Today is my birthday. My wife has an exciting day planned for me, and that obviously makes me feel very special. Everybody should feel special on their birthdays–especially children. Unfortunately, children who are living in homeless shelters often have their birthdays forgotten. Birthday Wishes is a Newton Centre, MA based non-profit that believes “that all children, regardless of their living situation, should celebrate their birthdays joyfully, surrounded by family, friends, and others who care.” The organization was founded in 2002, and is getting close to celebrating 20,000 birthdays a year. That’s truly amazing. I’m off to celebrate my own special day, so I’ll send you to Birthday Wishes’ Idealist page. They don’t have any internships posted right now, but I know that they’ve had interns in the past. They’re also always looking for volunteers.
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My parents will tell you that I’ve always liked to argue. That’s why I joined the Debate Club in high school. The club only put on one debate (and I can’t remember the topic), but I definitely participated. I always love competing in anything, and I think it’s silly that most schools endlessly promote competition in sports but shy away from any formalized academic competition. Things like Debate Clubs are great for kids, and that’s why the Boston Debate League was started. It’s a non-profit organization that is “transforming school culture through debate.” They’ve only been around since 2005, but the organization has already expanded to the point where they expect to serve 800 debaters this school year.
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When social media started picking up steam as an essential business tool, it was mostly tech brands that were investing in it. They the huge national brands started tweeting, Facebooking, and Instagramming. Now it’s time for the local brands to jump on the bandwagon. Social Media Beast is a Chicago, IL based agency that is helping some of Chicago’s most notable brands do social right. Much of the cost in hiring a full-time social media person are centered around training and managing the individual. Why would a small business waste resources doing that when they can just hire an agency like Social Media Beast?
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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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There are a few kids who I knew growing up that ended up playing professional sports. For one it was destiny. His dad was a pretty good MLB player whose cousins played in the NFL. Despite the pedigree and signing an NFL contract, I don’t think my friend ever got in a game. Another kid (with a crazy intense dad who got banned from coaching in at least one local league) played a few years of minor league baseball. However, the most successful pro athlete that I knew growing up was a kid who I never would have expected to make it. He never struck me as super athletic, but he ended up being extremely good at lacrosse. In fact, he has already won a Major League Lacrosse Championship and made an All Star Team. It may not be one of the four major sports leagues, but it’s a serious league with serious growth potential (lacrosse keeps getting more popular). While the league is headquartered in Brighton, MA, it has teams in Boston, MA; Charlotte, NC; Annapolis, MD; Denver, CO; Hamilton, ON; Hempstead, NY; Columbus, OH; and Rochester, NY.
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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’ve had a cold for the past two weeks. The first week wasn’t too bad, but this past week has been terrible. It’s amazing how something as minor as a cold can remind you how awesome it is to be healthy. There isn’t much that you can do for a cold besides rest, drink a lot of fluids, and wait it out (though hot showers and cough drops can relieve some of the symptoms temporarily), but for many other health issues information is your best weapon. HealthiNation is capitalizing off of this fact by offering “videos to inspire a healthy and active lifestyle for audiences everywhere.” The company is based in New York, NY and offers content on food, family, fitness, and all kinds of other health-related topics.
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When I was a kid I had a chemistry set. Unfortunately, it was a pretty watered down version. I could create reactions that made liquids change colors, but that was about it. I always dreamed of having the chemistry set that my Dad had during his childhood. While it was a bit more dangerous, it sounded way more fun (explosions!). Maybe if I had access to a better chemistry set, I would have pursued Chemistry past my 10th grade class (my teacher that year didn’t help). That’s what the Chemical Education Foundation wants more kids to do. They’re an Arlington, VA based non-profit that “is committed to enhancing science education among every generation, beginning with our youth, by emphasizing the central role of chemistry in all the sciences and in our everyday lives.”
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There is a seemingly infinite number of non-profit organizations fighting for the environment. Whether it’s the Marine Conservation Institute, the Biodiversity Project, or the International Council on Clean Transportation, at any given moment you can find a group of people organizing somewhere to do something to better the condition of the world around us. Although there are many groups and organizations that focus on single environmental issues, there are few that cover as many bases as the Natural Resources Defense Council. While you may have never heard of NRDC before, you’ve probably seen the effects of their influence. The Natural Resources Defense Council, is a non-profit based in New York, NY that is tackling a variety of issues including clean energy, pollution, and endangered animals. Named by The New York Times as “one of the nation’s most powerful environmental groups,” NRDC does everything it can to approach environmental issues from all sides.
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One of the worst things about being able to build websites is that people constantly ask you to build them websites. They don’t understand that doing web development for your own projects is very different from doing it for clients. Even the simplest project can become a total headache when you’re trying to meet someone else’s specifications (especially when it’s family). I was never cut out for client work, which is why I stopped doing it when I was 18 even though it was really good money. However, there are many firms that only do client work. One here in Chicago, IL is called Tecture. They design and build “custom web and mobile applications, ecommerce websites, and custom content-managed websites” for all kinds of clients.
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When I was in high school, it was the golden age of free music. High speed Internet connections were becoming commonplace, and file sharers weren’t really being prosecuted yet. You could have (permanently) almost any music you wanted for free. Those days have long passed, but we’re in another period of at least semi-free music access. Thanks to companies like Spotify, you can listen to what you want when you want to… as long as you’re willing to put up with some ads. F# is a New York, NY based company behind many of those ads–they connect “brands to consumers through the power of music in purposeful ads.” Brands know that music is a great way to connect with consumers. And that means ad-supported online music services provide an amazing opportunity.
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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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E-mail continues to be one of the most underrated marketing channels. Google’s launch of the Gmail Promotions Tab was definitely a scary development, but the inbox is still the most reliable place to reach people who have given you permission to communicate with them. The latest trend in e-mail marketing is personalization. That means that e-mail providers are entering the big data space. One example is Movable Ink. They’re based in New York, NY, and they want to make e-mail marketing just as agile as other online marketing channels. That means turning e-mails into “containers for live content that adapt to when, where, and how recipients open and interact with messages.”
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What do hipsters love? Brooklyn and things with suggested prices/contributions (you can feel like a full paying customer without being a full paying customer). They also like artsy stuff. I have to imagine that the Brooklyn Museum is a hipster’s paradise, but then again it’s probably paradise for a lot of people considering that it’s “one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country.” They have more than half a million square feet of space and an amazing group of collections “that range from the ancient to the contemporary and encompass virtually all the world’s principal cultures.”
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Education is a lot like compound interest. You do way better if you get a good start (and vice versa). Apparently some states “use third grade academic performance data to predict the number of prison beds they will need in the following decade.” That’s depressing, but it makes sense and tells us a lot about how important the first few years of school are. If children are already behind at such an early age, how will they ever catch up? BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life) is a Boston, MA based non-profit that has some answers. They aim “to transform the academic achievements, self-confidence, and life trajectories of children living in under-resourced, urban communities.” This is done through after-school and summer educational experiences that are designed to help kids catch up during the time that they’re not in school (apparently the lack of summer learning opportunities explains “2/3 of the academic achievement gap between children from low-income communities and their higher-income peers”).
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When I was a kid I always wanted to be in the Burger King Kids Club, but my parents would never take me to Burger King… so that didn’t really work out. There’s something about the words “kids club”–it sounds exclusive, yet inviting when you’re in your single digits. Apparently the words are working for New York Kids Club, which is a New York, NY based company that offers the city’s “premier children enrichment center renowned for an exemplary preschool program and creative and innovative kids classes, day camps, birthday celebrations, and special events!” They may be towards the bottom of this year’s Inc. 5000, but they still saw 56% three-year growth to $12.5 million in revenue.
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Investing is about information. To do well you either need the most accurate information, the fastest access to information, the best analysis of information, or luck. Most individual investors rely on the latter (even if they don’t realize it), while most institutional investors are doing everything they can to get the best information and analysis as fast as possible. eVestment helps clients do this. The Marietta, GA based company was founded in 2000 when three consultants realized that their clients were faxing data and entering it into Excel. They solved this problem by putting the data and analytics tools in the same place–the cloud. eVestment provides both, though clients who want to use different data can bring it right into the analytics packages.
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A few years ago infographics totally blew up. Outlets like USA Today have been using them forever, but everyone in the content business jumped on the bandwagon seemingly at once. Why? Because infographics are tailor made for social media. They deliver a lot of information in a short amount of time, and that makes them super shareable with crowds who tend towards a shorter attention span. Column Five is a company that was in the right place at the right time. They are a Newport Beach, CA based infographic design, social PR, and content strategy agency that landed at #291 on the Inc. 5000 with 1,504% three-year growth to $5.3 million in revenue. It helps when your client list includes the World Bank, GE, and Harvard.
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Traveling with a puppy is challenging. We haven’t taken a car ride longer than 45 minutes with him, but he gets really excited during the first five minutes. If we put him in one of our laps, he wants to lick the windows and watch the world pass him by. If we put him in the crate, he’ll whine a little bit and stare at us until he falls asleep. The crate is winning out so far, but I want to look into other solutions as we start extending our trips. Kurgo is a company built to solve my problem. They are based in Salisbury, MA, and they manufacture and sell “high-quality pet travel products.” While many pets love the end result of travel, the process can be stressful. Kurgo’s products are designed to help your furry friend get from point A to B safely and comfortably.
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The technology of the 90s and early 2000s was durable. Most devices were built like tanks because a few extra ounces (or pounds) here and there don’t really matter when many of the components are already so heavy. Today size and weight are main selling points for most types of electronics. The only problem is that today’s devices seem far more susceptible to breaking. It’s a tradeoff, but it sucks to be on the losing end when you drop your three-day old $600 phone on the grass and the screen shatters. Manufacturers and third parties have started offering all kinds of repair services, but they’re still expensive. Why can’t you just do it yourself?
With the help of iFixit you can. They are a San Luis Obispo, CA based company that wants “to show the world how to fix every thing.” They seem to be having some success with that, as they landed on the Inc. 5000 with 223% three-year growth to $9.8 million in revenue.
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In my tenth grade English class I had to recite a poem from memory. I was assigned “Out, Out–” by Robert Frost. It’s just about the perfect poem for a teenage boy to appreciate, even if it is a bit morbid. When I Googled the poem this morning, the first result was from the Poetry Foundation, which is a Chicago, IL based “independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture.” They are the publisher of Poetry magazine, and in 2011 the non-profit opened a building that “houses a public garden, a 30,000-volume library, an exhibition gallery, the Poetry Foundation’s programming offices—including the offices of Poetry magazine—and provides new space for the Foundation’s extensive roster of public programs and events.” It’s just around the corner from where I used to live, and it’s an impressive and interesting structure.
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While I tend to think that the importance of home ownership is overrated by most people in the U.S., I do realize how powerful the psychology of owning something can be. This becomes far more important when it comes to how you make your living. Using someone else’s capital is often the easiest choice, but it gives you very limited control over your future. This may not matter so much if you’re an accountant who is working in a competitive labor market, but it’s a huge deal if you’re farming for subsistence–and that’s what much of the world’s people do. Landesa is a Seattle, WA based non-profit that “works to secure land rights for the world’s poorest people– those 2.47 billion chiefly rural people who live on less than two dollars a day.” They do this because they believe that when people own the land, they can invest in improving it without worrying about having to worry about someone else reaping the rewards.
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I think it’s about time for a puppy update. Garçon is now 14 weeks old, and he’s doing great. He’s sleeping through the night, he hasn’t had an accident in nearly three weeks, and he’s starting to master basic commands like sit, lie down, and come. In fact, he’s supposed to graduate puppy class tonight. A big part of successfully training a puppy is finding treats that he or she loves. I know that some dogs will go wild for anything edible, but our little guy just isn’t that food motivated. It wasn’t until a friend brought him a gift from Stella & Chewy’s that we saw him go nuts for a treat. Stella & Chewy’s is a Milwaukee, WI based company that believes “that dogs and cats deserve to thrive on pure, simple, minimally processed food – the way nature intended.” Their founder, Marie Moody, couldn’t find any commercially available products that lived up to her nutritional standards for her dogs (Stella and Chewy), so with the help of veterinary nutritionists she developed a line of raw, freeze-dried meat treats and meals.
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Whenever Amy and I enter volleyball tournaments, I end up pushing myself too far (it doesn’t help that the tournaments always end up being on 95 degree days). In past tournaments I have burned the arches of my feet on the sand, nearly thrown up in the middle of a match, and collapsed on to my bed convulsing as muscle cramps moved from muscle to muscle. Each of the three situations was preventable, and the latter two were all about hydration and nutrition. Water isn’t enough some days. I’m not a big fan of sugary sports drinks, and coconut water hasn’t seemed to do the trick. Maybe I’ll try Nuun. They’re a Seattle, WA based company that “was the first to separate electrolyte replacement from carbohydrates.” Their flagship product is a “simple, self-dissolving, sugar-free electrolyte tab” that you can pop in a bottle of water before, during, or after intense physical activity.
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When you get engaged, everybody tells you how much fun registry shopping is. I’m still waiting for the fun part. Just kidding. The fun part was doing our Amazon Registry, which had all of the cool kitchen gadgets that I wanted. When someone bought us something on that, I got really excited. I was a little bit less excited about our registries at Simon Pearce, Bloomingdale’s, and Restoration Hardware. I’m very grateful to everyone who bought us a gift from those registries, but a blowtorch is way better than a water pitcher in my book. Now let’s go back to that last place we registered: Restoration Hardware. That ended up being our least popular registry (in terms of % completed), which is surprising when you consider that the Corte Madera, CA “home furnishings retailer” made the Inc. 5000 with 91% three-year growth to $1.2 billion in revenue. While that growth rate is lower than what we’re accustomed to, we can make an excuse for a company that passed the billion dollar mark (and is no longer eligible for the list now that they have IPOed).
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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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I used to be really interested in politics, but over the past decade I’ve come to the realization that business is usually a better way to enact positive change than public policy is. While I might have lost most of the faith I had in the political process, I still realize that it’s necessary for a functioning society. The only way that it’s going to get better is for better people to go into politics. American Council of Young Political Leaders is a Washington, DC based non-profit (big surprise there) that is “recognized as the pre-eminent catalyst for introducing rising political and policy professionals to international affairs and to each other.” The organization was founded in 1966 by leaders from both American political parties because they saw how important fostering cooperation and understanding could be at the height of the Cold War.
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Washington DC
I haven’t developed much of an opinion on the Syria situation yet, but I know that there are some things that everyone can agree on. One is that we need people looking out for the country’s children. More than a million kids have already fled the war, and there was a non-profit working to help them well before Syria became a staple of the evening news. It’s called Mercy Corps, and it’s a Portland, OR based organization that helps “people in the world’s toughest places survive the crises they confront and turn them into opportunities to thrive.” (Here’s what they’re doing in Syria.) They got their start in 1979 by raising $1 million to provide aid in Cambodia, and ever since they’ve been doing work all over the world.
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I’ve stayed in all kinds of hotels–from the fanciest of the fancy to ones that made my skin crawl. While the main things that I look for are a quiet room, a comfortable bed, and a powerful shower, my truly memorable stays have been at hotels that are interesting outside of the room. Sometimes that comes naturally with a scenic location or a historic building, and sometimes it’s more purposeful. 21c Museum Hotels is a company that is adding to the number of interesting places to stay. They’re based in Louisville, KY, and they now have three properties that are “born out of a desire to integrate contemporary art into everyday life” (the other two are in Cincinnati, OH and Bentonville, AR). The name says it all–they’re museums in hotels, and they’re apparently doing well. 21c Museum Hotels came in at #681 on the Inc. 5000 with 673% three-year growth to $4.6 million in revenue.
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