ReportWire

Tag: Growth

  • How to Start Marketing When You Don’t Know Where to Start

    Let’s get one thing out of the way: Marketing can be overwhelming. Especially when you’re staring at a blank screen, five browser tabs deep into conflicting advice, and wondering whether you should hire an agency, start a TikTok, or run a Facebook ad.

    The truth? Most businesses don’t start with a strategy, they start with confusion. And that’s okay. What matters is that you start somewhere. But start smart.

    Don’t try to shoot threes if you can’t even dribble

    One of the biggest mistakes we see business owners make is jumping straight into advanced tactics, like Google Ads, AI content tools, or influencer partnerships—all before mastering the basics.

    It’s like trying to shoot three-pointers when you haven’t even learned how to dribble a basketball. You’re skipping the fundamentals. And when you skip the fundamentals, you end up frustrated, wasting money, and wondering why nothing’s working.

    If you don’t have a solid marketing foundation, no tactic—no matter how trendy or expensive—will stick.

    Think of marketing like a tripod

    Strong marketing stands on three legs. If even one is missing or weak, the whole thing wobbles. Here’s what the marketing tripod looks like:

    1. Your website (foundation)

    If your website is slow, outdated, or confusing, no amount of ads will save you. Your site should load quickly, work on mobile, and guide visitors toward taking action (buying, booking, contacting you—whatever matters most).

    2. SEO (visibility)

    If no one can find you, you don’t exist. SEO helps you show up when potential customers are actively searching for what you offer. It’s not magic, it’s making sure your site speaks the same language your audience is typing into Google.

    3. Paid advertising (growth engine)

    Once you have a solid site and some SEO traction, paid ads help you reel in new customers faster. Think of it like casting a net: Ads get you in front of people who didn’t even know to search for you yet.

    If you’re missing one of these? Fix it before moving on.

    So where do you start?

    Let’s keep it simple. If you’re lost, start here:

    Audit your website: Is it clear, fast, and mobile-friendly? Does it explain what you do in under 10 seconds? Does it make it easy for someone to take the next step? If not, fix this first.

    Claim and optimize your Google Business Profile: This is low-hanging fruit. It helps with local SEO and makes your business easier to find on Maps and in search results.

    Write down what you want from marketing: More leads? More online visibility? Better retention? You can’t pick a strategy if you don’t know your goal. Get clear before spending a dollar.

    Avoid shiny object syndrome: Don’t start five platforms at once. Choose one channel that makes sense for your audience (email, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.) and be consistent there. Master it before you move on.

    When to bring in the pros

    You can do a lot on your own in the beginning. But there’s a point where the DIY route starts to cost you more time (and lost revenue) than it’s worth. Here’s when it makes sense to bring in professionals:

    • When you need specific expertise

    Running complex paid ads or tackling technical SEO shouldn’t be guesswork.

    • When time is more valuable than trial and error

    If you have a clear growth goal, professionals help you get there faster—without spinning your wheels.

    • When you’re ready to think strategically

    Tactical execution is one thing. But if you want to build a marketing engine that scales, strategy is non-negotiable.

    • When your growth outpaces your time

    If marketing is taking time away from running your business, it’s time to delegate.

    You don’t need a perfect plan—you just need to start

    Marketing isn’t something you master in one game. It’s like building your shot over time—you start by showing up, running drills, and getting your fundamentals right.

    The same goes for your business. So before you start launching three-pointers, make sure that you’ve mastered dribbling and layups first.

    The final deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, December 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

    Justin Lynch

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  • California consumer confidence plunges to 5-year low

    California consumer confidence has plummeted to levels not seen since the pandemic’s economic upheaval.

    My trusty spreadsheet’s review of the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index for California found that shopper psyche plunged 16% in November from October. This pushed the measure down to a level last seen in December 2020. Much of the index’s polling for this report took place before the 43-day shutdown ended on Nov. 12.

    This Golden State optimism tally is now 25% below its average since 2007. Plus, it hit its lowest November reading since 2012, and is not the consumer buoyancy merchants would like to see during the holiday shopping rush.

    Consumers juggle numerous challenges. The federal government shutdown, no matter who you blame, rattled nerves. Perhaps its resolution will revive sinking financial sentiments.

    Still, the job market appears wobbly. Immigration crackdowns are unnerving a part of the population. Plus, the state government budget has another huge shortfall.

    And while budget-busting inflation has decreased from its recent peak, it’s worrisome that it’s still not resolved for most shoppers’ satisfaction. The key price watchdog, the Federal Reserve, also seems more anxious about the employment picture.

    Slumping slices

    The California index tracks two slices of shopper sentiment, neither of which reveals much economic enthusiasm.

    Its “present situation” index – measuring current conditions – dropped 11% in November to a low last seen in mid-pandemic March 2021. It’s also 10% below average.

    The “expectations” index – gauging consumers’ financial outlook – was off 22% in November to its lowest level since October 2011. It’s now 37% below average.

    Nationally nervous

    U.S. consumers were spooked, too, but not as much as the Golden State.

    The overall national confidence index was off 7% in a month to a seven-month low and is 3% below its 19-year average. This was the weakest November confidence since 2013.

    The nationwide view of current conditions fell 3% in a month to its lowest since September 2024. But this yardstick remains 20% above average.

    The future is murky, nationally, too. The expectations index was off 12% to a seven-month low and sits 24% below average.

    Stately unease

    Five of the seven other big states tracked by the Conference Board saw optimism drop – but no political pattern emerges.

    Michigan: Down 22% in a month to the lowest level since June 2014 and 9% below average.

    Florida: Down 15% in a month to the lowest since April 2025, but 8% above average.

    Ohio: Down 10% in a month to the lowest since October 2016 and 7% below average.

    Illinois: Down 8% in a month to the lowest since October 2020 and 6% below average.

    Pennsylvania: Down 8% in a month to the lowest since September 2024 and 4% below average.

    And the two gainers couldn’t be more different, politically speaking. For example, New York City just elected a democratic socialist as its next mayor. Texas leans conservative.

    New York: Up 13% in a month and to 29% above average.

    Texas: Up 9% in a month and to 2% below average.

    Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com

    Jonathan Lansner

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  • Lessons From Poppi’s Exit: Not Every Founder Is a CEO

    What is the difference between a founder and a CEO?  

    Is it tenure? Skill? Is it about proximity to an exit?  

    At October’s Inc. 5000 Conference, I had the pleasure of meeting Allison and Stephen Ellsworth, cofounders of Poppi. They were fresh off their whopping $2 billion exit. This husband-and-wife duo successfully launched a small company and grew it into an enterprise.  

    Hearing them move effortlessly from stories about kitchen-counter flavor tests to navigating billion-dollar acquisition talks made me realize something had fundamentally shifted along the way.  

    I later realized that the shift from founder to CEO has a lot less to do with a formal title or externals and a lot more to do with a personal choice every founder has to make: Do I want my business to be a solo act or do I want my business to be an orchestra?  

    Or put more simply: Is my business playing in the arena of winning Wimbledons or Super Bowls?  

    If entrepreneurship is about rallying followers behind you, then leadership is about building better leaders around you. That’s the shift.  

    Founders “play” singles tennis; CEOs play 5-on-5 basketball.  

    What got you here won’t get you there 

    Most founders never planned on leading a company. They saw a problem and solved it. But the skills that launch the company into infancy are not the same skills that build an enduring business.  

    Despite her supreme athleticism, Serena Williams probably wouldn’t be as successful if she jumped into a WNBA team with the same training approach she had in tennis.  

    The same principle applies to business. The habits and behaviors that get a company off the ground are not the same ones needed in leading a growing and thriving company. 

    That’s why Allison and Stephen’s success really struck me; it was clear they changed their approach somewhere along the way. 

    The way they spoke of their experience highlighted to me that being a founder is a calling.  

    Being a CEO is a choice.  

    And by the way, if you love playing singles tennis, that’s a perfectly valid choice—just know what you’re choosing.  

    As founders, we all eventually need to make that choice. We need to choose which game we’re going to play. So how do founders make that shift?  

    My favorite way to make the CEO shift  

    At the same conference, Jay Shetty shared a moment that became my favorite definition of what a CEO does. Jay retold a moment from the movie about Steve Jobs. Jobs is asked: “What do you even do here? You’re not an engineer. You’re not a designer. What even is your job?”  

    Jobs responds: “Musicians play instruments, I play the orchestra.”  

    This is the shift.  

    If a founder desires to grow beyond their own personal limits to become a CEO, they can’t keep doing what they’ve always done. They will inevitably have to put down the instrument they have become so good at playing and take up the conductor role.  

    Stephen shared his rule for when to let go: the moment someone can do your job 60 percent as well as you can. 

    Not 80 percent. Not when it feels safe. At 60 percent. 

    My takeaway is that a company benefits more from momentum than from perfection. 

    Or watch the business plateau at the ceiling of the founder’s personal limits.  

    This is the choice every founder eventually faces.  

    Not on stage. Not in a boardroom. In a quiet moment, they decide: Do I want to keep playing every note, or do I start conducting something bigger than me? 

    Allison and ​​Stephen chose the symphony.  

    You don’t have to stop being a founder to become a CEO. But you do have to shift what you do. 

    Final thoughts 

    In the game of business, don’t be the player trying to score every point. Be the leader who can build a team that can win without you. 

    If you are hungry for your answer, close this browser and find a quiet place to ask: Am I the type of founder that plays to win Wimbledon or am I the type of founder that plays to win the Super Bowl?“ 

    If you want to win the latter, here’s your first step: Write down everything you did this week. Circle the one task that, if you handed it off tomorrow at 60 percent quality, would free you to focus on what only you can do.  

    That’s your first instrument to put down. 

    Solo acts rarely exit for billions. Orchestras do. 

    The final deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, December 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

    Alan Badia

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  • 5 New Books to Help Leaders Strengthen Mindset and Growth

    Every business founder has a dream, but staying focused helps them maintain a growth mindset as the initial rush of excitement fades. 

    However, I’ve learned that growth doesn’t happen in isolation. It comes from the ideas you surround yourself with. At times, we all could use a source of inspiration to remind us why we took the initial leap and continue to bet on our vision. For me, that’s always started with great books.

    In fact, I’ve always believed that the best leaders are readers.

    These standout October titles deliver practical lessons that help leaders grow in every direction. They can help you enhance your focus while improving company culture and building stronger customer relationships.

    1. Mindmasters: The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior by Sandra Matz

    Every scroll, search, and click leaves a trail, and according to Columbia Business School’s Sandra Matz, that trail says more about you than you think. Mindmasters breaks down how algorithms can decode those patterns to predict what we’ll buy, believe, or even feel next.

    It’s fascinating and a little unnerving. But Matz argues that leaders can flip that insight into a competitive edge. By understanding how data shapes behavior, you can build more personalized marketing, stronger customer trust, and smarter teams without crossing ethical lines.

    Rethink how you use customer data. Transparency isn’t just good ethics. It’s good business.

    2. The Systems Leader: Mastering the Cross-Pressures That Make or Break Today’s Companies by Robert E. Siegel

    The book The Systems Leader by Robert Siegel examines how executives at the top level manage the competing forces of organizational growth and stability, as well as innovation and control.

    His findings show that true leadership excellence comes from striking a middle ground, not from chasing extremes.

    The first step of Siegel’s method requires you to identify two opposing business priorities: growth and tight quality control. The exercise helps you see the spot that prevents you from moving in either direction.

    Design meetings that reward listening as much as speaking. Trust builds when everyone feels heard.

    3. Exceptional Experiences: Five Luxury Levers to Elevate Every Aspect of Your Business by Neen James

    I was drawn to Exceptional Experiences because it pushes the boundaries of how we think about customer care.

    Neen James reframes luxury not as a price point but as focused attention, the kind that makes people feel valued.

    Her five “luxury levers”—Entice, Invite, Excite, Delight, and Ignite—show how small, intentional acts of care can transform an ordinary interaction into something memorable. 

    The key, James explains, is to run an “attention audit” to find the moment in your customer journey where people feel ignored, rushed, or unseen. Then, fix it with a simple, genuine touchpoint, like a personal note or early access invite.

    Luxury lives in the details. When leaders treat attention as their most valuable currency, loyalty and growth naturally follow.

    4. Team Intelligence: How Brilliant Leaders Unlock Collective Genius by Jon Levy

    In Team Intelligence, Jon Levy demonstrates how to create communication systems and team practices that extract innovation and creativity from team members. 

    According to Levy, the most successful businesses consist of employees with strong trust bonds and who work in perfect unison.

    The “disagree better” principle, which Levy calls the hidden-voice tactic, functions as an essential method for creating a positive organizational culture. 

    Design meetings that reward listening as much as speaking. Trust builds when everyone feels heard.

    5. Headamentals: How Leaders Can Crack Negative Self‑Talk by Suzy Burke PhD, Ryan Berman, and Rhett Power

    Today’s leaders are navigating a level of uncertainty and complexity unlike anything before: AI disruption, shifting workplace expectations, and widespread team burnout. Headamentals meet that moment head-on.

    This isn’t about lacking skill or strategy. It’s about the spin inside our own heads; the self-doubt and inner chatter that quietly undermine leadership. Suzy Burke PhD, Ryan Berman, and Rhett Power explore how to identify and reframe those thought loops using neuroscience and practical exercises.

    Their core idea is simple but powerful: culture doesn’t start in the boardroom; it starts in the mind of the leader. When we learn to lead our self-talk, we strengthen every conversation that follows.

    Titles to Help Leaders Reset and Reinvision

    When setbacks hit, pause and reframe. The story you tell yourself determines how fast you recover and how your team follows your lead.

    There’s no one formula for leadership growth. Every business has its own learning curve, and every leader has to find the rhythm that keeps them moving forward. 

    What these authors offer are tools to make that process less chaotic and more intentional. You’ll still face the twists and turns that come with building something meaningful, but with sharper focus and steadier habits, progress starts to feel more deliberate and less like a stroke of luck.

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    The final deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, December 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

    John Hall

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  • What it Means to Win the Inc. 5000 Twice

    The first time Steady Solutions made the Inc. 5000, it felt like validation—proof that the grind, the pivots, and the late nights had paid off.

    The second time feels different. It’s not about arrival. It’s about endurance.

    Over the past few years, I’ve written about building under pressure, outgrowing your systems, and choosing foundations over visibility. All of that still holds true. But hitting the list again reminded me that growth isn’t a one-time achievement—it’s a discipline. It demands constant recalibration.

    Growth doesn’t get easier. It gets clearer.

    In the early days, success meant staying alive—win work, deliver, repeat. Today, it’s about predictability and precision. The question isn’t “Can we do it?” It’s “Can we do it consistently, without breaking our people or our systems?”

    Recognition is fuel, not validation.

    Awards open doors. They boost credibility. But they don’t move a schedule or close a gap. The first time, I thought visibility might accelerate us. Now I know—it only amplifies what’s already working. Systems build the business. Visibility just spotlights it.

    Leadership is about letting go.

    When I wrote about scaling under pressure, I was still learning to fire myself from roles I’d outgrown. This year, I learned to lean in further. My job isn’t to run projects—it’s to design the environment where great people can. The more I trust, the faster we move.

    Pressure never leaves. It evolves.

    We’re handling bigger programs, tighter timelines, and more complexity than ever. But pressure is no longer the enemy—it’s the filter. It reveals weak points, sharpens culture, and rewards discipline.

    Making the Inc. 5000 twice is an honor.

    But the real story isn’t the list—it’s the learning that got us back on it. Growth isn’t about getting bigger. It’s about getting better, then doing it again. And maybe the best part is knowing I’m not doing it alone—there are 4,999 other entrepreneurs with the same growth mindset, just a message away.

    We’re maturing. Steady Solutions is evolving from a small business into a mid-market company—with the systems, people, and discipline to match. And this milestone isn’t the finish line. It’s the next stage of becoming who we’re meant to be.

    The final deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, December 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

    Fabien Reille

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  • Durham City Council approves $44 million bond for major redevelopment in Hayti

    DURHAM, N.C. — City leaders, housing officials and longtime residents say the Fayette Place project site marks a major step toward rebuilding a neighborhood that has awaited revitalization for decades.

    What You Need To Know

    • The 20 acres of land has sat empty since 2009 after old buildings were torn down

    • Durham City Council approved a $44 million bond that will support the components for the mixed-use development

    • More than 250 affordable homes are planned to be built 

    • Construction for phase one can begin as early as next year


    For nearly 16 years, 20 acres in the heart of Hayti have remained empty, a silent reminder of the once-thriving Black neighborhood.

    But now, the Durham Housing Authority, a partner in the project, says the redevelopment will help reconnect the community with its roots.

    “There are efforts underway to reclaim the life of what once was there,” said Anthony Snell, interim CEO of DHA. “I’m not saying that we can reclaim all of it with this initiative, but what we are doing, certainly, I think is in the right direction.”

    The redevelopment plan includes over 250 affordable housing units, which would serve families earning 30% to 80% of Durham’s area median income. It’s a decision that project leaders say is critical at a time when housing costs are so high.

    Just blocks away, longtime Durham resident and business owner Angel Greene says she knows firsthand how challenging it has become to find affordable housing in the city. 

    Greene now owns a flower shop, Angel World of Flowers, that has served the community for nearly three decades. She took over the business earlier this year and says she wouldn’t be able to live in Durham today if she hadn’t purchased her home years ago.

    “If I hadn’t purchased my home years and years ago, I don’t know that I would be able to even live in Durham,” Greene said.

    Despite the challenges the community has faced over the years, Greene says she is optimistic.

    “I’m hoping in a few years, with the revitalization and all the money that’s been poured into this community, I’m really looking forward to the business booming,” she said.

    Snell says that is the goal, to rebuild Hayti in a way that benefits the people who have long called it home.

    “Give us an opportunity. I’m not saying that we have the panacea here,” he said. “We are not, going to be the one project that’s going to tilt the community back to its original state, but I think we are a critical piece of it because of our commitment.”

    DHA estimates the total cost of the development at $86 million, and officials say phase one of construction could begin as early as next year.

    Follow us on Instagram at spectrumnews1nc for news and other happenings across North Carolina.

    Ryan Hayes-Owens

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  • How to Build B2B Trust in the Age of AI

    91% of buyers don’t trust marketing today*.

    AI hasn’t just changed how we create content — it has completely reshaped how people judge credibility, authenticity, and intent.

    LIBN Staff

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  • How Great Leaders Turn Constraints Into Creative Breakthroughs

    When I first started working with creative teams on brand strategy, I thought giving them total freedom was generous—a blank page, endless options, and opportunity to go wild! Turns out, the blank page wasn’t freeing. It was terrifying. 

    The blank page panic disappears 

    Once I added a few guiding themes—a purpose, a feel, a tone—everything changed. Ideas began to flow, laughter came back, and creativity soared. I learned that constraints don’t kill innovation—they ignite it. 

    Psychologists have found that when resources are scarce, creativity often increases. This happens because people are forced to make new connections and use what they have in fresh ways. Constraints focus energy. When that energy uplifts and connects, creativity flourishes. 

    Leveraging ambiguity 

    Leaders live this truth every day. They operate in ambiguity, making decisions without all the information. It’s uncomfortable, and it’s also what keeps leadership alive. The uncertainty can add energy, curiosity, and even a sense of adventure when met with love-fueled openness. 

    When more constraints means more creativity 

    Some of the greatest innovations happen when the CFO says no to more money, more people, or more time. Instead, the team has to dig deep. Take IKEA. Their challenge wasn’t just to make nice furniture. It was to make beautiful furniture that’s affordable. Shipping full-size furniture was a cost trap, so they flipped the problem: flat-pack boxes, self-assembly, and minimal waste. That constraint became a global business model and invited the world to pronounce Swedish names! 

    Consider Southwest Airlines. They couldn’t afford the traditional airline model with multiple plane types and first-class service. Their response: one aircraft (the 737) and all coach seating—plus ultra-efficient operations. Simplicity became their superpower until they met their kryptonite. 

    In tech, look at Hugging Face, the company behind DistilBERT. Massive AI models like BERT were too expensive and slow to run. So they built a smaller, faster version that kept nearly all its intelligence. 

    The “yes, and” mindset 

    The second ingredient is the improv-inspired mindset of “Yes, and.” In improv, you don’t reject your partner’s wild idea—you accept it and build upon it. “Yes, it’s a spaceship… and it’s also a bakery!” That simple rule keeps scenes alive and ideas flowing. 

    In business, it’s the same. For example, at Pixar, the Braintrust meetings embody a “yes and” mentality. Ideas aren’t shut down. They’re built upon. That culture of exploration and iteration helped transform early story sketches into landmark films such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo. 

    Know when to say when  

    “Yes, and” isn’t about saying yes to everything. Love-powered leaders know when to pivot or pause. Wisdom lies in knowing when to stop chasing an idea and start learning from it. That’s still “yes, and”—just with humility and awareness. 

    Reflection questions 

    • When have constraints sharpened your creativity? 
    • How might uncertainty become a source of energy instead of stress for your leadership team?
    • Where could you replace “Yes, but…” with “Yes, and…” in your leadership? 

    5 steps to embrace constraints 

    1. Embrace constraints.
      Define a few creative boundaries. They focus imagination. 
    2. Practice “Yes, and.”
      Try five minutes of additive thinking in your next team meeting. No “buts” allowed. 
    3. Spot positive energy.
      Watch for moments when your team lights up—that’s your creative flow. 
    4. Welcome uncertainty.
      Treat not knowing something as an adventure, not a flaw. 
    5. Celebrate creative courage.
      Recognize both breakthroughs and graceful exits. 

    Team talk 

    At your next meeting, run a quick “Yes, and” session around a real challenge. Build upon each idea for five minutes. Then reflect on what shifted—in energy, ideas, and connection. 

    Your innovation challenge 

    If innovation had a dating profile, it would say: “Likes: limits, laughter, and love. Dislikes: endless budgets and buzzwords.” Less clutter, more connection. When you and your team bring curiosity, trust, and love-led energy to what’s already in your hands, the ordinary turns extraordinary. 

    Love-powered leaders don’t wait for perfect conditions. They create them, even with constraints. So when the next “no” arrives—no more budget, no more time, no more certainty—take a breath and smile. You might be standing at the starting line of something remarkable. 

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    Moshe Engelberg

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  • 6 Tips to Use AI to Revolutionize Operations

    Every industry faces inefficiency, but few feel it more acutely than construction. Missed deadlines, inconsistent data, and fragmented communication can cost companies millions. On a recent episode of The Big Idea from Yahoo Finance, I sat down with Dr. Sarah Buchner, founder and CEO of Trunk Tools, to talk about how AI technology is reshaping one of the world’s oldest industries.  

    Buchner’s story starts far from Silicon Valley. Growing up in Austria, she began working in construction with her father at just 12 years old, learning every layer of the trade from the ground up. Years later, after moving to the United States, she founded Trunk Tools, an AI platform built to organize unstructured data, automate workflows, and empower field workers.  

    Buchner shared that construction is the second-biggest industry after healthcare, and $13-14 trillion per year is spent on it.  

    As we talked, I was struck by how universal her lessons are. Whether you are running a construction firm or a creative agency, the principles behind her success apply to anyone looking to scale smarter, not harder.  Here are six takeaways on using AI to streamline business from my conversation with Buchner: 

    Choose the right AI partner. 

    AI is not going to take your job, but someone using AI could. So it’s important for white-collar workers to adopt it now. Buchner recommends sticking with the industry you have expertise in and looking into how AI can streamline your operations. When it’s time to purchase AI, evaluate who they are, how long they’ve been around, and whether they’ve been doing AI with customers in your segment.  

    “Business owners in all industries should be really clear about buying vertical-specific AI from companies who have done this for a while,” Buchner said. 

    Start with one workflow. 

    Pick one workflow that is highly repetitive that you deeply understand and other people don’t deeply understand. Start building AI for it. Trying to automate too many things at once can lead to confusion, wasted time, and unreliable data. Instead, identify one task that slows down your team and test how AI can simplify it. 

    Don’t fear hearing ‘no.’ 

    Buchner has raised $70 million and has more than 100 employees, but she’s been rejected many times along the way. She said things will not always move smoothly or in a straight line. However, it’s your job to get them back on track. Understand that hearing “no” is all part of the process. 

    Keep vision broad but the goal short. 

    Buchner recommends forgetting the five-year plan. Instead, stay agile and keep building. Brainstorm how you can use AI to organize and clean data drives, let it handle repetitive tasks, and invest in AI early. Don’t be afraid to experiment. 

    Know when to walk away from customers. 

    While Buchner believes in investing heavily in customer and market education, she’s also quick to recognize when a relationship isn’t the right fit. If potential clients resist change or refuse to adapt, she doesn’t waste energy trying to persuade them.  

    “I’d rather go with people who understand that things are changing and they need to jump on it,” Buchner said. 

    Before you raise money, ask if you really need it.  

    Consider whether you truly need venture capital. Most small businesses don’t, and can explore other options, such as debt financing. Treat fundraising like a sales process—know your audience, prepare your pitch, and understand the tradeoffs. 

    Buchner’s approach is a reminder that innovation starts with solving real problems. Streamlining operations is not just about efficiency. It’s about freeing people to focus on the work that matters most. Every founder faces the challenge of turning complexity into clarity. Buchner proves that with the right tools and mindset, even the most traditional industries can evolve faster than anyone expects. 

    Elizabeth Gore

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  • These CEOs Scaled Up While Strengthening Company Culture During Big Pivots

    Leaders who have scaled up their businesses know that protecting company culture is a key to successful change. At the Inc. 5000 conference, held last month in Phoenix, three leaders who have recently gone through big growth spurts shared their tips. Shuman Ghosemajumder, co-founder and CEO of the AI-powered cybersecurity firm Reken joined Kelly Johnson, founder of the advertising agency ANOVA Digital, and Ian Yang, the founder and CEO of the custom lighting design firm Gantri spoke about how they anchored their companies’ core values amid big shifts and rapid growth.

    Take Stock of Your Company Culture

    For Yang, the growth of his company Gantri was a long time coming, but it has made great leaps in a relatively short span since the pandemic. The Bay Area business, which clocks about $14.1 million in annual revenue, started out as a sustainable lighting and design firm in 2016, and this year launched a platform for designers to use Gantri’s manufacturing capabilities — including 3D printing — to bring their own products to market.

    “The process of mass-producing designs is very costly and very time-consuming, and so a lot of great designs don’t get to be brought to market and a lot of really creative, really amazing designers don’t get a chance to share their own ideas and build businesses,” Yang explained.

    As the company was growing, he consulted talent coaches, who asked the founder, “‘What do you want? What company culture do you want the company to exhibit?’ And I described all these things, and they’re like, ‘Those things are not present in your current company.’ And that realization I think was huge.”

    But with the company’s growth and diversification, “there was a difference between what the company culture was and what I wanted to be,” Yang said. “What I wanted was to empower my team was the idea of ownership, accountability, but most importantly the safety to take risks. I think with any startup, if you’re not taking risks, if you are not feeling a bit stressed about the decision you’re making, then you are not going to succeed because you’re status quo.”

    Make Hiring Decisions That Support the Culture You Want

    When Ghosemajumder, a veteran of Google’s trust and safety group, founded Reken in 2024, his aim was “building a platform to protect against scams and fraud that are enabled by AI that allows cyber criminals to be far more sophisticated than they’ve ever been before,” he said.

    Ghosemajumder said he took lessons from his long career and kept them in mind when building out Reken. “You’ve probably heard the quote from management theorist Peter Drucker, that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast,’ so whoever you hire in your organization, they’re going to dictate what your culture actually is regardless of what you tell them to do,“ he said. “You can’t hire a group of people who operate a certain way and then tell them, ‘We want you to operate in a completely different way, our culture.’ And so from the very beginning, one of the things that we did was we wrote down what we believe in as a company.”

    You want demonstrate that you’re an organization that wants to learn as much as possible, he said, because that is a conscious break from some of the know-it-all aspects of tech culture. “It actually takes a higher level of both competence and humility to say, ‘I’m open to new ideas and open to being challenged, and I want to be able to learn what’s required in this particular role,’ because that’s actually the thing that is most important in a startup.”

    Look for Employees With Entrepreneurial Spirit

    As ANOVA, an agency that specializes in lead generation for professional services clients such as law firms and financial advisers, hit an inflection point, Kelly Johnson suffered severe health problems in 2022. She realized that the company needed a full-time team, and also that it had to shed some smaller clients that took a disproportionate amount of time and effort, because they were holding back growth. Her days as a one-woman powerhouse were over, and that realization made all the difference as the agency took off.

    “It was at that moment that I realized I can’t do this anymore. I need to hire, I need to grow this. I’ve got a great opportunity,” that required focusing on growth clients, she said. “We just basically pivoted and focus on where we had the most experience and making the most income.”

    But building a high-growth oriented team required a certain amount of balance in the workplace and outside it, she said. “I want people to feel authentic at work,” she said. “We brought on an HR consultant that does all the pre-screening, she makes sure everyone fits together. We wanted people that have an entrepreneurial spirit and they feel like they can really own what they’re doing. [Now,] we have a great team.”

    Set the Right Tone for Your Business

    While each CEO’s path to scaling progressed differently, a common thread emerged in the discussion. When it’s time to pursue scale and growth, leaders need to take a thoughtful, hands-on approach to hiring people who can produce in a hands-off environment.

    “Organizations that are highly decentralized that are able to make decisions at the lowest possible level that are able to then reorganize themselves in order to be able to constantly shift their strategy as opposed to having to make every decision in a top down monolithic fashion,” Ghosemajumder said.

    The mix of control and autonomy creates the ideal blend for growth culture, which the Google vet pointed out is never a one-size-fits all template.

    “We have an infinite amount of LinkedIn, fortune cookie wisdom that we get on how to create culture and how to manage effectively,” he said. “And when you look at the most successful companies ever, the one thing that they have in common is that they weren’t blindly applying somebody else’s methodology to their organization.”

    The early-rate deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, November 14, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

    Will Swarts

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  • The Power of Unlearning 

    Many of us have been conditioned to glorify more—more degrees, more skills, more certifications. But what if the real power lies not in adding, but in pausing? In taking a moment to examine the beliefs, habits, and coping mechanisms that are no longer serving you. 

    Intrigued? Let’s dive in. 

    From the moment we take our first steps, life becomes a classroom. Some lessons are taught directly—by parents, teachers, or mentors. Others are absorbed indirectly—by what we see, what we hear, and how others respond to our choices. Over time, those inputs become our “truth,” shaping our worldview, our sense of right and wrong, and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s possible. 

    Those early lessons served me well for a time. They gave me the foundation to pursue education, climb career ladders, and build success as a founder, CEO, mother, and speaker. But somewhere in my forties, I realized something profound: Some of the very lessons that once helped me thrive were now holding me back. 

    Unlearning is about retraining the brain. It’s recognizing that beliefs, behaviors, and frameworks that once kept you safe—or even propelled you—may no longer serve the version of you that you’re becoming. The process is uncomfortable, but it’s also the gateway to growth. 

    Here are three questions that helped guide me toward freedom, joy, and alignment: 

    1. Are the variables still applicable today? 

    The world looks very different from when many of us first learned the “rules.” Technology, business, and even social norms have evolved dramatically—and clinging to outdated lessons can quietly limit our growth. 

    Take the rise of AI, for example. Many of us were taught that expertise comes only from years of education or formal certification. While education remains valuable, the truth today is that someone can sit down with tools like ChatGPT and generate business strategies, marketing campaigns, or even launch a podcast in days, not years. 

    If we don’t unlearn the belief that knowledge only comes from traditional systems, we risk missing new ways to accelerate our impact. 

    2. Are my indirect lessons actually true? 

    Sometimes what we absorb isn’t truth—it’s trauma. 

    When my great-grandmother passed, I remember watching my mother cry in the car as mascara streamed down her face. As a child, I made a false conclusion: If this is what love looks like, I don’t want it. For years, that unconscious belief kept me from fully opening myself to love and intimacy. 

    It wasn’t until my thirties that I confronted the truth: Love isn’t pain—loss is. By holding on to a child’s interpretation, I was protecting myself from the very thing I deeply desired. That realization forced me to unlearn, to rewrite my definition of love, and to give myself permission to receive it. 

    3. What beliefs are holding me back right now? 

    This is where transformation begins—with honesty. Are you clinging to a mindset that keeps you safe but small? Are you holding tight to “the way things have always been done” while yearning for something greater? 

    Unlearning is hard because it demands accountability. It requires you to look in the mirror and admit that the obstacles in your path might not just be external—they may be internal, born from lessons you’ve outgrown. 

    But here’s the truth: The life you want, the relationships you long for, and the impact you’re destined to make won’t come from clinging to old patterns. They’ll emerge when you find the courage to let go, reframe, and embrace new ways of thinking. 

    Visionaries aren’t defined by what they know—they’re defined by their willingness to evolve. 

    So ask yourself: 
    What do you need to unlearn today to step into your fullest power? 

    Angel Livas

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  • Visibility Won’t Save You, Systems Will

    When I started Steady, I worked out of a small coworking space surrounded by other scrappy founders trying to make something out of nothing. None of us had funding. We were all hustling. But even then, I noticed a split.

    Some founders spent their days tweaking their websites, refining pitch decks, and polishing their résumés for investors. Others were in the trenches—selling, building, failing, pivoting, and collecting their first checks.

    That difference stuck with me. Because years later, I see it everywhere: Many founders chase visibility before they build foundations.

    Visibility is seductive

    It’s easy to focus on what looks good from the outside. A flashy website. A polished LinkedIn announcement. A big funding headline. And yes—awards.

    The appeal is obvious. Recognition feels good. It validates the sacrifices you’ve made. It gets people’s attention. And in many cases, visibility can even buy time—helping attract investors, talent, or customers.

    I get it. The temptation is real. But it’s also a trap. Visibility is a sugar high. It looks great from the outside while the foundation underneath stays shaky.

    Here’s the simple test I use to determine if it’s visibility or foundation: If the thing I’m working on would look great in a press release but doesn’t move the business forward in six months, it’s visibility—not foundation.

    After the spotlight dims

    Earlier this year, I accepted the SBA Person of the Year award, and more recently Steady made the Inc. 5000 list for the second year. It was an incredible moment—for me, for my family, and for our team. We’d built this company from scratch, and the recognition was deeply meaningful.

    But the morning after, nothing magical had changed. The inbox was full. Subcontractors needed answers. Schedules were slipping. The cameras had turned off, and the work was exactly the same. That moment drove home a lesson I’d learned early on: awards are markers, not engines. They reflect what you’ve built—they don’t build it for you.

    How to build a company

    Our growth at Steady didn’t come from applause. It came from people, systems, and discipline. It started with people—team members who take ownership, solve problems, and execute day after day. Then came systems—clear roles through a responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed metric, workflow tools, cost catalogs, approval paths, reporting cadences. None of it glamorous. All of it essential.

    For example, early on every subcontract had to cross my desk for approval. It seemed efficient—until projects began stalling while they waited for me. Once we created a standard contract package and delegated approvals to project managers, turnaround times dropped from five days to one. No award could’ve done that. Only systems could.

    And then there’s culture—an insistence on action over perfection, accountability over chaos.

    One personal discipline shaped how I lead: I do the hard things first. Every morning, I tackle the decisions, conversations, and tasks that truly move the company forward. The easy stuff—emails, updates, quick approvals—can wait. Growth happens in those early hours, not in the late-day cleanup.

    How awards fit in

    Awards have their place. They open doors with clients who don’t know you yet. They boost team morale. They make recruiting easier. They give credibility a push.

    But they’re multipliers, not foundations. They amplify what already works. They can’t fix what doesn’t.

    My message to other founders

    Don’t confuse recognition with substance. The grind—the pivots, the failures, the small wins, and the boring operational work—is what builds a company. Awards will come if you do the work. But even when they do, remember: The trophies look great on the shelf, but they don’t build the business.

    Before you spend another hour polishing your pitch deck or crafting the perfect announcement, ask yourself: Have I built the foundation that will still be standing when the spotlight moves on?

    That’s the real work. And it’s what separates companies that shine for a moment from those that last.

    Fabien Reille

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  • Stop Working in Your Business and Start Working on It

    As a founder of a third-party warehousing and fulfillment company, I get a lot of exposure to other founders and business leaders. A common theme that seems to plague all business leaders is getting out of the business so you can work on the business.

    If this is a concept you are unfamiliar with, working in the business is the day-to-day operations that are absolutely required to keep the business running. Working on the business involves the non-essential items for daily operations—tasks that are easily procrastinated but essential for growth and scaling. 

    Learning to differentiate between the two is the first step in moving out of the business so you can work on it.

    Let go of the day to day

    All business leaders struggle with this. The day to day is clear, and knowing the next fire to put out is obvious. It is a comfortable place where we achieve immediate, actionable results—a daily dose of dopamine. Founders especially struggle with this because our organization is our baby. Giving up control over the day-to-day can be terrifying—not only for our sense of self-worth and accomplishment but also due to the fear that others may fall short of our standards.

    Regardless of these fears and excuses, it is a necessary and worthwhile adventure to make the transition from being in your business to working on it. It is how you go from having a job to owning a company. It takes your organization from a startup to a true enterprise.

    Create a written framework around company values

    I operated my company, NovEx Supply Chain, for five years before I made a true effort to step out of the business and work on it. At that time, I was wearing so many hats that recovering 50 percent of my time seemed like a monumental feat.

    My first attempt at this was hiring a consultant to come in and help me with processes. That lasted about three weeks and cost me entirely too much money. At the time, I was simultaneously recruiting for a chief operating officer, a position that was new to our organizational chart. It was more than double the salary of any role I had previously had on my staff and even more than my own payroll. Despite the cost, I knew I was going to have to invest in my company if I wanted to create the capacity to grow it.

    While this hire was not a magic button that removed me from the business, it did get us started in the right direction. The COO I hired helped me create a written framework around the values I was already practicing within NovEx. Being explicit with our values gave us more power to guide our growth and staffing. We were able to build a team that I could trust with more of the day to day. Over time we implemented the correct roles to push accountability down the line and free up more of my time to work on the business.

    Set a deadline for transformation

    There were a lot of hiccups along the way. Nearly two years into the process I was feeling frustrated with our progress. My husband had joined the company to assist me with business development, but we still were not growing as I knew we could. He felt like I had the wrong person in the role. We had a theoretical academic when what I needed a tactical operator to build out the standard operating procedures required to complete my transformation from owner and doer to president and scaler.

    By December 2024, I had been on this journey to transition out of the day to day since March 2023. I am a procrastinator by nature. I need firm deadlines to force my hand. So, we planned a 17-day trip to Europe for late June 2025, a trip that would require the business to operate without me. A true deadline for the transformation.

    Overcome the myth of indispensability

    All the tasks I had been holding onto out of fear became critical to transition. The myth of indispensability, the idea that no one could do it like I could do it, had to be overcome. By March it was clear to me that I had the wrong structure in place, and we made a change. The transition felt like a setback, but we were more resilient as an organization than we had been two years earlier. We had not achieved the goals I had set but the progress was real and measurable.  Having a COO helped me to realize that what we really needed was a strong operations manager and an HR director. Together they would be able to finish building out the team and processes so I could focus on growing and scaling the company. 

    I took that trip in June and it went beautifully. My family made amazing memories, and I was able to leave work behind. I answered a few questions and took a few phone calls to show support, but overall, I was disconnected and on vacation. It was the first time in eight years of business that I had taken a true vacation where I didn’t work. I was able to focus on my family with confidence that my clients and employees would be just fine when I returned.

    Your business can’t be dependent on one person

    We still have more progress to make. I am still trying to figure out exactly what leadership structure works for us. I am also still getting comfortable with allowing people to do things at a slightly lower caliber than I would. I take comfort in knowing that I am creating an organization that can exist without me, a true company that isn’t dependent on any one person or role, one that can grow and scale to whatever heights I can imagine for it. That gives me the courage and the power to keep moving forward and working toward my goals.

    Letting go of the day to day didn’t make me less important to my company; it made me more valuable. And it gave me the freedom to build both the business and the life I envisioned.

    Kelsey Hensley

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  • Inclusion Isn’t a Nice-to-Have, But a Must-Have Innovation Strategy 

    You’ve surely heard it before: fail fast, build MVPs, test and iterate. For years, speed has been the golden rule in innovation. However, in 2025, the smartest path to growth isn’t building in isolation. Instead, leaders must build through inclusion. Instead of trying to craft the perfect new offer behind closed doors and nervously rolling it out to your audience, consider a different approach. The best strategy is to prototype it live, in front of your customer. You might even do this with their help. That’s not just brave, it’s smart. 

    Recent research from the 2025 Workplace Wellbeing Initiative found that teams that openly tested and iterated ideas with real stakeholders reported faster traction, stronger buy-in, and significantly less burnout. It turns out, people don’t just want you to sell them something. They want to feel part of what they’re buying. Inclusion isn’t nice-to-have. It’s a traction strategy. 

    When you’re selling ideas, involve people early. 

    While I think it works broadly, I’ve found this strategy is especially powerful in the world of services such as coaching, consulting, learning, and advisory work. Why? You don’t have the benefit of a shiny product to demo. If your business is more like mine as a coach, you’re selling transformation and possibility. So how do you prototype that? 

    You show the rough draft, and you pitch the half-baked version. You say, “I’m building this—would this work for you?” It doesn’t need to be polished. In fact, in a world flooded with AI-generated perfection, raw and real is often more compelling. 

    If you’ve been thinking about a new offer, you can ask yourself this question: Are you trying to guess what your customer wants? Are you inviting them into the room to help shape it? That shift can change everything. 

    What co-creation can look like 

    You don’t need a massive production to start. Co-creation can be simple. It might look like hosting a “service design” session with a few trusted clients, running a low-cost pilot offer with real-time feedback loops, or sharing a visual draft or one-pager and asking, “Would this solve your problem?” 

    You’re not just testing the viability of your strategy. You’re creating space for your audience to say, “Make it this way—for me.” That moment of shared authorship is where buy-in begins. It’s the new gold standard for innovation. 

    Don’t wait for perfection.  

    It might feel uncomfortable at first. However, the real risk isn’t showing something unfinished. The real risk is spending six months polishing something no one asked for. So, here’s your challenge: What service, idea, or offering have you been overthinking? Do you have one in mind? OK, agree to stop perfecting it. Instead, start testing it with your customer in the loop.  

    Build the Google Doc. Share the napkin sketch. Invite their input early. Let them shape the thing you’re trying to sell. It doesn’t need to be perfect, but it needs to exist. It also needs to evolve with the people it’s meant to serve. Action creates clarity. But co-creation? That type of strategy creates momentum. 

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    Robin Camarote

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  • 9 Simple Ways to Drive Business Agility and Accelerate Growth

    Small companies have one key advantage big companies often struggle to achieve: agility. In a world of accelerated change, an organization’s ability to pivot quickly can make the difference between success and failure. When it comes to pivoting, small businesses often have a big leg up over their big business competitors. Here are nine simple ways to increase your business’s agility while accelerating growth. 

    1. Obsessed with customers 

    Customers come first. Best-in-class organizations keep a close check on customer feedback and quickly address customer needs. They also anticipate changes in customer demands and preferences. 

    2. Energized by leadership 

    Companies that prioritize agility have leaders who lead by example. These leaders are full of energy and get their work done by encouraging their team members to do great things and then allowing them the freedom to perform. 

    3. Aligned by clarity 

    Agility means fast execution. It’s easier to execute fast when everyone is aligned with common goals. The highest performing organizations have a single direction, and everyone knows how their work relates to the big picture. 

    4. Empowered by simplicity 

    Simple rules and less bureaucracy make for a more agile organization. The fastest organizations are also the simplest organizations. Complexity slows you down. 

    5. Enabled by ownership 

    The most successful organizations have a meritocratic culture, and they are fair to everyone. This inculcates ownership in employees for the success of the organization and themselves. 

    6. Attracted by winning 

    A simple way to attract the best talent in the industry is to show your organization is a great place to work. When good talent comes together, you attract more good talent and create positive momentum for success. 

    7. Disrupted by innovation 

    Successful organizations stay ahead of the curve and are also the most innovative. New ideas and initiatives draw the attention of both customers and employees. 

    8. Ratcheted by challenge 

    Best-in-class organizations push the envelope. They encourage people to stretch themselves by giving and taking constructive criticism and expecting the best from everyone. 

    9. Accelerated by collaboration 

    Collaboration and trust-based partnerships, both within and outside the organization, result in win-win situations and help in building long-term business relationships. When your people communicate better, they get more and better work done. 

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    Peter Economy

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  • There Are Lots of Ways to Raise Capital. Here’s How 3 Inc. 5000 Founders Did It

    Looking to scale your business? You’re going to need money to do it—and unless you’re planning on bootstrapping indefinitely, that’ll probably involve some outside capital.

    But with lots of different ways to secure third-party investment, from venture capital and private equity to grant programs and the public markets, how’s an entrepreneur to choose?

    Attendees at this week’s Inc. 5000 conference in Phoenix got a first-hand look at some of the different paths that high-growth business leaders have followed to success during a panel on Thursday featuring creative growth capital strategies. On stage were three Inc. 5000 founders: Tony Lamb of the shaved ice truck business Kona Ice (No. 1935 in 2014), Vanessa Rissetto of the telehealth nutrition startup Culina Health (No. 564 this year) and Kim Vaccarella of the beach bag brand Bogg Bag (No. 434 in 2020).

    All three founders achieved impressive scale with their startups, but financed them in very distinct ways. Vaccarella started Bogg Bag as a side hustle, using money from her kids’ college savings plan and husbands’ pension to kick things off before eventually inking a deal for a minority investment. Rissetto, meanwhile, built up Culina with referrals from doctor friends, then went down the venture capital path, closing a $7.9 million Series A late last year. And Lamb bootstrapped Kona Ice for a while before private equity eventually bought out his co-founder’s shares, leaving him with a 51 percent stake; following a second PE deal, he now owns around one-third of the company.

    People have very mixed feelings about PE funds, he told the Inc. 5000 audience, but “no one brings value like private equity brings value.”

    Of course, not every financing opportunity bears fruit. Lamb said he fielded meetings with 15 different prospective investors before landing on the right one, while Rissetto turned down an early offer from a VC fund that said it would back Culina if it had $10 million EBITDA—to which Rissetto responded, “If I was $10 million EBITDA, I would not need you.”

    Vaccarella also turned down a major deal with a public company because it would’ve given them full control over Bogg—something she was unwilling to sign over.

    “I was not ready to give up my baby yet,” she says of the proposal, which would’ve been worth over $100 million had she taken it. She went into “a little bit of a depression” after rejecting the offer, she says, in part because she’d told her nieces and nephews that she would take them all to Disney when she thought the deal was going to happen.

    But “better things come along,” she adds. Still, she encourages her fellow entrepreneurs to listen to their guts when it comes to working with the people on their cap table.

    “They’re going to have a million ideas for you, because they’ve done it all a million times,” Vaccarella said. “The people that they were bringing in had so much more experience in bigger brands than Bogg Bag—but at the end of the day, what I do know is, I do know Bogg Bag. I know my customer. So I needed to forcefully, in the nicest way possible, come out and say, ‘No, this is the way I want to see it done. This is what we need to get back to.’”

    She added: “Sometimes you lose yourself when you take on all those partners, and you’re intimidated by them. So finding that balance has been important for me.”

    Brian Contreras

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  • Jay Shetty Expands His Tea Brand Juni Into Whole Foods Stores Nationwide 

    If you’re one of the millions of people who regularly tune into Jay Shetty’s podcast “On Purpose” where the best-selling author and life coach interviews some of the most famous people on the planet—including Cardi B, Oprah, and Michelle Obama—you’ve likely seen him or one of his guests reach for a colorful can to take a sip in between questions. That’s Shetty’s own sparkling tea brand.

    Shetty launched Juni with his wife, Radhi Devlukia, in 2023 as a direct-to-consumer business and in the two years since, has rapidly scaled the company. The canned teas, which are formulated with adaptogenic herbs, such as ashwagandha, lion’s mane, and reishi mushrooms, are available in more than 6,000 stores, including Erewhon, Target, Sprouts, Wegmans, and now Whole Foods nationwide. 

    That growing reach, along with a repeat customer rate near 50 percent, has helped sales surge. The company projects 300 percent year-over-year revenue growth in 2025 and is on track to hit eight figures in revenue by the end of this year. 

    This trajectory comes amid a notoriously tough environment for consumer-packaged goods brands. Financing has largely dried up. Since the industry’s peak in 2021, early-stage venture funding for CPG  brands has plummeted nearly 60 percent, according to Pitchbook. At the same time, brands are shuttering and far fewer new entrants are coming to market and hitting shelves. Consumer products data provider Spins put the number at 70 percent less.

    Still, Shetty tells Inc. that he is cognizant of the fact he is a novice in this space. His success as a podcaster does not guarantee success in the CPG space. His company has raised multi-million dollars in funding from investors, but wants to grow in a steady and strategic way. That means learning to say no to certain opportunities, he says.

    “It’s been easy to see brands just blow up really quick and then not exist,” says Shetty. “Our goal is to steadily build the relationships, whether it’s with the distributors, with the community.”

    Shetty is tapping into his massive audience with a message of incremental change—choosing a Juni over a sugary soda or a third cup of caffeinated coffee—rather than promising far-reaching health benefits that has gotten other drink brands in trouble. “We’re saying, ‘Here’s a healthy alternative,’” Shetty says. 

    Still, getting on the shelf is one thing. Getting into customers’ shopping carts is a whole other hurdle, says Juni CEO and co-founder Kim Perell: “We’re building for big future, but we want to make sure that we continue to grow with within our means.”

    Ali Donaldson

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  • Chobani Just Landed a $20 Billion Valuation. It’s Still Hungry for Growth

    The investment will help fuel the New York City-based company’s continued buildout, namely helping finance growth in its $1.2 billion dairy processing plant in Rome, New York, along with its $500 million expansion plans for its plant in Twin Falls, Idaho. The Rome plant is expected to spur 1,000 new jobs, while the Twin Falls expansion is expected to tack on about 160 new ones.

    “This investment means more than just capital — it’s a testament to everything we’ve built,” Hamdi Ulukaya, Chobani’s founder and CEO, told DealBook, which noted that Chobani is on track to clinch $3.8 billion worth of sales this year, up 28 percent compared with last year.

    The capital is a notable milestone for the New York City-based company that first opened its doors in 2005, after Ulukaya took out an $800,000 loan from the Small Business Administration. He used the capital to buy an old Kraft factory, which he then fashioned into what would become the company’s first plant dedicated to churning out a thick Greek yogurt packed with protein. Within three years, Chobani became the top yogurt seller in the U.S.

    And it’s grown even more since then, now offering creamers and milks—dairy and otherwise—beyond just Greek yogurt. Along the way, Chobani has gone on an acquisition spree as well. It picked up popular coffee maker La Colombe for $900 million in December 2023 and Daily Harvest, well-known for its plant-based frozen smoothies, for an undisclosed amount in May.

    Representatives for Chobani did not immediately respond to Inc.’s request for comment.

    Melissa Angell

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  • The Surprising Lessons Behind Chess.com’s Rise to a Billion-Dollar Company

    When Chess.com launched back in 2007, its co-founders had a few starting advantages: a lifelong love of the game, two prior companies they’d exited a year before, and one very good domain name that cost them $56,000, purchased with the money they got from their exits. 

    In business, as in chess itself, you can’t always predict what’s going to happen. But you can learn to spot opportunities as they arise. That’s why, after several years of cultural shifts—paired with feature launches that capitalized on changing attitudes toward a very old game—Chess.com came out on top in 2023 with a billion-dollar valuation. Its valuation today is even higher.

    It’s something of a 20-year overnight success story. Through its early years, Chess.com focused on making it easy and fun for people to play chess, co-founder and CEO Erik Allebest says. But co-founder Danny Rensch—the company’s “chief chess master”—had a bigger goal. “Danny’s vision was, ‘We’re gonna revolutionize how chess is perceived,’” Allebest says. “And it took time to get there, but we grew in that way.”

    One key early gambit: The team was early to streaming, long before the platform Twitch became so popular that even presidential candidates started to appear on it. In 2012, Chess.com hosted its first-ever “death match,” in which two master players competed to see who could win the most rapid-fire games, played on laptops, with $1,000 cash in prize money at stake. The company has seriously upped its game since that low-res approach: today, Chess.com has 1.2 million followers on its Twitch account and 2.6 million on YouTube.

    “That took us in a different direction,” Allebest says. “A whole bunch of purists are like, ‘chess has been ruined,’ but it’s grown the game and the appeal massively.” With its domain name as straightforward as possible, Chess.com has not spent any money on traditional marketing channels, such as social media advertising. Instead, it’s focused on promoting the game itself, Allebest explains. Significant tailwinds in 2020 helped the company with that task.

    First there was the Covid-19 pandemic, which spiked users of Chess.com as people in quarantine looked for new ways to stay busy. In June of that year, the company launched PogChamps, a two-week competition in which 16 of Twitch’s biggest streamers—intentionally not those who are known for being particularly good at chess—competed for $50,000 worth of prizes. Chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, the most-followed player on Twitch, coached participants in livestreamed lessons ahead of the event. PogChamps drew more than 155,000 concurrent viewers and drove a 57 percent jump in hours of gaming watched on Chess.com compared to the prior month. The company has continued the annual competition since.

    Checkmate: the Netflix effect

    Then in October of 2020 came the cultural win the company couldn’t have predicted. Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit, the chess-focused limited series starring actor Anya Taylor-Joy, became a massive hit: 62 million households streamed the show in its first 28 days on the platform, according to Netflix. By early 2021, new registrations on Chess.com hit more than 500 percent year-over-year growth.

    The Queen’s Gambit and its cultural cache poised the company well to roll out its first character bot later that year, allowing users to “play against” Beth Harmon, the protagonist of Netflix’s chess success story. Since then, the company has expanded that roster and introduce bots personifying real chess players like Nakamura, as well as fan favorites like Mittens, a snarky cat that users played nearly 40 million times the month it debuted in 2023. The bot—which performed deceptively well even against professional players—went so viral that it earned multiple press mentions, including from The Wall Street Journal, which called it “the chess world’s new villain.”  

    “It blew up the internet,” Allebest says. “It was hilarious.” 

    Chess.com has offered tiered premium subscriptions since 2009, ranging in price from $29 to $99 per year and giving users access to ad-free experience, as well as features including unlimited puzzles, daily lessons, instructional videos, and full game analysis. 

    In 2022, for the first time in more than a decade, it revamped its premium experience and increased its pricing to range from $50 to $120 annually. Roughly five percent of Chess.com’s active users have premium subscriptions, and the number of premium subscribers has surged more than 8x since the start of 2020. Today, annual revenue from subscriptions exceeds $150 million.

    The premium revamp involved rolling out a more comprehensive, AI-powered game review. Post gameplay, a coach-bot walks users through their performance. “What we found is most people actually don’t want to know what they did wrong. They want to know what they did right,” Allebest says. He points to research about the “optimal win to lose ratio for learning,” which leans heavily toward winning. Plus, he adds, “chess is punishing—you’re expected to lose half your games or more, so you’re already getting the negative feedback of losing games.”

    That insight led the company to find new opportunities to “gamify” its features and pepper in moments of positive reinforcement. “There’s a special symbol, a teal exclamation mark, that’s called ‘brilliant move.’ Finding those is very hard, and you only get to see them if you do a game review,” Allebest says. “It’s kind of a badge of honor.”

    The same year, Chess.com also closed on a star-powered deal, acquiring Magnus Carlsen’s Play Magnus Group—then a publicly traded company on the Oslo Stock Exchange—for $82.9 million. The company self-financed the deal through a combination of debt, internal financing, and equity, Allebest says. Carlson, a five-time World Chess Champion with 2 million followers on Instagram and 1.5 million on YouTube, was a big draw. But so was its educational platform, Chessable, which featured proprietary technology for spaced repetition learning.

    As Chess.com has invested in its core functions, it’s also continued to promote the game through innovative partnerships—like its BlitzChamps tournament series with the NFL, which it’s held annually since 2022, pitting NFL players past and present against one another for games of rapidfire chess.

    “Chess is just a game”

    Now, with 225 million registered users, Chess.com is quite the institution: the company has about 580 full-time employees, with about 40 percent devoted to engineering, and 10 percent in customer support. The platform is currently undergoing localization in 60 languages, Allebest adds, which adds to the organization’s complexity. “We answer everybody’s support tickets,” he says. “Some big companies are like, ‘Go look in the forums.’ We actually do care about every single inquiry that comes in.”

    Going forward, Allebest hopes that the platform can help users better connect with each other, too. The company plans to upgrade its social media features, most of which date back to 2009. The potential he sees is great. “Chess.com is a huge social network, but we don’t have a good user profile and feed. Like, when I win a game, why doesn’t it show up on my feed? What are my friends up to? What famous chess celebrity posted a cool video?”

    While Chess.com’s success has an exceptionally long arc, Allebest isn’t one to look in the rearview mirror. The company could have invested in its data infrastructure sooner, he says, but it was largely guided by “heart and intuition.” Now, with the numbers to inform the way it moves forward, it’s operating strategically.

    It’s not unlike playing the game itself. “You just have to make the first move and then react to what happens. And I think people get paralyzed by feeling like they need to see to the end,” Allebest says. “But you know, chess is just a game. You can only play one move at a time and do your best at that moment, and then react to what happens. And I think that is exactly what good entrepreneurship can look like.”

    Rebecca Deczynski

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