Defining Moments

Growing up in an entrepreneurial family, Vlada Lotkina saw firsthand the successes and failures that inevitably come with following your dreams. It was that inherited pioneering spirit that drove Vlada to emigrate from Ukraine to attend the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton School for her MBA.Vlada had a few different business ideas early on, but it wasn’t until her daughter began preschool that she fully dove into entrepreneurship. In fact, it was the overwhelming experience of teacher-parent communications that inspired Vlada to create ClassTag, a platform focused on better connecting parents with their students’ teachers.“I was on the receiving end of various parent communications from her school,” Vlada says, describing how she spotted an opportunity. “And I really was overwhelmed and felt that there is a better way to connect parents and teachers in every child's success. … That was a problem that I felt is both needed and critical, as well as really a big market opportunity because education has just been lagging behind so many industries.”Rather than marketing ClassTag directly to school districts, Vlada and her team took a backdoor approach. They focused on building the best in-class consumer product for those who would actively use it: teachers. “I'm just impressed every day with how tirelessly educators are working to meet the needs of families,” Vlada says. “And certainly I think innovation and technology is only there to support the sometimes really heroic efforts that they all make.”ClassTag is currently used by 4 million parents and teachers across 25,000 schools, helping streamline communication and improve the relationship between teachers and parents. According to Vlada, building a partnership between these two parties is the foundation for student success.##Featured Entrepreneur

When Gail Anderson began working in third-party fertility nearly 25 years ago, she dreamed of opening a one-stop-shop that would give prospective parents all the resources to face the challenges ahead. Whether it’s mental, emotional or educational support, Gail is determined to provide it to her clients.Gail’s motivation to join the field of third-party fertility was ignited by a difficult personal experience: a heartbreaking miscarriage. After feeling flushed and in pain from severe cramping, Gail sought medical attention at a nearby emergency room, where she was treated with impatience and little empathy. “I left there feeling very much embarrassed — like ‘Oh, sorry for bothering you,’” Gail shares. “It was just this really negative experience. And it took a few days for me to kind of go like, ‘Wait a minute. I'm not pregnant anymore.’”Later on, Gail received the opportunity to work with an egg donor and surrogacy program. It was then she realized she had found her calling. “I just loved helping people when they're going through this very difficult time and helping them to kind of make sure they feel heard and understood and how challenging it was. And so that sort of began my life's work,” Gail says. Gail’s own harrowing experience was the driving force behind her business endeavors. She became determined to create a space where those seeking help in starting a family can feel supported, heard and seen — a great contrast to the treatment she received after her miscarriage. After nearly four years of planning and building from the ground up, TULIP opened in 2020. The membership-based platform reflects Gail’s determination to help anyone and everyone on the journey to parenthood.  ##Featured Entrepreneur

Watch the video on YouTube!This new round of PPP comes with bolstered support for the businesses that need it most, including: The ability to receive a 2nd PPP loan for borrowers who previously received a loan.Funding specifically earmarked for performance venues and BIPOC-owned businesses.Provisions to help ensure that the smallest businesses can secure these essential loans.Better support for hard-hit industries like restaurants.

It took quitting a corporate job and living in Morocco for a year for Sam Frank, co-founder of and partner at Four Twelve Roofing, to realize that his heart belonged in the city he’d grown up in.Sam was inspired by the incredible design projects and architecture he saw in Morocco and wanted to bring that kind of beauty to Baltimore. There was just one problem: He didn’t have any experience in construction.Fortunately, he was introduced to someone who did: his eventual co-founder Shea Frederick. Sam describes himself as the “inside” partner while Shea specializes in the rugged outside work. However, they both get excited about bringing life back to derelict houses. Initially, the pair renovated and sold historic houses using their own money, but they eventually shifted their focus to roofing.“We really got at this business from a place of wanting to do the sexy stuff: the historic restoration stuff, old hardwood floors, and carpentry and building a whole house,” Sam says. “Going into roofing has been an unexpected journey, but it's been really enjoyable.”That’s not to say it’s always been easy.“We definitely messed up some projects, but those are fantastic opportunities because when you mess something up, being able to make it right is one of the most important parts of building a quality brand and reputation,” Sam says.Over the last five years, Four Twelve Roofing has built a steady following in Baltimore. “I can't tell you how many people I've run into that say, ‘Oh man, I see your vans everywhere’ or ‘I heard you guys on the radio’ or ‘My neighbor got their roof done by you.’ And it is really neat,” he says.The media agrees. In 2020, Four Twelve Roofing was ranked as number one of the 50 fastest-growing companies by the Baltimore Business Journal. Inc. also placed it 122nd out of its 5,000 fastest-growing private companies, “which actually ranks us first amongst roofing contractors in the country,” Sam says.In the summer of that same year, while the economy struggled, Sam says that Four Twelve Roofing “hired like crazy” to fulfill the demand built by its reputation.“I was driving around the city the other day and there are so many — we've done a roof on every block. To be able to point it out and see that we've been a part of projects like that is pretty neat.”##Featured Entrepreneur

Natural ability is a useful starting point, but the trait that will push you over the finish line is grit. Navy SEAL veteran and Madefor co-founder Pat Dossett admits that he isn’t the best at anything, but he is extraordinarily resilient.After studying hard to get into the Naval Academy, Pat earned a highly competitive place in SEAL school. When his military career ended, he embarked on yet another challenging path: entrepreneurship.The skills and training instilled in him during his time as a SEAL translated well into business. For example, Pat says he learned the value of “having a mission-focused mindset, being able to understand what the big picture is … [and] not allowing a small setback to derail a larger mission at hand.”Of course, it also helps if that particular mission serves more than your own needs. “You can do extraordinary things when you're serving things bigger than yourself,” Pat says. “It can't be about making money or individual accolades.”The final major SEAL lesson Pat brought to Madefor is the importance of acting as a team. “Team; teammates; self — that is the order in which you serve,” he says.However, the transition from military service to entrepreneurship wasn’t easy. After deciding that business school was the right next step, Pat admits that he didn’t get in the first year he applied. In fact, he took the GMAT seven times.After graduating from Wharton’s MBA program, Pat worked with Lindsey Weening and TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie to create Madefor. It’s a 10-month self-improvement program in which participants are given a monthly area of focus and tools and tasks to help get better at it. “We focus on foundational habits, so things like hydration, movement and social connection,” Pat explains. He and his team worked with experts in fields like neuroscience and psychiatry to make sure Madefor’s methods are as effective as possible. In Pat’s mind, the most important element of Madefor is the emphasis on taking small everyday steps to form habits and lasting change.“I tell our members at the beginning of every program, ‘We spent a lot of time on the science, but the value of Madefor is not in this cool kit that shows up on your doorstep every month. The value comes from the effort that we compel you to take in a sustained manner over time.’”##Featured Entrepreneur

Sometimes being green means charging ahead even when everyone else is applying the brakes. Robin Chase is a serial transportation entrepreneur, but she had no idea what she was getting into with her first project — and that’s how she pushed the market forward.Robin is the co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, the car sharing service that connects members to available cars nearby, which they can use for an hourly or daily fee. It’s a recognizable model today, but being first came with unseen obstacles.First, Robin hadn’t realized that the software that would link the internet to the car for the customer didn’t exist. “We had to build that and it was incredibly challenging,” she says. In the meantime, everything was done manually. In addition to being time-consuming, this led to a potentially disastrous mistake. While closing Zipcar’s Series A round, Robin suddenly realized her original revenue calculations were way off. According to her new calculations, Zipcar needed to raise the fee for daily rentals.Because she believes that honesty and empathy are integral to customer service, Robin personally dealt with angry customer phone calls to explain the situation.“If you've built yourself to be a responsive and thoughtful and consumer-centric company, then missteps or errors get put into a larger track record of how you address issues,” she says.The Zipcar sharing model is commonplace today, whether you’re renting an ebike or scooter, or using a rideshare app. But Robin thinks that some new companies in this space are unstable.“Investors that have way too much money and no knowledge are throwing gigantic sums of money at companies that are too young and have not yet figured out the business model or the operating model,” she says.That said, Robin is a fan of modes of transport that replace personally owned cars, which have long been prioritized even though not everyone can afford them. On that note, she also wants to see local governments set legislation that makes it easier for these companies to operate safely and responsibly. “I would love us to build what I'm calling a freedom network: a network for pedestrians and unlicensed vehicles that enable all of us to regain the freedom of mobility that we once had so that for the 50% of your trips that are less than three miles, you could go without a car without putting your life in danger.”Featured Entrepreneur

In March 2020, Jesse Jacobs, the founder of Samovar Tea, was poised for growth. He planned to expand his organic small-batch tea house cafes from four Bay Area locations into Southern California and over to the East Coast. Then COVID-19 happened.Jesse is no stranger to overcoming obstacles. When he started Samovar Tea nearly 20 years ago, the Small Business Administration provided him with a list of 72 banks that offered small business funding. It wasn’t until his last meeting with bank No. 72 on the list that he secured funding.His secret to staying positive? Meditation. It reminds Jesse that everything is temporary — and that there’s no need to panic.“I can either get consumed by that, depressed by that, caught up in that and project that into the future, or I can let it go and plant a seed of optimism,” he says.After Jesse secured funding (which, by the way, required cashing out his wife’s 401(k) and all their credit cards and getting a life insurance policy), it took him about six months to launch Samovar Tea.The whole process required a lot of starting from scratch. Not many teahouses in the U.S. hosted traditional tea ceremonies, a ritual Jesse fell in love with back when he studied in Japan.Although Jesse’s plans for growth were derailed this year, he’s made the most of a bad situation. Specifically, he’s focused on redefining and refining the e-commerce side of his business, offering tea sets, organic teas and even virtual experiences.Jesse has also been partnering with major tech companies based in the Bay Area to teach professionals (who are all so tied to their computer screens and seats these days) about tea and mindfulness.“It's horrible to have our retail cafes closed — no doubt — but it's a wild blessing to be able to reach out, connect, show people mindfulness, give them amazing tea and do it internationally,” Jesse says.##Featured Entrepreneur

Lawyers get a thrill from a fight. And Noam Cohen and Hannah Genton, founding partners of transactional law firm CGL, are taking on a major opponent: cultural expectations that lawyers must burn themselves out in exchange for high salaries and big bonuses.CGL is a distributed law firm, meaning that its attorneys work wherever they want and on their own schedules. As long as they give clients exceptional service, they’re in charge of their own hours and where they spend them.For example, Hannah is a morning person who lives in Salt Lake City, while Noam is a night owl who just moved to Israel.The pair met at UC Berkeley Law, bonded over studying for the bar, and then survived careers in “BigLaw,” the collective nickname for the most prestigious law firms in the country.Noam and Hannah both came to resent the industry’s attitude towards attorneys. Huge salaries and big bonuses are based on minimum billable hours, which encourage lawyers to work as hard as possible, whether they’re actually being productive or not.“It's the golden handcuffs,” Noam says. “That's why it's really hard to leave BigLaw. Yet the burnout is so high. … It's very much ‘We'll solve this with money,’ and it doesn't work in the long run.”She and Hannah argue that allowing attorneys to work where and when they’ll be at their most productive leads to a higher quality service for clients. Plus, not spending money on a centralized office means CGL can offer competitive rates. And clients who don’t have to worry about high billable hours are more engaged. “Back at my BigLaw firm, clients would call me and ramble five things and then jump off the phone because they were so concerned with my billable rate,” Hannah says. “It was hard to get deep with certain clients because of that price point. At CGL, we’ve found ourselves becoming a strategic partner to clients, which is how I always envisioned a lawyer: as part of the team.”##Featured Entrepreneurs

Leaving the beaten path and forging your own can lead to success — but not without obstacles. Liz Mumford, co-owner of creative agency Mabble Media, is still charting the best course.One thing Liz believes in firmly is giving her staff a work-life balance that can help foster their creativity at work. After all, it’s the drive to be different and imaginative that sets Mabble apart.“I see the amount of trust and peace there is on our team, which you have to have. If your brain is in fight-or-flight mode, you cannot be creative,” she says.Liz’s empathy extends to the wider community in her beloved hometown of Reno, Nevada. “We're not the celebrity city of our state, but there are scrappy people here that fight hard for each other,” she says.In March 2020, when COVID-19 first hit the U.S., Liz found a way to help her employees and people in the city. She created Wash-oe Hands (named after Washoe County), a mutual aid project that connected people with supplies, information, and long-term assistance. She paid her staff to run it, rather than furloughing them or laying them off. “We were able to get Wash-oe Hands into areas that were beyond our network, which is always really important to me. I don't want to just be helping people I know. We need to get out there and figure out who is really hurting from this,” Liz says.However, putting so many resources into the project left Mabble Media behind as others in the industry pivoted immediately.“People in our industry pivoted early on by dropping salaries, furloughing quickly, looking at new markets and reinvesting. And for us, we focused so quickly on Wash-oe Hands that we're really behind the curve on evolving our own business,” she admits.“I don't regret that at all. But we are pivoting hard right now.”That means diversifying Mabble’s client list away from hospitality and tourism, and looking for larger clients as well as the small businesses that dominate its part of Reno — and putting Mabble first.“I'm learning to not apologize for what Mabble needs to do to survive. I think we just were a little too apologetic, to a point where we put taking care of ourselves last on the chain.”##Featured Entrepreneur

Improv training teaches you to deal with the unknown. But Lillie Frances, owner of Chicago Comedy Company and Laugh Out Loud theaters, says nothing could have prepared her for 2020.“You would think that as an improviser, I'd be better at this stuff, but I hate ambiguity. I hate not knowing when everything's going to end and we're going to be back up and running in full swing,” she says.Lillie’s first concern has always been her staff. This stems from her own experiences working for comedy venues that didn’t pay their improv actors — something Lillie has been set on since day one. “They do not make a lot, but they get paid,” she says.When the COVID-19 pandemic closed the theaters overnight, she and her staff — crew as well as cast — took to Slack, doing prize giveaways and sharing photos to keep up morale. At the same time, Lillie started reading up on safety precautions and speaking to other people in the theater industry. She traded business advice and learned how those who had already reopened were handling new procedures.In September, Laugh Out Loud launched “20,000 Laughs Under the Sea,” a play that cleverly incorporates masks.“We're all on a submarine and everyone needs to wear their ‘oxygen’ mask,” Lillie says. “It starts out goofy and the audience is rolling their eyes, but we lean into it so hard that by the time we get attacked by a giant squid, they're like, ‘Yeah!’”It’s not just COVID that’s caused a shift in Lillie’s approach. The protests in support of Black Lives Matter made her realize that she needed to improve on racial diversity.“When I started Laugh Out Loud, a main focus was gender equality. I accomplished that, but I wasn't thinking about diversity and inclusion,” she says. She’s now set up and funded a committee to tackle the topic; they currently meet over Zoom.The extra pressure brought on by COVID made Lillie realize just how intense being a small business owner can be. “Your workday never ends,” she says. “There is always something you could be doing, so when you take a day off, you feel guilty.”However, she’s working on reaching a better work-life balance. “I have learned to be patient and say, ‘Today I applied for this grant and I answered these 20 emails, and now I'm going to lay on the couch and cry for a little bit and then drink a glass of wine and watch something on Netflix.’ Some days that's all you can get done.” Featured Entrepreneur

The restaurant business was tough even before COVID-19, but Dave Saylor, owner of Acadiana Café in San Antonio, Texas, believes two crucial ingredients make up the recipe for success.“What's let us prosper and stay in business for 34 years are our employees and our community involvement,” he says.Dave was once an Acadiana employee himself: he started as an assistant manager. Then about seven or eight years ago, he bought out one owner and then the other.Speaking about his employees, Dave is typically no-nonsense. “A lot of times, they bring me tremendous joy. Sometimes they just bring me a lot of frustration,” he says. He credits empathy for leading to Acadiana’s impressively low turnover rate.“Have a little more empathy for employees and understand what they're going through,” Dave says. “A lot of people have personal issues or health issues. If we can find a way to work around those and keep them working, it benefits us and they really appreciate it.”Dave also regularly serves up sizable portions of his second key ingredient for restaurant longevity: community service. Besides working with local churches, he’s put in manual labor for Habitat for Humanity and sat on several local boards, including the local restaurant association.Dave has also served as a go-between for the civilian community and Lackland Air Force Base, becoming an Honorary Commander of the 433rd Airlift Wing and the 37th Training Wing.“There are always opportunities for service — you just have to be open to them,” Dave says. “They'll come find you, or you go look for them.”The COVID-19 pandemic required Dave to tap into another set of skills that he thinks all small business owners need: “flexibility, innovation, and being adaptable.”Dave pivoted as best he could, setting up two new drive-thru lanes. But the situation was still tenuous. When Dave’s bank of 30 years put him on a waiting list just to apply for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan from the Small Business Administration (SBA), he turned to Lendio.“If we hadn't gotten the Lendio loan, we wouldn't be here right now. When we actually got funded, it was like, ‘Oh my God, we're good. We're safe.’ So thank you.”Featured Entrepreneur

When a door you spent years opening is slammed shut in your face, don’t waste time shouting at it. Instead, find another door. Paul Adams, founder and CEO of Sound Financial Group, learned that the hard way.Paul spent a decade working for and climbing the ladder at a large financial institution, only to be fired weeks before tasting the fruits of his labor.“I'd never been fired from anything; I had never not been successful,” he says.Initially, Paul was angry. After investing so much time and effort, he’d been cut out right before his hard work was about to pay off. But with help from his Christian faith, Paul realized he needed to move on and embrace what the future held. He still had the brand he built — Sound Financial Group — and a few loyal clients.“I immediately went back to work, attracting clients and applying the principles I’d been teaching the advisors who’d been working for me for the last decade,” he says.Over time, Paul realized that getting fired actually helped him recalibrate his work-life balance for the better. In 2017, Sound Financial Group moved all of its interactions with clients online. This made it possible for Paul to work only two days a week, and yet still make more money than before. More importantly, the flexibility allowed Paul to spend time with his father before he passed away, and to also go on long vacations with his wife and children in their RV.But in spite of this improved sense of work-life balance, Paul still felt he needed to work on his anger issues. Watching a YouTube video by Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoons, helped change his perspective and his attitude.Specifically, the video led Paul to realize that he’d been investing too much energy and concern into things that ultimately didn’t matter, which made him flare up disproportionately when they went wrong.“Things just don't get me wound up like they used to. There's so much you can let go if you don't think you've got to be at the center of the universe.”  Featured Entrepreneur

Forget your parents’ advice: Nick Loper wants you to quit your day job. The founder of Side Hustle Nation and host of podcast The Side Hustle Show has made a career out of helping other people follow their non-9-to-5 dreams.Nick will be the first to tell you that doesn’t mean climbing on a desk at the next staff meeting and shouting your resignation. As someone who traded corporate life for self-employment, he knows it takes planning, structure, and emotional support.In this episode, Nick defines the difference between a side hustle versus a second job, explains how to know when it’s time to switch to a new career and lays out what you need to do before taking that full-time step. Episode SummaryForget your parents’ advice: Nick Loper wants you to quit your day job. The founder of Side Hustle Nation and host of podcast The Side Hustle Show has made a career out of helping other people follow their non-9-to-5 dreams.Nick will be the first to tell you that doesn’t mean climbing on a desk at the next staff meeting and announcing your resignation. As someone who traded corporate life for self-employment, he knows it takes planning, structure, and emotional support.Speaking of parents, Nick credits his mom and dad with inspiring his first entrepreneurial efforts.“You get to the age where you want to start buying stuff, and they're like, ‘Do you have any money? Go earn it,’” he says.Nick’s first job was mowing grass, but he progressed through various money-making schemes, including babysitting and, “trying to sell baseball cards to my equally broke friends.”After college, Nick ended up in the corporate world, and that’s when his side hustles took off in earnest. Dabbling in online advertising turned into a price comparison site for shoes. Three years in, he was finally able to quit his day job in 2008.But Nick wasn’t satisfied with being his own boss. He wanted to talk about side hustles with other people riding that rollercoaster. And he wanted to make those conversations public, in case more like-minded people were interested.In 2013, he started Side Hustle Nation and The Side Hustle Show podcast. He interviews people who have found success with businesses that started out as projects they pursued on nights and weekends.As you’d imagine, Nick has accumulated a mental encyclopedia of advice.“The biggest thing is to look at it as an experiment. If you are in the position of having a day job that is paying your bills, you can afford to take your time to do something right for you. You can afford to fail and try something else next month,” he says.Featured Entrepreneur

No matter what industry you’re in, the one thing that can set you apart from your competitors is excellent customer experience, says Scott Craig Porter, founder, and CEO of San Diablo churros.To call Scott’s career eclectic would be an understatement. He’s worked in PR and as a nursing home administrator, founded a subscription airline, and now he’s selling churros. But his focus has always been making customers and staff happy and eager for more.During his stint turning around underperforming nursing homes, Scott discovered the key to creating a brand experience that turns customers into diehard supporters. And it’s actually pretty simple.“People want to be treated as humans,” Scott says. The way you do that is by delivering on small but meaningful details. “It's smiling, eye contact, calling people by their name. Treating people with respect.”Extra touches work too. “When a doctor would come to visit, we would have their favorite chocolate bar waiting for them,” he says.This extended to the staff. Scott believes that creating a company culture of respect, appreciation and a shared sense of mission is the foundation from which strong customer service grows.Scott took these lessons with him into his future businesses. When he started Surf Air, the first all-you-can-fly subscription airline, his onboarding meetings weren’t about paperwork and procedures. “We would spend two days focusing on why we are doing what we're doing and why it makes a difference in people's lives… Helping each member of our team feel empowered to create something truly extraordinary,” Scott says.Since 2016, he’s been applying that philosophy at San Diablo Churros.“We are just looking to deliver deep-fried happiness to people. We want to be a vehicle for happiness: It happens to be that we make churros.”   Featured Entrepreneur

Optimism is a vital ingredient for entrepreneurs. As Luke McElroy, founder and president of Orange Thread Media, says, if you can’t believe in your own crazy idea, who else will?Luke has been an optimist and an entrepreneur since he was a teenager. And with a company built around live events, he’s needed that hopeful attitude more than ever recently.After building five businesses before the age of 18, Luke landed in the industry he came to love — live events — while studying at Nashville’s Belmont University.Every year the college funded a series of arena shows run entirely by the students. Luke’s niche was video design, which no one else was doing at the time.In his junior year, he was the video designer for every single show in the series. “Now they have rules against this, because they want to give everybody an opportunity,” he laughs. Despite his earlier entrepreneurial efforts, Luke wasn’t looking at video design as a business opportunity: just a fun college experience.But when a friend who managed a band asked him to do video production on their tour — for actual money — Luke realized he’d accidentally stumbled on his next business venture.Twelve years later, Luke and his team at Orange Thread have carved out another niche in Nashville’s crowded live event space. Most live event companies focus on touring acts while also taking on corporate gigs, but Orange Thread only does the latter — and does it well.Of course, when Luke spoke to us in August 2020, no one was doing in-person live events of any kind. In March 2020, states across the country started to mandate stay-in-place orders. Orange Thread lost most of its bookings almost overnight.Luke readily admits that he experienced what he describes as “borderline depression” in those early days of lockdown. But he also realized that shutting people out wasn’t the answer. Instead, Luke has tried to work with his team to figure out solutions. He values loyalty above everything, and that works both ways.“I had a principle I had to play into. When a crisis happens, that's the greatest opportunity for a leader to shine.” Featured Entrepreneur

Surfing can teach you a lot about business. UGG founder Brian Smith learned that in both, you have to keep pushing towards the next opportunity — the next wave — or you’ll go under.Today, UGG is well-known around the world for its sheepskin boots and other products. But Brian weathered many storms to keep the company afloat.The first obstacle was his own education. After 10 years of studying to be a chartered accountant in Australia, on the day of his graduation, Brian quit. “I never liked accounting,” he says.Looking for a new direction, Brian set his sights on California. In his mind, it was the source of all things trendy. He took his surfboard to Malibu, hoping to find the next Levi’s.Instead, he found more surfers. And the product they were interested in wasn’t from California: It was Brian’s sheepskin boots, which kept him warm in the chilly Pacific wind.Sheepskin boots were already popular in Australia, but you couldn’t get them anywhere in the U.S. Brian started testing the waters, visiting surf shops to gauge interest. Based on the retailers’ enthusiasm, he ordered 500 pairs — only to get shot down when the product arrived.“Our total sales for that first season of UGG was 28 pairs,” Brian remembers.Down but not out, Brian loaded up his van and hit the beaches. The boots eventually became a hot ticket for surfers. But it wasn’t smooth sailing from there.Over the next few years, Brian lost ownership of the company and faced competitors who ripped off his brand and stole his manufacturer, leaving thousands of orders unfilled.He also became a confident salesman, making friends with retailers around the country. Their loyalty ultimately helped save the company.Next, Brian set his sights on the mainstream market. With a little help from Pamela Anderson and Oprah Winfrey, UGG went from surfer gear to essential winter wear worldwide.Brian eventually bought back the company he’d started. In 1995, having ridden through so many low points to reach the crest, he sold UGG to outdoor brand Deckers.“You have to pivot and keep moving forward because that's the only way that any entrepreneur’s going to get successful. Manage it through the crazy toddler stage, and then hang on for dear life when it hits the teenage phase,” he says. Featured Entrepreneur

Once you’ve made it past the “start” in startup, you realize that was the easy part. Scaling, says Andrew Vasylyk, is the real challenge — and he should know.Andrew and his brother and business partner Alex are startup-obsessed. As co-founders of StartupSoft, they help early-stage tech companies scale their engineering teams remotely.The brothers have also founded their own companies together — “From electronic cigarettes to manufacturing and e-commerce,” Andrew says — with varying degrees of success. One especially memorable effort emerged from a specific political and technical situation.Andrew and Alex are originally from Ukraine, where the Russian social media site VKontakte (VK) was the main social network.But in 2017, Ukraine’s President closed off access to Russian social media sites overnight, including VK, as part of a package of sanctions.Andrew and Alex rushed to fill the gap.Within three months, they built a basic social networking site and peaked at around 400,000 users but were forced to shut down thanks to poor retention rates.Despite the failure, Andrew is philosophical about the venture.“We knew there was a very small chance that it was going to be successful, but it was a chance worth taking,” he says.Now, he puts his experience towards helping tech companies figure out the trickiest piece of the startup puzzle: scaling quickly.SoftStartup is an agency connecting startups with remote engineering teams in Ukraine, which is easier and more cost-effective than hiring full-time US-based staff.He also hosts a podcast, Startup Exits, where he interviews business owners who have founded, run, and sold a company about what the experience is really like.And Andrew is happy to report that he and Alex still enjoy working together.“One of the most important things you're looking for in a business partner is trust, and we've never had even the slightest doubt in each other,” he says.“We complement each other.”  Featured Entrepreneur

Bragging about success is easy: opening up about your failures — and learning from them — takes hard work. Even self-described “Fail Coach” Miha Matlievski admits it took him years.In 2009, the recession put Miha $5 million in debt. Bankrupt and hounded by creditors, he contemplated suicide — until he realized he had failed, which meant he could also change.Miha was used to fighting from behind. After dropping out of high school, he joined his dad’s business but suddenly found himself in charge when his dad died unexpectedly.“I had no clue what I was doing,” Miha admits, “but somehow I managed, and started creating new companies.” By 2009, he had multiple successful businesses. But Miha was still naive about things like personal liability and asset protection. When the recession hit Europe in 2009, Miha lost everything in a single day, including his personal assets. “I went from a $15 million personal net worth to $5 million in debt,” he says. Suddenly Miha was receiving daily phone calls from increasingly threatening creditors.Depressed and anxious, he contemplated suicide. One day, he almost went through with it. In that moment, Miha realized that he’d been blaming everyone else for his failure when he had to take responsibility too.And if he was responsible — not some external force — then he could change whatever had gone wrong.Miha made a list of everything he needed to improve. He called his creditors and worked out plans to pay them back. He started working with a friend. Slowly but surely, Miha climbed out of the hole. Three and a half years later, he sold his business to a Fortune 100 company.That experience has made Miha appreciate the power of failure, and also the ways people resist talking about it. Now, he helps others accept failure and look for lessons they can use.“I feel like a bigger billionaire than Jeff Bezos in my heart because I can share the story and help others. I wouldn't change a single thing because then I wouldn't have the experience, I wouldn't be who I am and do what I do.”   Featured Entrepreneur

Persistence and persuasion open doors. This combination took Mike McKim from the Navy to sales in the midst of the dot-com boom and eventually to his real passion: high-quality coffee.Whether working his way into a Naval academy, selling telecoms or espresso machines, or starting his own coffee company, Mike doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Mike joined the Navy after high school, as a path to admission in a service academy. He took college classes for three years — and made sure his superior officers noticed his hard work. Eventually he got a place at Kings Point, the United States Merchant Marine Academy, but dropped out after a year. Today, Mike doesn’t regret leaving, “but I do consider it my biggest failure.”A move to Dallas, TX, reunited Mike with his friend Patrick, who set him up selling telecoms hardware at the height of the dot-com boom. “That's when I really got bit by the entrepreneurial bug,” Mike says.Mike and Patrick came up with several business ideas. But it was when Mike’s uncle showed them his coffee roaster that Mike recognized a winning product.The people of Texas, however, disagreed. They weren’t prepared to pay the high prices attached to his high-quality products.With bills to pay and a new baby at home, Mike talked his way into a job selling espresso machines. He did that for five years, still roasting and selling coffee on the side. As the coffee-selling side gig started to take up his weekdays, Mike took the plunge, quit his day job, and committed to Cuvée Coffee full time.He’s still innovating. Cuvée Coffee was the first to sell nitro cold brew, and then the first to sell it in widget cans that recreate the frothy texture produced by kegs.“What I've learned about myself over the years is that the best thing somebody can do [to motivate me] is tell me, ‘You can't do this.’”  Featured Entrepreneur

Having a particular set of skills doesn’t have to limit you to one industry. You can always follow in the footsteps of Hari Mari founder Jeremy Stewart.Jeremy spent a decade as a political consultant: But after two presidential campaigns in Indonesia, he and his wife Lila were burned out. Their next move was something completely different — they started selling flip flops.But it turns out that making the switch from politics to products is not as wild a leap as you might think.“A politician is just a walking consumer good,” Jeremy says. “You dress them up, you attach messages, send them to the right distribution channel. If you do it right, you have favorable results.”Back in Dallas, hunting for a new consumer good to dress up and sell, he kept coming back to flip flops. His research revealed that the market was bigger than he’d expected and wasn’t yet dominated by a single player. And the products hadn’t been redesigned in years.Jeremy applied his political campaign skills to creating a sandal that would get consumers’ votes. Through focus groups, he learned that people wanted color, comfort and casual styles.There were missteps along the way. Jeremy had no experience in footwear. His first order of 25,000 pairs was held up at customs over incorrect labels, and 10,000 were too faulty to sell.Jeremy and Lila gave the faulty-but-wearable pairs to a non-profit for donation — which instead sold them at massively reduced rates online.However, that experience hasn’t dampened Jeremy’s generous spirit: Hari Mari donates one percent of sales to pediatric oncology and hematology centers. The company also donates specially designed flip flops to service members and first responders who have lost a leg, and flip flops to medical workers on the front line of the pandemic.“It’s a big part of our culture. It gives us real purpose because we know that if we can increase our sales and grow our brand footprint, there is a backend that is super helpful to children and families who are battling cancer.Featured Entrepreneur

There’s no one-and-done course that can teach you to be a great leader. It requires a willingness to learn and improve every single day. That’s no small task, which is why Danielle Shoots created Daily Boss Up.Subscribers to Daily Boss Up receive inspirational quotes, prompts and constructive homework on their phones every morning. It’s based on Danielle’s experiences leading teams, which started early — when she was just in her mid-20s.At age 26, Danielle was the youngest CFO in the history of the Colorado State Health Department. Later, as Comcast’s VP of finance, she officially became the youngest VP of a Fortune 50 company.By then, Danielle had spent over a decade taking charge at home. She got pregnant at the age of 16 and gave birth to her son Micai (who just graduated from high school). She also has a daughter, Layla, now 13.Despite her pioneering resume, Danielle admits that leading teams did not come naturally to her. She struggled to delegate and to share her authentic self with her colleagues, something she now considers essential.Learning to lead shifted Danielle’s career focus. She started out in finance but realized she was more interested in exploring leadership and what makes a great leader. At the same time, Danielle was managing her anxiety through journaling and blogging. “I'll write about it: that's my therapy,” she says.Writing about her experiences opened up new opportunities. In 2018, Danielle gave a TEDx talk about millennials in leadership roles. That led to a blog, which led to Daily Boss Up. Today, Danielle measures her success by the people she’s helped to empower at work and as leaders.“What I'm good at is bringing out the best in people and putting the right people on a team to get a project done. I think my legacy will be around growing people and hoping that people are better after they've interacted with me.”Featured Entrepreneur

The way we think about work/home balance is evolving rapidly in the era of coronavirus. But entrepreneur Sasha Rowe foresaw the switch to online work way back in 2015 (and before the pandemic) when she founded virtual assistant business Rivvly.After Sasha had her son, she decided not to go back to her job in corporate finance. But after three days at home, she realized she needed an intellectual challenge — and that there must be other people like her, who couldn’t work in an office but still had skills to offer.Rivvly connects virtual assistants — “We call them remote associates,” Sasha says — with executives and entrepreneurs who need someone to organize their admin but don’t want the hassle and expense of hiring a full-time employee.Today, Rivvly has around 30 remote associates, including athletes, stay-at-home parents and digital nomads, and 60 to 70 clients in various industries. For Sasha, Rivvly isn’t just a company: It’s a chance to shake up cultural beliefs about where and when we do work. Associates get to work on their own terms, with no commute time or costs, and flexible hours. “We are a company that's dedicated to empowering women and family and the future of work,” Sasha says. The easy lift is a dream for many businesses: “We're doing the hiring, the vetting, we're handling the payroll, we're tracking the time,” Sasha explains.Sasha admits that building Rivvly has come with a steep learning curve, partly thanks to her tendency to dream big. But that hasn’t held back her visions for the future.“[Humans are] going to be on Mars one day, and the people on Mars are going to need people here to handle their stuff on Earth. We're going to be that company.”Featured Entrepreneur

Being an entrepreneur requires more than business instinct: you need creativity too. Word nerd, editor and publisher Jodi Brandon helps people channel theirs into books.Jodi always knew she wanted to work with words — but she also had “the entrepreneur bug.” After majoring in English and business at college, Jodi horrified her parents by moving to New York to work in publishing. She started on the bottom rung, as an editorial assistant, but was lucky enough to have a boss who helped her move up the ladder. When Jodi and her husband relocated to Philadelphia, she decided it was time to “strike out on my own.” Jodi started working with entrepreneurs who wanted to write books but didn’t know how, taking them from idea to manuscript to publication and marketing.Jodi’s plans for her life and business changed dramatically when her mother was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer. They were told she had 12 weeks to live.Jodi and her siblings decided she was best-placed to look after their mom, and Jodi took a temporary break from work. Fortunately, her mother beat the doctor’s expectations and lived for another two and a half years.This was wonderful for Jodi and her family, but it made it hard to navigate work. After dipping in and out — and feeling guilty about not spending enough time at the office or home — Jodi put her career on hold.When her mother died, Jodi struggled to return to her work routine. “That first day, I didn't even know what to do with myself,” she remembered.On the advice of a friend, Jodi wrote short, achievable to-do lists. The boost of those small accomplishments eventually got her back in the flow.“I felt like I was starting all over in business. But that's what got me through those first few days. That made me feel like, ‘OK, you can do this Jodi, it's going to be fine.’”Featured Entrepreneur

Who you know can make up for what you don’t know in business. That personal touch served Sandy Abrams well when she started her company, Moisture Jamzz, in 1993.Sandy’s idea for moisturizing gloves wasn’t new, but she was convinced she could improve on the existing product. The trouble was, she had no experience in business or the textile industry. Undeterred, Sandy hit Los Angeles’s garment district. Taking the time to cultivate personal relationships helped her find a manufacturer who would fulfill her first tiny order. With samples in hand, Sandy went in person to stores and trade shows to pitch her product. “Bed, Bath and Beyond was our first big account,” she remembers.Sandy still believes that strong relationships are essential for doing business. “The better you know a buyer, the more likely they are to work with you when challenges come up,” she says. Sandy turned her experience of building a business from scratch into her first book, Your Idea, Inc., published in 2010. The book’s success garnered attention from the business world, and invites to speak at conferences. Over the next few years, Sandy witnessed the many benefits new technology like social media brought to businesses. But she also saw her fellow entrepreneurs spending more time working, getting burned out.Sandy had a strategy for dealing with entrepreneurial-induced stress: she’d been “addicted to yoga” since 1989, becoming an instructor in 1995. It helped her relax and be more productive at work. In 2019, Sandy published her second book, Breathe to Succeed, outlining breathing, meditation and yoga techniques to other busy entrepreneurs. “I'm a Type A fast-paced person, yet I can find myself meditating in 30 second snippets throughout the day. If I can do it, you can do this.”Featured Entrepreneur

Controlling your destiny is one of the great promises of entrepreneurship. But getting there isn’t easy. Just ask Dani Rocco, a relationship expert for members of the military. These days, Dani focuses on her documentary work — aimed at helping veterans — but her path to “serving the ones that have served us” wasn’t a linear one.  At age 18, Dani began to work at her family’s gymnastics school. She started out as a janitor cleaning the toilets. Eventually, she worked her way up, becoming the company vice president and the “go-to person” for a range of things from customer service to marketing to payroll. The business thrived for a while. But family drama erupted — Dani describes it as a made-for-TV movie — and eventually, she and her brother left the business. They’re no longer on speaking terms with their dad. Looking back, Dani says the rocky transition taught her a lot. “I didn’t want the family business to fail because that would have been a reflection of me,” she says.  Even before leaving the business and embarking on her relationship coaching career, Dani had a different defining moment: She was involved in a serious car accident. Despite her life-threatening injuries, Dani pulled through and describes the experience as a “spiritual waking up.” It got her thinking about how she’d been so focused on helping her dad and others that she’d neglected her own dreams. Eventually, something clicked and she decided to take ownership, turn her situation around and adapt to life with her injuries. “I've had to learn to adjust — to make who I am as awesome as who I was before [the accident].”  Featured Entrepreneur

“Because almost all of us will not handle failure gracefully...it'll take a while to finally get to the, ‘Oh, this had everything to do with me, didn't it?’”Kelly Fitzsimmons is an author and technology entrepreneur with experience in information security, voice interface, and reality.In this episode of Defining Moments, Kelly digs into how entrepreneurs can navigate through difficult terrains, and face real, catastrophic failure head-on. You’ll also hear about Kelly’s book, Lost in Startuplandia: Wayfinding for the Weary Entrepreneur, which you can get for 99 cents on Kindle in an effort to educate and support business owners during the COVID-19 crisis.Finally, Chris and Kelly discuss empathy in the current climate and why sometimes you have to tear something down in order to build it back up and look at the world in a different way.Resources:Connect with Kelly on LinkedIn Follow Kelly on TwitterCheck out Kelly’s bookCustom Reality Service’s WebsiteCheck out the StrengthsFinder assessmentLendio’s WebsiteConnect with Chris on LinkedIn

“How you react, that defines who you will be, not what you do.”William Manzanares is a serial entrepreneur who started a number of businesses including a bar and restaurant, health food store, a smoke shop, and even a magazine.In this episode of Defining Moments, William describes why entrepreneurship is like a roller coaster. As he says, there are highs and lows, but it’s always a thrill. You’ll also hear about his struggles with dyslexia, and the defining moment that left him with an empty store, piles of debt, and employees who needed to get paid after his ex-business partner drained the bank account and took everything out of the store.Resources:William’s Website Connect with William on LinkedInCheck out William’s book: I Can't Read: A Guide to Success Through FailureLendio’s WebsiteConnect with Chris on LinkedIn

“As an entrepreneur, you have to be fearless and you just have to acknowledge that you're going to learn from those mistakes. But if you don't take that step, then you'll never know.”Scott Simson is a full-time YouTube content creator and CEO of Video Marketing World. But before his success with these ventures, Scott started several other businesses, including a video rental vending machine company similar to Redbox. The company failed, but the lessons he learned from it were invaluable. As he says, it’s important for entrepreneurs to know that they’re going to fail more than they’re going to succeed, and that's just part of the process of refinement.Listen in as Scott discusses the importance of valuable content (and especially video content) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Plus, you’ll hear about the children’s book he wrote with his wife, Fox and the Mountain, which inspires children to work hard and believe that they can achieve anything that they’re willing to set their minds to.Resources:Video Marketing World’s WebsiteConnect with Scott on LinkedInLendio’s WebsiteConnect with Chris on LinkedIn

“A big part of being a game changer - and being successful - is you have to be willing to look at what other people are doing around you and adapting that to work for you and your industry.”Ryan Combe is the Managing Partner at Better Way Franchise, where he works with franchises that already exist and teach them how to grow faster, plus find additional franchisees.Listen in as Ryan and Chris discuss why the most successful companies in history are taking old ideas and improving them by modernizing.Plus, what does basketball legend Larry Bird and Little Caesar’s Pizza have to do with success in business? Listen in to find out. Resources:Better Way Franchise’s WebsiteConnect with Ryan on LinkedInLendio’s WebsiteConnect with Chris on LinkedIn

Resources:Soar’s WebsiteConnect with Paul on LinkedInLendio’s WebsiteConnect with Chris on LinkedIn

Resources:Lendio’s WebsiteConnect with Chris on LinkedIn