It’s never been easier to start a business with no capital at all. It’s also never been easier to raise millions of dollars for an idea. But what about the businesses that fall somewhere in-between? Whether you’re opening a restaurant, salon, dental office, or auto shop, you’re probably going to need outside financing. There are plenty of options, but a lot of them are very unfriendly to the business owner. The Business Backer is a Cincinnati, OH based company that “is helping small business owners flourish and grow by re-inventing relationship-based lending for the 21st century.” The company is built on the idea of True Relationship Financing, which a unique underwriting process that evaluates risk and customizes a deal in a way that is very different from most other financial institutions.
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While non-profits may not be businesses, they still have to worry about financials. In fact, non-profits can often be more financially complicated than a lot of companies. Some organizations have accounting teams to manage the finances, and others rely solely on specialists. Whether a non-profit needs a little help with accounting or wants someone to do it all, they can go to Kiwi Partners. They are a New York, NY based firm that “gives the nonprofit leader the ability to focus on their mission, and provides clarity to the donor, giving them confidence to give.” They may not be a non-profit themselves, but they’re helping all kinds of organizations make the world a better place.
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As I mentioned earlier in the week, media and advertising are all about demographics. Unless you have the targeting capabilities of a Facebook or Google, it’s almost always better to build your properties targeted at a specific group. For SheKnows it’s all about women. They are a Scottsdale, AZ based company that has built a “women’s lifestyle media platform” that “allows brands to distribute authentic content and integrated advertising at scale.” What kind of scale? 40 million unique visitors per month. That’s a lot.
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Hiring the first few employees is one of the most exciting parts of starting a business. It means that you’re taking off, but it’s also a very scary responsibility. Every week or two you’re going to have to pay people who are depending on you for their livelihoods. What makes it even harder is that managing a payroll distracts from important activities that will actually help grow the business. That’s where ZenPayroll comes in. They’re a San Francisco, CA based company that has created “the easiest way to pay your employees.” It’s software-as-a-service that removes the need for “unnecessary layers of complexity, manual tasks and numerous fees.”
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You can do almost anything with someone else’s money–build a house, buy a car, go to school, shop ’til you drop, start a business, etc. Sometimes it’s a good idea, and sometimes it’s a really bad idea. One of the smartest times to borrow money is for upfront business expenses that will pay back over time. This is the kind of lending that Balboa Capital does. They’re an Irvine, CA based company that “has been providing equipment leasing and working capital loans to US businesses for over two decades.” They are in the business of keeping other businesses in business.
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If you need to make a decision about something that you don’t know a lot about, your best bet is to consult an expert. That’s why friends usually come to me for all of their meat related questions. Since text messaging a buddy won’t always get you the right answer–especially in the business world–there need to be other ways to find expertise fast. AlphaSights is a New York, NY based company that provides “today’s investors, deal-makers and corporate strategists with access to the knowledge they need to succeed.” Unlike consulting firms, they don’t actually provide the knowledge. Instead they play the role of “knowledge brokers.”
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From what I’ve seen, the non-profits that work at the community level often have the most impact. They may be smaller, but they’re in touch with the most pressing needs and able to react quickly to them. A great model for big non-profits might be to work through smaller non-profits. In fact, that’s exactly what Local Initiatives Support Corporation does. They are a New York, NY based organization that “has connected local organizations and community leaders with resources to revitalize neighborhoods and improve quality of life” over the last three and a half decades. They do this by bringing together public and private resources and making it easy for partners to access them.
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We’re right in the thick of graduation season, wedding season is just picking up steam, and Father’s Day is just around the corner. Chances are that you’ll be buying someone a gift in the next few weeks. Hopefully you’ll find something perfectly personal for your grad, Dad, or favorite couple, but in the event that you don’t, you can still offer something personalized. That’s what Things Remembered specializes in. The Highland Heights, OH based company is “the nation’s largest and most prominent retailer of personalized gifts.” If it can be engraved, Things Remembered probably sells it (they also do some embroidery).
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I always enjoy when two people with moderately funny last names decide to get married. There’s always the question of will they combine their names with a hyphen? The best potential that I’ve ever heard of was Weiner-Butt, but the couple sadly did not decide to hyphenate. These funny combos can also be created by business partners. Imagine that a guy with a not very funny last name of Wong and a guy with a pretty funny last name of Doody decided to start an ad agency. They could try to invent some random brand name that doesn’t say much about who they are, or they could smash their identities together and start WONGDOODY (the company logo is equally smashed together). The agency is based in Seattle, WA and “is the most awarded independent advertising agency on the West Coast.” They’re relatively small, but they’re doing some serious work.
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You’ve probably looked at thousands of ads already today, but chances are that you haven’t thought about how they got in front of you. Behind all of those ads is a group of people who made a complicated set of decisions to get that specific message to you in a specific place at a specific time. Managing those kinds of decisions at scale is really hard. Centro makes it easier. They’re a Chicago, IL based company that works “to improve the lives of those working in the advertising industry by building media management software that helps marketers engage with audiences across all digital channels in the most successful manner possible.” The goal is put all of the options in one place so that advertisers can make the best decisions for themselves or for clients.
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I live to be outdoors. For me it’s mostly about fishing, but I enjoy hunting, hiking, kayaking, and pretty much anything else that gets me out in the wilderness. The tough thing is that I like to get away from civilization, but civilization is constantly encroaching on the wilderness. We need to find a balance, and that means getting more people involved in outdoor activities so that they’ll stand up to protect what needs to be protected. It’s better to share our special places with other enthusiasts then have them get turned into strip malls. The best way to get more people involved is to start them young, and that’s what Bay Area Wilderness Training is all about. They’re an Oakland, CA based non-profit that was “founded with the idea that California’s bountiful wilderness areas are a vast – yet untapped – resource for local youth-serving organizations.”
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Travel decisions are almost always open to outside influence. If you know where you’re going, you may need help figuring out how to get there or what to do once you get there. If you don’t know where you want to go, the possibilities are truly endless. That’s why marketers love the travel market (it helps that travelers are often exceedingly willing to spend money to travel). Just like in every other industry, marketers in the travel space are getting much more sophisticated. Sojern is a San Francisco, CA based company that is leading that trend. They have developed a “robust audience engagement platform [that] is powered by machine-learning technology, enhanced programmatic buying (real-time bidding), and data insights.” The goal is to engage travelers and affect their decision-making process, and it seems to be working.
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It’s Tax Day! I’ve always done my own taxes, but Amy has always worked with an accountant. Since we’re filing jointly this year, we went with the accountant–and he saved us a good amount of money. Doing my own taxes was easy because I have a pretty solid system for tracking all of my business’ financial transactions (and I have a pretty simple business). When things get a little more complicated, software is usually the answer, but most software is built for individuals or huge businesses. inDinero is a San Francisco, CA based company that fills the middle ground. They are a virtual back office, which means that they’ll “take care of your accounting, file your corporate tax returns, and manage your payroll.” It’s exactly what I would want if my company was a little bigger.
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I used to like golf, but I quit playing about ten years ago. It started when I signed up for P.E. Golf during my Freshman year of college. To pass I had to play ten rounds of nine holes during the semester. I didn’t play my first round until October 1st. The course closed on October 31st, and it was a really cold fall. The last few rounds were played in a face mask and gloves. After that experience I started to realize that I’d rather catch the fish in the ponds on the course than hit a little white ball around. Then I broke the head off of my driver at a driving range and decided never to play again. It happened to be a Callaway Big Bertha. The Carlsbad, CA based company aims “to deliver the best performing products the game has ever known—products that perform so well, they literally put the joy of the game in your hands.” It didn’t quite work out for me, but it has definitely worked out for lots of other golfers.
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Right now I have a shot at winning $1 billion. My bracket is 100% correct… though no games have been finished yet. In case you haven’t heard, Quicken Loans has put up that amount for anyone who gets a perfect bracket (and Warren Buffet backed it with one of his insurance businesses). It sounds like March Madness until you crunch the numbers. There is essentially zero chance that someone will win the prize, yet millions of people entered… and shared their information with Quicken Loans. That’s exactly why the Detroit, MI based company sponsored the contest. New leads are the lifeblood of a mortgage business, even if you’re already the “#1 online retail lender.”
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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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Do any of you remember Flip cameras? They were all the rage for a few years, and then they got completely crushed by smartphones. Who would buy a standalone consumer level point and shoot or video camera when you already have something that offers comparable quality in your pocket? The only good reason that I can think of is that you’re worried you might destroy your phone. That’s where GoPro came in. They’re a San Mateo, CA based company that has built a huge business by offering “the world’s most versatile camera.” While other manufacturers were killing each other with battles over megapixels and size, GoPro was focusing on a niche market of users who wanted to be able to take their cameras on adventures. It turned out that it was a really big niche.
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A few years ago I got a lot of free stuff from Bonobos and Gilt Groupe by referring people. It was certainly out of self interest, but it’s hard not to refer a product or service that you love when they’re giving both referrers and referees free stuff. Referral marketing is tremendously effective, but it can be hard to implement a system that works. Extole is a San Francisco, CA based company that specializes in helping “brands acquire new customers at scale by rewarding existing customers.” Why build out your own software to reward customer referrals when you can use Extole’s platform instead?
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There’s no doubt that health and fitness are the most popular categories for New Year’s resolutions, but many people also want to improve themselves in the areas of education, finance, and careers. It seems easy at first–if you make better decisions, you’ll be better–but good decision making can be really hard. Tree.com is a company that aims to be the place “where good decisions start.” The Charlotte, NC based company operates a portfolio of brands and businesses that can help you whether you’re “buying or selling a home, financing a new car, sending a child to college or shopping around for a new credit card.”
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When Amy and I were looking for a new place, we had a lot of trouble sifting through real estate listings. Between the junk, spam, and properties that were of no interest to us, it was really hard to zero in on the kind of places that appealed to us. Working with a real estate agent helped us narrow things down, but the software that they used to show us listings was pretty terrible. One trick that I figured out for searching mainstream sites like Zillow and Redfin was to use very specific, high-end keywords (I bet you could adapt this to job searching). It’s almost as if the people who built RealScout had my exact experience. They’re a Sunnyvale, CA based company that “leverages over 500 datapoints to make home search more personal for clients and more efficient for Realtors.” By focusing on the little things, they help people look at the right kind of properties.
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I hate to get personal, but raise your hand if you’re wearing underpants! I guess it’s not really all that personal unless you didn’t raise your hand. Most of us wear undergarments on a daily basis because that’s what we’ve always done. There are certainly some comfort and hygiene benefits, but those wily marketers really pulled one over on us when they convinced us that we had to wear clothes under our clothes. I’ll bet that the folks at Jockey International had something to do with it. They’re a Kenosha, WI based company that aims “to satisfy the human need for comfort.” They got their start selling socks to lumberjacks in Michigan in the late 1800s, and they now offer more than 600 styles of underwear and t-shirts (and socks, sportswear, and loungewear too).
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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.
When we featured Duraflame, I thought they’d be the only company that I’d write about with an office on a boat (excluding companies that use boats as parts of their businesses, of course). Today’s company really made a name for itself when they turned a retired ferryboat into a floating workshop on the San Francisco Bay (they now have offices all over the world). That move certainly helped build the Landor brand, which is kind of funny, since that’s what they do for clients–they “help the world’s best brands stand up, stand out, and stand for something.” Many of their clients already have massive brand awareness, so Landor is tasked with making the most of that brand equity.
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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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On Tuesday we talked about DataXu and how they’re helping advertisers make the most of their advertising budgets by crunching tons of data. Unsurprisingly, publishers want in on the optimization action too. I’ve seen firsthand how a few tweaks to an advertising setup can have momentous impact overnight. While Altitude Digital doesn’t take a big data approach like DataXu, the Denver, CO based company does “empower publishers to effectively monetize and optimize their online display, video and mobile inventory.” Doing that well has landed them at #54 on the Inc. 5000 with 5,162% three-year growth to $11.4 million in annual revenue.
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From the beginning One Day One Job has been built on top of WordPress. To many it’s simple blogging software, but it’s amazing how far you can take it with a little bit of tweaking. The problem with self-hosted WordPress (as opposed to WordPress.com) is that it requires running your own server. You can find a host that makes it easy to get started, but as soon as your site starts to grow, you’ll run into problem after problem. I used to spend at least a week’s worth of workdays every year worrying about server stuff (downtime, optimization, security, and all kinds of other details). That all changed when I moved my sites to WP Engine. They are an Austin, TX based company that “host tens of thousands of the 75 million WordPress sites and apps on Earth.” I’ve had almost zero downtime since I switched, but more importantly, I no longer worry about my server configuration (and I’m even paying less than I used to for hosting).
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I love meat. I even got an A+ in the Meat Science course that I took in college (it wasn’t nearly as easy as it sounds). In my opinion, animal protein gets an unfairly bad rap for being unhealthy. I went on a diet of mostly high-fat meat and vegetables before my wedding, and lost forty pounds–there’s no way that I’m not healthier because of that. However, there are plenty of people who feel that animal-based diets have significantly negative health and environmental repercussions. Many of them would like to be able to enjoy meat, but can’t because of what they know, think, or feel. Beyond Meat is going to change that… kind of. They are a Manhattan Beach, CA (headquarters) and Columbia, MO (plant) based company that is “focused on perfectly replacing animal protein with plant protein where doing so creates nutritional value at lower cost.” I’d rather just eat a nice steak, but all the veggie burgers and seitan ribs are proof enough that there’s a market for this kind of stuff.
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When I was growing up, I was anything but a youth against establishment. My school had a dress code, and I’m not sure that I ever violated it (ok, I may have forgotten to wear a belt once or twice). Even outside of school, I wore the same khaki pants that I had to wear at school (but with sneakers and a t-shirt of course)–I think I outgrew my last pair of jeans in 7th grade. It shouldn’t be a surprise that I’ve never owned anything from Volcom. In case you’re not familiar with the brand, they’re a San Clemente, CA based “designer, marketer and distributor of premium quality young men’s and young women’s clothing, accessories and related products.” The company was founded in 1991, and came out of Orange County boardsports culture.
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For me Father’s Day is all about wildlife. I’ve spent every one for the past 20 years in woods of Michigan on a fishing trip with my Dad. It used to mark the end of the trip, but this year it’s the beginning. Every year we get to reap the benefits of the work done by conservation organizations. Up there a lot of the work is done by non-profits with a sporting focus, but I’ve come to realize that there quite a few organizations that protect wildlife just because it’s something that should be done. One of these is Defenders of Wildlife. They’re based in Washington, DC, and they aim to “protect and restore imperiled species throughout North America by transforming policies and institutions and promoting innovative solutions.” The organization was founded in 1947 and operates at both a national and local level.
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I’ve mentioned a few times that I’ve been working hard to get in shape for my wedding. So far I’ve lost about 35 pounds while adding muscle. All of my success has come from the Paleo diet and a personal trainer. I like sticking to the basics when it comes to health, but some people are looking for an answer in a bottle. NutraClick provides such answers. They are a Boston, MA based natural products company that builds “brands by developing winning products and leveraging the power of online marketing to drive offline demand.” So far they have products in Sports Nutrition, Natural Health, Age-Specific Skincare, and Beauty (with a side of social selling), and I’m sure more are on the way.
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One of my favorite episodes of The Office is when Michael Scott tells his employees to pack a swimsuit for a leadership training trip, and then takes them on a “booze cruise” on Lake Wallenpaupack in January. The staff are obviously pissed at Michael, but for the most part end up having a good time. I’ve been on a few evening cruises, and I’ve always had a great time. I guess that is why Entertainment Cruises is doing so well. They’re a company with “26 vessels serving eight cities with six unique cruise products.” Entertainment Cruises’ offerings range from fine dining and dancing to speedboat tours, with a lot in between. They currently operate fleets in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New Jersey, New York, Norfolk, Philadelphia, and Washington DC.
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