling company from Chicago to Minneapolis to participate in an accelerator program run by another Minnesota-based sports tech company, SportsEngine. Burke talks candidly about mistakes he made along the way, like hiring a developer who didn't deliver, raising money too early, and downplaying his mission in the early days. “I was timid in beginning; I didn't want to be perceived as a heart-led leader who didn't understand economics. Fundraising got easier when I went all in on mission.” And he lays out his vision for the future of Players Health, to become the largest insurance provider in youth sports, drawing upon its rich data to help teams mitigate injuries and incidents. In Back to the Classroom, University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship professor John McVea draws comparisons between sports and entrepreneurship while dispelling some cliched metaphors. Myth 1: It's all about competition. “You should be judged by how you manage your emotions, not how you play the game. Myth 2: Winner takes all. “Most of the gains come from participation. It's more important than winning.” Myth 3: Chase the scoreboard. “Actually, you've got to manage the strategy of the game. If you're just going for the next cheap point, you're probably not going to win the game. Strategy matters more than points.” Myth 4: Sports is a quest for perfection. “This is a very harmful metaphor. Learn from your mistakes.” Myth 5: Out compete the competition. “Success comes from hitting where they ain't. Your advantage is providing something no one else can.”