Raise your hand if you’ve come to the realization that college didn’t prepare you for the job market. I see a lot of hands. I’m not knocking college, but the skills that I’ve developed from starting a business are way more marketable than the ones that I developed in the classroom. So what do you do if you realize that you don’t have what employers want (or you want to start your own business)? You can hustle and develop the skills on your own, or you can speed up the process by enrolling at General Assembly. They are a New York, NY based company that is “creating a global community of individuals empowered to pursue work they love, by offering full-time immersive programs, long-form courses, and classes and workshops on the most relevant skills of the 21st century.”
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The original idea behind employer funded health insurance was that it was supposed to improve productivity by keeping employees healthy. That’s still generally the point, but today it seems that health insurance is mostly about fixing problems after they happen instead of prevention. Corporate wellness programs are the answer for employers who want to keep employees healthy (and lower insurance costs). Limeade is a Bellevue, WA based company that is aiming to “measurably improve well-being in the world through happy, healthy, high-performing workforces.” How do they do this? By offering software that makes rolling out a wellness program a snap for employers.
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Last week we looked at a company called Destination Maternity that has done really well become expectant mothers are often big spenders. Guess what–once they have the baby they keep spending. This is good news for Kids II, which is an Atlanta, GA based company that has “been inventing and reinventing baby toys and gear for over 40 years.” Even though they’ve been around for a while, their continued innovation has made them “one of the world’s fastest growing baby product companies.”
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About 10 years ago I bought a Magic Bullet (in a store, not through the infomercial). I don’t often need a blender, so it has served me well for making the occasional smoothie, pureeing veggies for soup, and chopping herbs. That’s why when it came to our wedding registry, we didn’t do what many couples do and register for a top of the line blender (though we did register and receive a food processor that haven’t even used yet). The consensus top of the line blenders seem to come from Vitamix, an Olmsted, OH based company that is “improving the vitality of people’s lives and liberating the world from conventional food and beverage preparation boundaries.” That’s the kind of hyperbole that you can only expect from the company that created the first infomercial in the U.S.
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While having the baby boomers leave the workforce should be a good thing for our generation in terms of employment outcomes, the mass retirement will likely bring new challenges. As people age they not only head more healthcare, but they also need more care in general. Sometimes that can be provided by families, but sometimes it needs to be done by professionals. Relias Learning is a Cary, NC based company that educates those professionals by offering “online training to senior care, health and human services, corrections, and intellectual and developmental disabilities organizations.”
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When I was a little kid, I’d visit construction sites with my dad, the architect. I absolutely loved it, but at some point I lost interest in the construction industry. For me building things online seemed more interesting than building homes and offices. If you disagree, you might want to check out Hanley Wood. They are based in Washington, DC, and they are “the premier media, event, information and strategic marketing services company serving the residential and commercial design and construction industries.” For nearly 40 years they have been the go to source for “builders, remodelers, residential and commercial architects, multifamily and public-works executives, and materials dealers and distributors.”
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One of the best things about the Internet is that it allows creative people to find a market for their work. What used to be a hobby for someone can now be a living. The problem is that creating isn’t enough–you have to learn how to run a business too. Gumroad is a company that makes that part easier. They’re based in San Francisco, CA, and they “help millions of creators earn their livings in an interesting, authentic way.” Gumroad’s platform takes all of the complications out of selling digital goods online. Whether it’s a book, music, a video, or something else, Gumroad will help you with marketing, accepting payments, and offering secured downloads.
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Have you ever sat around and waited for a phone call? It sucks. Believe it or not, there are a lot of businesses in which you sit around and wait for customers to call you. A plumber is a great example, but there are much more sophisticated businesses that have the same problem. They can invest in marketing that drives more calls, but why do that when you can invest online and track every step of the conversion/sales process? Because people who pick up the phone are often much better leads than people who inquire online. That’s why Invoca is bringing online analytics to phone calls. They are based in Santa Barbara, CA, and their “inbound call marketing tools empower you to generate better leads, higher conversions, smarter spends and greater revenue.”
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The health and wellness industry is massive, and it just seems to keep growing. There are a lot of really smart business people who are playing a big part in the growth, but there are also a ton of people in the industry who would rather not concern themselves with businessy stuff. The kind of people who open yoga studios, salons, and spas usually aren’t in it for the money–they just want to make a living pursuing their passions. Unfortunately, running a business usually requires… running a business. MINDBODY is a San Luis Obispo, CA based company that believes that “small business owners deserve the time to do what they love.” Pursuing that belief has made them “the largest cloud-based software provider in the health, wellness and beauty industries.”
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Non-profits typically exist to make the world a better place. What that means varies by organization, but our government recognizes that a wide variety of causes should be supported with tax-exempt status. By definition a non-profit’s goals are non-financial, but that doesn’t mean that finances don’t matter. GuideStar is a Williamsburg, VA and Washington, DC based organization that aims to “revolutionize philanthropy by providing information that advances transparency, enables users to make better decisions, and encourages charitable giving.” Unlike Charity Navigator, they don’t rate or rank non-profits. Instead, GuideStar “collects, organizes, and presents the information you want in an easy-to-understand format while remaining neutral.”
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Until today I’d never looked up the meaning of my last name. I always knew that Franzen was Swedish because my dad’s dad’s parents were both Swedes, but I never knew that it actually means French man. Other than owning a French breed of dog, parlaying a tiny bit of Français, and enjoying French food, I haven’t really lived up to the name. Todd Snyder has lived up to his surname. It means “one who makes outer garments” in Dutch. His eponymous Todd Snyder brand is a New York, NY based men’s fashion line that is inspired “by Savile Row craftsmanship, military tailoring, and a distinct New York sensibility.” I’ll guess that Todd Snyder’s Iowa roots have also had an influence on the company.
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I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get to experience the coldest weather of my life last night, but it’s pretty good to be “stranded” on a tropical island. Since I work from home, I used to get through cold snaps by not leaving the house for extended periods of time. Now that I have a dog and no yard, that would be… messy. Shockingly, if you were more and better clothing, you can stay pretty warm in even the coldest temperatures. Less shockingly, quite a few of the companies that make awesome cold weather gear are based in Canada. We don’t usually cover opportunities outside the U.S., but we’re making an exception for Arc’teryx. They are based in Vancouver, BC, and they merge their “unrivaled designs with the best quality, highest performing materials and assemble them in the most innovative and most durable manner for the intended use.” In other words, they make high performance for extreme situations–whether it’s climbing a mountain or walking your dog on the coldest day of your life.
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My New Year’s Eve has been the same for the past 9 years. I’ve never celebrated in a big city, but from what I hear, it’s awesome… until you realize it’s 2 AM, 12 degrees, and you’re a long way from your nice warm bed. You made the smart decision to leave your car at home, but now what? Everybody in the city is trying to get home at the same time, and every cab that drives seems to be full. You’ll probably die of hypothermia before you can hail a cab, so you might as well use an app to find a ride. Uber can get you a black car or a cab, but their “surge pricing” will make it hurt. If there’s a time to try Lyft, it’s tonight (though Lyft has its own surge pricing called “Prime Time Tips”). They are a San Francisco, CA based company that offers “on-demand ridesharing” in nearly 20 cities across the country. They call it “your friend with a car.”
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When I was in college, I could get delicious food delivered for really cheap. It wasn’t usually all that healthy, but it always hit the spot. Now that I live in Chicago, I can barely get a good non-deep dish pizza delivered for under $30 (a decent Chinese meal ends up over $60 for two of us). The situations is only worse if I want real food. While my standards have probably increased quite a bit, I still think that the state of food delivery–especially in big cities–is pretty sad. Why can’t I get something healthy, tasty, and reasonably priced brought to me in a reasonable amount of time? That’s exactly what Munchery offers. They’re a San Francisco, CA based company that offers wholesome dinners prepared by top chefs delivered to your door. Instead of searching for a restaurant to order from, you just pick the meal that you want.
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Despite my early fascination/obsession with infomercials, I don’t think that I’ve ever bought something directly from tv. I just can’t do it. Doesn’t feel right. For me there’s some sort of stigma around buying off of tv, but I’m certain that there are plenty of people who have a different opinion. Take for example the 1.2 million customer that buy from ShopHQ. In case you’re not familiar, ShopHQ is an Eden Prairie, MN based company that creates “the ultimate interactive shopping experience by uniting live TV, online and mobile shopping opportunities with social media engagement across a variety of outlets including Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.” They used to be known as ShopNBC, and you probably have their channel on your tv (they reach 86 million homes).
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Much of what we do on social media sites is completely frivolous, but we all know how powerful they can be when directed in the right way. Whether it’s raising money, awareness, or a volunteer force, there’s no better medium than the Internet for pushing a specific cause. Causes is a San Francisco, CA based company that wants to be the place that people go to when they want to “discover, support and organize campaigns, fundraisers, and petitions around the issues” that matter to them and their communities.
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I went grocery shopping yesterday at Whole Foods. Usually at 2 PM on a weekday, it’s a ghost town, but not during Thanksgiving week. I actually like grocery shopping, so it was fun to be a part of the madness, but I know a lot of people who hate it. Some use services like Fresh Direct or Peapod. I tried the latter once, but it feels like your groceries were picked out by a robot. That won’t cut it if you’re buying meat or produce. Instacart offers a different kind of grocery delivery service. They are a San Francisco, CA based startup that offers personal grocery shopping in a growing number of markets (Chicago and Bay Area right now), and sometimes they can get you your groceries within an hour.
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Health insurance. Need I say more? You already have your own associations with those words, and they’re probably negative. We all want to be healthy, and when we’re not, we want to know that doing whatever we can to get healthy won’t send us into financial ruin. That was the whole point of health insurance, but it seems that the opposite has happened. There’s a lot that needs to change, but where do we start? How about with insurers themselves. Take New York state for instance. They haven’t had a new commercial health insurer in a decade and a half–or at least they didn’t until Oscar came around. They are a New York, NY based startup that dubs itself “a new kind of health insurance company that is using technology to make insurance simple, intuitive, and human.”
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I grew up in Fairfield County, Connecticut. If it’s not the preppiest place on earth, it’s pretty close. And in case that wasn’t enough, I went to a private school where wearing a blazer was required. I thought that wearing pink pants and pants with little animals on them was totally normal. Working for Orvis in Vermont for a few summers only reinforced that feeling (and gave me a sweet discount on buying more of said merchandise). It wasn’t until I moved to Chicago that I started to tone it down a bit (I still don’t own a pair of jeans though). But what if you wanted to go the opposite direction? What if you moved from Chicago to Connecticut and wanted to fit in? You’d have to shop at Lilly Pulitzer. They are a King of Prussia, PA based fashion brand and retailer (with dozens of locations across the country) that is known for its over the top, colorful prints.
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I cook a lot, but with Thanksgiving only a few weeks away, it’s time to make sure my skills are as sharp as my knives (doesn’t that sound like a promo for some silly cooking show?). Most of my culinary skills are semi-self-taught. Television, cookbooks, and lots of dinners out have exposed me to all kinds of new concepts, but the Internet is where I go to get the definitive answer on how to cook what I want to cook. Often all it takes is a Google search to find what I’m looking for, but sometimes I want to get new ideas. My go to is Serious Eats, but today I found a new site with a similar approach. The company is called Food52, and it’s a New York, NY based online community that brings “cooks together from all over to exchange recipes and ideas and to support each other in the kitchen.” (Side note: Food52 and Serious Eats are celebrating the the one-in-70,000-ish-years holiday of Thanksgivukkah with a cook off.) In their first few years they’ve been able to reach millions of people and get them talking about food, which is no small feat.
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Tonight is Mischief Night (also known as Devil’s Night). As a kid I was always a little afraid on October 30th, but I had a dream of becoming a vigilante and catching all of the mischief makers. Luckily, there weren’t many mischief makers in my neighborhood. At worst they would TP some trees and shaving cream some windows. I don’t know from personal experience, but as I understand it, lower quality shaving cream is better for mischief. You want that airy, foamy stuff if you’re spraying it on someone’s windows, but you want almost the exact opposite if you’re shaving your face (or so I’m told, I haven’t shaved with a razor in many years). Lately there has been a movement towards higher quality shaving products… and towards subscription models. We already took a look at Harry’s, and today we’re going to check out Dollar Shave Club. They’re based in Venice, CA, and they are “a rocketing men’s lifestyle brand and e-commerce company on a mission to change the way men address their shaving and grooming needs.”
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InvestmentNews is our sponsor this week, and they would like to tell you about their NextGen Virtual Career Fair on November 8th. It’s an awesome opportunity for students and interns to network and find finance jobs on the spot.
I often find charity events frustrating. It’s not the events themselves that bother me–it’s the auctions and raffles. Non-profits have an amazing ability to get all kinds of high value donations (which should be the hard part), but they completely fail when it comes to extracting as much value as possible out of those donations. It could be an inexperienced auctioneer, poorly priced raffle tickets, a confusing silent auction, or a complicated payment process. Technology can solve a lot of these problems, and that’s exactly what BidPal has done. They’re an Indianapolis, IN based company that “improves charitable fundraising events from start to finish with event management solutions, automated auctions, payment processing, online fundraising, consulting services, and much, much more.” BidPal actually came in at #74 on this year’s Inc. 5000 with 4,323% three-year growth to $10.2 million in revenue.
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My knowledge of anatomy is a mashup of what I learned in my college Meat Science class (it’s amazing how similar animals are to humans when it comes musculature) and what I’ve picked up from reading about professional athlete’s injuries. Luckily, I’m not a doctor and don’t have any intention of being one. Otherwise I’d have to hit the books hard. Firecracker would probably be my best bet. They are a Cambridge, MA based company that has built the “most advanced learning platform for the next generation of Physicians.” If you guessed that it’s not made with dead trees, you would be right. Firecracker is also the name of their app that can help you prep for both Pre-Med and Med School.
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When I was in elementary school, Christopher Columbus was a hero. Today people don’t even complain about going to work on a holiday named after him. That tells you just how ugly the true story is. Still, you have to give Columbus credit for sailing across the Atlantic with no idea where he was going (and making it back, and then doing it again three more times). Today we have technology that enables us to always know where we are. Rand McNally is a Skokie, IL based company that played a big part in getting us to this point. They were founded in 1856, and since then they’ve been specializing “in maps, navigation, road travel, and trip planning.”
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A couple months ago I was raving to you about our web host WP Engine. While I’m still generally happy with them, they had a pretty big screw up a couple weeks ago. I worked with their support team, and we were able to find a resolution (though it took much longer than I would have hoped). All of the communications ran through Zendesk, which is “beautifully simple customer service software.” It’s basically a platform for managing all of the back and forth that is typically a part of delivering good customer service. Zendesk is based in San Francisco, CA, though they were originally founded in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2007 (they made the move in 2009).
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Despite the fact that I haven’t shaved in over 7 years, I won’t be winning a facial hair competition any time soon. That’s because I use a beard trimmer to maintain that “I shaved 4 days ago” look. I don’t plan on ever going back to shaving with a razor, but if I do I’ll consider Harry’s. They’re a New York, NY based company that was started “out of respect for quality craftsmanship, simple design, modern convenience and most importantly for guys who know they shouldn’t have to overpay for a great shave.” Back in my shaving days, the choice was to use Gilette’s latest “development” or to use some cheap alternative that would irritate my face even more (like the free razor that I got as a freshman in college). I believed the marketing hype and went with the expensive option, even though it still didn’t give me a great shave.
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I like skiing (even if I’ve only done it twice), but I like fishing, volleyball, walking my dog, and staying out of the hospital more. I can’t get over the fear that I’ll injure myself skiing and keep myself from doing all of the things that I truly love to do. I’m sure for a lot of skiers, they have the opposite apprehension (like my buddy Jason who used a ski trip to describe Quality Events in our Job Search Prep course). The only other bad thing about skiing is that once you get over the fear of injury, you have to get over the price of lift tickets. Or you did. Liftopia is a San Francisco, CA based company that aims to “help skiers and snowboarders get out on the slopes more often, and help alpine resorts generate incremental revenue.”
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I despise administrative tasks that can’t be done online. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I still haven’t registered to vote in Illinois because I have to fill out actual paperwork and mail it in. I’m just happy that I’m in a line of work where nearly everything can be done online. I’m not sure what I’d do if I was in a business like real estate where back and forth paperwork is a necessity. Actually, I’d probably use dotloop. They are a Cincinnati, OH based company that has “completely streamlined the buying and selling process for real estate in a way that works so well, it’s driving a movement tagged by the press as ‘Revolutionomics.'” It’s nice to see a real estate focused startup that isn’t just another marketing/lead generation platform.
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There’s nothing like a live event, but we often can’t be where we want to be. The Internet has made things a little easier. Today video, audio, or commentary from any event can be shared all across the world as it’s happening. It took a while to get to the point where it’s reliable, but we’re mostly there. Livestream is a New York, NY based company that has played a big part in moving us forward when it comes to streaming live content. They offer “event owners a complete set of hardware and software tools to share their events with a growing community online.” This has led them to #750 on the Inc. 5000 with 613% three-year growth to $18.9 million in revenue.
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Some people can flat out sell. Give them any product, and they’ll convince people to hand over money for it. When these kinds of people are paired with great products in a market that they’re familiar with, the magic really happens. Think Billy Mays. He had a formula for finding, developing, and marketing household products that you’d never buy without his influence. Stroll is a Philadelphia, PA based company with a similar ability to sell and market; however, they’re solely focused on consumer education products. The company’s mission is “to transform lives by discovering the world’s best educational products and turning them into best-sellers.” Apparently they’re succeeding–Stroll made the Inc. 5000 with 424% thee-year growth to $84.9 million in revenue.
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