Sept/Oct '24

The Best of Local Biz

It’s

HIGHLIGHTS

→ THINK IN INK Graham Beech, owner of All My Heart tattoo shop, built his own business model. P.38

September-October 2024

→ HOPS AND DREAMS

Krisha Arthur, a brewer at Parleaux Beer Lab, holding the Native Land blue corn Mexican lager P.36

EDITOR’S

NOTE

BUSINESS UNUSUAL

18 Three Pivots to $100M

Rowan is one of the buzziest piercing brands—but it took a lot of reinvention to get there. by LIZ

BRODY

22 Hire Like Netflix

Here’s how major companies hire the best talent—and how you can do it too, at any scale. by LIZ BRODY

24 Multitask Your Fall!

8 Are You Responsive?

It’s the simplest, fastest growth tool you’ll ever find. Here’s how to create customers and fans for life. by JASON FEIFER Are You

JASON FEIFER

11 What if the Rules of Business Are Wrong?

The cofounder of LegalZoom and ShoeDazzle has some unexpected advice. by JASON

FEIFER

16 The Goals That Matter

Not all goals are important. Six entrepreneurs share the ones that made a difference.

20 Fast Growth Killed My Startup

Are you prioritizing growth over your customers? Take it from me—don’t do that. by

RYAN FRANKEL

This new tech will help you do more in less time. by MARIO

ARMSTRONG

26 The $414K Side Hustle

I built an incredible business outside my full-time job—and here are the steps I took. by CHISOM OKWULEHIE

This Industry Leader Saves Time and Thousands of Dollars a Year Thanks to One Simple Solution

Keller has a long track record of success in excavation. Now, it’s realizing impactful efficiencies in its offices spanning five continents.

Even a well-established company with a long history of success can benefit from new smart buying business tools and strategies to help become more organized and efficient.

Take Keller for example. Founded by Johann Keller in Germany in 1860, the company is the largest geotechnical specialty contractor in the world. Keller develops innovative, practical, and cost-effective solutions to challenges like building deep foundations, ground improvement, groundwater control, releveling structures, slope stabilization, and more.

While Keller has the work force and expertise to get all types of ground ready to build on across the entire construction sector, the business isn’t only about laying cement and operating heavy machinery. With approximately 9,500 employees and operations across five continents, Keller has a massive workforce that requires office supplies and other supporting materials for these employees to do their best work.

A simple solution that helps keep a large company running right.

At Keller, trying to manage things like tail spend, product availability, and time spent on procurement activities across such a large organization was a challenge. That changed, however, when they established a company-wide Amazon Business Prime plan.

“The primary motivation was to consolidate the plethora of our individual Keller purchasing accounts, decrease our shipping costs, expand access to two-day shipping, and save time and money,” explains Ethan Hoover, a Corporate Buyer for Keller North America, which is based in Hanover, Md. In his role, Hoover’s goal is to help centralize, standardize, and optimize Keller’s corporate procurement.

In addition to discounted pricing, Hoover says Keller is leveraging several Amazon Business account features. One is Single Sign-on, which gives Keller a secure, centralized way to enable and disable buyer access throughout the company. Keller also makes use of Spend Visibility. Rich with data visualizations,

this feature lets you to track your buying patterns to help optimize savings—allowing you to identify purchasing trends made by individuals and groups within your organization. With this information, you can optimize spend via supplier consolidation, bulk purchasing, and more.

Another significant feature for Keller is FREE Two-Day Shipping. Business Prime members can choose from more than 100 million items on Amazon that will arrive two business days after they ship. Gone are the days of ordering office supplies, then waiting and wondering when they may turn up.

Seeing results that make a positive difference.

Enacting operational change across a massive company can be complicated. But it doesn’t have to be. Since Keller created their Business Prime account six years ago, the company has seen many positive results.

Hoover says Keller saves approximately $30,000 to $40,000 annually on shipping and discounts, averaging more than 7,500 orders each year. Keller employees save time by about 50% across the end-user ordering process, delivery time, and accounts payable resources. “Our results have been fantastic,” he says.

“Our purpose is to build the foundations for a sustainable future. This is why we’re here,” Hoover says. “With time and money saved, we can focus on winning and executing work and the support of those efforts.”

FRANCHISE

73 The Top Suppliers in Franchising

Who’s the biggest help of them all? We have the answers.

by TRACY STAPP HEROLD

112 Trust Equals Sales

How this mother-daughter duo built their customers’ trust in the consignment industry.

by KIM KAVIN

114 The Road Trip That Changed Pita Pit

A new CEO hits the road to rebuild relationships.

by KIM KAVIN

116 A $1.4M Turnaround

She bought a failing coffee franchise location. Now it’s booming.

by KIM KAVIN

118 What Saved KFC

The brand was struggling. A new leader arrived—and treated franchisees in a way they didn’t expect.

by DAVID NOVAK

127 The Top Global Brands in Franchising

Want to own an overseas location? Start here.

by TRACY STAPP HEROLD

CLOSER

144 What Inspires Me

The greatest pain of my life ended at 2:05 p.m. I’ve kept my clock frozen there ever since.

by CHUCK JAMES

→ BUSINESS IS MAGIC Books Are Magic, a bookstore in Brooklyn, New York, is a favorite for local readers. P.36

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ENTREPRENEUR.COM / September-October 2024

The Simplest Growth Tool

If you want to create long-term value, start replying to everyone you hear from.

HOW RESPONSIVE are you—to friends, colleagues, and even strangers?

Now, be honest: Have you ever really thought about that? You should.

“I find responsiveness to be one of the qualities I value most in people, and some of the best leaders and people I know are responsive,” the pop artist Artie Sandstone recently wrote me. “On the flip side, so many people I love and respect seem to place responsiveness on a lower level of importance. Why? It requires little talent and adds so much value.”

Great question. Responsiveness might be the easiest, simplest, and yet most overlooked thing you can do to make people happy, show them respect, and create new opportunities. I reply to almost everyone who emails or DMs me, and have benefited enormously.

I get it—responding to people is time-consuming! So let’s make it easier for you. To start, I suspect there are three reasons that people don’t do it.

1/ Organizational breakdown. Everyone has their own system for staying on top of things— and as we get busier, those systems become strained. Then we must make a choice: Do we stick with a system that limits us, or do we build a new one? Mark Cuban is a good example: He famously publicizes

his email address and replies to many people. (I emailed him once. I heard back within an hour!) He says he gets 750 to 1,000 pitches from founders daily. How does he manage it? With a system: He delegates follow-ups (which, OK, not everyone can do) and uses Gmail filters (which anyone can do!).

2/ Prioritizing big things.

Yes, small tasks can distract from big tasks. But don’t forget: Small tasks (like replying to people) can add up to big value too. People talk! Reputations are built! I’ve been hired for speaking gigs because I replied to inquiries faster. People tell me they’ve followed my work for years (and bought my stuff!) because I once replied to them. It matters.

3/ It takes too much time. “I just don’t have the bandwidth,” people say. I sympathize. So here’s how I manage it myself. Like I said earlier, I reply to almost everyone who emails or DMs me, but with some caveats: This can stress me out, so I take breaks. I also optimize for long-term value and relationships, which means I delete most promotional messages (like from publicists or salespeople), because they’re purely transactional.

This is not about absolutes. Instead, it’s about creating a stronger habit and ethos of responsiveness. It’s within

chief of Entrepreneur magazine, for example, my inbox exploded with requests. I felt a weight of obligation. But over time, I realized something: People don’t expect me—or you, or anyone—to give them everything they want. They just appreciate being heard.

Simply replying “thank you” can make someone’s day. When I say no to someone’s request, they say they’re grateful to hear back. And if you want to wow someone, just set aside a moment for extra thoughtfulness. This goes beyond email or strangers. It’s about friends. Colleagues. Customers. I once texted a question to a professional acquaintance, who replied with a 15-minute voice memo and

cause why make someone wait? One girlfriend told me she really appreciated that, because it showed I cared and that shortcut her anxiety. Now we’re married. Responsiveness.

I’m not saying you must be perfect. But I am saying: More than anything else, people want to feel heard. When you give them that, you convert strangers into fans, and friends into partners. So just respond.

Jason

Jason Feifer jfeifer@entrepreneur.com @heyfeifer subscribe: entm.ag/subscribe

7 Wealth-Building Tips for a Successful Future

Discover tips for generating income now to prepare for comfort in the future—call 877-842-1273 or visit FisherIncomeGuide.com/Access to receive your guides.

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WORLD-CLASS BRAND

‘Only

the Strongest Are Going to Survive’

Brian Lee cofounded companies like LegalZoom and ShoeDazzle—and he believes a lot of conventional business wisdom is backward. Sure, it’s harder to raise capital. But it’s actually cheaper than ever to start a company. by JASON FEIFER

Want to think big? Think like Brian Lee.

He’s the cofounder of LegalZoom, ShoeDazzle, and The Honest Company— each of which were transformative inside of crowded spaces. And here’s how he spotted his most recent opportunity. He looked at the trading-card industry, which he says is “relatively small” at just a couple billion dollars. The secondary market for trading and selling those cards is more interesting to him, at maybe $25 billion. There are a lot of players in this space—manufacturers, auction houses, grading companies, and so on. So where would he fit in?

“The reason I’m so excited,” he says, “is because that secondary market doesn’t really have a brand name. So there’s some very large players in the industry, but none of them are household names.” Now he’s building what he hopes will become that household name; it’s called Arena Club, which helps people grade, collect, invest in, sell, and trade cards.

Lee now also invests in startups through his early-stage fund, BAM Ventures. Most startups he sees aren’t built for success, he says— but the reasons may surprise you. He explains in this conversation.

You’re no stranger to business problems. In fact, LegalZoom came close to insolvency a few times. What did that teach you? LegalZoom started as a direct-toconsumer (DTC) legal services company. However, a few years in, we noticed this gentleman in Florida ordering a divorce package probably every week. So after about 12 or 13 divorce orders, we were like, “Wow, this guy’s getting married and divorced a lot!”

So I decided to reach out and just make sure he’s OK. Then I found out that he was a divorce

→ THE CLUB’S CLUB Brian Lee (right) with his Arena Club cofounder Jesse Glass (left) and founding partner Derek Jeter (center).

SPOTLIGHT BRANDED CONTENT

BDPST Group

GROWING WITH HUNGARY

With strong consumption at the forefront, Hungary’s economy is expected to grow by 3.5% in 2025, according to the European Commission, as real wages rise rapidly. Investment is also set to grow strongly due to “rising capacity utilisation, large FDI-financed projects, and government support schemes”, while inflation is tempering.

Tourism is one of the most dynamic sectors of the Hungarian economy, driving both consumption and investment. In 2023, the country welcomed a record 16m tourists who spent 41m guest nights, according to the Hungarian Tourism Agency.

BDPST Group is at the forefront of the industry, developing some of the country’s top hotels in partnership with leading international hotel companies, as part of a broader portfolio including financial services and logistics.

István Tiborcz Founder

“Last year was probably the most difficult of the last decade, but our group managed to realise a good performance thanks to our diversified investment portfolio,” says BDPST Group owner Istvan Tiborcz. “Something that we focused on in 2023 and is a major focus for 2024 is how we can have various investments and elements of the portfolio operating and using them in the most efficient way, creating synergies. In these difficult times, efficiency, competitiveness, and quick reaction times have more and more value every passing day.”

BDPST was founded in 2015 when the company’s leadership saw opportunities in the Hungarian property market, where valuations were low compared to other European markets. The company bought up properties that would have been difficult to acquire elsewhere, a smart business move as property prices have soared since. BDPST focused particularly on buying heritage buildings in need of renovation, some of them on the verge of collapse, and fully refurbishing and repurposing them. Whenever it acquires a property, the company has a clear vision for its future, and of the market outlook.

BDPST’s property portfolio includes a range of hotel and leisure developments, capitalising on Hungary’s beauty and the fin-desiecle elegance of its capital, Budapest. The company is renovating the country’s most famous hotel, the Hotel Gellert on the banks of the Danube in the heart of Budapest, which first opened more than 100 years ago. The extensive renovation will re-establish the Gellert as a five-star hotel while preserving its historical value and unique features, bringing back the building’s “golden age” while integrating 21st century innovations. The hotel will be managed by the high-end Mandarin Oriental Group, and is expected to open in 2027, with 143 guest rooms and 38 suites designed by British interior design studio Alexander Waterworth Interiors.

Another project is the high-end Hotel Dorothea, being constructed as part of one of the most complex multifunctional real estate developments in Budapest. The project will see the complete architectural renewable of a complex of three buildings, two of them historical, in the heart of Budapest, with the interior design plans prepared by Milan-based Lissoni & Partners. As at the Gellert, the development pays special attention to preserving and restoring

historical features. The five-star, 216-room, 28-apartment hotel is operated by Marriott International and will have a conference centre ,and a “sky restaurant” with a view over the Danube and the historic Buda district.

Projects like these will help further raise Budapest’s profile as a tourist destination and develop its high-end tourism, leisure, and retail offerings.

“Budapest is truly a popular destination,” says Tiborcz. “However in certain segments there are some elements missing from the overall choice, mainly in the field of luxury, and we are working on filling these gaps, making the city a luxury destination and catering to the needs of this segment.”

Tiborcz cites particular potential in the music tourism segment, given Budapest’s superb music and opera offerings, and potential in the electronic music area.

As it has grown, BDPST has also diversified, following its long-term vision. In 2021, it invested in Granit Bank, the country’s leading digital bank, in which it has a 43% stake. Granit is Hungary’s fastest-growing bank, accounting for 20% of new account openings in 2024, leveraging its quick, easy-to-use services. BDPST also owns stakes in a fund manager and an insurer under the Granit brand.

In 2022, BDPST acquired a stake in the CEE region’s largest logistics and freight forwarding company, Waberer’s International, which has more than 75 years’ experience on the European market, and is listed in the premium category on the Budapest Stock Exchange. Waberer’s focuses on complex, high value-added services, and leverages Hungary’s strategic position at the heart of Europe.

“As our company grows bigger and widens its portfolio, corporate identity and structured development are very important,” says Tiborcz. “We always invest in the long term, and only in areas in which we have a long-term vision of where we want to get to.”

The company’s track record shows its ability to deliver on that vision, capitalising on the positive growth path and huge potential of its home market.

“The most important factor is that Hungary is a safe country,” says Tiborcz. “Hungarian people are friendly and respectable. Hungary and Budapest are nice, easy places to live in, and our tax system is probably the best in Europe. But the country is still an unexploited place in terms of market potential, with great opportunities to develop further. Our geographical position also gives us excellent opportunities to gain competitive advantages in various market segments. As more people come to visit Hungary they will see how to do business here, and spread the word about the country as an excellent business destination.”

attorney, and he was just using us almost as a back-end paralegal to create his documents. And of course, the light bulbs went off for us at LegalZoom. We were like, “My goodness, we’re not just DTC. We could be a B2B business too!”

This happens so often, right? Entrepreneurs see how customers use their products, and new opportunities emerge. Yeah. But not always.

After talking to this divorce attorney, we were like, “OK, why don’t we start a B2B platform as well?” So we decided to make a more robust, professional version of LegalZoom and sell it to lawyers. We took all of our best resources, our best designers, our best engineers, and our best marketers, and put them onto an offshoot company we called ProxyLaw. Then we realized that ProxyLaw was a very different business. The sales channel was different. We’d have to knock on doors of small law firms and convince them to switch over to us and so forth.

Meanwhile, LegalZoom had been profitable—but now it was slowly becoming unprofitable. ProxyLaw never took off, and we were days away from bankruptcy. So we had to shut it down and refocus our energy on LegalZoom.

That story didn’t go where I expected it to! You discovered a new opportunity, but it harmed the existing opportunity. It became a lesson I’ve always remembered: You have to focus Every day, you’ll see new opportunities. But guess what? You can’t do it all. You have to build a very, very strong foundation first, and make sure that you’re as solid as you can be before you start extending. Now, on anything I’m doing, I make sure

to go deep, deep, deep—and start with a position of strength before extending.

You invest in founders. Is this something you look for in them—a deep ability to focus? Yeah, we look for entrepreneurs that have to make it work. They almost have no other choice but to make this work, and they’re all in. By contrast, we don’t think side hustles work. Side hustles are OK if you’re just making a few bucks here and there, but if you’re going to really start a business, you’ve got to be all in. We also prefer teams to be together, in person. I have yet to see a company that starts with a fully dispersed team, with dispersed founders from all over the place, grow a multibilliondollar business via Slack.

That feels counterintuitive. People often say that remote work allows companies to recruit better talent.

that they’re going to go out and raise more capital. And again, those are the entrepreneurs who are just backward when the funding dries up. They should treat their capital as if it’s the last capital they’re ever going to raise. They have to understand the spigots and the levers that will get them to break even—like, “If I turn this on, it leads to this type of revenue, which will cover those expenses.”

For many years, startups were celebrated for doing the opposite—raising many rounds and spending huge sums on marketing. They weren’t profitable but got all the buzz. Do you think that sent the wrong message to founders?

One hundred percent. All these companies were highly unprofitable; they were using so much money on customer acquisitions and everything else, and most of them aren’t around anymore because they never figured out

and not frivolously overspending. And on top of that, everything else has become more efficient too. Advertising, marketing, office space—everything has become more affordable.

That is a funny thing to hear, because many entrepreneurs are complaining about skyrocketing costs.

I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it has become incredibly affordable to start a company. When I started LegalZoom, we had to save up so much money to buy our own web server. Now with AWS and Google Cloud, it’s like you paid almost nothing for serving your site. I used to have to hire seven to eight engineers just to start an e-commerce company; now it’s just a click of a button on Shopify.

You’re really flipping conventional wisdom here! Remote work is bad, capital shortages

EVERY DAY, YOU’LL SEE NEW OPPORTUNITIES. BUT GUESS WHAT? YOU CAN’T DO IT ALL. YOU HAVE TO BUILD A VERY, VERY STRONG FOUNDATION FIRST, AND MAKE SURE THAT YOU’RE AS SOLID AS YOU CAN BE BEFORE YOU START EXTENDING.”

I know. But I’m telling you, it works better in person. A lot of that has to do with culturebuilding. I tell entrepreneurs: Offices have existed for centuries for a reason. When people work together, they iterate quicker, run ideas by each other faster, and you don’t have to wait for Zooms or phone calls or text messaging.

What’s another red flag you see in startup founders?

A lot of folks have this misconception that capital is abundant, and

how to get to great profits and to have a real business.

There’s less capital available today. Do you think that’s good for entrepreneurs, because it’ll force them to operate leaner and smarter?

Yes, I do. Because only the strongest are going to survive. Only the strongest entrepreneurs are going to get any sort of funding. So now you have fewer entrepreneurs raising capital, and the ones that do are treating that capital like gold

are good, and costs are down. Maybe I just think differently! Like, there’s the old saying, “The customer comes first.” I disagree. Trust me, I love the customer. I treat them with the utmost respect. However, team comes first. A strong, happy, fulfilled, motivated team will lead to better customer service and a better customer experience.

To hear more of Brian Lee, listen to Jason Feifer’s podcast, Problem Solvers, wherever you get podcasts.

How Personable Service Helped Streamline This Retail Company’s Procurement in a Big Way

This simple change is helping The Paper Store save time, money, and gain valuable insights on ordering supplies.

The team at The Paper Store is well-versed in the power of positive business relationships. By combining one such positive relationship with smart business buying tools and strategies, the company says it is on pace to save thousands of dollars this year.

It all started in 1964 when Bob Anderson opened a small newspaper stand in Maynard, Mass. As the years pressed on and Anderson expanded to selling all sorts of items, The Paper Store was born and grew into one of the largest family-owned and operated specialty gift businesses in the U.S.

In 2020, the company was sold to a private group of investors and the Anderson family, whose members are still leading The Paper Store’s day-to-day operations. Selling a mix of fashion apparel, accessories, spa products, home décor, stationery, jewelry, sports, and more, The Paper Store now operates a thriving e-commerce business alongside 100 brick-and-mortar stores throughout the Northeast and Florida.

With such a large footprint, it’s no wonder that Operations Manager Rachel Jacobs was looking for a way to streamline The Paper Store’s procurement of office supplies across the brand’s retail chain, distribution centers, and corporate office. “We had a main supplier for basic supplies but had to order from several suppliers to be able to source all of the items needed to run and outfit our stores,” she says. “It became a lot to manage.”

A helpful relationship made all the difference.

That was 2023. Fast forward to 2024, The Paper Store streamlined that process by choosing Amazon Business as its sole source of office supplies. Jacobs says making that big decision was easy thanks to the personable and helpful relationships with The Paper Store’s Amazon Business account representatives, Tyler Britt and Lillian Korinek.

“Getting to interact with Tyler and Lillian made us realize that Amazon Business is an organization with whom we could build a relationship,” Jacobs says. “We are a smaller, family-run business and our relationships are extremely important to us.”

From Amazon Business, Jacobs was looking for “a simplified ordering experience for its retail stores, cost-effective options, bar-raising customer service,” says Korinek, an Enterprise Account Executive at Amazon Business. “Rachel partnered with us to run cost-analysis against incumbent suppliers, determine the needs of the retail locations, and accounts payable.”

“Tyler and Lillian gave Amazon Business a face and a personal feel,” Jacobs explains. “They were always available to answer questions and hop on a quick call to review the account and tweak settings. The whole transition took only a few weeks.”

Positive results that help save time and thousands of dollars a month.

Among the many tools, Jacobs says she regularly uses Amazon Business Analytics to research, create, save, and download reporting on The Paper Store’s Amazon purchasing. “Amazon Business has the most robust reporting system for analyzing and understanding our spend and business, allowing for much less manual analyzation on our part,” she says.

Making smarter purchasing decision is helping The Paper Store save valuable time and money. “We are saving well over $10,000 a month so far,” Jacobs says. “Time spent by our stores on ordering and by our corporate partners approving orders and managing the account has gone down significantly, too. We are saving hours in payroll each month.”

To learn more about how Amazon Business can help your business save money and operate, visit

Six Ways

What Goals Actually Matter?

Some benchmarks are more important than others—so what should you really care about? We asked six founders for their hardest-won lessons.

1/ Followers ≠ buyers

“I initially thought we should hit a certain number of social media followers. That did bring visibility, but we learned that high follower numbers without corresponding engagement didn’t translate to actual business success. On the other hand, one genuinely helpful benchmark I’ve set was achieving a consistent customer satisfaction rate. This metric was crucial because it directly reflected the quality of our products and the effectiveness of our customer service.”

—KEREN YOSHUA, founder, Artizan Joyeria

2/ Pitch counts ≠ funding

“Our platform helps founders connect with advisors and investors. When we first launched, we focused on the investor views that a founder received for their pitch presentations. The more views, we figured, the more likely the founder would be to get intros, interest, and funding. That turned out to be an unreliable metric, which showed us that fundraising is not a numbers game—it’s a game of strategic fit. Now we focus on benchmarks like founder-investor connection rate, founder funding rate, or investor engagement rate.”

—ANGELINE

VUONG, cofounder and chief product

officer, Cherub

3/ Big brand partnerships ≠ impact

“As a social impact company helping local bookstores, we initially focused on signing major partnerships with big companies—but learned that if partnerships require a lot of resources, it can distract from serving your customers. So we refocused. Now our most important benchmark is that 85% of bookstores in the U.S. are on our platform, and we’ve generated over $32 million in profits for them—in some cases, enough to keep them in business.”

—ANDY HUNTER, founder and CEO, Bookshop.org

4

/ More employees ≠ profitability

“I initially thought an ‘employee headcount’ benchmark would be big, but it hasn’t turned out to be. We love operating with a lean team and getting creative when it comes to resourcing. Funding growth from our own profits means making measured choices and placing fewer, more strategic bets around growth. So profitability and loss benchmarks have been really important to grow our business responsibly.”

—LEE JOSELOWITZ, cofounder, The Quality Edit

5/ Peer recognition ≠ healthy company

“Wanting my company to be recognized by other agencies was a nonhelpful benchmark. As we’ve grown, I’ve realized there are companies, big and small, all doing great work—and we have something unique to offer. Conversely, one helpful benchmark was making sure we had at least one year of payroll for every person we employed. Focusing on the financial health of our employees, rather than generic revenue targets, made me more ambitious.”

—LILLIAN MARSH, cofounder and managing principal, TinyWins

6

/ More products ≠ more happy customers

“We initially thought a prolific product rollout would secure a competitive edge—so in 2022, we rapidly developed and launched a multitude of new products. The growth was less than expected, a sign that we hadn’t spent enough time considering customer needs. Repeat purchase rates are among our most crucial metrics though. They assure us that our products are resonating with our customers.”

—JEFF CHAN, cofounder, Vivaia

—JEFF CHAN,

—ANGELINE VUONG, Cherub

—ANDY HUNTER, founder and

—LEE JOSELOWITZ,

Wegagen Bank

PIONEERING GROWTH IN ETHIOPIA’S RAPIDLY EXPANDING ECONOMY

Established in 1997, Wegagen Bank has emerged as a leader in the sector, a pillar of strength, and a cuttingedge innovator. Its deep knowledge of Ethiopia’s banking industry makes it the ideal partner for international businesses in this thriving East African country.

A recent report by Fitch ratings notes that Ethiopia’s banking sector “is in good financial health, underpinned by a strong economic environment, which will support banks in the coming years.” Findings from the latest stress tests show that the sector is generally stable despite international and domestic headwinds. The industry benefits from the robust economic environment and helps catalyze growth by funding business ventures. Recent reforms will further open the market to foreign entrants, strengthening competition.

“Wegagen Bank is one of the few banks to have entered the market after the government change in 1991, which permitted Ethiopian nationals to establish and own private banks,” says Aklilu Wubet (PhD), the bank’s Chief Executive Officer. “We began with ETB 30 million in capital, and today we boast nearly ETB 11 billion total capital. From a single rented branch, we have grown to more than 440 branches. Initially, we offered conventional banking services, accepting deposits and making loans. It was the pioneer in introducing a core banking solution in Ethiopia, allowing customers to perform transactions at any branch. Although this solution is now standard across all banks, we were the first to implement it. Today, we serve over 3.7 million customers. Our 27-year journey has been marked by continuous success.”

Aklilu Wubet (PhD) Chief Executive Officer

Wegagen Bank capitalizes on several competitive advantages that have propelled its remarkable journey. Among these is its extensive network of strong correspondent banking relationships with world-leading financial institutions. Notable partners include Citibank, Bank of China, Germany’s Commerzbank, Italy’s Unicredit, and France’s Natexis, as well as numerous institutions across Africa. These strategic alliances position Wegagen as the premier partner for export-oriented companies, providing robust support for businesses targeting international markets, including affluent developed countries. The Bank has also embedded robust risk management and compliance as well as internal audit functions in its operations.

Aklilu (PhD) also highlights the bank’s corporate culture and human capital

strengths. Its shareholder structure, corporate governance, management, and 5,500 staff are all highly diverse; the CEO describes the business as “a melting pot” that values skills and knowledge, attracting talent from a wide range of backgrounds. Considerable number of Wegagen’s branch managers are women, reflecting the bank’s strong emphasis on female leadership. Established by 16 entrepreneurial founders from across Ethiopia, Wegagen has remained true to its heterogeneous roots.

Technology and innovation have long been strong points for Wegagen, as demonstrated by its adoption of a core banking offer that allows customers to use any branch. The bank has consistently stayed ahead of its competitors in the rapidly evolving market, ensuring its offers unparalleled service and

support to its clients. Looking to the future, Wegagen aims to engage partners that can further enhance its technological offerings. Recently, a top team from Wegagen visited Dubai and held discussions with several IT companies with the potential to support its ongoing digitalization. These engagements build on existing collaborations with various IT companies upgrading the bank’s systems. These deals are part of Wegagen’s broader approach to welcoming international partners, both for joint ventures and as clients. Attracting foreign investors is one of the bank’s key goals for the coming years.

“This year, we allocated a substantial budget to attract foreign partners,” says Aklilu (PhD). “We are looking at joint ventures to promote Ethiopia as a destination for strategic partnerships and M&A. We have local expertise and understanding, and we seek foreign partners who can bring knowledge and technology transfer. Meanwhile, international businesses in Ethiopia can do business with us easily. We also work with various international NGOs, providing them with diversified products and services.”

Aklilu (PhD) envisions substantial opportunities for foreign investors to propel Ethiopia’s market development and implement impactful initiatives, capitalizing on the country’s rapid growth. These strategic partnerships can drive innovation, digital transformation, knowledge transfer, and technology transfer, thereby fostering sustainable development in Ethiopia’s vibrant economy. Wegagen Bank, with its solid reputation and comprehensive expertise, is ideally positioned to be a pivotal player in this dynamic market.

“Ethiopia, with a population exceeding 120 million, is widely recognized as one of the world’s most promising markets,” states Aklilu (PhD). “It stands at the forefront of East Africa’s economic landscape. Ethiopia’s youthful demographic is a remarkable asset, offering untapped potential for long-term growth. The country’s rich biodiversity supports the production of a diverse array of products, from coffee and sesame to honey. Additionally, sectors such as mining present significant opportunities, and the government’s vigorous efforts to boost tourism further enhance the country’s appeal. We are always eager to highlight and leverage these opportunities for the benefit of our nation.”

In summary, Wegagen Bank embodies Ethiopia’s economic vitality and plays a crucial role in its evolution. With its forward-looking strategies, robust capabilities and engagement with pertinent stakeholders, Wegagen Bank is set to lead Ethiopia’s ascent towards sustained growth and international acclaim.

Three Pivots to $100 Million

How do you find a working business model? Do it like Rowan—a brand that reinvented itself many times before finally piercing the ear-piercing market. by LIZ BRODY

IF YOU HAVE a tween girl, you’ve probably heard of Rowan. It’s the cool brand for piercings, where licensed nurses insert hypoallergenic studs into thousands of ears every day. With more than 500 employees, it’s on track to have 65 stores and an annual run rate of $100 million in revenue this year.

But in 2017, Rowan was just a fledgling startup with a great idea and a bad business model. It survived because founder Louisa Schneider was willing to pivot, and pivot, and pivot again, until its mission, profit, and market all clicked into place.

Here, she explains how she threaded that tricky needle—and kept her eye on the hole.

Step 1/ Enter the market. Back in 2017, Schneider was a new mom working at a hedge fund, and found herself reminiscing about her own childhood. She remembered getting her ears pierced at a mall, and was struck by how that experience had never been updated. Why aren’t piercings done by medical professionals now? she wondered.

That’s why she launched Rowan. It began as a concierge service in New York City, where nurses would go to the customer’s home to do the piercing, and was packaged with an online monthly subscription to earrings. People quickly started booking appointments.

Step 2/ Test what people want. After a couple of years, customers started to ask if she had a store. Schneider was intrigued. Her subscription offering had

proven challenging, because with trends changing so rapidly, it was difficult to forecast how much inventory to stock. Would a retail model be better? “I was always looking at what could go wrong and how can I actually make money here,” she says. “The numbers pointed to the piercing piece of the business.”

So a store it was. She raised money, got a good pandemic-era deal on a lease in Manhattan’s Upper East Side (where her best customers lived), and opened up. The place took off.

Schneider started to think about expansion, and then got a dream opportunity...

Step 3/ Follow the opportunity. Target reached out, she says, to discuss Rowan operating kiosks inside its stores. Schneider was thrilled, won the RFP, and set up in 300 of the retail giant’s locations in 2021 and

2022. The deal attracted a lot of customers and attention, but it had an unexpected downside: Operations and logistics were very complicated, and Schneider’s brand struggled to grow. As it turns out, all those customers left thinking they’d gotten their ears pierced at Target, not Rowan.

By the end of 2022, Schneider faced a second hard decision: Stay with Target, or pivot again? “They were a great partner,” she says. “But I learned it’s very hard to build a brand in someone else’s four walls. And I saw I wasn’t going to be profitable doing that. So we exited.”

Importantly, she says, she did it with no regrets. Instead, she focused on the bright side—crucial, she says, when you’re making big changes. The deal was a huge

validator for her brand, and it attracted a nationwide network of nurses willing to work with her. “So guess what? It was worth it.”

Step 4/ Refocus on what works. Schneider doubled down on building out her own stores and brand. To drive e-commerce, she spent a lot of money on influencers—but it didn’t pay off. Then she discovered the value of networking with very different kinds of influencers: pediatricians and dermatologists, who would refer patients, as well as mom groups, who would write good reviews and spread the word. Now Rowan is expanding its own jewelry line—and, ironically, it might even consider a subscription model again. “We get asked for it,” Schneider says. “Earrings are so easy to lose.”

Omantel

LEADING OMAN’S DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INTO A NEW ERA OF INNOVATION AND GROWTH

Oman is steering its progress towards Vision 2040 with goals of evolving into an economy rooted in Knowledge and Technological innovation. This vision has led to resilient economic growth and increased interest from foreign investors.

In the first quarter of this year, despite a decline in oil and gas revenues, the Sultanate’s GDP rose by 0.8% to OMR 10.45 billion, driven by nearly 4% year-on-year growth in non-oil sectors, as reported by the National Centre for Statistics and Information.

A key pillar of Oman’s diversified economy is its telecommunications sector, which achieved record revenues of OMR 851 million last year, reflecting a 12% year-on-year increase, according to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Oman. This growth is fueled by rising demand for digital services such as cloud computing, Big Data, and AI. Leading regional providers have evolved into what KPMG describes as ‘techcos’—technology-focused, innovative businesses that embrace the digital landscape, emphasizing client experience, automation, and efficient data use.

Talal Said Marhoon Al Mamari CEO

Cities, Digital Transformation, FinTech, and AdTech are also key focuses for us.’ Mr. Al Mamari concludes, ‘Our focus is on win-win partnerships where there are clear synergies.’

As a pioneer in this transformation, Omantel stands out as Oman’s primary provider of integrated telecommunications services. By collaborating closely with the public sector, multinational corporations (MNCs), and small to medium enterprises (SMEs), Omantel drives significant innovation to support Oman’s digital evolution. Founded in 1970, Omantel is a joint-stock company listed on the Muscat Stock Exchange and is 51% owned by the Oman Investment Authority (OIA), a wholly owned investment arm of the Omani government.

Over the past decade, Omantel has transitioned from a traditional telco to a ‘techco,’ leading the charge in digital services, AI, IoT, Big Data, cybersecurity, and FinTech. According to Omantel’s CEO, Talal Said Marhoon Al Mamari ‘Technological advancements have played a pivotal role in reshaping the global economic landscape, presenting significant opportunities for business growth and expansion. Through our collaborations with partners and clients, we are committed to enhancing their experiences and positioning ourselves as a trusted ally in navigating the path to a digital future.’

Omantel has achieved a major strategic milestone by partnering with Google to launch the Google Cloud Distributed Edge (GDCE) platform in Oman—the first of its kind in the META region. This initiative strengthens Omantel’s role as a leading partner for enterprises requiring advanced AI and ML technology solutions and showcases its technological capabilities tailored to the needs of large businesses, SMEs, and individual consumers.

Additionally, Omantel has collaborated with AWS (Amazon Web Services) to establish its Cloud Centre of Excellence (CCoE) and Sovereign Cloud capabilities in Oman. This strategic move will enable Omantel to bring AWS’s global best practices in data security, service delivery, and customer experience to Oman, positioning AWS as Omantel’s preferred global cloud services partner and a key driver of digital transformation across the Sultanate.

Looking ahead, Mr. Al Mamari emphasizes Omantel’s readiness for future collaborations, highlighting its capacity to provide customized B2B enterprise solutions and its established market trust, positioning it as a strong regional ally. ‘We are particularly interested in partnerships related to cloud-based services, including IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, DRaaS, and BaaS, among others,’ he notes. ‘Cyber Security, Emerging Technologies, Smart

These partnerships are enhancing Oman’s digital ecosystem by providing enterprises and government entities with essential cloud and ICT solutions for a thriving digital society.

Omantel is also dedicated to fostering a vibrant ecosystem of SMEs and tech startups within Oman. Through its Innovation Labs, the company aims to promote a nationwide culture of entrepreneurship and support promising local startups. These labs leverage Omantel’s expertise, partnerships, reach, and technological resources to drive innovation in key technology areas. ‘We run a successful accelerator program through our Innovation Labs, which has been instrumental in driving innovation in Oman. We take pride in our support and contributions,’ says Mr. Al Mamari.

On the global stage, Omantel has created an international name by capitalizing on Oman’s strategic geographical location and making significant investments in over 20 subsea cable systems worldwide, which connect to more than 120 cities across 50 countries. Over the past decade, Omantel has invested over USD 1 billion in international networks and data centers, successfully attracting the world’s leading Hyperscalers to establish their regional hubs in Oman. To take its global role to the next level, Omantel has partnered with Zain to establish a joint venture named Zain Omantel International (ZOI). This new entity offers international wholesale services across eight countries in the region and aims to become the leading wholesale powerhouse in the Middle East, catering to Hyperscalers, content providers, and global telecom operators. ZOI capitalizes on Zain’s wide regional presence, and Omantel’s extensive wholesale experience.

Moving forward, Omantel is committed to continuing its pivotal role in shaping Oman’s digital future by leveraging its expertise, strategic partnerships, and global reach. This effort will help the nation establish itself as a premier gateway for global investment in a digitally-driven age.

Personal Speedy Growth Killed My Startup

We seemed to be rocking it—lots of press, major partnerships. Then we learned the harsh consequences of overlooking our customers.

by RYAN FRANKEL

Three months after I launched my company, we were featured in The New York Times. Other national outlets followed. The attention led to partnerships with Shake Shack, Bombas, Urban Outfitters, and hundreds of other major brands.

You might think this sounds good. I sure did when it happened. Hockey stick growth is a sign of success, right?

But it wasn’t. My company, This App Saves Lives, had fallen into one of the most surprising and ultimately fatal traps for entrepreneurs: We grew before truly understanding our product-market fit. That mistake would ultimately result in the demise of our business.

Here’s why this problem is so deadly—and how, with my new company, I’m plotting a slowgrowth strategy to avoid it.

For the uninitiated, productmarket fit (PMF) means building the right product to satisfy a specific type of customer’s needs. It’s a simple concept, but executing it is complex. To achieve PMF, you must deeply understand the wants and desires of your target customers.

I thought I had the answers. Our mobile app rewarded

drivers for abstaining from phone-based distracted driving, a theme that resonated with me personally after having been injured and nearly killed while cycling by a distracted motorist. That got us a lot of media attention and brand partnerships—but in truth, we didn’t fully understand our users. What kind of people used our app? What rewards and incentives encouraged them to drive more safely? Were they motivated by a desire to do good and save lives, or did they just want free products and services from our brand partners?

Because we didn’t know these answers, we didn’t know which customers to target—or how to serve them when they arrived. Press attention drove tens of thousands of users, but they didn’t stay for long. To improve customer retention, we scrambled, launching new products and adding new brand partners to serve their many needs.

It felt like we’d thrown a party and invited everyone: teenagers and adults, musicians, athletes, West Coasters, East Coasters, and everyone in between. You can’t please all these people at one party, or

with one offering. And when you try to, you just upset them while spreading yourself too thin. This is what it means to grow without knowing your product-market fit. Sadly, we had to sunset our company in January 2024.

Looking back, I wish we’d grown differently. We should have started with a small base of users, conducted more detailed customer interviews to determine what they liked, what they disliked, and how we could improve our product so that it would become something that they couldn’t live without. Then we should have targeted those people, assembling our early adopters, and only then pushed for media attention and invested in growth marketing.

Ask yourself: Do you really know what products and services your customers are looking for? Or are you spending your time, capital, and other precious resources inviting everyone to the party, only to

lose them down the line?

The lessons learned have left an indelible imprint on my mind. I’m now building a new company called Workup; it’s a marketplace for consumer health and wellness solutions, almost like an Expedia for healthcare.

This time, my team is starting with audience research. We’re learning what drives people to make healthcare decisions, when and how they focus on prevention instead of treatment, and how to earn their trust in a marketplace full of misinformation. We need to know what their problems are, how they articulate those problems, what would drive them to us, and what would make them stay.

It is slow, steady work. It’s a lot less glamorous than early coverage in the Times. But it’s more sustainable. I now believe that the best way to grow big is to grow slowly. Become the foremost expert on what your customers want, and then throw a party for them. Scale will follow.

thegroup

ROMANIA’S LEADING MARKETING AND ADVERTISING AGENCY

According to the World Bank, Romania’s economic growth is set to accelerate this year, with a significant boost from EU-financed investment and strong private consumption from rising disposable incomes. Indeed, Romania experienced the EU’s highest annual increase in hourly wages in Q1 2024, according to Eurostat. The country’s economic growth is currently on track to exceed the European average by more than triple, with the European Commission projecting real GDP will rise 3.3% this year as lower inflation stimulates further private consumption.

Zoltan Szigeti President

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the upswing in private consumption is Romania’s marketing and advertising industry. The country’s consumer market has witnessed substantial growth in recent years, and, encouragingly, consumers have displayed a growing willingness to pay a premium price for branded and higher-quality products, according to Lloyds Bank. The most prominent trend today in marketing and advertising is digitalisation, particularly the shift towards personalised and immersive campaigns designed to engage tech-savvy consumers. According to Statista, of the USD 1.14 billion expected to be spent on advertising in Romania this year, a significant 60% is projected to be digital expenditure, with many agencies taking advantage of the country’s emergence as a leading offshore digital hub within Europe.

Established in 2005, thegroup has emerged as one of Romania’s most successful marketing and communication agencies, maintaining its position at the top of the industry for over a decade. Offering a comprehensive range of services in advertising, media, public relations, and strategic marketing, thegroup is dedicated to building strong and lasting brand reputations for its clients and partners.

According to thegroup’s president, Zoltan Szigeti, the company’s core strength derives from its entrepreneurial spirit. In a country that has not traditionally been associated with a strong entrepreneurial culture, thegroup’s success is helping to bring recognition to a new generation of market leaders now coming of age across Romania. “We’re entrepreneurs at heart. This means our corporate mindset is all about evolution and staying ahead of new trends, such as digitalisation, for our clients. We act quickly to seize new opportunities,” explains Szigeti.

Having achieved an enviable leadership position within the industry, thegroup’s enthusiastic embrace of new trends and strategies has allowed it to benefit from the positive macroeconomic trends in Romania. “2023 was an excellent year for advertising in Romania, with high economic growth and strong private consumption resulting in excellent outcomes for both the market and the company. Our growth figures speak for themselves,” says Szigeti. Indeed, over the past five years, thegroup has registered consistent growth between 10-15% each year and is now on track for yet another strong performance this year. thegroup’s success is also a reflection of its commitment to

being more than just a marketing and communications agency. Szigeti prefers instead to see it as a business partner for its clients, providing support throughout their journey to success. Lately, this support has prioritised aiding clients in their digital transformation. “Digital transformation is something that our clients have been undergoing for at least a decade. We now have plenty of services and solutions to facilitate their digital transformation and increase their sales,” explains Szigeti.

Szigeti emphasises that when dealing with B2B clients, thegroup places a high priority on building longterm, close relationships where it can customise its support to align with their unique goals and brand identities. Additionally, he highlights the important role that thegroup’s international and domestic partners play in bolstering the effectiveness of its services. These include Porter Novelli Romania, a subsidiary of US-based global marketing giant Omnicom, and DBB, one of the world’s most creative and dynamic advertising agencies, also owned by Omnicom, known for their work with global brands like Volkswagen and eBay. Another associate of thegroup is OMD, the largest agency brand of Omnicom Media Group.

Meanwhile, thegroup’s new digital marketing and data science agency, Digital Data Capital, is a testament to its commitment to customer-centric innovation. Launched in April this year, Digital Data Capital delivers cost-effective, personalised communication solutions that ensure brands’ messages are relevant and authentic across an extensive array of consumer profiles. In line with thegroup’s track record of successful collaborations with industry leaders, Szigeti now expresses thegroup’s intent to continue this legacy through further corporate partnerships. He highlights thegroup’s particular eagerness to forge partnerships that enhance its digital capabilities and align with its core values of transparency, professionalism, and reliability.

Given that marketing is a sector deeply influenced by private consumption levels, the surge in disposable incomes throughout Romania presents a golden opportunity to partner with a leading agency like thegroup. Partnering with thegroup not only secures a position in one of Europe’s top 10 purchasing power parity (PPP) countries but also opens doors through thegroup’s vast network of business partners and clients.

Szigeti also urges prospective partners to consider the benefits of operating in Romania. “Investors in Romania enjoy a competitive and stable tax regime, access to affordable, highly skilled labour, and the strategic advantage of Romania’s location in Europe. If you’re seeking a robust partner to communicate, improve sales, or expand your business in Romania, thegroup is the perfect fit,” Szigeti concludes.

You Can Hire Like Netflix

The streaming platform built an incredible team with a strategy called “talent density.” But you don’t need to be a tech giant to do it. by LIZ BRODY

Looking for a job? ClassDojo has 15 positions open, but heads up: The bar is deathzone high, and they’re in no rush to hire. The children’s education company has a team of 220 and a hiring rate of 0.09% of those who apply.

How can a company grow while hiring that slowly? The answer is “talent density,” a concept that’s gaining steam lately.

Netflix coined the term years ago, and it was popularized in cofounder Reed Hastings’ 2020 book, No Rules Rules. He defined it as “a smaller amount of talent overall, but the amount of talent per employee is greater”—which is to say, you hire a smaller team, and you only take superstars who can do multiple people’s jobs.

Netflix adopted this strategy after laying off a third of its workforce in 2001, and Hastings credits it for the streaming giant’s success. “This is a completely different way of thinking about human capital,” says Josh Bersin, a global industry analyst in HR with his own advisory firm—and it’s ever more relevant today with AI replacing jobs. “It’s also a really important strategy for a small company that wants to outperform big ones.”

But how does a startup do this, when they can’t pay Netflix-like salaries or attract the best talent in Silicon Valley? ClassDojo cofounder Sam Chaudhary has the answer— because he’s been doing it for years. “Just by writing the right piece of code, one great

software engineer can literally create billions of dollars of company value—while enormous teams of less-talented people will never get there,” he says.

Here are his three rules of hiring that have helped ClassDojo reach 45 million kids:

RULE 1/

Evaluate by effectiveness.

Talent density is not just about recruiting a brilliant candidate. Each hire must be a force multiplier who unblocks and lifts others so they can perform better. “It’s a very rare kind of person,” says Chaudhary, and sometimes they take years to court. “But it’s what we require. We can’t compromise on that.”

To test an applicant out, he might ask about a deep belief they have. Then he’ll follow up with: OK, tell me why that might be really damaging for the world.

“If you can’t see the downside of your own opinions, then you’re likely to be pretty dogmatic and hard to work with.”

RULE 2/

Hire only for ‘hell yes.’

Chaudhary selects a handful of employees to become hiring managers on top of their jobs. They go through an intense training process and are 100% accountable for filling a position. After reviewing candidates and getting feedback from colleagues, they ask themselves questions like: If this person went to a competitor, would it be devastating? If I was interviewing at a company and met this person,

would I join just to work with them?

Then they make a simple evaluation: Is this person a “hell yes”—which is to say, an incredible can’t-miss opportunity? If so, hire them. “If everyone’s just okay with this person being here, to me that’s a no,” says Chaudhary.

RULE 3/ Talent attracts talent.

Awesome performers attract— and create!—other awesome performers. “We tend to imitate the most impressive among us,” says Will Felps, associate

professor at UNSW Sydney. (His research also finds the opposite: Jerks and slackers can worsen a team’s performance by 30% to 40%.) That’s another big reason to pursue talent density: It means everyone improves everyone else.

“Look,” says Chaudhary, “we have the usual pressures, and there’s a temptation every day to just drop the bar. But if we stay laser-focused and just keep increasing the average level of effectiveness with every hire, there isn’t a problem we won’t figure out.”

Alsulaiman Group

CELEBRATING OVER 40 YEARS OF BUSINESS EXCELLENCE

Eight years on from the launch of Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia has made significant strides in growing the non-oil economy and boosting diverse business opportunities across the Kingdom. According to Goldman Sachs, Vision 2030 commits Saudi Arabia to USD 1 trillion in investments across six core sectors, including, but not limited to, transportation and logistics, digital transformation, and clean energy.

One of the key pillars of Vision 2030 is the ambition to transform Saudi Arabia into a global logistics and transportation hub, leveraging its unique geographic advantage as the largest and most centralized country in the Middle East. In a collaborative effort with the private sector, the Kingdom is set to construct over 200 logistics and transportation projects by the end of this decade, tapping into the high demand from the ongoing e-commerce revolution.

Ghassan Alsulaiman Chairman

Established in 1983, Alsulaiman Group has grown from humble beginnings to become a cornerstone of the Saudi business landscape, best known as IKEA’s first-ever franchisee. “I saw the group’s beginnings in 1979 when I was still a student studying in the States, managing it remotely. Our first investment was in telecommunications, but we sold that business when it was later acquired by IBM. We then acquired exclusive franchise rights for IKEA, which laid the foundations for where the group is today,” recalls the group’s chairman, Dr. Ghassan Alsulaiman.

Today, Alsulaiman Group is set to expand its brand IKEA from nine stores to 30 over the next five years, bringing the iconic brand closer to major cities and new regions such as Madinah, Makkah, Al-Qassim, Jazan, and Tabuk. As Saudi Arabia strides towards achieving 70% homeownership and plans to build at least 230,000 new hotel rooms, Alsulaiman Group is playing a pivotal role in helping it achieve this milestone. The expansion of IKEA is a key element in this transformation, providing accessible home-furnishing solutions across the Kingdom.

Alsulaiman Group is also diversifying into the retail sector, transforming the grocery market in line with Vision 2030’s goals. In June 2023, the group secured exclusive franchise rights for Circle K, a renowned Canadian convenience store chain. Circle K operates 40 stores in key locations across the Kingdom, and the group plans to expand its footprint significantly to 300 stores by 2028. “These expansions are critical for our future growth and align with our commitment to enhancing retail experiences across Saudi Arabia,” states Dr. Ghassan Alsulaiman.

Alsulaiman Group has been a key player in the logistics sector since founding Flow Progressive Logistics a decade ago. Flow provides endto-end logistics solutions and has grown to be one of the top 10 logistics companies in the region. The group now plans to triple Flow’s size over the next five years, extending its footprint into other GCC countries and beyond. This strategic move supports Vision 2030’s goal of transforming Saudi Arabia into a global logistics hub. “Our logistics innovations are paving the way for more efficient and scalable solutions in the region,” says Dr. Alsulaiman. Supporting SMEs is another key focus for Alsulaiman Group, first accomplished by investing in Salasa, which offers fulfilment solutions that help SMEs establish e-commerce operations efficiently. Alongside this, Alsulaiman Group continuously invests in startups, fostering innovation and growth in various sectors. “We’re committed to being the partner of choice in logistics and e-commerce for companies entering the region,” Dr. Alsulaiman emphasizes.

Aligned with Saudi Vision 2030’s digital ambitions, Alsulaiman Group

is at the forefront of the Kingdom’s digital transformation. “In today’s business landscape, every sector needs a technological edge, and we’re fully embracing that,” states Dr. Alsulaiman. The group’s portfolio includes three technological companies, which are integral to introducing advanced technologies across all sectors. These investments are transforming how businesses operate, offering innovative solutions and enhancing overall efficiency.

Furthermore, the group is investing in cutting-edge technology companies like Livspace, which specializes in home renovation, and the AI-backed Silicon Valley company Inhabitr, enhancing the commercial real estate furnishing experience with innovative solutions. “Our technological investments are crucial for staying ahead in a rapidly evolving market,” Dr. Alsulaiman adds.

Sustainability is a core pillar of Saudi Vision 2030 – which aims for net zero by 2060 – and Alsulaiman Group is proud to be one of the 19 pioneers in the Ministry of Economy and Planning’s Sustainability Champions Initiative. The group’s investment in Cartlow, a leading company focused on the circular economy, underscores its commitment to sustainability. As the largest company of its kind in the Middle East, Cartlow is setting new standards for reducing waste and promoting sustainable practices. “Our sustainability efforts are not just about compliance but about leading by example in the region,” Dr. Alsulaiman remarks.

The group’s real estate ventures are reshaping urban landscapes across Saudi Arabia through Sarh Real Estate Holding—an independent fund of Alsulaiman Group. Sarh is overseeing the construction of five major mixeduse destinations in Riyadh, Madinah, Qassim, Khamis Mushait, and Makkah. These projects include a modern lifestyle hub set over 170,000 square metres in Riyadh, a testament to the group’s commitment to developing modern mixed-use lifestyle hubs that cater to diverse community needs. “We are dedicated to creating vibrant communities that meet the needs of a growing population,” says Dr. Alsulaiman.

Dr. Ghassan Alsulaiman’s role extends beyond leading Alsulaiman Group; he is also a prominent figure in the family business industry. As the head of the Family Business Center, Dr. Alsulaiman is dedicated to fostering a thriving environment for family-owned enterprises in Saudi Arabia, ensuring their growth and sustainability for generations to come. Alsulaiman Group began its governance journey 20 years ago, laying a strong foundation to make the group sustainable for future generations. “We are committed to building a legacy of innovation, sustainability, and excellence that will endure for generations to come,” Dr. Alsulaiman states.

For companies eyeing the Saudi market, Alsulaiman Group is not just an ideal partner but a shining example of the calibre of businesses thriving at every level of the Kingdom’s economy. “Saudi Arabia is a treasure trove of untapped potential, from traditional sectors like petrochemicals to flourishing industries like tourism, logistics, and technology. Additionally, the Kingdom’s leadership is setting an excellent example—government entities are often moving faster than the private sector now,” concludes Dr. Alsulaiman.

5 Ways to Multitask Your Fall

From a corporate office to working from the living room, Emmy Award winner Mario Armstrong has five new products designed to make putting in the hours more enjoyable.

1/ A door lock that reads palms.

The Philips 5000 Series Smart Deadbolt [$360; usa. philips.com] unlocks a door with a scanner that reads your palm, meaning your keys and phone can remain in a pocket or bag. The deadboltintegrated doorbell alerts you to visitors through the Philips app, and rings the included wireless chime. When you head out, the sensors detect your hand reaching for the interior knob and automatically unlock the door. Powered by batteries, the smart lock also works with a key, an access code, or through Alexa and Google Assistant.

2/ An on-call cold brew barista.

Cold brew coffee drinks are more than a summer fling; they’re a lifestyle. Crafting them at home is time-consuming, but The Cumulus Machine [$695, plus $25 for 10 coffee capsules; cumuluscoffee .com] makes crafting single-serve cold brew or espresso, along with nitro coffee, effortless. Load an aluminum capsule filled with coffee concentrate into the machine, select either a 10-ounce cold brew or foamy nitro, or a 2-ounce shot of chilled espresso, and press the button. A compressor inside chills the drink and an air pump system and valve mechanism injects nitrogren bubbles from the ambient air.

3/ A phone case for doodlers.

Entrepreneurs love writing in journals and sketching out ideas, but it’s not always easy to travel with a big notebook. The Moft Snap Flow [$49; moft.us] makes that easy. Its magnetic, vegan leather case snaps onto iPhones 12 through 15, where it conceals a roughly 2-by-3-inch notepad and a pen. Unfurl Moft’s origami architecture to jot down ideas or explain sketches, then fold it up to a barely noticeable thickness in your pocket. You can refill the pads once you’ve used them all to practice that signature.

4/ A desktop setup for road warriors.

No more balancing your laptop on a stack of books!

The Logitech Casa Pop-Up Desk [$180; logitech.com] hides a wireless keyboard and touchpad inside a roughly 9-by-11.5-by-1.25inch hard-shell, fabriccovered case that doubles as a portable laptop stand. It adds just over 2.5 pounds to your carry-on bag, but it can lift a range of laptops (up to 17 inches) to a more comfortable working height—creating better video call presentations in your hotel room, at trade shows, or in airport lounges.

5/ A light that helps you shine bright.

The Steelcase Eclipse Light [$279; store.steelcase.com] is a 3-in-1 multitool that you’ll use daily. As a task light, it floods your desk (or the wall) with a bright or soft glow, which you adjust with the sliding dimmer tab on the side. The base is a wireless charger with an arm that acts as a kickstand to keep your smartphone’s screen angled for calls or quick facial unlocking. During a video call, you can rotate the light ring toward yourself to cast a flattering effect on your face. Do a quick check of the coppertinted mirror core to ensure your smile is spinach-free.

Adriatic Bank

SUPPORTING INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT IN MONTENEGRO

Since gaining independence in 2006, Montenegro has been focused on creating a welcoming business environment and growing the economy through foreign direct investment. This has resulted in low corporate tax rates between 9-15% and a swift rebound from the COVID19 pandemic. Between 2021-22, Montenegro achieved average economic growth of 9.7% per annum, followed by 6.0% last year, according to the World Bank. Moreover, with Montenegro most likely the next country to be granted EU membership, investors who act now will benefit the most from its transformation.

Montenegro is home to a robust financial sector, with banks the most stable segment of the country’s economic system, according to the European Banking Federation (EBF). Montenegro’s banking sector is fully privatized, comprising 11 privately owned banks, and is easily accessible by foreign and retail investors. What sets the country’s banks apart is their strong capitalization and high liquidity, which not only cement their position as the backbone of financial intermediation in Montenegro but also provide a sense of security and confidence to investors.

Mr. Djordje Lukić Chairman of the Supervisory Board

Established just four years ago, Adriatic Bank has rapidly emerged as one of Montenegro’s most successful banks. It is currently the fifth-largest bank in the country in terms of assets, a remarkable feat considering it is also the youngest in the sector.

Adriatic Bank offers a comprehensive range of financial services, from retail and corporate banking to online and investment banking, loans, and international payments. The bank also provides innovative services such as ‘Save the tip,’ which is designed to help Visa customers save money in everyday transactions, alongside premium products like the World Elite Mastercard credit card, offering unique travel benefits and lifestyle perks to customers. These complement the bank’s traditional products, such as housing and mortgage loans.

According to Adriatic Bank’s Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Djordje Lukić, the key to the bank’s rapid early growth lay in seizing new opportunities. One of them, which Lukić considers critical for that phase of the bank’s operation, arose from the EU’s approval for Montenegro to offer economic citizenship. Lukić says the bank’s fast decision-making during its first few years was crucial: “We were able to attract lots of deposits through the scheme and introduce new clients to Montenegro. This helped us boost our liquidity and improved the overall market landscape. For example, we saw more positive effects, encouraging people to deposit and save. At the same time, we began lending on a large scale to local corporates and citizens.”

Fuelled by these early successes, Adriatic Bank has experienced significant expansion in its portfolio over the past two years. Most notably, in April 2023, the bank became a new regional player in the financial sector after its owner acquired the total capital of Serbia’s

Expobank, a subsidiary of Czech lender Expobank CZ. This acquisition marked a key milestone in the bank’s regional expansion strategy and remains a unique achievement in Montenegro’s financial sector. Adriatic Bank now operates in all strategic locations across Serbia and Montenegro, but plans further expansion to solidify its position as a leading regional player.

Adriatic Bank is also recognized as the preferred choice for foreign investors interested in doing business in Montenegro. The bank maintains a diverse base of foreign and domestic clients, and Lukić underscores its commitment to catering to its increasing diversity, stating: “Our tailor-made solutions allow us to provide a reliable, superior service for our clients. We’re adept at rethinking, modifying, and adapting our services to ensure our clients’ banking experience meets their personal needs.”

Lukić reveals that the bank has seen a significant uptick in the number of foreign clients opening accounts with it, specifically those looking to purchase real estate in Montenegro. Adriatic Bank has also received plenty of interest from foreign companies looking to start developing their own projects in the country. By facilitating these investments, Adriatic Bank is playing a pivotal role in Montenegro’s EU-bound economic growth journey. “Montenegro is an attractive location for these investors, and we’re proud to support their ambitions here,” says Lukić

Looking ahead, Lukić offered insight into where he sees the bank in five years’ time. “Ideally, we want to be one of the key players in the market. To accomplish this, we’re strengthening our commitment to providing a secure and trusted banking experience for our clients.” He added that Adriatic Bank’s overarching goal is to ensure its services and product suite can cover all its clients’ domestic and international needs.

As Montenegro progresses towards EU membership – expected by 2030 at the latest – Adriatic Bank’s contributions to the stability of its financial system and its openness to foreign investment cannot be overlooked. And for Lukić, now is the perfect time to invest in the country: “We’ve been growing the economy for many years now, and the public and private sectors are ready to welcome new investors. Adriatic Bank was supporting our industries which have been steadily growing over the years and which presents plenty of opportunities in Montenegro. For the coming period big brands have announced their intention to establish a presence here and Adriatic Bank will continue to play important role in supporting the future growth of the country.”

The $414,000 Side Hustle

I have a day job—and a highly profitable interior design company on the side. Here’s how I did it. by

CHISOM OKWULEHIE

ADVICE

SIDE HUSTLERS/

Idesign and manage infrastructure projects for a public agency.

I like the work and make nearly $130,000 annually. But in 2020, I felt crunched: I’d just had my first child, and I learned I wouldn’t receive a merit-based pay increase due to the pandemic lockdown. So I started a side hustle called Juntero Design.

At first, it was just taking on small projects on different platforms, charging as little as $20. I tested the market and found the most demand for architecture and interior design services, so I leaned into that. I have a master’s degree in architecture, and watched YouTube to develop operational, financial management, and marketing skills.

I kept my prices low to build a portfolio and accumulate testimonials—and for every 10 pieces of positive feedback I got, I’d raise my hourly rate by $20. Then I switched to fixed rates. By the end of 2021, my time was maxed out and I couldn’t take on more clients, so I enlisted other freelance designers to handle the projects I couldn’t take on. Now that’s how we do more than 90% of the work. I spend most of my time on marketing and client management; to streamline accountability, all client contact goes through me. When one major client had a lot of projects, I proposed a subscription model—and when they said yes, I realized how powerful it was: Now companies can access my creative team consistently, and I have more consistent revenue.

In this economy, I think everyone should diversify their income. You must plan for your future and retirement—and you can’t only rely on your 9-to-5. —AS TOLD TO AMANDA BREEN

Many people say to start cheap and then raise your rates. But you can do that in reverse—testing to see what the market will tolerate without undercutting yourself.

“If you raise the price on an Airbnb, you’ll get a higher rental rate, but then you have a higher vacancy rate too. I’m doing that in the inverse,” says Seattle resident Justin Cambra, who rents out some of his land on the platform Neighbor for people to use as parking spaces. “I went from $200 to $175 to $150, and now I’m at $125, and I’m getting more traction. So I may even drop it to $100, and as the lot fills, I’ll start raising it back up.”

JUSTIN CAMBRA

CHISOM OKWULEHIE

A LEADER IN EUROPEAN PVC AND ALUMINIUM JOINERY SPOTLIGHT

Optimedia

Offering a strategic location, a well-educated workforce, and abundant natural resources, Romania has emerged as a prime destination for investors and firms seeking exposure to Europe, Central Asia, and the Near East. Crucially, the country’s EU membership has made it eligible for USD 81 billion in EU funding by 2030, including USD 31 billion in grants and loans from the ‘Next Generation EU’ scheme. Anticipating a rise in investment interest as a result, Romania’s government has established a new investment agency – the Romanian Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade – which offers increased legislative access for investors to government officials compared to its predecessor, InvestRomania.

Romania’s closely linked manufacturing and construction industries have long been investors’ favourites. The country’s manufacturing firms enjoy a strong European reputation and employ around two-thirds of its overall workforce. Since the pandemic, the number of active manufacturing enterprises in Romania has surged by around 20,000 to over 77,000. At the same time, demand within Romania’s construction industry has risen significantly, with construction activity up 46% over the four years ended August 2023, according to Romania’s National Institute of Statistics. Key factors behind the rise include a significant upswing in government initiatives and increased urbanisation.

Founded in 1994, Optimedia stands as one of Europe’s leading B2B manufacturers of PVC and aluminium joinery, with core expertise in high-quality windows and doors. Optimedia’s products are renowned for their durability, energy efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and innovative design, setting them apart from competitors. The company currently has 60 showrooms and dealers in Romania and its products are sold across six continents.

From humble beginnings as a local family business to becoming a major player in the global supply chain, Optimedia’s journey has been marked by bold expansion and strategic investments. The company’s CEO, Mr. Marius Pantis, recalls the pivotal moment in 2006 when they started exporting their products overseas, highlighting it as a “turning point” that brought an already successful venture to the next level. “At the time, we were doubling our turnover every two years and opening branches across Romania.”

Today, Optimedia boasts over 2,500 international partners, and its comprehensive range of products ensures that it can satisfy the technical needs of even the most demanding projects. From world-leading PVC and aluminium joineries to a superior catalogue of blinds, shutters, and insect screens, Optimedia acts as a one-stop shop for firms across Europe.

According to Mr. Pantis, Optimedia’s success reflects a forwardthinking and customer-centric approach aided by a talented team of technicians and staff. For example, Optimedia offers its partners short lead times for highly tailored products, with constant investment in cutting-edge technologies and manufacturing processes enabling it to produce over 1,200 custom windows a day. As many firms seek stability and consistency in their supply, Optimedia is now a highly sought-after partner in the market.

Indeed, Optimedia has garnered several long-term supply collaborations with Europe’s industry leaders, including top PVC producer

VEKA and aluminium specialist REYNAERS and CORTIZO. This not only ensures its customers’ preferential access to the best-performing product lines but showcases its transformative role in shaping the market landscape. Optimedia has also expanded further afield into the USA – a key part of its plan to ensure future growth by developing multiple markets – alongside bolstering sales from Italy, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Given its current trajectory, Mr. Pantis envisions Optimedia as one of Europe’s leading joinery manufacturers in the world.

However, he emphasises that growth is not Optimedia’s primary motivation. “Our main focus is our partners; as we expand our client base, naturally, we’ll see strong growth. Ensuring we stick to our foundational principles of quality, exceptional logistics, aftersales and maintenance, cost-effectiveness, and, of course, compassion – is essential.”

Looking ahead, Mr. Pantis discloses that Optimedia is seeking more B2B partners, specifically within the construction community. “Ideally, we’re looking to partner with construction companies and dealers,” he says, adding that Optimedia’s adaptability and welcoming family values make it the perfect partner. “We understand the importance of re-invention in our industry, and we’re able to respond to any changes in the industry.” Partners will also benefit from access to Optimedia’s extensive network of contacts in Europe and North America.

Above all, Optimedia’s embrace of new trends and international business is a testament to the dynamism and collaborative spirit that characterise Romania’s business community today. Mr. Pantis also hopes successful companies like his will continue inspiring the younger generation to build their future in Romania. “Romania is changing a lot, and the momentum is incredibly positive. Younger people are studying abroad and then bringing back their expertise to work and start businesses here. They’re taking advantage of the potential offered by low land costs to build factories and start producing. As a country, we’re united for a better future.”

Pantis family

Qatar

LEADERSHIP AND VISION

Praising the country’s “state-of-the-art infrastructure”, the World Bank forecasts a “major boost” to Qatar’s economy in the coming years. This period should see the North Field expansion project come onstream, boosting the crucial gas field’s output by 85% to 142m tonnes a year. Meanwhile, economic diversification continues apace, with tourism in particular a key contributor; Qatar is playing host to a range of major events in 2024, following its successful hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. These developments will help cement Qatar’s position as one of the world’s most affluent and successful societies, following decades of growth, investment, and assiduous focus on improving infrastructure and services. The leadership and vision of His Highness Amir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani have been essential in setting the country’s successful strategy and ensuring Qatar’s place on the world stage.

“In Qatar, we have had a dream that our country would be one of the prosperous nations whose people would enjoy well-being and prosperity, and we invested decades of planning and comprehensive development work to make this dream come true,” His Highness the Amir said. “We have achieved a lot, thanks to God, and the solidarity of everyone in Qatar.”

The State is not resting on its laurels, and the next years will see further development under the Qatar National Vision 2030. Investors are buoyant about the outlook: PWC’s 2024 Annual CEO Survey found that 84% of the surveyed corporate leaders are optimistic about the country’s economic growth over the next 12 months, almost twice the global average of 44%. As the professional services company noted, Qatar actively welcomes international investments to grow its private sector.

“During the coming period, the State will pay great attention to developing the business environment, attracting investment, and benefiting from the available infrastructure,” said His Highness the Amir at the recent inauguration of the Shura Council ordinary session. “During recent years the State has succeeded in evolving an integrated infrastructure that promotes its competitiveness in attracting investments. The competent authorities continue to invoke the provisions of the law regulating partnerships between the public and private sectors in all relevant projects, including health, educational and tourist facilities. There is also an ongoing mechanism in the State that develops the legislations regulating foreign investment to remove the obstacles facing such investment, and to highlight Qatar as an incubator for direct international investment on the international level.”

Bader Al-Darwish Chairman, Darwish Holding

As well as welcoming investors from around the world, Qatar has a flourishing domestic private sector, often working in close partnership with foreign businesses operating in the region. A prime example of this success is Darwish Holding, with a legacy dating back to the early 1900s when the visionary Al-Darwish Fakhroo brothers started a family business involved in contracting, stock market, real estate, airlines, automotive and more, both within and outside of Qatar. As Qatar’s landscape began to swiftly change, the group played a significant role in the country’s transformation and proudly helped foment progress by harnessing opportunities and innovations. Stemming from the mother company and continuing the legacy and ethos instilled by its founders, Darwish Holding today boasts diversified business interests across sectors including consumer distribution, investment, real estate, retail, business services, and technology,

with a strong, diversified team from 60 countries. Its businesses include Fifty One East, Qatar’s oldest department store, whichisseeing20% revenue growth from tourism, and significant stock market and real estate ventures.

Darwish Holding will continue to grow hand-in-hand with the nation.

“The sky’s the limit here,” says Bader Abdullah Al-Darwish, Darwish Holding’s chairman and managing director.

“We are witnessing a period of remarkable development driven by His Highness the Amir’s vision and that of the Father Amir. Reflecting on the past two to three decades, the advancements in education, healthcare, and infrastructure are astounding. Our commitment to Qatar’s growth has been unwavering, and our goal remains today and tomorrow to support His Highness’s vision. Our leaders’ dedication and strategic foresight have been the cornerstone of Qatar’s success, and we are honored to contribute to this journey.”

With its extensive experience in the local market, Darwish Holding is a longstanding partner to foreign brands looking to expand in Qatar and across the Middle East. The business’s distribution network, databases, and after-sales service are second to none. Al-Darwish evaluates each potential deal carefully to be sure of the strategic fit – and then executes with speed and determination. “The long-standing partnerships we have, such as those with Rolex since 1951, CHANEL since 1954, and Sony in the 1960s, demonstrate our ability to deliver exceptional results and foster enduring relationships,” he added.

“Our family has been in the business for more than 100 years, and we have had exclusive international partnerships for more than 70 years, so we know the market like the back of our hand,” says Al-Darwish. “We also have a professional team, with some members who have been with us for over 30 years. Together, we’ve achieved numerous success stories, including double-digit growth and the biggest market share and growth in the majority of the brands we represent. We are also heavily sponsoring, together with the brands we carry, some of the most prestigious international sports tournaments and cultural events in Qatar, something that we are immensely proud of. I believe in fostering long-term relationships based on mutual respect, which our partners deeply appreciate, and this philosophy consistently translates into exceptional results. For example, our FNAC franchise is the fastest-growing in the world. We are delivering outstanding results.”

Darwish Holding will continue to be a standard bearer for its country, its private sector dynamism reflecting the country’s own growth path and its growing stature globally.

“You have all noticed the level of progress we could achieve when our view of ourselves integrates with our image abroad, as was the case during the World Cup matches in Qatar,” His Highness the Amir said. “You have seen that the positive interaction with the outside has reflected in progress at home, and vice versa. This is the logic behind the energy industry, the sovereign fund, and international mediations, and this is also the logic behind the civilized interaction which also embraces tolerance and acceptance of diversity. Cultural interaction and acceptance of diversity are not contradictory to the collective Qatari Arab Muslim identity, but rather a contribution to its evolvement and development in consistence with the challenges of the times at every historical stage.”

His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani Amir of Qatar

QNB Group

A PILLAR OF FINANCIAL EXCELLENCE

Supported by one of the largest gas reserves in the world, Qatar is the largest exporter of LNG globally and a dynamic leader in the Gulf. The country has been one of the fastest-growing economies in the world over the past decade. The latest announcement of the expansion of the North Field, which aims to increase LNG production by 85% by 2030, will be a tailwind for the economy in the medium to long term.

Standing at the heart of the Qatari banking industry is QNB Group, the first fully Qatari-owned bank. The bank was established in 1964 and started its international journey in 1976 with the opening of a branch in London. Today, it is the largest bank of the Middle East and Africa.

Abdulla Mubarak Al-Khalifa Group CEO

At the helm of QNB Group stands its Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Abdulla Mubarak Al-Khalifa, stating that “I am proud of the bank’s Qatari heritage. We are characterised by a unique leadership and vision.” Mr. Al-Khalifa joined QNB in 1996, when the bank already had a very strong position in the domestic market. He assumed his current role as Group Chief Executive Officer in 2018. In 2005, while Mr. Al-Khalifa was head of domestic corporate banking, QNB started internal strategic discussions about its future – where it would position itself, and how it could achieve its goals. Then, in 2007, the bank drew up a five-year strategy to become one of the top three banks in the GCC from a position of 16th at the time. Over the next ten years, QNB underwent an internal expansion that saw the establishment of operations in 15 countries through organic and inorganic growth. By the end of 2012, it had already become the biggest in the region, thanks to Qatar’s resilience during the global financial crisis and the bank’s expansion strategy.

“When the financial crisis hit, we were sitting on $10bn in cash. We deployed that money like never before, while everyone else was fixing their own problems”, says Mr. Al-Khalifa. “We visited out top 20 customers and said ‘if you need anything, write the cheque, and we will take care of it’ – only two did this, and we supported them. Today, we are one of the largest banks in the region for 12 years. We have a strong record of partnerships and international relationships. We are present in 28 countries, serving 30 million customers. We understand the Gulf, we have strong relationships, and we consider ourselves as a partner for anyone doing business here.”

QNB is a relationship bank, seeing its partnerships with customers as a two-way street, a mutually beneficial and supportive arrangement. QNB is dedicated to excellent customer service, guaranteeing trust and loyalty, and supporting its clients whenever needed.

“We don’t compromise on quality,” says Mr. Al-Khalifa. “We could grow by 10% a year if we didn’t pay so much attention on quality. We want to maintain steady and sustainable revenues and growth. However, we do not compromise on our strong fundamentals on credit and balance sheet management.”

QNB is 50% owned by the country’s sovereign wealth fund, but does not operate as a government bank. Yet it does have a strong commitment to national development, and shares a vision with the government, including bringing in more foreign investment and strengthening the private sector’s role. This allows it to be recognised by leading international rating agencies, such as Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and

Fitch as the highest-rated bank in Qatar and one of highest in the MENA region, with ratings of A+, Aa3, and A+, respectively.

Mr. Al-Khalifa attributes the bank’s strengths to its team efforts. Its employees in Qatar are 60% Qataris, underscoring both the talent that the country is nurturing, and the bank’s engagement in the country’s economic transformation. Another of the bank’s strength is its brand, which has been the region’s most valuable brand for more than ten years, worth $8.4bn.

“QNB’s long-term aspiration is to be one of the leading Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia banks while maintaining our number one position in the Middle East and Africa,” explains Mr. Al-Khalifa. “Our strategy is comprised of three elements: focus on our core of being an international wholesale bank, while leveraging innovation as a strategic enabler and embedding sustainability into our business and operating model.”

An innovative, tech-savvy bank, QNB leverages its innovation to deliver cutting-edge products and services to its customers. It has a fully-digital banking offering, that started in Türkiye and was extended to Egypt, making waves in a market dominated by traditional banking models. In 2022, QNB announced a joint venture with Ajlan & Bros Holding to collaborate and expand its digital banking offering to Saudi Arabia. It is typical of the forward-looking, close-knit partnerships that the bank looks to form, as well as indicative of its ambitions – it has the goal of being the biggest foreign bank in the Kingdom by 2030.

As well as being a partner for businesses, Qatar-listed QNB also offers an enticing opportunity for investors, given its long-term growth path, building on its consistent growth record. Going forward, QNB is considering further expansion to Southeast Asia when the time is right. “Now is a good time for Qatar,” says Mr. Al-Khalifa. “It is a centre for reaching markets including India and the rest of Asia, Europe and Africa. Our airline and airport were ranked as the best in the world this year. The government’s leadership is superb, and it is giving the private sector an ever-bigger role in the economy in line with Qatar’s National Vision 2030. We are fortunate to be in growing market with significant tailwinds from high hydrocarbon export revenues to support our growth and performance over the medium term. There’s huge growth potential in the region – it has strong economic foundations, infrastructure, financial stability, an excellent lifestyle, and quality tourism offerings.”

“We look for relevance and value in our partnerships,” says Mr. Al-Khalifa. “We are happy to support financially anybody coming to Qatar to invest, and any Qatari investment abroad. We know every single client in Qatar, we know the people of the Gulf – we’re the bank of choice for those coming here. We allow foreign investors to have more flexibility, and a clear pathway to success.”

Local businesses are beloved, but rarely get the full recognition they deserve. We want to fix that.

That’s why Entrepreneur partnered with Foursquare to build this, our second annual America’s Favorite Mom & Pop Shops™ list— featuring 150 of the most beloved small businesses across the U.S.

To create this list, we leveraged places data from Foursquare—a geospatial technology company that captures more than 100 attributes about local businesses, including foot traffic, ratings, photos taken by customers, and even how many people leave tips. We limited our search to independently owned and operated businesses in the U.S. with a maximum of four locations, and which were marked open as of May 15, 2024. We then divided the top results into 10 categories (retail, nightlife, dining, and so on), and ranked the businesses based on a variety of factors that reflect their popularity. Mom-and-pop shops can only appear on our list once, so we removed any businesses that appeared on 2023’s list.

We hope you’ll use this list for at least two purposes: You can have a great time visiting wonderful local businesses, and you can learn from the many things their entrepreneurial owners do right. Of course, we know these aren’t the only beloved mom-and-pop shops in America—which is why, next year, we’re excited to anoint another 150.

11

12

BEAUTY & SPAS ENTERTAINMENT DINING

fitness & Sports

Food & Drink Shops

HOME & LOCAL SERVICES

To get your business where you want it to go, you ride the line between numbers and people. You balance what’s right for the business and what’s best for everyone who depends on it, solving for today’s challenges and creating future opportunities. Wherever your there is, CLA brings balance to get you there. Start at CLAconnect.com/balance.

Insa Oil AN EXCEPTIONAL

PARTNER

Bulgaria’s GDP growth is set to pick up to 3% in 2025, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, with robust consumption, recovering foreign demand, and moderating inflation all contributing to an increasingly rosy economic outlook. Private consumption (running at 5.4% annual growth) and rising investment helped buoy activity in 2023, against global headwinds.

Bulgaria’s energy sector has long been a magnet for international investment, with a diverse mix of nuclear, coal, and renewables at play. Investors from as far afield as the US, Germany, China, and India are showing interest in the market, according to Eurolex Bulgaria, which forecasts that Bulgaria will see record investment in energy in 2024-25, and double its renewable energy capacity by 2030. Domestic demand has also buoyed local consumption of refined products, including biofuels.

Georgi Samuilov Owner

A success story in this hugely important sector for Bulgaria, Insa Oil is one of the leading producers of petroleum products in the country, with a track record and reputation that attracts both clients and major international partners.

“Our company has been developing since the 1990s, when I also founded the company,” says Insa Oil’s owner Georgi Samuilov. “Over the last 30 years through our overall strategy we have managed to become a leader in the sector and have currently a market share of around 25-30% in Bulgaria. We have around 700 clients. I have set up a few other companies that are entirely in the energy and biofuels sector, and in the past 20 years I have been mainly focusing on the production side of the business. We started with small production capacity but over the years we have managed to scale them, up and we have managed to come up with several great products which are now well established on the market. Our market share is indicative of that.”

Insa Oil’s current “exceptional” major project is a new refinery expected to start construction by 2025, deploying a revolutionary method for producing hydrocracked diesel (HVO), and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) a new generation biofuels. The large-scale project, one of the first of its kind in the Balkans, will broaden opportunities to offer the regional market SAF, a new generation of fuels that will be used for decades to come. Insa Oil has top experts working on the project to guarantee its success, and is setting out infrastructure for its finalisation.

The chosen technology from Insa Oil will enable them to produce high-quality fuels of a new generation that guarantee environmental protection and enable consumers to continue using their diesel cars.

The new refinery builds on Insa Oil’s history of strong development and diversification. Mother company Insa Group was founded in 1996, and Insa Oil itself in 2001, starting as a petroleum

product trader. The following year, it started production of fuels and fractions from its atmospheric vacuum distillation facility. In 2010, it added a desulphurisation line to its plant at Belozem, which in 2018 saw its storage capacity increased to 100,000m tonnes. Since 2019, Insa Oil has been rolling out modern petrol stations across Bulgaria.

Samuilov emphasises the values of loyalty, which underpins Insa Oil’s relationships with clients and corporate partners alike. Both can also rely on the high quality of the company’s products, supported by its advanced complex testing laboratory and high-skilled team.

“A company cannot be successful without navigating turbulent times,” says Samuilov. “Success is due to hard work and perseverance. If one does not devote a lot of time to his company and people, he won’t be successful. We are also open to the world.”

This approach will ensure the possibility of attracting foreign partners and investors to help develop Insa Oil in the Balkans as a producer of the ecological fuels of the future. This is also the sure way for a real diversification of sources for the supply of fuels in Bulgaria. And this is of key importance for achieving energy independence of the country and in Europe.

“We’re a very strong regional strategic player,” says Samuilov. “We’re a European company and Bulgaria is on a very important crossroads that will be playing a big role in the energy sector in the near future. We’re the ideal small partner for big companies, and a big partner for smaller ones. People interested in partnerships must of course be knowledgeable about the oil sector and the specifics of our business, and in general we are open to any sort of collaboration from suitable partners.”

International companies working with Insa Oil also enjoy the benefits of the growing, business-friendly Bulgarian market, with its hugely strategic location between Europe and Asia.

“Bulgaria is a relatively new democracy, and the changes after 1990s put the country on a new trajectory,” says Samuilov. “Entrepreneurship blossomed, though it has not always been easy. Now Bulgaria is a very attractive investment destination. The country has a good tax system with very low taxes, of 10% on personal and corporate income. We have very well-trained manpower and a good education system. A lot of investments have already been made in the country. Politically, everything is peaceful, and people are kind-hearted. Strategically, we are very well positioned. It is an attractive place for business. I think we should always believe that better times are coming.”

HOW SMALL SHOPS TAKE BIG RISKS

It’s not easy for mom-and-pops to try something new, because they rarely have a safety net to fail. But there are ways to innovate cautiously—as one small business on our list, All My Heart tattoo studio, has found.

business on our list,

by FRANCES DODDS

→ INK OUTSIDE THE BOX Graham Beech at work on one of his signature large-scale tattoos.

Imagine what a tattoo shop looks like. All My Heart does not look like that.

The Charlotte, North Carolina, studio is airy and suffused with natural light. In the reception area, there are modular chairs, midcentury couches, and a vase of fresh flowers on a Japanese-influenced cabinet. But the real surprise goes beyond aesthetics. All My Heart’s owner, Graham Beech, isn’t just playing with a new look; he’s trying out a whole new business model.

“Historically, tattoo shops have wanted to control the clientele, and use the tattoo artist as kind of a cog in the wheel,” Beech says. “What’s different about our business is that the client is the artist, and they have their own individual clients.”

Like many entrepreneurs, Beech was his own ideal customer: He was a tattoo artist working for a shop, wishing for a way to grow his earnings. But when he struck out on his own, he didn’t just copypaste the same old system; he wanted to create something more equitable for artists that provided more room for growth. And within two years of All My Heart opening, readers of The Charlotte Observer had voted it the best tattoo studio in the city.

But as Beech will tell you, thinking differently comes at a cost. Innovation requires risk, and risk requires resources to try and fail. For most mom-and-pops, resources are finite. If people have been doing something the same way for a long time—whether that’s running a restaurant, opening a gym, or setting up a tattoo shop—there’s often a reason for that, and few incentives to push boundaries.

And yet, every now and then, the factors influencing an industry change, and someone sees a new path forward. It’s thrilling, but also scary when the stakes are so personal. As Beech’s story shows, innovating as a small business can be like feeling your way forward in the dark: You have to move slowly, know when to stop and get your bearings, and know when it’s safe to take another step.

Beech didn’t start out wanting to be an entrepreneur, much less an innovator. He just wanted to make a living doing what he loves. And he really loves it. “Tattooing is a unique medium,” he says, “because I need another consenting adult to practice my art form. If I were a musician or a painter, I could just buy the equipment. The fact that people seek me out and allow me to tattoo their body, then carry my work throughout the world—I think that’s a really special thing.”

But in 2021, a long-simmering frustration reached a boiling point. Beech had worked really, really hard for a decade. He had nearly 40,000 followers on Instagram, a two-year waitlist, and a $250 hourly rate. But as he looked into the future at his career prospects, he says, “there was no light at the end of the tunnel.” Based on the traditional tattoo shop business model, his income had hit a ceiling. He could set his hourly rate, but the shop got a 40% to 50% cut. This might have made more sense when shops were the primary way that clients were connected with artists. “But most clients are finding their artists now by doing research online,” Beech says. “Social media gives individual artists a lot more power. Artists aren’t completely dependent on somebody looking up a brick-and-mortar business or happening to walk by.”

Clients were often finding Beech’s work on Instagram, calling the shop to book him, and being told he had a yearslong waitlist. Then they were offered another artist at the shop, and told that artist could work in Beech’s style—“a contemporary take on traditional Japanese and Americana”—under his guidance. Beech loved mentoring artists,

→ A FRESH TAKE

(Below) All My Heart’s eclectic reception area.

(Right) The Beeches at their studio’s opening party.

but wasn’t getting anything extra from his employer, who always told him: Just raise your rate. This would, conveniently, make more money for the shop as well. But the returns were diminishing for Beech: There were only so many hours in the day. “I don’t like using buzzwords, but I feel like artists are gaslighted by shop owners,” he says. “It’s like, No, I know that I’m part of this brand.”

The decisive moment came when Graham’s wife, Sarah Beech, was pregnant with their second child, and Sarah’s mother—the anchor of their family—received a terminal cancer diagnosis. For Graham, the tragedy was existential. “I think he was just like, Life’s short and we should take the risk,” Sarah says. “It all happened at once. We signed the lease, and I went into labor the next day. My mom saw the studio at the opening party, and then she passed away a few days later. I’m so grateful she was able to celebrate it.”

When Graham decided to leave his job, opening his own studio wasn’t the only option. It would have been easier to rent one of the many “salon suites” that have been disrupting the beauty industry— essentially office buildings with hallways of tiny rooms that are rented out to individual stylists, who operate their own small businesses from those spaces. But this means you’re working alone. Graham loved the community of a studio, and learning new things from other artists.

So he decided to start a business that offered the best of both worlds. His studio allows artists to choose their pay structure: They can either do a traditional percentage split with the studio, or pay a “booth rent,” where they make set monthly payments to the studio and keep all the proceeds from their hourly rate—similar to a salon suite. Up-andcoming artists might prefer the traditional percentage split, since they don’t have an established roster of clients and rely on more walk-ins.

But more established artists can control how much they’re making and charging, while the studio handles their tasks like scheduling, along with supplies and assistants who flip their stations.

“Is this business model innovative? Yes,” says Caroline Daniels, a professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College, when she hears about Beech’s strategy. “It is innovative. But the challenge in any new venture is: What do we actually do? What’s the other person’s responsibility? How do we grow? And also: How much do we really want to grow?”

These are questions that Graham and Sarah—who does much of the administrative work, on top of her full-time job as executive director at a consumer insights company—have been grappling with in their first few years in business. “At first, it was just Graham and one other artist,” Sarah says. “We knew we could keep the lights on as long as Graham worked around the clock, basically. But we needed to iron out the front-of-house before we started adding people.”

As exhausting as it is, Daniels says this phase of starting a business cannot be skipped. “When you make the transition from stylist to entrepreneur, one of the essential things you need to do is understand the scope of your managerial capabilities,” she says. “You can’t hire somebody and hand it off in the beginning. You have to know those processes in and out before you teach someone else to do it.”

As Sarah and Graham wrapped their heads around operations, they gradually started bringing on booth rent artists. Graham was picky, having worked in enough tattoo shops to know that the mix of personalities can make or break the vibe. “I wanted a bright, positive, harmonious feel in the space,” he says. “Not only does the artist need to be incredibly talented, but they also need to have a wonderful bedside manner and get along well with the other artists.” He adds, “It can be a bit much for people who are historically kind of nonconformist.”

Building the right team has outsize importance when you’re breaking norms in an industry. You can change the business model, but if the people you hire aren’t interested in evolving, that’s an issue. One way Graham has dealt with this is by hiring artists who might not fit in at other tattoo shops. “You would think that an industry made up of misfits would be a little more inclusive, but historically, that hasn’t been the case,” he says. “I’ve worked in tattoo shops where the owners have strong feelings about the age and gender and cultural background of the people working there. So we’re eager to have a diverse group of people—and I’m proud to say we really do.”

Daniels says that for new small businesses, having a vision for the culture you want—and building slowly enough that you can maintain it—is crucial. “Culture is invisible, but it’s the single most important thing in innovation.” Daniels recalls how, when a business school

professor told her this years ago, she’d been dubious. “I thought, Oh, that’s just HR. But he was right. The way you innovate with your culture, given resource dynamics and all that other stuff, is the real innovation. But that also means knowing all of your constraints.”

For All My Heart, the single biggest constraint has been finding a capable, long-term front-of-house manager. “Our artists are wonderful, we don’t have turnover there,” Sarah says. “But when it comes to front of house, we have really struggled. We are looking for this unicorn who can take some of the workload off Graham and I.”

They’ve had turnover in this role every eight months, so the cost and time of training someone new is significant. They’ve also realized they need more of a professional manager than a traditional receptionist. In addition to scheduling, they want someone who can tackle administrative tasks like taxes and QuickBooks—and, ideally, managing new revenue streams. “To entice qualified candidates,” Graham says, “we want to offer benefits like health insurance and 401(k) options, which is very atypical for the tattoo industry.”

Of course, benefits are expensive, and the studio needs to grow in order to afford it—but they also need help in order to grow. They now have six full-time artists and two part-time artists, and want to bring on more, but don’t have the bandwidth on their own. There are other revenue opportunities, too—if only they had somone to manage them. Piercing, for example, would be a great add-on to the studio’s offerings. They were offering monthly drawing sessions with live models for a while, but paused those because organizing was too much. They’ve also been approached by local breweries looking to collaborate, and reality shows wanting to film in their space. Plus, there are plenty of partnerships to be had with national brands like Harley-Davidson, Red Bull, and Mountain Dew.

“It’s a bit of a conundrum,” Graham says. “We want to bring in additional revenue, but we need somebody to alleviate some of the current pressures so we can get there.”

So for now, they’re standing still.

But according to Daniels, this is exactly what they should be doing right now. “You have to master one idea before going on to the next,” she says. “The time to grow is when you’ve done one thing well, and you’ve got everything under control. Then you take another step.”

And anyway, what’s the point of building something if you never take time to admire your handiwork? In the midst of raising two small children and grieving Sarah’s mother, the Beeches built a business with a 4.9-star rating on Google and over 100 glowing reviews. Most importantly, they built the place where Graham wants to work.

“That internal drive of never being satisfied is a double-edged sword,” Graham says. “It’s an incredible tool for an entrepreneur because you’ll continue to grow. But if you can’t notice the achievements and celebrate the little things, it sucks the fun out of it.”

Even so, Graham keeps a toe in the water. He’s been feeling around for their next step pondering pay structures that might incentivize a manager to take initiative and seek out opportunities for the studio.

Ultimately, his recruiting and business strategies are one and the same: create a place where people feel welcome. “I want this to be a space where people don’t get treated poorly for not being the right type of misfit,” he says. “We’re trying to be the change we want to see in the industry. And we don’t want to completely divorce ourselves from traditional tattoo culture—we love that culture. But we’re trying to look forward.”

Frances Dodds is Entrepreneur’s deputy editor.

HOW TO HIRE FOR THE FUTURE

Small businesses are struggling to find quality labor. So flip the conversation: Show workers how your business will set them up for opportunity.

by KRISTEN BAYRAKDARIAN

Small businesses have a hiring problem.

According to the July monthly jobs report from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), 19% of small businesses rank the inability to find quality labor as the single most important issue facing their company, while 38% reported job openings they could not fill. Overall, 49% reported few or no qualified applicants for the positions they were trying to fill.

“Most people who want a job have a job, so there are very few out there actively looking,” says Holly Wade, NFIB’s executive director of research. The U.S. unemployment rate has hovered around 4% in 2024—and although it’s been slowly ticking upwards, the talent pool for small businesses remains tight. Moreover, worker demographics evolved during the pandemic years.

“There were so many baby boomers who retired, and we had a huge shift of early retirees. All of that takes time to normalize, so we have this massive shift in the composition of the labor market.”

So how’s that playing out for small businesses? Richard Grove is a good case study, because he’s the founder of The Small Business Consultant, which advises manufacturing and industry companies—and he’s also COO of a small business called Wall Control, which makes pegboard storage systems and organizers.

He sees the problem firsthand, from multiple angles. Younger workers have been conditioned to think of college—and jobs that require a lot of education—as the best path to success. That means tradesman jobs are “not glamorized,” Grove says. “[Younger workers] don’t see their heroes doing that sort of thing,” nor have they been encouraged to explore an array of different professions.

That’s why, when his clients ask him for help with hiring, he

recommends they introduce themselves to future employees where they are now—whether that’s school clubs or special interest groups online.

Wade says that hiring eager, enthusiastic candidates and then training them for the job is a smart strategy. A strong company culture can also attract workers, so it’s worth leaning into what makes small businesses great to work for—like the ability to learn in a place that cares about you more than a conglomerate.

That’s been a winning formula for Leah Jensen, cofounder of Parleaux Beer Lab. A brewery may seem “cooler” than manufacturing pegboards, but the hospitality industry is notorious for high turnover. “We have been very fortunate that many of our team members have stayed with us for lengthy periods—an average of over three years,” she says. “Part of this success comes from prioritizing ‘fit’ over traditional skill sets. If we see someone that jives with us, our team, and our customers, we will put the time in to train them.”

To keep employees happy, Jensen also commits resources to professional development. “Anytime the business is successful,” Jensen says, “we reinvest that back into the business and back into them.” This ranges from sending team members to festivals and retreats for learning and networking purposes, to investing in new equipment or upgrades to make workers’ jobs easier.

Ultimately, to recruit quality talent, a small business needs to present itself as a doorway to stability and opportunity. “If you can show [job candidates] what a future looks like in the field, that’s the best bet,” says Grove. “All these folks are walking around with phones in their hands. So start a social media account, partner with an influencer in a similar space, and get your story out there. Let them see firsthand what opportunity looks like.”

Export Development Bank of Egypt STRATEGY FOR SUCCESS

Egypt boasts a dynamic and resilient economic landscape, ever-adaptable to growth and development. This is evidenced by the recent performance of the country’s non-oil exports and banking sector. Non-oil exports from Egypt experienced a 7% growth during the first five months of 2024, reaching a total of $16.5 billion, showcasing the economy’s ability to evolve and prosper. This represents an increase from the $15.4 billion recorded in the same period of 2023, according to official figures. Also, this follows on a strong full year in 2023, in which merchandise exports topped $35bn, with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE being the leading export markets.

As a recent Euromoney report noted, Egypt’s banking sector is poised for rising growth. New deals with the UAE and IMF are buoying confidence in the market, while foreign currency earnings from exporters, the Suez Canal, and the tourism industry are flowing into Egyptian banks.

Dr. Ahmed Galal Chairman

Occupying a unique and pivotal role in Egypt’s vibrant economic ecosystem, the Export Development Bank of Egypt (EBank) was established in 1983 and commenced commercial operations the following year. Originally, its primary purpose was to support exporters, playing a vital part in cultivating Egypt’s thriving exportoriented economy, which continues to be a core focus of the Bank’s portfolio.

However, in recent years, EBank has undergone a remarkable transformation, evolving into a fully-fledged commercial bank. Through a strategic rebranding and comprehensive overhaul, the Bank has experienced stellar growth, cementing its position as a key driver of Egypt’s economic resurgence.

“When I joined as Deputy Chairman in 2017, we immediately set out to draft a strategic plan to transform the Bank,” explains Ahmed Mohamed Galal, Chairman of EBank. “At the time, the Bank was a single-purpose institution serving a limited number of corporate clients. Our main objective was to turn EBank into a medium-sized, diversified financial institution poised for growth.”

“We outlined a comprehensive five-year strategic plan for 20222027 encompassing six key pillars: investing in export development, business expansion, human capital, digital transformation and modern technology, governance, compliance and risk management, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability. While our core focus remains the exporting sector, with 80% of our clients being exporters, we have also extended our services to become a comprehensive Bank meeting the diverse needs of our customers,” Galal added.

Under the strategic plan, EBank has achieved remarkable success. In just five years, the Bank’s portfolio has surged from EGP10.6 billion to nearly EGP65 billion ($1.34 billion). Its return on investment reached nearly 38% and profits have soared from EGP240 million to EGP3 billion last year, with an expected increase to EGP5 billion this year.

This performance is attributed to EBank’s solid focus on cost optimization and robust risk management. The Bank’s coverage ratio now exceeds 160%, and non-performing assets have reduced from 6.8% in 2016 to just 2.5%. Diversification has also been a key driver,

with the launch of a retail business in 2019 now accounting for 15% of the portfolio. Total customer accounts have grown from 29,000 in 2017 to 135,000 today.

“As a commercial Bank, finding the right mix of corporate and retail business is crucial,” explains Galal. “Our strategic focus is to be the market leader in exports, the second-largest player in corporate banking, while also growing our retail business.”

Being a publicly-listed Bank on the Egyptian Exchange, EBank offers international investors a compelling opportunity to capitalize on the country’s high-growth, export-driven economy. “We’re committed to quality and setting high benchmarks for the services we provide to our customers.”

EBank’s customer-centric approach extends beyond traditional banking, with the Bank offering a range of value-added services, including an “exporters club” that provides a network of consultants and brokers to support its clients. “We are always thinking of new services and products we can deliver to clients,” as claimed by Galal.

The multifaceted approach has enabled the Bank to more than double its workforce, from 760 employees in 2016 to 1,800 today. The emphasis now is on increasing revenues rather than solely costcutting.

“We understood that transforming the Bank had to start with changing the mindset of our people. We’ve worked hard to foster high employee loyalty and excellent teamwork across the organization. Our people are our most powerful asset – even as we embrace digital solutions, the human touch remains indispensable.”

“In conclusion, EBank’s new strategic direction has already yielded significant rewards, and its future prospects remain bright. Egypt is a country of opportunity across all sectors,” Galal notes. “The private sector is leading growth, the skilled labor force is here, and the location is ideal – Egypt is ready for success.”

MY MVP EMPLOYEE

One amazing team member can make an outsize impact on your business. We asked some of the shops on our list to share their No. 1 team member—and what makes them so special.

by FRANCES DODDS

1/ The joyful handyman…

At Pinckney Clay studio in San Francisco

“Paul Fresia is a diamond. He was one of our first members when we opened in 2016. He now teaches the hand-building class and brings extra joy to anyone in the studio. Paul helped to found an artist-in-residence program that gives artists a stipend and space to create works from discarded materials. He is also a handyman and woodworker, and he built our store display.”

–Holly Coley, owner

2/ The dream brewer-bartender duo…

At Parleaux Beer Lab in New Orleans

“We have two all-stars: Jon Butts behind the bar and Brad Holderness on the brew deck. Brad’s relentless focus on disciplined and well-researched ‘processes and procedures’ is crucial for executing great beer, and his constant drive to learn about science and best practices is inspiring. And as a seven-year Parleaux veteran, Jon carries an irreplaceable institutional knowledge of our standards. He treats everyone on both sides of the bar with respect, professionalism, and hilarity (he is also a talented professional comedian). We know the brewery is in good hands with them.”

–Leah and Eric Jensen, owners

3/ The problem-solver countertop installer…

At AlphaStone Solutions in Richmond, Virginia

“Our countertop installer, Helder Antonio de Souza Filho, solves problems with a cheerful disposition, and does impeccable work. Sometimes you have to adapt quickly to the installation environment. Once, Helder was on a project far away from our shop,. When he arrived, he realized a kitchen cabinet had to be moved, so the weight of the countertop would be supported and there wouldn’t be any gaps. Helder jumped into action, moved the cabinet, made sure it was level, and was able to complete the countertop install. The customer was so grateful to have her kitchen back together.”

–Mehmet Karakas, owner

4/ The welcoming gallery director…

At Nina Johnson in Miami

“Karina Ors, our gallery director, has been with us for nearly a decade. She has a generous spirit, a brilliant eye, and a delicate and open manner when working with clients and artists. I would trust her with my life, and I do! With my gallery, she has one of my most precious achievements in her hands every day.”

–Nina Johnson, owner

5/ The approachable cheesemonger…

At Cured & Whey in Las Vegas

“Janell Fama is our store manager, and she goes above and beyond for every customer—especially for those who are scared and intimidated by cheese. Having a professionally trained cheese staff who can walk you through each cheese and its nuance, versus just saying, ‘Yeah, that’s the cheese section there,’ is where we excel, and often at lower price points than the mass-market retailers.”

–Michael Stamm,

owner

–Terrance Osborne, owner

The ultra-responsive yoga teacher…

Adam and Jill Levy, owners

HOW TO BOUNCE BACK FROM A BAD REVIEW

A one-star review can hurt your ego— and your business. But it’s possible to prevent (and remedy!) this scary scenario.

by RACHEL DAVIES

Online reviews matter, especially for small businesses. They’re a chance to get unbiased feedback on how your business can improve. But low ratings can also skew your average and threaten your ability to attract new customers. According to Kelly Kurlychek of BetterReputation, a company that helps businesses and individuals maintain their online reputations, upwards of 90% of prospective customers are searching for reviews before making a purchase. “Your prospects are Googling you. If you aren’t showing up at all, or in any kind of negative or even mediocre light, you are losing business,” says Kurlychek.

So how do you avoid bad reviews? And what do you do if they come your way?

Adam Levy is co-owner of the Huntington, New York, yoga studio Sound Body & Mind, and he deals with the prospect of bad reviews head-on. His business has a five-star rating on Google, but maintaining that rating wasn’t as simple as giving good service and waiting for positive reviews to flow in. For the past five years, Levy has taken a proactive approach, which hinges on automated emails that customers receive after each class. These emails encourage users to leave positive reviews, yes, but also suggest that customers get in touch directly with any critical feedback. “I think playing defense against a poor review before it can happen is equally as valuable as receiving a five-star review itself,” Levy says. This strategy has opened a line of communication with customers who might otherwise take their complaints directly to Google reviews or Yelp.

Even so, Levy has had to handle the worst of the worst: a one-star review. “It instanta-

neously ruined my day,” Levy says about the dispute, which centered on a customer trying to use a class package that had been expired for years. In moments like this, your gut reaction might be to respond immediately, but Kurlychek says it’s better to take a beat and compose yourself, so your emotions don’t impact your response. “Never get defensive,” Kurlychek says. “Responding with facts is okay, but remain polite, and remember the customer is always right.” That’s exactly what Levy did. He connected with the customer over the phone to make sure no one’s tone was being misread. He didn’t directly ask the customer to remove their review—but because he displayed such genuine interest in resolving the issue, they removed it on their own after the call.

Similarly, Brian Mosko of Cured & Whey, a specialty food shop in Las Vegas with a 4.9-star average rating, finds that leaning into bad reviews is the best way to minimize the damage. “Everybody takes five stars with a dose of skepticism, but [prospective customers] go look at your one-, two-, and three-star reviews, and see how the business handles it,” Mosko says. “[Does the business owner] attack the person and blame them? Or is there a well-thoughtout response that kind of explains the situation?”

Even if you don’t receive the ideal outcome that Levy did, with the voluntary removal of a bad review, responding to critical reviews with a compassionate comment is a good habit to develop. “Keep in mind that anyone reading these reviews are likely to be potential customers,” Kurlychek advises. “They will find it much easier to put themselves in the shoes of that unhappy customer than in the shoes of the business owner. Offer a resolution publicly. And put real effort into every response.”

Orascom Development

PIONEERING SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES AND PREMIER DESTINATIONS

With the backing of significant investment commitments from the UAE and a recently upgraded USD 8 billion loan from the IMF, Egypt’s macroeconomic outlook is set to improve. The country is undertaking major structural reforms, including a new exchange rate regime, investments in infrastructure, and fiscal policy restraint. According to the IMF, these reforms will help preserve macroeconomic stability, enhance Egypt’s resilience, and create an economic environment that fosters private sector growth.

Egypt’s real estate sector is a vital pillar of the country’s economy and a long-standing safe haven for domestic and foreign investment. According to Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), the sector is currently experiencing a significant resurgence, driven by rising property values, favorable government policies, a stabilized currency, and strong capital inflows. In its Q1 2024 report, JLL noted that most of the 7,000 newly completed units were within largescale master-planned developments.

Omar El Hamamsy Group CEO

Founded in 1989, Orascom Development Holding is a leading international developer renowned for its diverse portfolio of 10 worldclass destinations spanning five countries and three continents. Orascom Development’s pioneering business model of transforming empty spaces into vibrant, self-sufficient communities, towns, and resorts has set the standard for master-planned developments worldwide. The group is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange, and its subsidiary, Orascom Development Egypt, is listed on the Egyptian Exchange.

Orascom Development’s impressive portfolio encompasses over 100 million square meters of prime land across multiple countries, including Egypt, Oman, Montenegro, Switzerland, and the UK. From luxurious villas in scenic Red Sea locales to upscale apartments in the Swiss Alps, the group’s properties epitomize luxury and exclusivity, inviting residents and visitors alike to embrace ‘life as it should be.’

Since taking the helm four years ago, Group CEO Omar El Hamamsy has spearheaded a strategic transformation of Orascom Development. His leadership has been instrumental in positioning the group for longterm, sustainable growth, and Q1 results of this year indicate continued momentum, with double-digit growth in both revenue and adjusted EBITDA. Real estate net sales surged 143.1% to CHF 256.7 million. “We aim to continue growing the success of our destinations while attracting and investing in high-caliber talent, prioritizing profitable growth, and institutionalizing operations,” emphasizes Mr. El Hamamsy.

Orascom Development has made a significant impact through its ‘destination’ developments, according to Mr. El Hamamsy. He highlights, “Our destinations are fully integrated, sustainable towns and yearround communities set amidst breathtaking natural beauty. We offer an unparalleled lifestyle featuring over one thousand retail locations and restaurants, complemented by education, healthcare facilities, and exceptional infrastructure.” This underscores the group’s commitment to creating cohesive, sustainable communities that harmonize luxury living with essential amenities and services.

Many of Orascom Development’s destinations are located by the

sea or ocean, including its flagship destination El Gouna, a captivating Egyptian coastal town that spans 10 kilometers of pristine shoreline along the Red Sea. El Gouna is renowned for its multicultural community and seamless integration of luxurious residences, hotels, and diverse commercial and leisure amenities, all set amidst a tranquil natural environment. It also serves as a beacon of the group’s steadfast commitment to sustainability, being the first of its kind in Africa to receive the UN-sponsored Global Green Town award.

Orascom Development is also renowned for its exquisite Andermatt Swiss Alps resort, where the group has transformed a traditional Alpine village into one of Switzerland’s premier ski resorts and year-round residential communities. Alongside penthouses and chalet-style villas, guests can enjoy luxurious accommodations at the group’s managed hotels, such as The Chedi—a prestigious, five-star establishment— or the Radisson Blu Hotel Reussen, offering a modern Alpine-chic experience. The destination also boasts Michelin-starred dining, an 18-hole golf course, and a luxurious spa retreat, ensuring an extensive array of luxury and leisure activities.

Mr. El Hamamsy reveals that many of Orascom Development’s real estate customers first encountered the group’s destinations as holidaymakers and were captivated by the area while staying at one of its hotels. The group is indeed one of the largest hotel owners in the MENA region, boasting 33 hotels and over 7,000 keys. Along the journey, their extensive portfolio and proven track record have attracted successful franchise partnerships with some of the world’s leading hotel management companies, including GMH Hotels, Marriott International, Mövenpick, Rotana, and Steigenberger.

Movingforward,with60%ofthegroup’slandbankstillavailable,there are a plethora of greenfield opportunities. Core to achieving Orascom Development’s vision for world-leading destination development is collaborating with businesses of all sizes, from startups to established enterprises. Mr. El Hamamsy affirms, “A testament to our long-standing commitment to delivering ‘life as it should be,’ we launched Orascom Development Keys of Life. This new initiative engages with key industry experts and stakeholders to foster understanding and dialogue on developing thriving communities that are globally relevant to people’s evolving needs and aspirations.”

Although headquartered in Switzerland, the group’s significant presence in Egypt serves as a testament to the nation’s growing economicpotentialandfavorablebusinessenvironment.Mr.ElHamamsy emphasizes, “Egypt is now much more stable at a macroeconomic level. Our tourism sector is thriving, supported by robust infrastructure. We see ourselves as a prime platform for investors looking to enter our country.”

With a commitment to sustainable development and a track record of excellence, Orascom Development continues to lead the way in creating unparalleled lifestyle destinations that redefine luxury living worldwide.

HOW TO ASK FAMILY FOR MONEY

Your friends-and-family fundraising round doesn’t have to be scary and awkward. Here’s advice from one of the world’s leading investors.

by JASON FEIFER

If you want to raise money from friends and family, then know this: Your job isn’t just to pitch them a great business. It’s to lower their risk.

That’s advice from Mike Maples Jr., one of the most celebrated investors in Silicon Valley and coauthor of a book about why startups succeed called Pattern Breakers. He’s a cofounder of Floodgate, a leading pre-seed and seed-stage fund whose investments included Twitter (long before it was known as X), Twitch, and Lyft. And although he’s not investing in mom-and-pop shops, he says that the fundamentals of fundraising remain the same. Here, Maples takes you into the mind of any investor—even if it’s your dad or sister—and how to make them comfortable.

Let’s imagine someone can’t afford to open a bakery on their own, but they don’t know how to ask loved ones for money. What’s their first step?

Put yourself in your investor’s world for a second. All investing must answer a specific question: How do I get paid for the risk I take? Whenever I take more risk, I have to get paid more for that risk. Because why would I take more risk to get paid the same amount of money?

The startups that I invest in need a lot more money up front. Their chances to become the next Twitter are small, but we made 600 times our money on Twitter. I can justify taking that high risk by potentially getting a high asymmetric return on the back end.

Now let’s take a bakery. Is there a world where I can make 600 times my money? Probably not. Therefore, I can’t afford a high chance of you going out of business, because I’m not getting paid enough for the risk I’m taking.

So if I can’t justify taking a lot of risk, how do we reduce risk? One way is to be profitable sooner. Another is to have the investment be a combination of equity and a loan. As an investor, that means I get paid two ways: as a shareholder if you become the next big bakery franchise, and with the interest on the loan.

So this isn’t about pitching your business, per se. It’s about understanding your investors’ risk calculation.

Right. And you have to respect that. A lot of people think they need to raise money because they want money. But the investor doesn’t care about your desire for money. The investor cares about getting paid for the risk they take with their money. When you’re trying to get a return, your business can fundamentally be one of two things. It can be growth-first, which is what I invest in. Or it can be profit-first. It can’t be somewhere in between. Too many people conflate the two.

So a growth-first bakery might pour all of its money into marketing and selling cupcakes at a loss, because they value user growth over profits. What would a profit-first model look like? Profit-first means my first customer should be profitable. And what do I really need to get one customer? Do I need a bakery, or can I bake this stuff in my home kitchen, or can I rent a school cafeteria in the off-hours? Once I have one profitable customer, how do I get 10? Then how do I get 100? Then I layer on business structure to enable that. A good business is the accumulation of profitable customers over time. And if that takes a long time, or is really risky, then it’s not a good investment for your family or acquaintances.

OQ Technology SPEARHEADING

THE GLOBAL 5G WIRELESS REVOLUTION

Located between Belgium, France, and Germany, Luxembourg’s expertise in cross-border transactions and world-class financial sector has made it a global investment hub. With over EUR 4.3 trillion in assets under management, Luxembourg is Europe’s largest investment fund centre and the second-largest in the world, according to the country’s Financial Centre Development Agency. Because of the strength of its financial sector, the government is actively promoting the growth of new industries and markets by providing tax incentives and support for research and development to diversify the economy.

One of Luxembourg’s most promising non-finance sectors is its space and satellite industry. There are currently around 70 companies and research labs in Luxembourg that are active internationally in this sector. Over the past three decades, the country has positioned itself at the forefront of commercial and cooperative space initiatives. Since 2017, Luxembourg has signed several space-related joint declarations and MoUs with the likes of the UAE, Japan, China, Poland, and the USA, and Belgium. As part of the government’s current five-year plan (2020-2025) for space science and technology, the country is making specific investments in new space ventures to enhance telecommunications services.

Omar Qaise CEO & Founder

Founded in 2016, OQ Technology is a pioneering satellite telecommunications company. Leveraging a constellation of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites to deploy Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) connectivity, OQ is the world’s first and fastest-growing 5G non-terrestrial network (NTN) IoT satellite operator in LEO. OQ’s patented technology is connecting billions worldwide and supports mobile operators and businesses in sectors ranging from oil & gas to farming, the maritime industry, logistics, mining, and security. The startup grew massively since its inception and is currently at is Series-B stage.

According to the company’s CEO and founder, Omar Qaise, the idea for OQ came about when he noticed a significant discrepancy between the scalability of satellite communications and the cellular world. Identifying 3GPP – a global partnership project that unites and standardises telecommunications organisations – as the key to cellular’s success, he set out to bridge the gap. “I came up with the idea of connecting cellular directly to satellites. We were lucky to have chosen the correct technology, as 5G was standardised for satellites in 2022.”

Working closely with Luxembourg and the European Space Agencies, to build its LEO nanosatellite constellation, OQ aims to provide connectivity to anywhere on Earth. The network acts as a “cell tower“ in the sky: Data is collected from ground terminals and unmodified cellular modules installed on-site, where it is sent to OQ’s ground stations and then made available for clients to access securely from the cloud or their private network. As part of its roadmap, OQ is also looking to connect smart phones directly to its satellites. Today, using OQ’s dual-mode satellite-cellular IoT modem and tracker, businesses can use the network to monitor and track millions of assets and devices in even the most remote areas.

Since the technology is compatible with terrestrial cellular 5G, OQ can enable mobile operators to extend their coverage beyond the cell tower coverage by roaming over the OQ satellites, offering unprecedent global coverage to mobile users when they go out of terrestrial mobile networks. OQ already signed roaming agreements with many mobile operators. This solution is perfectly suited for industries such as energy, allowing companies like Aramco to monitor pipelines located in remote areas, predict maintenance needs, improve SCADA systems,

and keep track of inventory and worker well-being. Additionally, for banking systems like ATMs that require two-way communication, OQ’s LEO nanosatellites provide essential coverage in areas with poor connectivity.

Without OQ’s technology, it can cost up to 2,000 times more to send one megabyte of data from remote and rural areas compared to urban areas or cities. Additionally, by using only one wireless solution instead of deploying two types of networks – terrestrial and satellite, OQ significantly reduces the cost of ownership and operations for its clients. Scalability is another core advantage of OQ, as the company’s highly synchronous cellular technology system allows millions of devices to connect securely without collision issues using existing standard chips, a benefit of the global 3GPP ecosytem.

Although the company only started offering its services this year, OQ has ambitious plans to expand its satellite network from ten to 72. Qaise believes the company is now at a turning point. “We’re already working with major clients such as Aramco, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, and others. They wouldn’t work with us unless they saw significant value in our offering. We have 9 granted patents in the US and Europe, more than 20 contributions to 3GPP, spectrum licensing and notified ITU filings, and of course the first-mover advantage; we’re leading the way in Europe,” he says.

Qaise is now confident OQ can lead the international rollout of 5G - by eliminating two of the biggest obstacles to achieving the holy grail of 5G Massive Machine-type Communications - cost and speed. Currently, only 25% of the Earth’s landmass is covered by cell towers, but OQ aims to use its constellation of LEO nanosatellites to provide complete 5G Massive Machinetype Communications coverage. This approach not only reduces latency to fiberlike speeds but also costs one hundred times less than conventional satellite communication.

“The next step is to demonstrate we can connect to unmodified smartphones – then we’ll be in the lead of the direct-to-smart phone market,” says Qaise, “this could be the next biggest success story in satellite communications, and we’re only one step away.”

As OQ pilots its course to new horizons, Qaise hopes more companies will consider Luxembourg for their business goals. “Being in Luxembourg has helped us tremendously. From the outset, the government has supported us in accessing R&D programmes and key decision-makers. As a European country and renowned financial centre, Luxembourg offers businesses confidence, transparency, and integrity,” concludes Qaise.

MY BIGGEST MARKETING WIN

What’s the most impactful marketing you’ve ever done? We asked some of America’s Favorite Mom & Pop Shops.™

by FRANCES DODDS

1/ Find unexpected (non-internet!) places to reach customers.

“We partnered with a neighborhood filmmaker to make an advertisement to play at our local independent movie theaters. He shot it on 35-millimeter film and it looks so cool. While we do a fair amount of digital and social media marketing, it’s nice to reach customers outside of their phones or computers.”

owners

—MICHAEL MCCRORY and LAUREN CRABBE, owners of Andytown Coffee Roasters in San Francisco

2/ Hand out free swag.

It’s great advertising.

“We’ve always offered our clients a free, high-quality T-shirt. I see most businesses charge for that, but I’ve never understood why. Getting our clients to share their fitness successes with friends, family, business clients, and patients is our No. 1 way to promote our business. I often see clients and friends wearing our swag around town, and I see it as free advertising. When a conversation about our studio is initiated, our clients offer the best advertising available.”

3/ Increase your visibility with giveaways.

—JEFF ECKHOUSE, owner of Back Cove Personal Fitness in Portland, Maine

—JEFF ECKHOUSE, owner in

“I make art, and in the late ’90s, I sold a piece for $5,000. Before that, I hadn’t sold any originals for over $2,000. I used this money to make prints of five of my best works. I brought them to all the local frame shops in the French Quarter, and gave them two each for free. I left my card saying, ‘My work sells well. So when these sell, call me so you can order more.’ About 25 frame shops ultimately carried my prints. My work was in every corner of the most touristy areas. I didn’t realize what I had done at the time, because I was just trying to bring in some extra income, but flooding the market tripled my household income.”

—Terrance Osborne, owner of Terrance Osborne Gallery in New Orleans

4/ Share milestones from your personal life with customers.

“I don’t do much advertising, because we have a merchants association that does good advertising for the whole town. But my most engaged-with post on social media was a personal one about the shop being closed while my wife and I celebrated our anniversary. Part of the appeal of a small business is knowing the people involved.”

—JOHN CIOCI, owner of Paoli Art Shop in Belleville, Wisconsin

5/ Make your customers feel seen, even when it costs you.

“At the start of our second year, January hit and sales dropped off. It was our first postholiday slump. We talked about sales and campaigns, but none of it sat right. Instead, we decided to host a ‘Guest Appreciation Day.’ When each guest got to the register, we told them, ‘Everything’s on us today. Thank you for making what we do possible.’ People were everything from shocked and happy to embarrassed and giddy. The next day, our sales went back up and didn’t slump again. From that day on, we had a completely different relationship with our regulars.”

—MATTHEW

WENDLAND, owner of Moonshot Coffee in Seattle

6/ Give people something to photograph (and share).

“Our best marketing spend has been on a giant fiberglass cow that sits in front of our store. We are always looking to add something exciting for visitors and thought a 10-foot cow would fit in perfectly on our farm. We hoped it would work as a good advertising and photo opportunity, but it turned out better than we expected. It gets shared on social media often, and when we first got the cow, we did a naming contest that received thousands of submissions—which ended up turning into a story on a local news channel.”

7/ Volunteer your space or services for buzzy opportunities.

—KEN and JACKIE FELTZ, owners in Stevens

—KEN and JACKIE FELTZ, owners of Feltz’s Dairy Store in Stevens Point, Wisconsin

“Our most impactful marketing boost came at zero cost to us—in fact, we were paid! Our studio has attracted several photo shoots and TV filming opportunities, including season 12 of American Horror Story. The production team compensated us generously for a fourday studio shutdown, and our space was prominently featured in an episode, garnering local buzz and social media exposure. This exposure not only elevated our studio’s profile on a national platform, but also generated interest in the local community. Our members talked about it for months!”

—JILL and ADAM LEVY, owners

—JILL and ADAM LEVY, owners of Sound Body & Mind yoga studio in Huntington, New York

—MATTHEW WENDLAND, owner

After Nearly 25 Years in Business, This Company Keeps Innovating

Founder Michael Nardy has spent the last quarter decade growing Electronic Payments into an industry powerhouse.

Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, it’s no surprise that Michael Nardy caught the entrepreneurial bug early on. Back in 2000, while still a college student in Boston, he founded Electronic Payments. His mission was to help smalland mid-size businesses succeed and grow through new payment technologies.

Today, as Electronic Payments approaches its 25th anniversary, the company has grown to a team of more than 200 and become a leader in payment technologies spanning mobile payments, online billing solutions, tokenization, e-commerce and traditional point of sale (POS) solutions.

Finding inspiration in unexpected places.

Nardy wasn’t always set on a career in tech. As an English and history major, his academic interests naturally leaned toward the humanities. However, his curiosity about computers

and the burgeoning internet in the late 1990s led him down a different path. “When I was a freshman in college, PayPal and eBay had started up and were becoming big names. And this got me thinking: I wasn’t a computer science major, but I could read books, so I could teach myself a thing or two,” Nardy recalls. “It was a very wild, wild west type of environment, even though the big money was starting to get into the internet.”

He began building websites and eventually ventured into creating an auction software similar to eBay. This foray into e-commerce introduced him to the world of online payment processing—a complex but fascinating aspect of the digital marketplace.

As Nardy worked on what he then assumed was a side job, he was preparing to take over the family pest control business. “Our family started this business in the 1950s, and as I was

Electronic Payments by the Numbers

To learn more about Electronic Payments and the innovative solutions it offers, visit electronicpayments.com

finishing college, I was preparing to bring my entrepreneurial skills to the family company,” he says. His father had other plans.

“I was working for the family business and running this payments gig at the same time, so I was serving two masters,” Nardy says. But his father encouraged him to find something he was more passionate about than pest control. When looking back, his father jokingly reminds Nardy that he was the one who “told him to go national with the company.” So, Nardy continued to work on his startup and began to scale operations from a one-man team to something much larger and now boasts an international presence as the 97th largest transaction processor in the world.

Starting small and building a better model.

Nardy’s initial experience with payment processing involved reselling services from established banks. He recognized the limitations of this model, particularly the burden placed on small businesses that were applying for accounts. This experience fuelled his desire to create a more accessible and supportive platform in Electronic Payments.

While working as a reseller, Nardy also observed a concerning trend—companies prioritizing themselves over their sales agents. He envisioned a different approach, one that empowered and supported the salespeople. He eliminated minimums, quotas, and anxieties around income stability. Nardy’s sales program offered agents:

• Ownershipandcontrol. They weren’t beholden to quotas or the fear of losing income.

• Financialstability. They were paid reliably on the 15th of every month.

• Astrongsupportsystem. Nardy built a dedicated team to assist the sales agents.

• Freetools. They received business cards, websites, and email access to streamline their work totally free of charge.

This unique model, centered on sales agent empowerment, proved successful. Ultimately, he was building a business on strong relationships, not bureaucracy. And this empowerment became a core differentiator for the company. Electronic Payments eventually attracted a growing network of salespeople, leading to a significant increase in revenue year after year.

Nardy’s company also grew steadily without relying on outside investors. He calls it a “prudent use of capital,” reinvesting profits into developing new products and services. This self-funded approach allowed Nardy to maintain control and build a company fully based on his vision and values. “We had

this amazing flywheel effect where our re-investments into the company led to more products, more people, and more merchants, and the cycle would continue,” he says.

Promising startup to industry leader.

From its humble beginnings in Nardy’s dorm room, Electronic Payments has grown into a leader in its industry. The company is the 25th largest U.S. acquirer and processes tens of billions of dollars annually.

They also recently launched Cygma®, a next-generation payment platform that’s designed to streamline operations for small- and mid-size businesses. Built internally, Cygma integrates payment processing, same-day funds availability, POS systems, and various business tools such as Interchange optimization, into a single, cohesive system to help businesses enhance efficiency and profitability. The payments landscape is constantly evolving and Nardy sees a bright future for his company. With Cygma as the foundation, he says they are wellpositioned to develop cutting-edge solutions that meet the ever-changing needs of businesses and consumers.

Michael Nardy’s 3 Tips for Entrepreneurial Success

1. Cash is king.

“It’s of course fun to spend your money once you start making money, but you need to have an understanding of how you’re spending that money and what that means for your business in both the short-term and the long-term, like three to five years down the line.”

2. Be prepared for failure.

“The hardest thing for entrepreneurs is getting emotionally attached to something, so it’s best to be prepared. We did this with ATMs. We tried it out, and it wasn’t a good financial move for us. While that was a failure, we learned from it.”

3. Success is not always linear.

“Entrepreneurship is not a straight line, it often meanders … Trust people with their skill sets and navigate them into the roles that will not only be strongest for the company but strongest for them, too. Look for people that understand your vision and will be along for the ride.”

IS YOUR RENT TOO DAMN HIGH?

Many small business owners struggle with their rents. Here’s what to do.

by RACHEL WALLACE

AR Workshop is a DIY studio franchise, and Patrice Chatman was once just a happy customer. Then she became a part-time teacher. And in 2023, she bought the Westfield, New Jersey, location— inheriting a studio she loves, and a lease agreement with a steep learning curve.

“Before I officially took ownership, I think we were forecasting that somewhere between 27% and 30% of our gross revenue would go toward rent and utilities,” she says. About a year in, that number is 43%. “Rent is definitely a struggle.”

Chatman is not alone. In April, the business networking platform Alignable reported an uptick in small businesses that were unable to pay rent in full. A poll of 4,171 small business owners showed that 43% were delinquent on rent that month, a high not seen in similar surveys by the platform since March 2021.

As inflation has increased the cost of everything in recent years, even small business owners locked into decade-long leases are finding their rent less affordable. And those seeking new rental spaces are facing high prices, since high interest rates pressure landlords to raise rent as their commercial real estate loans—with average terms that are much shorter than 30-year home mortgages—come due.

“For a commercial property, your loan may be only five years, and then your rate is going to reset. So if you bought it and your margin on it was 4% or 5%, but now you have to refinance it and rates are 8%, you lose your whole margin,” explains Arthur Greenstein, a commercial real estate broker with Douglas Elliman in Dallas.

For Chatman, purchasing an AR Workshop meant taking over the remainder of the previous business owner’s lease, while embarking on a crash

course in the different types of commercial real estate leases in the process. She learned that a gross lease—where the tenant is responsible for an agreed-upon monthly rent price and the landlord pays for all other building expenses, like in a residential apartment building is just one of multiple options. Tenants who enter into a net lease (there are three types: triple, double, or single, which you may see written as NNN, NN, and N) will typically pay a lower rent price, but are responsible for some or all of expenses like maintenance costs, insurance, and property taxes. These leases often allow businesses more control over their space. Another option is a percentage lease—where the tenant pays a lower base price, and the remainder is calculated based on their gross income.

Regardless of the lease you choose, negotiating protective stipulations is one of the best ways for small business owners to shield themselves from rising costs. When Rob McMillen co-opened Mildred New York, a barbershop on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, in 2017, he signed a 10-year lease with a rent increase below 5% built in. Although he’s responsible for a portion of property tax increases, there’s a cap on how much. “There was a big tax assessment that happened a year into our business that really could have crumbled us if we did not negotiate a cap on that property tax responsibility,” he says. “If you’re dealing with a commercial or retail lease and there’s a potentially fluctuating number, try to get as much fixed or capped as you can.”

Above all, AR Workshop franchisee Chatman recommends enlisting someone to help you translate the real estate jargon. “You should shop for an attorney the same way you shop for a partner in life,” she says. “There’s no shame in asking a gazillion questions.”

PM-International

A CHAMPION OF THE GLOBAL NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS INDUSTRY

Positioning itself as the ‘Gateway to Europe,’ Luxembourg is one of the world’s leading destinations for companies to establish headquarters. Alongside a prime tax location and government incentives, Luxembourg offers businesses a central European location connected by road, railway, and air to major markets. Luxembourg also carries a triple AAA rating from Fitch Ratings and has long been recognised as a leading global financial centre.

Under the New National Health Plan, Luxembourg has placed individual well-being at the centre of its health policy and is leveraging state-of-the-art scientific research to holistically enhance people’s lives. In addition to domestic support, companies within the health & wellness sector benefit from Luxembourg’s strategic location in the heart of Europe and its range of global export opportunities. According to government figures, Luxembourg exports at least 65% of its goods and services. Whilst Belgium, Germany, and France are its main trade partners, Luxembourg has also expanded its relations outside the EU, especially with the USA, Asia, and the Middle East.

Rolf Sorg CEO

Headquartered in Luxembourg since 2015, PM-International is the sixthlargest direct sales distribution company in the world, according to Direct Selling News, and specialises in health, fitness, and beauty. PM-International offers a premium range of scientifically formulated nutritional supplements and high-grade cosmetics with the goal of helping people around the world to improve their quality of life and wellbeing.

With 30 years of scientific expertise in product development, PM-International has consistently pushed the boundaries of performance and innovation. Each product within PM-International’s current product line, at the core of which are the FitLine PowerCocktail, FitLine Activize, and FitLine Restorate, is packed with vitamins and minerals to ensure consumers experience the best results.

All FitLine products are formulated with the company’s exclusive Nutrient Transport Concept (NTC®), a unique method of delivering the right nutrients to the right places at the optimal time. “We have over 70 patents based on this core competence,” explains PM-International’s CEO, Rolf Sorg, “our NTC® delivers nutrients when they are needed, where they are needed, to the cellular level from inside and outside.”

Sorg explains that he founded PM-International after spotting a gap in the market for scientifically backed, premium health and fitness products. Driven by a desire to “prove that a direct sales company can be built on ethics, values, and principles,” he has transformed PM-International into a beacon for transparent and socially conscious business practices. His guiding belief that consumers deserve to “see and feel the results” has not just elevated the company’s growth but altered the market landscape for the better.

Today, PM-International is renowned for its investments in the maximum safety of its products, and Sorg takes pride in ensuring that it is transparent with consumers. The company enforces the highest standard of Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) across its entire product range and regularly volunteers its products for independent testing by German-based ELAB Analytik. PM-International also places QR codes on all distributed products that link consumers to more information about the laboratory results. “We believe we are the only company in the world doing this; nobody has followed this standard,” says Sorg.

As the official corporate partner for over 20 sports associations and national leagues, including the German Ice Hockey Federation,

PM-International shares a rich legacy of trust and investment in the world of elite sport and amongst athletes. “We have over 1,000 pro athletes that trust in our products right now. I can also proudly say that we’ve signed a contract with ATP – the Association of Tennis Professionals – to be their official sports nutrition partner,” reveals Sorg. All FitLine nutritional supplement products have been on the Cologne list® for almost 20 years. The Cologne List® is an initiative from the sport and publishes products that have been tested for doping substances by a world-leading laboratory in NEM analysis (dietary supplements).

Despite the challenges brought about during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sorg confirms that PM-International’s growth strategy – which prioritises global expansion – remains as ambitious as ever before. This year, Direct Selling News recognised PM-International for achieving the strongest international growth in its sector for the fourth time in a row. Now, as massive markets like China increase in openness towards Europe, Sorg is confident the company can reap the rewards. “We’re processing the final steps, officially entering the Chinese market. It’s a huge opportunity.”

PM-International is also poised for success in European markets like France and England. However, it is North America where the company is seeing the most promising gains. The company established a head office in the USA just before the pandemic started, and Sorg reveals that sales are now gaining momentum rapidly. “In our industry, the USA is the biggest and most competitive market in the world. We’re confident that our premium, ‘Made in Germany’ products will resonate with American consumers,” he says. Additionally, PM-International has used its US platform to venture into the Canadian market and explore opportunities in South America.

A truly global company, PM-International’s achievements testify to the strategic platform Luxembourg offers businesses and entrepreneurs. Despite its relatively small size, Luxembourg’s international reach surpasses many others in Europe, and its diverse mix of nationalities and cultures has enabled PM-International to build an expert in-house team representing 35 nations and 40 languages. “The quality of life, education system, and financial power of Luxembourg attract the top talent from around the world. By establishing our headquarters here, we’ve been able to steer the group towards greater globalisation, with strong support from the government for businesses and the expat community,” concludes Sorg.

YOUR MARGINS CAN’T HAVE FEELINGS

Why do small businesses go under? Sometimes it’s because founders mix cold, hard numbers with big, messy feelings.

by RACHEL DAVIES

Ciara Stockeland teaches small business owners how to pay off their debts. It’s a personal mission for her, because she was once in debt too.

Stockeland once owned a designer outlet boutique in North Dakota and grew it to 13 locations—despite not being able to pay herself regularly. It all fell apart after 11 years. Then she started a subscription box business, zeroed in on her data, and was profitable immediately. It sold within 18 months.  Those two experiences crystallized something for Stockeland: Business owners often “manage margins with emotion,” she says. Now she’s a consultant and fractional CFO for inventorybased businesses, and teaches people how to keep feelings like guilt and fear out of profit decisions. Here, she explains.

What’s the most common problem you see among clients?

What’s the most common lem you see among clients?

They don’t understand that margin is what profit is created from. When I get on a call with someone, I’ll ask, “What is your margin right now?” They’ll say, “Oh, I mark up my product three times, two times, four times.” If you buy something for $5 and you mark it up to $20, but you have seven and you only sell one for $20, and then you sell three for $15, your overall margin is not your markup.

very quickly, which is what makes them successful, but it can be their Achilles’ heel.

Many entrepreneurs struggle with pricing their products. How do you help with that?

In those cases, many entrepreneurs might just be counting their overall revenue.

In those cases, many neurs be overall revenue

Top-line revenue is a vanity metric. Top-line revenue is an easy way for us to compare our perceived success, so that’s how we usually set up and grow our business. That’s what I did, which was part of my issue. I didn’t understand that I couldn’t afford to make the million dollars that was coming in every year. My product cost me too much, I had too many people on my team, and it left me with nothing.

First, with our profit-plan template, I show them why we need to work on pricing. Once they see how the pricing directly affects their take-home pay and/ or savings and/or debt payoff, we decide what to change. We rarely change the pricing of everything, but I’ll let them decide on the lowest-hanging fruit and start with that. Then we decide how much to increase, and we usually see resistance—out of fear. I’ll have them start small, as low as marking up everything by $1. If we have a lot of price-markup resistance, I’ll also help them find other ways to increase margin, through off-price buying, bulk buying, etc.

Are business owners holding on to products that aren’t profitable because they represent their “vision” for the business?

Are business owners on to products that aren’t because represent their for the

How do you take emotions out of inventory planning?

How do you take emotions out of planning?

Slow down your decisionmaking. You’re super excited about bringing in this new line— but slow down. Take a look at the data, check if it makes sense, and then make a decision. Entrepreneurs can make decisions

Yes, they totally do! So I always show them the data what certain product lines are doing to their bottom line. Then I assure them this doesn’t mean we will eliminate everything they love. Often it’s just about finding the right mix of what’s high-margin and what they love! The right mix can create a much better end margin.

Manaseer Group

PLANTING THE SEEDS FOR A GREENER FUTURE

With one of MENA’s highest Ease of Doing Business scores, Jordan offers investors an attractive environment in which to pursue their business goals and incubate growth. Under its modernisation vision, core sectors such as mining, renewable energy, agriculture, manufacturing, and chemical products are of key focus. One company well-positioned to capitalize on this vision is Manaseer Group, Jordan’s largest business conglomerate.

Founded in 1999, Manaseer Group is one of Jordan’s most prominent corporate groups and an industry leader in several strategic sectors, such as food security, energy and mobility, industrial minerals, building materials and food security. With a capital investment of USD 3 billion and over 20 companies under its umbrella, Manaseer Group is playing a pivotal role in Jordan’s economic and social development.

Manaseer Group started in the mining industry and currently owns 26 mining rights in Jordan for limestone, copper, phosphate, and calcium carbonate magnesia & lithium. In the early days, as the group’s mining enterprise became more successful, the fuel demand for its trucks, catalysed the creation of its gas station business, Manaseer Oil & Gas, in 2002. Established as Jordan’s first chain of modern fuel stations, the company now operates around 167 gas stations across 12 cities. These stations are currently being reinvented as ‘social hubs,’ driving sustainable growth, by equipping

each station with EV charging infrastructure and serving the community with F&B, banking, and auto service amenities. Manaseer Group’s sustainability focus, also extends to supporting the launch of major EV brands such as Genesis.

After founding Manaseer Oil & Gas, Manaseer Group again leveraged its mining enterprise, this time to diversify into building materials. Since then, its subsidiary, Shield Construction Chemicals, has emerged as a top Manufacturer of high-quality building materials in the region. Its state-ofthe-art research facility, amongst the most developed in MENA, ensures its products/solutions meet the highest specifications. From ready-mix concrete products and marble & granite to calcium carbonate and modern mining materials, Manaseer Group is dedicated to meeting the diverse needs of the construction, concrete, and cement industries with a comprehensive range

Ziad Manaseer Chairman

of specialised solutions. The group’s activities are supported by Manaseer Transport, which owns a fleet of over 300 medium and heavy-duty vehicles.

“Our competitors have always tried to follow our dedication to quality and customer care,” says the group’s chairman, Ziad Manaseer, “as a consequence, the overall service in Jordan has improved significantly.” Manaseer Group is also invested in innovations involving industrial minerals, such as copper and magnesia, to deliver high-quality, low-carbon products that fulfil local and global construction, agriculture, and manufacturing needs.

However, Manaseer Group’s biggest asset is its agriculture business, which is paving the way for a greener future across the Kingdom and beyond. Starting with fertiliser, Manaseer Group’s subsidiary, ULTRA, has emerged as a pioneer of next-gen, chemical-free fertilisers with a revolutionary product line-up that utilises essential minerals like silicon, calcium, magnesium, and iron to promote long-term soil health. Ultra’s unique formula has been proven in early trials in Levant, Egypt Europe and South East Asia, to result in significant improvements to crop yields, and the company is currently working in partnership with German and French laboratories to increase its effectiveness. The constant drive for innovation has paved the way for advanced R&D across the sectors in which Manaseer Group operates.

“Our experience and know-how within this market enable us to provide customers with a compelling alternative to chemical fertilisers. We offer more than 70 natural fertiliser products,” says Mr. Manaseer. He adds, “our investments are contributing to the rejuvenation and enhancement of the land for years to come.” Mr. Manaseer also highlights ANIMAX, the group’s animal feedstock subsidiary, as a leader in sustainable animals nature practices. ANIMAX’s natural animal feedstock products, utilise naturally occurring minerals and rare earth elements, such as calcium aluminosilicate, which boost animal welfare and meat quality.

By focusing on elevating the broader landscape of each sector it operates in, whether via exemplary ESG or by adhering to global quality standards, Manaseer Group has positioned itself as the partner of choice for domestic and regional leaders. As the group continues to pave the way for innovative projects across its target sectors, Mr. Manaseer is keen for more partnerships in Jordan and internationally.

“We are looking for strategic partners who can promote our products/ solution for food security, construction, and particularly in agriculture. By utilising our fertilisers, minerals are being returned to the soil, creating a prosperous yield, which I believe many agricultural farmers will benefit from. Food security and sustainability are a central focus of ours going forward,” says Mr. Manaseer.

Ultimately, Mr. Manaseer plans to leverage these partnerships not only for the group’s benefit but also to pave the way for easier international access to Jordan’s abundant investment opportunities. The group also aims to create more graduate opportunities for the Jordanian youth through its activities, including its equity stake in Luminus Technical University College (LTUC), based in Amman, and major manufacturing firm and employer, Manaseer Industrial Complex (MIC).

“Jordan has something to offer everyone, whether through its mineral richness or highly skilled workforce. The Kingdom’s private sector is on the frontline of innovation, and companies like us are committed to creating a better country for everyone,” concludes Mr. Manaseer.

“MICHIGAN IS THE ORIGINAL SILICON VALLEY.”

JON RIMANELLI - Co-Founder & CEO

As the global leader in mobility and a top 10 state for R&D, Michigan provides the ideal environment for Airspace Experience Technologies to develop, test and certify the next generation of transportation. From electric vehicles to aerial mobility, anything is possible in the state that drives the world forward. Seize your opportunity at MICHIGANBUSINESS.ORG

THE CURSE OF GROWING TOO FAST

FAIRE is a platform for small businesses, but it grew big the wrong way—almost becoming a $12 billion wreck. Here’s how it fixed the problem, and why you should think twice before skyrocketing.

by LIZ BRODY

It’s weird that there aren’t more hundred-billiondollar companies because it doesn’t seem that hard to do

Rhodes caught himself thinking one day in 2021. He was sure making it look easy. The company he’d cofounded, called Faire, had gone from stumbling startup to galloping unicorn. Fueled by a steady diet of VC money, its valuation kept climbing: $1 billion, then $2.5 billion, up to $12.4 billion, and even $12.59 billion, the numbers rising like bubbles in champagne, jubilant and intoxicating.

As with so many tech startups then, Faire was fully embracing the unofficial motto of Silicon Valley: “Growth, growth, growth at all costs.” And why not? After four years of building and iterating, investors were finally behind them. The company had over a billion dollars of their capital to spend. Faire’s leaders doubled their team. Then they doubled it again. They’d be the next DoorDash or Airbnb at this rate, they figured.

Then the trouble began.

At Faire—an online wholesale marketplace that connects indie brands (that want to be sold in local stores and shops) with small retailers (looking to find the best products to stock)—suddenly, many of these business owners were getting upset. And loud. “The customer service is quite slow,” said Sarah Kim, founder of a stationery business called Selah Paper, on her YouTube channel at the time. Another YouTube reviewer, business coach Dallas Gordon, griped, “They used to be proactive, but now it takes days and days to get an answer. If you get an answer at all.”

As Faire burned through $30 million a month, by the second quarter of 2022, its breathtaking gallop went slo-mo. Decisions took forever, and its explosive growth was petering, leaving its leadership in a fog.

In the difficult months that followed, they’d have to question and probe, face hard truths, and take even tougher steps to turn the business around. Survival, they realized, meant doing something more meaningful than just watching their customer counts and valuations rise. They’d need to reach sustainable growth.

“The lesson for me here,” says Rhodes, “was that if it feels easy, it probably means you’re doing it wrong.”

For years, the startup world had one rousing anthem: Scale! The idea was to move fast, spend heavily, capture as many customers as possible, and then monetize later (if at all). But that model meant toast for a lot of founders and investors, and in many ways seems incompatible with our current economy. So VCs and advisors began urging a different objective: sustainable growth.

“The goal is to create a business that is profitable, enduring, and generates a lot of economic value for its stakeholders,” says Gary Pisano, a Harvard Business School professor who studies company

growth. “In the long term, you’re much better off growing 12% a year, every year, instead of 25% one year and then 2% the next. At a 12% growth rate, you double every six years in size.”

When companies skyrocket without proper planning, Pisano wrote recently in the Harvard Business Review, they risk destroying the very things that made them successful in the first place—typically their agility, awesome customer service, or signature culture. Many a startup has gone for speed, then been dashed on the rocks for not being able to deliver on their promises—like Brex, a corporate card for startups valued at $12.3 billion that lost its identity after expanding in too many directions, and Peloton, which grew furiously during the pandemic and, according to Pisano, outpaced its supply chain, leading to poor quality and customer service. Both struggled afterward. And Faire, it seemed, was headed for the same fate.

At the beginning, it was hardly a billion-dollar moonshot. Faire just started because of an annoying problem. About a decade ago, Rhodes was working as a product manager at Square, and had a side hustle getting a high-end umbrella brand into stores. As he schlepped to trade shows all over the country, he realized it was an inefficient way for local retailers and brands to discover each other. Soon, he joined forces with three Square colleagues—Jeff Kolovson, Marcelo Cortes, and Daniele Perito—to create a better way to make that connection. They launched in 2017, just as stores were closing and the media was declaring a “retail apocalypse,” but the Faire founders believed that small businesses would always be resilient and cherished by their communities. And they were right.

With Rhodes as CEO and Kolovson as COO, the founders set up an office at 2 Mint Plaza in San Francisco. Their wholesale platform had two major benefits. The first was personalization; retailers could sign up, share details about themselves, and get algorithmic recommendations for which brands were a good fit and most likely

→ EASY SCALING!

The founders of Faire at their offices last year after rocketship growth.

(Left to Right) Marcelo Cortes, Jeff Kolovson, Daniele Perito, and Max Rhodes.

to sell. The second big offering came in deal terms: Retailers got 60 days before they had to pay for an order, along with free returns. That meant they could physically examine products, offer them to customers, and if those items didn’t sell in two months, they could send them back at no cost. Because most small brands couldn’t wait 60 days for payment, Faire would pay them immediately and assume the risk of the retailer defaulting. The company would only make money when a sale went through, collecting commission from the seller brands and (later) payment fees.

Although this seemed like a great deal, there were few takers at first. Brands wouldn’t sell on Faire because there weren’t many retailers there, and retailers weren’t interested because there weren’t enough brands to choose from. Rhodes and his team were flummoxed. Then he picked up a copy of a new book called Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown. It stresses the importance of describing your value proposition in a catchy way that answers customers’ main question: “How is this thing going to improve my life?” Rhodes was at a trade show trying to rustle up interest when the answer came to him: “Try before you buy.”

That framing was lighter fluid. By joining Faire, retailers could try out inventory for free! Almost instantly, the marketplace ignited as users flocked to it. But the honeymoon was short. One day, FedEx showed up at 2 Mint Plaza with boxes. And the boxes kept coming. These were all the free returns that Faire had offered, now being sent by retailers who didn’t like or couldn’t sell the products they’d found there. “We had this beautiful, very well-lit office,” recalls Rhodes, “and all of a sudden it was dark, because all those boxes were piling up and blocking the windows.” The return rate hit 30%. Even worse, defaults climbed to 15% as retailers who kept the merchandise never paid. Faire started losing 50 cents on every dollar.

The founders spent the next six months solving those problems. They programmed their algorithm to flag products with high return rates, implemented credit limits, and made other adjustments. By mid-2018, the situation stabilized, and it was time for the business to grow.

At first, the founders approached that growth sustainably. Up until then, they’d been using a sales team and paid marketing to find new customers. But they spotted a cheaper and much more effective strategy—by turning its brand partners into sales partners.

It worked like this: Imagine a candlemaker sells its product on the platform. This brand also has relationships with non-Faire retailers— businesses that Faire would really like as customers too. To make that happen, the company created a program called Faire Direct. Now any time the candlemaker referred a retailer who signed up on Faire, there would be no commission on future business between the two. Plus, the retailer got $100 off its first order. It was a heck of an incentive, and brands jumped on it. Soon the new retailers, eager to enjoy Faire’s benefits, began referring their outside brands to join—creating a viral loop that quickly spun 50% to 60% of the company’s growth, and ushered in unicorn status in October 2019.

Just months later, however, the pandemic would lead to Faire’s undoing—and not the way anyone expected.

Those first weeks were utter chaos, as stores everywhere closed. Then retailers moved online, and Faire helped drive their digital transformation—setting up websites, adopting e-commerce tools, figuring out live selling and local delivery. As demand exploded, Faire’s founders quickly built out its infrastructure. Investors poured more than $1 billion into the company over the course of a year. Everyone’s focus became growth

Throughout 2021, Faire spent lavishly on marketing campaigns and incentives that brought in new retailers. They branched out into adjacent markets: larger retailers, higher-end apparel, Europe. They hired rapidly. “We were trying to grow super fast in order to stay ahead of potential competitors, because we felt like we’d found this golden goose and we needed to do everything possible to make sure we held on to it,” says Rhodes. “That’s what Uber had done. That’s what DoorDash had done. Like, that was the playbook. And it felt really good at first. But it also kind of felt icky; it seemed so easy.”

In the second quarter of 2022, just as Faire reached its highest valuation of $12.59B with a team of over 1,200, the founders knew something was off. Like a strange hum when you drive the car too fast, it was tough to say exactly what the problem was. But the signs were hard to ignore. Competitors started popping up. Customers complained that the platform was slow, the service bad, the brands not as high-quality as they’d once been. And internally, it took forever to make decisions.

Then Faire started missing its numbers. “We’d come up with an explanation—and then we’d still be missing even once we adjusted for it,” says the company’s president Lauren Cooks Levitan, who’d joined as CFO six months before the pandemic. Now, she had to steer the company out of its treacherous haze.

“Well, it wasn’t fun. I’ll start with that,” she says.

Faire’s leadership went into SWAT-team mode. Cooks Levitan, who has more than 30 years of retail experience, resorted to the way she’s always tackled a problem: “Let’s start by figuring out how much of this is due to what’s happening to us, and how much is due to things we’re doing. It’s the difference between what we can control and what we can’t.”

Rhodes talked to customers. Kolovson looked at how they’d deployed their capital. What they all came back with was simple: Faire’s fast growth had created a slower, less efficient operation, and attracted transactional customers with low lifetime value.

How they got themselves into this mess was more complicated, and took some time to unravel. First, the pandemic drove interest rates down, VCs were heavily investing, and Faire assumed the surge in business among its brands and retailers would just keep on going forever. Because of that, it rushed into new markets, which drew resources away from its core customers. The expansion also created a lot of noise. Retailers told Rhodes that the platform was overwhelming; they couldn’t find what they were looking for the way they had before. Plus, they had to sift through a lot of junk—because Faire’s carefully curated marketplace was now awash with low-quality brands.

More bad news followed. As the company’s leaders looked at their user behavior, they discovered that the soaring customer growth was followed by rapid churn. The newest retailers had been lured in by pandemic-era incentives and promotions—but these people just scooped up the deals and then left. “We were overly aggressive in thinking, All we need to do is to get you to try our great solution and you will stay,” says Cooks Levitan. “Anyone will take $100 to join up, but they haven’t made an emotional attachment. They don’t have skin in the game, and might not be a good fit. They could be too small, didn’t buy regularly, weren’t interested in changing their behavior. That’s very different from determining an incentive that’s appropriate for someone who’d likely be a good fit.” ▶

On top of all that, Faire had a ballooning headcount. It wasn’t so much that the company hired the wrong people—but to scale, it inserted two layers of management, which was now crippling its former agility. “We had just added way too much bureaucracy,” says Rhodes.

All this needed to be fixed. Fast.

The reckoning lifted the fog, to everyone’s relief. Once Faire’s leaders got a clear line of sight on how to rescue their startup, they snapped into course correction.

The founders threw out their roadmap and started fresh. Instead of chasing new markets, they pulled back and worked on website speed, improved their algorithm’s abilities to search and personalize, increased quality control, and deactivated thousands of low-quality suppliers. “We emailed our retailers,” says Rhodes, “and told them we screwed up—we shouldn’t have let these brands on the platform, as they weren’t a fit.”

Faire also took a new approach to customer acquisition, targeting appropriate retailers and building lasting relationships. This included a major partnership in which Shopify made Faire its recommended wholesale marketplace and took a stake in the company; in turn, Shopify’s point-of-sale system became Faire’s preferred provider. The new arrangement started driving healthy business to the platform, says Rhodes. In a separate effort launched in 2021, Faire leaned into helping early-stage shop owners open their first store—aiming to develop lifetime customers.

As all this happened, Faire laid off 7% of its workforce in October 2022—and then around 20% more in November 2023. “I was terrified of what the folks who were staying would think of me as a leader, and about how well the business was doing,” says Rhodes. The company still had plenty of cash, but he and the other founders decided they needed fewer layers, checkpoints, and meetings, and their large organization would probably run fine—maybe even better—with a smaller team.

In a second bold move, Faire lowered its nearly $13B valuation down to $5B, something the founders haven’t talked about publicly until now. “It was another decision that we really agonized over,” says Kolovson. “But we felt like we were going to be faced with reality at some point—when we potentially go public or if we raise more capital—and the sooner that we can embrace that, the better.”

Jarring as these changes were, they didn’t feel out of line with the tech industry at large. Between July 2022 and last year, giants like Google, Meta, and Amazon pink-slipped tens of thousands of employees, and fintech darlings Stripe, Ramp, and Klarna also lowered their valuations. “Still, it was a really hard moment in the company,” says Kolovson.

Since then, Faire has refocused on relationships that matter— giving more equity to their remaining employees, and having candid conversations with investors. Ravi Gupta, a partner at Sequoia—which has backed Faire since its seed round—applauded the team’s courage. “It was pretty amazing to watch,” he says. “I don’t think they’re the only company in the world that has faced this challenge. I do think they’re one of the few that has faced it the way they have.”

Faire declined to disclose its current revenue or estimated time to profitability, so it’s hard to know exactly how well these changes worked. But the founders believe they’ve shifted the company’s trajectory in the right direction. The platform is gen-

erating billions of dollars in volume, which they say has about doubled in the last year. And they’re hiring again—this time building out their team of more than 920 at a careful and steady pace. “We feel like we’ve righted this,” says Cooks Levitan, “and we’re still in the earlier stage of our growth. We should be growing fast, and we have a giant opportunity in front of us. But it took some cleanup to get to the place where we were able to do that again.”

If Faire’s team had a chance to do it all over again, what would they change? Should they not have taken VC money? Tried to grow slowly but surely? Or, to play devil’s advocate, what if Faire did need to gun it in those years to box out its competitors and hold onto its long-term position, even at the cost of growing pains? What if that explosive growth is the only reason it survived?

It’s a curious question for Pisano. “There are certainly times where you gotta make the sprint and mop up later,” he says. “But you need to assess: Can it be mopped up? Or will you create a permanent vicious circle you can’t get out of?” For any startup faced with that kind of situation, he advises founders to stop and understand the risks; think through every choice ahead and how it could impact everything that makes you successful, like serving your clients and preserving what you’re known for. “Then you can hit the gas and you’ve got a robust enterprise. It still may shake a bit, but at least the wheels won’t come off.”

Setting guardrails can be helpful, adds Zeynep Ton, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of The Case for Good Jobs, who has studied the success of companies like Costco and Trader Joe’s. That could be a rule you commit to, like “14% markup limit” or “promotion from within”—or even keeping the valuation low—that guides decisions. Or it could be a set of questions you ask when considering any new product or service. Costco’s are: Can we do it well? Can we save our customers money? Can we make a profit on it? “Every company should have their own questions that enable them to see the impact of their decisions on their employees and on the customers,” Ton says. “And that can, at least, create boundaries where you can experiment.”

Faire’s founders interrupted what could have been a fatal downslide by being quick studies who took a hard look at their mistakes and acted decisively. Whether they should or shouldn’t have taken the investments, they came away with a new playbook for growing fast while following a path to sustainable profitability. Rhodes says their questions going forward are: Will it make life better for our customers? And will it do that better than the alternatives? “When the money is free, you can talk yourself into doing things that just don’t make sense,” he says. “If you’re trying to build a $100 billion company and have a massive impact on the world, it’s really hard work.”

Back in early 2019, before Faire was a unicorn, Rhodes told a podcaster, “When I think about the mistakes I made, they really came down to being overeager, thinking I knew more than I did, and trying to jump forward in my career and getting ahead of my skis.”

Reminded of the comment in light of the roller coaster he’s just been on, he can only laugh at himself. “There’s a little pattern there,” he acknowledges. “I’m worried it might be a lesson that I just am going to keep learning over and over again.”

Liz Brody is Entrepreneur’s contributing editor.

Ooredoo Oman

EMPOWERING OMAN’S DIGITAL ECONOMY

Striving to achieve robust, job-rich and sustainable private sector-led growth, Oman is generating a wealth of opportunities for global businesses under its flagship economic diversification initiative, ‘Oman Vision 2040,’ which guides Oman’s long-term socioeconomic development. Encouragingly, the IMF has projected real GDP growth at 1.2% this year, followed by an anticipated 4.1% in 2025 as growth is expected to be accelerated by a rebound in hydrocarbon activity and the expected relaxation of OPEC+ quotas, while the government makes significant investments in hydrogen, renewables, and diversification.

Bassam Yousef Al Ibrahim CEO

Oman’s telecommunications sector is playing a vital role in the nation’s broad digital transformation into a knowledge-based economy under Vision 2040. As businesses within Oman embrace new trends and innovations, demand for high-speed, high-capacity communication technologies is set to rise exponentially. Together with the increased use of smartphones and the government’s ambitious 5G strategy, these factors have resulted in lucrative returns for telecom firms that have aligned their investments. At the top end, some telecom firms are supporting Oman’s transition into a regional data centre hub, attracting hyperscalers like AWS, Microsoft, and Google.

Since launching services in 2005, Ooredoo Oman has been a driving force in the nation’s digital evolution and serves approximately 3 million customers. With the backing of Ooredoo Group, a global telecom giant with a customer base of around 159 million, Ooredoo Oman is connecting people, businesses, and the government with the digital tools they need to succeed.

Ooredoo Oman’s commitment to delivering an innovative, digitalfirst customer experience has propelled it to the forefront of the mobile business market. “When we launched, we revolutionised the market by slashing mobile service prices,” says the company’s CEO, Bassam Yousef Al Ibrahim, who has over 20 years of experience in the sector. By offering Omanis the flexibility to enjoy network services their own way, Ooredoo Oman has established itself as Oman’s second-largest telecom operator.

Today, Ooredoo Oman describes its mission as the promise to ‘Upgrade Your World.’ “We ensure our customers have access to state-of-the-art mobile and fixed services, and from a B2B perspective, we’re positioned as a landing station for international firms coming to Oman. We offer services before and during their investments here,” explains Bassam. By creating a seamless B2B customer experience that caters to each customer’s unique needs, Ooredoo Oman hopes to unlock the Sultanate’s digital transformation and build a robust digital framework for doing business.

“We’re extremely customer-focused,” says Bassam, “it’s a

fundamental part of our strategy, and we strive to incorporate customer feedback to enhance our services. This, along with our focus on innovation, is what sets us apart in the market.” Whilst Ooredoo Oman is part of an international entity, Bassam stresses that the services it offers are tailored to local needs, whether that is upscaling communities and ensuring equal access to connectivity or assisting SMEs and small and home offices (SoHos) take advantage through Oman’s first ‘build your own’ plans and ‘office in a box’ product. By consistently investing in its technologies, customer support, and workforce, Ooredoo Oman has opened up multiple revenue streams. “We’re investing lots into our network, in 5G and stateof-the-art data centres for B2B purposes. It’s a win-win situation,” says Bassam. Over 50% of Ooredoo Oman’s B2B customer base is now digital, whilst 49% of its customers’ transactions are digital payments. In recognition of its contributions to Oman’s transformation, Ooredoo Oman was named the winner in the Telecom category at the COMEX Excellence in Technology Awards 2024. Previously, the company was awarded the ‘Most Innovative Digitally Transformed Telecom Company – Oman 2023’ by Global Business Outlook.

Ooredoo Oman’s rising prominence in the market has attracted the attention of hyperscalers and helped it strike strategic partnerships with AWS and Google. With these partnerships in place, Bassam is optimistic that Ooredoo Oman’s pioneering work in the data centre space will inspire more international firms to join its mission to transform Oman. “In the 5-6 months since I’ve been here, we’ve signed multiple deals with organisations worldwide for many of our services. Our most significant partnerships involve working with hyperscalers and tech giants,” says Bassam, whose aim is for these companies to establish a presence in Oman and transform it into a hub. With a robust pipeline of partnerships and a soaring demand for Omani data centres, now is also the perfect time to consider investing in the company’s stock.

On a broader scale, Bassam envisions Ooredoo Oman as a gateway to the limitless investment opportunities Oman has to offer. “In addition to the business-friendly environment, the government offers concessions and attractive incentives like tax breaks for strategic industries. Oman also offers companies the freedom to innovate and test new technologies. The local and international business community are working in tandem with the government to create the nation’s own version of a Silicon Valley here. Plus, the location is fantastic,” he concludes.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC POWERHOUSE

With a GDP comparable in size to that of Switzerland or Poland, Taiwan is one of Asia’s largest economies, according to the IMF. Its strong purchasing power, openness to international business, and sophistication in high-tech industries have made it an attractive partner for companies looking to diversify into Asia.

Taiwan’s market landscape is dominated by SMEs, but the island is also home to world-leading manufacturing conglomerates like semiconductor giant TSMC. With Taiwan’s key role in the global supply chain, these businesses provide a constant stream of opportunities for investors to capitalise on.

Given its strengths in advanced technology, manufacturing, and elite research and development, Taiwan also functions as a launchpad for inventors seeking to establish a wider regional presence. This is particularly advantageous for companies pursuing a ‘China-plus-one’ strategy, as Taiwan boasts the world’s highest density of precision manufacturing hubs that constitute complete industrial supply chains, according to official sources.

Currently, finance, electronics, wholesale, and retail are the biggest recipients of inward FDI, according to the International Trade Administration (ITA). However, the government is working extensively to promote FDI in renewable energy and high-tech industries, especially semiconductors, AI, biomedicine and biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, and digital transformation.

Speaking at his inauguration in May this year, President Lai Ching Te expressed that his government is committed to further developing Taiwan’s thriving business environment: “Taiwan has already mastered advanced semiconductor manufacturing, and we stand at the centre of the AI revolution While we invest in innovation and nurture the next hidden champions, we must also make bold investments in quantum computing, robotics, the metaverse,

Litemax Electronics

The world leader in semiconductor production and a bridge between East and West, Taiwan offers investors an attractive, secure, and wellconnected business environment. Taiwan ranked 6th in the latest IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook and 4th on The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom.

A dominant player in high-tech markets, Taiwan has built a strong reputation in critical segments like liquid crystal displays (LCDs). These flat-panel displays are used extensively in consumer electronics like smartphones and PCs but have wider applications in entertainment, advertising, transportation, hospitality, healthcare, and heavy-duty industries. According to Statista, sales of Taiwanese LCD devices generated TWD 242.1 billion in 2023.

Founded in 2002, Litemax Electronics is a leading Taiwanese developer of advanced LCDs and computing solutions. Litemax’s high-performance, ultra-efficient solutions serve a wide range of markets, from transportation, healthcare, and gaming to digital signage, POS/KIOSKs, and heavy-duty industries. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (4995.TWO) and achieved a notable 55% increase in its share price over the first seven months of this year.

From a pioneering developer of sunlight-readable, high-brightness displays to a global leader in intelligent LCDs and smart platforms, Litemax’s journey has been marked by both innovation and engineering excellence. Today, Litemax works with companies of all sizes and industries to support their unique display requirements, offering cutting-edge expertise in custom solutions such as LCD resizing and state-of-the-art 4K displays.

Speaking on Litemax’s success, its president, David King, attributes the company’s leading edge to a combination of uncompromising quality and

precision medicine, and other advanced technologies solidifying Taiwan’s leading position in the future global landscape.”

In his speech, Mr. Lai pledged to transform Taiwan into a “thriving global economic powerhouse.” He emphasised three core areas of investment and government focus: smart transformation and the netzero transition, industrial opportunities in space and the ocean, and the opening up of Taiwan’s business community. Additionally, he laid out plans to turn Taiwan into an ‘AI Island’ through strategic investments in areas like next-gen mobility and 5G private networks.

Because Taiwan imposes a low public debt ceiling, inward FDI will be crucial for the government to meet its goals. To achieve this, Taiwan has implemented various incentives to appeal to investors. These include tax exemptions, lowinterest loans, and research and development subsidies for projects involving partnerships between Taiwan and foreign entities.

To give investors access to a live test market, the government has set up a network of science and industrial parks, technology industrial zones, and free trade zones. These, like the Asia Bay Innovation Park and 5G AIoT Innovative Park Project in Southern Taiwan, are designed to connect global talent and seamlessly integrate foreign and domestic businesses into world-class industry clusters.

Praising the numerous initiatives and government investment programs that Taiwan has launched, Mr. Lai concluded during his inauguration speech that “altogether, this will make Taiwan a much stronger nation, and it will open up new horizons for the development of Taiwan’s economy and industry. The possibilities are truly limitless.”

uniqueness: “We only focus on niche and special products. By custom-making our products, we can help startups and investors who cannot find their specific size or spec from major manufacturers. The tailored service we offer is unparalleled.”

With its proprietary 1,000-nit backlight technology enabling triple the brightness of average indoor LCDs and know-how in rugged design, Litemax has become a preferred supplier to heavy-duty industries like oil and gas, the military, and agriculture. Its medical-grade displays, meanwhile, support an integrated approach to patient care and boost clinical performance in hospital departments.

Looking ahead, King envisions a future where Litemax continues to push the boundaries of LCDs and become a leading provider of AIoT (Artificial Intelligence of Things) solutions. Alongside opportunities for outdoor advertising and transportation – from in-car displays on high-speed rail networks to EV charging displays – which have expanded due to digitalisation and rapid urbanisation, King is focused on bolstering Litemax’s European presence. “We want to continue creating new ‘firsts’ in the market,” he says.

Litemax’s mission will gain a considerable boost from Taiwan’s competitive edge as a global business and high-tech hub. “Taiwan is an exceptional place to do business in, particularly for Western investors. Companies here are committed to quality,” concludes King.

Dr. Lai Ching-te President of Taiwan

AT THE GLOBAL FOREFRONT OF LCD DESIGN

New Deantronics

“CARING”

IS OUR CORE VALUE

“TEAMWORK” IS THE FOUNDATION OF OUR CULTURE “APPLYING SCIENCE TO HEALTH” IS OUR MISSION.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, as recovering global demand and the stabilising of economic activity in leading Asian markets bolster activity, Taiwan’s GDP growth will accelerate to 3.3% in 2024, well above the global average of 2.2%. The organisation expects private consumption to expand by 3.5%, while trade is set to burgeon, with exports of goods and services growing by 6.9% and imports by 7%.

Capitalising on Taiwan’s high-skill workforce and research and development strengths, the country’s medical devices industry is a rapidly growing, export-oriented sector. According to official figures, it contributed $6.4bn to the economy in 2021. Up 22% from 2020 thanks largely to government support of innovation, as well as demand caused by the covid-19 pandemic. An aging local population and a sophisticated domestic healthcare system provide demand at home. According to the US International Trade Administration the market is expected to grow 7% annually over the next five years.

New Deantronics

Jane Liu President

enthusiasm and direct approach. Nearly 40 years later Valley Lab remains a key client of New Deantronics. “I didn’t want to follow the herd” she says. “I learned the skills and polished them to be able to survive. You must create opportunities for yourself, work hard, learn honestly, and have integrity. Always admit your mistakes, be brave enough to face it, solve the problem right away, and always ask for opportunities.”

New Deantronics is a leading medical device manufacturer, offering comprehensive solutions for the development and manufacturing of world-class medical devices. It prides itself on an unwavering focus on outstanding quality, service, and delivery to a demanding global market.

“We’re the go-to medical device manufacturer for the health industry,” says new Deantronics President Jane Liu. “For us, rule number one is culture – honesty, integrity, reliability, caring for the planet. Number two is teamwork – and I’m an example of that. I work with different engineers – R&D, operations, quality control – and other specialists to make the whole company tick. We are integrated, harness one another’s expertise, and contribute to developing one another’s skills. Our watchwords are professionalism and independence – we create our own products for the industry.”

Liu established New Deantronics in San Francisco in 1985. The company’s name sums up Liu’s vision – “New” providing what she calls “a grand opening”, expressing her business’s fresh approach and hunger for adapting to change. “Dean” refers to the academic title, conveying the company’s position as a respected, professional authority in the sector. Liu chose the medical sector because of her understanding of the competitive landscape in Taiwan, and the industry’s high barriers to entry. Liu knew that to succeed she would have to be bold and very wellprepared. She carried out painstaking research and identified more than 25 companies in the US undertaking electro-surgery, choosing the top-ranking ones to contact. She approached decision-makers in the field to learn more about the industry, drawing up benchmarks for her business. One of the companies she met was industry leader Valley Lab, where the CEO had a people-oriented management style and opened the door to Liu, providing opportunities that were all she asked for to start in business. Valley Lab was expanding its overseas purchasing and already had four Taiwanese suppliers. Liu impressed him with her drive,

The result is what Liu calls an “applied science” company, which always looks to understand the future needs of the market, while remaining cost-effective through leveraging Taiwan’s competitive advantages. New Deantronics always seeks to go to the root cause of a problem and find a solution that can prevent future illness. The company has developed broad technical expertise in areas including therapeutic ultrasound, electrosurgical radiofrequency, and electrooptical technologies. Its mechanical and electrical R&D labs allow it to transform design concepts into functional prototypes and production equivalent samples; it can design a wide range of medical devices from disposable hand-held therapeutic and diagnostic equipment through implants to portable and large medical equipment. In product development, the company has a quality system that ensures strict adherence to international standards including FDA, CE, and ISO, meeting the needs of clients around the globe. New Deantronics’ manufacturing capacity ranges from high-precision manual assembly to full automation lines, allowing it to produce simple to complex devices in small to high volumes. Its flagship products include tiny nano cameras used in surgery.

The company’s customers and collaborators include several of the top ten world-leading companies, as well as other strategic global medical device partners, surgeons, and startups.

“We are open to partnerships in all formats,” says Liu. “We provide a lot of design for manufacturing and design for automation. Our vision is to make excellent quality medical devices here in Taiwan, and that’s our USP for partners. We are in the health industry, so caring is our mission – we care for the patient, our customers, our suppliers, our partners –and of course or own people. With our products, we can help people fight their pain.”

This approach has underpinned the company’s four decades of success. While New Deantronics is a global company with its roots in Liu’s time in the US, this is a business with a Taiwanese identity, proudly embracing the culture and values of her home country.

“The Taiwanese are very friendly, trustworthy, honest, and hardworking people,” says Liu. “Taiwan is a small island; people know and trust each other. We help each other grow and succeed. That’s how we make miracles happen.”

WHAT SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS THINK

We surveyed 1,200 of them. Here’s what they said.

Hey, local retailers, what’s on your mind?

Entrepreneur wanted to know, so we partnered with Faire, an online wholesale marketplace where gift shops, pet stores, clothing boutiques, and other mom-andpop shops source their products. Faire put five questions out to its retailers, and more than 1,200 responded—revealing their biggest concerns, wins, and what it really takes to keep a small business alive. “These owners are out there fighting every day, making things work, and having an incredible impact on their communities,” says Faire cofounder and CEO Max Rhodes. “They’re super resilient.” SEE THE RESULTS.

Which marketing channel is most effective for you?

Which marketing channel is

In the next three to six months, what’s your top business priority?

In the next three to six months, what’s your top business priority?

What Is Factor in

Attracting new customers

new customers

Prepping for holiday shopping season Discovering new trending products

Expanding locations

locations

Access to new forms of to help your business grow for season new products

Access to new forms of technology to help your business grow

Other

What Is The Single Most Important Factor in Running a Local Business?

“Getting people to buy into ‘shopping local’ over Amazon or Temu” ■ “Cash flow. Too much money tied up in inventory makes most similar businesses fail.” ■ “Getting out into the community you live and work in!” ■ “Having the coolest products and making sure no other shops in our town copy us. LOL” ■ “Friendly, knowledgeable and reliable staff” ■ “Making customers know how special they are!” ■ “Not needing rest. Ever.” ■ “Analyze the competition.” ■ “A successful local business is like babysitting an octopus—every tentacle needs attention simultaneously.” ■ “Uphold a good reputation, and answer the phone.” ■ Having events and services that people cannot get with online shopping” ■ “Capital” ■ “Having the community fall in love with what we do” ■ “Being a pillar in the neighborhood. It is very important to be involved in your community.” ■ “Investing (time, opportunity, money, etc.) in the community, hiring from within the community, carrying goods made by the community” ■ “Unique product offerings that have sizable margins for profitability” ■ “Amazing inventory that is affordable” ■ “A detailed business plan—copycatting and reacting won’t cut it past two years” ■ “High-level curation” ■ “Finding team members with an ownership mentality” ■ “Good customer service!” ■ “Loyal customers” ■ “Parking” ■ “Be connected to a forum; whether it’s social media or industry-specific groups, that is the same type of business that you are. Learn from them or bounce ideas around with them.” ■ “Loving what you do!” ■ “Staying relevant” ■ “Staying flexible!” ■ “Unique products not made in China” ■ “Having a variety of different price points to meet all ranges of budget” ■ “Creating a customer experience that is fun and memorable” ■ “Cash flow management” ■ “Communication and being on time with orders” ■ “Integrity” ■ “Setting yourself apart from other local shops” ■ “Networking” ■ “A core group of loyal customers” ■ “Foot traffic” ■ “Great staff” ■ “Making sure the local people know and understand the business operating in their town” ■ “Being hands-on and getting to know my customers” ■ “Being present” ■ “Maintaining reputation while staying relevant” ■ “Location, location, location” ■ “Having the willingness to work long hours” ■ “I’ll let you know when we consider ourselves a success.”

“Cash Too much money tied up in makes the coolest and customers know how are!” the a good and answer the phone.” a in the It is very to be product that have sizable for “A detailed business and won’t cut it team members with an customers” “Be connected to a groups, of business that you are. Learn from them or bounce ideas around with them.” relevant” products not made in China” a customer that is fun and memorable” “Communication and on time with orders” apart from other local “A core hands-on and to know my the

Free to safely use any technology. It’s possible. It’s Okta.

From the beginning, Okta has focused on securing Identity so your company, employees, partners, and customers can access their digital world.

Today, it’s more than just secure access. With our comprehensive Identity solutions for enterprises and developers, we free you to build your stack your way. So you can grow revenue, increase efficiencies, control IT costs, and strengthen security.

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Developers effortlessly scale SaaS apps. Financial services fend off global cyberattacks.

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And retailers delight millions of customers with seamless experiences.

That’s why nearly 19,000 of the world’s most trusted brands trust Okta.

THE FRANCHISE INDUSTRY’S TOP SUPPLIERS

by TRACY STAPP HEROLD

When you think of the franchise industry, you probably think of two groups: franchisors and franchisees. But there’s a third group that’s just as important—the franchise suppliers. These are the service providers that help make it possible for franchisors and franchisees to succeed and thrive, by offering funding solutions, consulting, education, marketing, technology, and more.

There are a lot of them! So how do franchisors and franchisees decide which suppliers to work with? To help with that, we present our seventh annual ranking of the top franchise suppliers. This year’s list honors 162 top service providers across 11 categories.

To create this list, we conducted our annual survey of franchisors. We received responses from more than 1,100 brands

For franchisors and franchisees wondering which suppliers to work with, this list can be a helpful jumping-off point, but it is not intended as a recommendation of any particular company. To find the suppliers that will best serve the needs of your unique business, it’s always important to do your own research. To learn more about these and other suppliers, check out our online directory at entrepreneur.com/franchises/ directory/suppliers-directory. Looking for the right supplier to help your franchise?

this year, from newly emerging franchisors to those that have been at it for decades. These brands told us which suppliers they and their franchisees work with, and rated their satisfaction with those suppliers in the areas of quality, cost, and value. Each supplier was scored based on the survey results, and the top-scoring suppliers are ranked within their respective categories.

ACCOUNTING

A GOOD ACCOUNTING FIRM is essential for franchisors, which are required to include audited financial statements in their Franchise Disclosure Documents annually. On our list, you’ll find firms of all sizes, from the “Big Four” to smaller ones focused on the franchise industry.

BDO USA

“BDO’s proactive approach and personalized service have significantly streamlined our financial processes, ensuring accuracy and compliance. Their ability to provide insightful, strategic advice has not only helped us optimize our financial performance, but also supported our growth and expansion efforts.” —JACQUELINE BOERS, VP controller, Sculpture Hospitality

Farris Chief Development Officer

BANKING/FINANCING

MOST FRANCHISEES will need financing in order to successfully launch and grow their businesses, so franchisors are wise to form relationships with trusted banks and other funding providers to which they can recommend their owners for assistance.

401(k)

FranFund

“FranFund is our go-to resource for franchisee financing.They are professional, prompt, diligent, and creative. FranFund has a tremendous track record of securing financing for our franchisees, and I highly recommend them to any franchisor.” —JORDAN MEINSTER, CEO, Pickup USA

FRANCHISE BROKER/ REFERRAL NETWORKS

FRANCHISE BROKERS (sometimes called franchise consultants or franchise coaches) are like industry matchmakers: They help franchisors find new prospects, and help prospective franchisees find the opportunity that best matches their needs and skills.

1 IFPG Membership-based franchise consulting network

2 Franchise Brokers Association Franchise broker training and membership organization

3 BAI Business Alliance Inc.

5 FranNet

7 FranChoice

9 The You Network

10 The Perfect Franchise

4 FranServe Consulting

“Our experience working with IFPG has been nothing short of exceptional. Their network is unparalleled, providing us with qualified, well-prepared candidates who align perfectly with our vision and values. Their ability to foster meaningful relationships and deliver outstanding results truly sets them apart.”

—KELLI

KLINE, senior franchise development director, Bishops Cuts/ Color

6 Franchise Sidekick

8 FCC, The Franchise Consulting Company

FRANCHISE CONSULTING/DEVELOPMENT

FRANCHISE EVENTS

IFA Convention

“Within franchising, no event shines brighter than the IFA Convention. It’s an annual celebration gathering the industry leaders together to help foster community and camaraderie. This allows for conference-goers to tap into the collective wisdom of the franchise ecosystem assembled each year.” —Kristopher Stuart, cofounder and COO, Bloomin’ Blinds

FRANCHISE LEADERSHIP AND DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE

October 16-18 | Atlanta, GA

Partnership event with Franchise Update Media

IFA Annual Convention

February 10-13 | Las Vegas, NV

International Franchise Show London

April 11-12 | London, England

Partnership event with MFV NSE

Legal Symposium

May 4-6 | Washington, DC

IBA/IFA Joint Conference

May 6-7 | Washington, DC

THE IFA WORLD FRANCHISE SHOW

May 9-10 | Miami, FL

Partnership event with Fortem International

EMERGING FRANCHISOR CONFERENCE

November 18-20 | Austin, TX

Events

Franchise Customer Experience Conference

June 24-26 | Atlanta, GA

Partnership event with Franchise Update Media

IFA ADVOCACY SUMMIT

September 15-17 | Washington, DC FRANCHISE LEADERSHIP AND DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE

October 7-9 | Atlanta, GA

Partnership event with Franchise Update Media

EMERGING FRANCHISOR CONFERENCE

November 10-12 | Nashville, TN

Top Suppliers

FRANCHISE EVENTS

LEGAL SERVICES

“With

In Philly, ranking #1 is just what we do.

Fisher Zucker is proud to be recognized as a 2024 Top Franchise Supplier by Entrepreneur. Serving the franchise industry since 1996, our team has extensive experience in regulatory compliance, drafting FPRs, trademark matters, negotiating and documenting transactions, litigation and pre-litigation counseling

LEGAL SERVICES

MARKETING

Reshift Media Inc.

MERCHANT SERVICES

RELIABLE MERCHANT SERVICES, or payment processing services, are vital for franchises and businesses in every industry. Franchisors often recommend, or even require, specific merchant service providers for their franchisees’ businesses to use.

Swipesum

“Swipesum has played a very important role in our brand, from our corporate location to our franchisees. The process of making payments is very simple, and the feedback from franchisees and their client satisfaction is top-notch.” —CHARLES THURSTON, COO, Wisdom Senior Care

MERCHANT SERVICES

OTHER TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

an indispensable tool, both at the corporate level and in individual franchise locations.

“In the crowded field of automated marketing and CRMs, ClientTether’s platform stands out with its architecture specifically designed for franchising. Collaborating with them to build our integration has felt like a boutique experience, marked by personalized attention, detailed implementation, and rich conversations to ensure our success.”—TODD LAMSON, director of franchise operations, The Junkluggers

TECHNOLOGY HAS BECOM

OTHER TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

PUBLIC RELATIONS

TO SUCCESSFULLY SERVE the franchise industry, public relations agencies need a keen understanding of the franchise model and must know how to increase awareness—not only of the brand’s product or service offerings, but of their franchise opportunities as well.

Fishman PR

“Fishman PR not only does a great job at securing coverage for the Dogtopia brand, but they also work hard to secure opportunities for our franchisees in their local markets. It’s great to work alongside a partner who really knows our business and takes the time to get to know our network so they can secure beneficial coverage on a regular basis.”—TONI TEPLITSKY, senior director of marketing, Dogtopia

PUBLIC RELATIONS

REAL ESTATE

GETTING THE RIGHT LOCATION at the right price can be a critical step in the startup process for franchise businesses that require retail, office, or warehouse space. These are the companies that franchisors trust most to get their franchisees off on the right foot.

LocateAI

“I like that LocateAI is committed to franchising and focused on supporting our franchisees through the entire process of a commercial real estate search and lease negotiation. I love their software and how they can help find the best locations based on many factors.”

—DAN COLLINS, senior vice president of franchise development, Stretch Zone

Maximize Your Brand’s Revenue with the #1 AI Enabled Real Estate Brokerage

BENCHMARK & ANALYZE:

Identify your brand’s top customer profiles.

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Visualize markets that are best suited to your brand based on revenue potential.

MARKET OPTIMIZATION:

Identify where you should open new locations using your AI model.

AVOID CANNIBALIZATION: Ensure your new locations don’t compete with your existing ones.

NEGOTIATE THE BEST LEASE: Negotiate favorable terms on your top sites.

Trust Equals Sales

For their business to work, Dianne and Gabrielle Melillo need more than customers. They need a community that has total confidence in them. by

KIM KAVIN

If someone found a $7,000 Dior handbag being sold for $1,700, they might be suspicious. That’s why, for motherdaughter duo Dianne and Gabrielle Melillo, the consignment business isn’t just about good merchandise. It’s about trust. “We work in a field where our items are pre-owned,” Gabrielle says. “Our customers must trust us and our level of transparency. We treat them like we would treat our friends. We would never steer them in the wrong direction on these items.”

The Melillos are franchisees with Season 2 Consign, a brand that sells secondhand goods in person and online. They opened their first territory in 2023 in central New Jersey (a territory is their assigned region for sourcing goods), and this year, after being named one of the International Franchise Association’s Franchisees of the Year, they opened a second territory in northern New Jersey—making them Season 2 Consign’s first multi-unit owners. Here, they share what they’ve learned building a trust-based business.

Dianne, why did you decide to open a Season 2 Consign franchise?

I spent many years working as the national sales director of North America for high-end European fashion designer Giambattista Valli. I’m 58, and my husband owns auto body shops. He made me think that I wanted to own my own business. I was selling and buying my own luxury items on the secondary market. When Season 2 Consign announced on Instagram that they were going to start franchising, I jumped on it.

Gabrielle, why did you decide to become a 50-50 partner with your mom?

I worked for a few different companies, varying from fashion to

lip balms. I knew about e-commerce because I ran the companies’ websites. I’m 31, and I quit my job to do this. I wanted to start my own business as well.

What were your biggest challenges?

DIANNE: The technical part was a big learning curve. We use software for everything: loading things onto the website, how we do things with our consigners. Gabrielle really knew that aspect of it, but I knew where we could make a profit, how items needed to be priced, what the great luxury items would be if we could get them. GABRIELLE: I had to learn all of the names of the leathers, the types of handbags, more about the luxury aspect of it, and all

How do you gain those savvy customers’ trust with pre-owned items?

Do you ever meet your customers in person?

something in a bag. We’re very personal with our customers and our consigners on so many levels. We will take that video for them.

Is that type of customer service different from what your competitors offer?

GABRIELLE: Very different. Our customers aren’t just our followers. We constantly get comments thanking us for helping them. I feel like the only way we get to that level of comments is when you are so close

who get Botox and spa treatments are ready and willing to buy luxury items.

That sounds like a target-rich environment for refilling your stock too.

DIANNE: Some of these women have such big collections, they’re giving up their bags that they don’t use anymore. That’s basically where we get our inventory. Those events—some of them have been really amazing for us.

→ LABOR OF LOVE

The Melillos are a mother-daughter duo.

DE ELOP Y

Saving a Brand, Two Ears at a Time

Pita Pit was struggling. So when CEO Peter Riggs took over, he drove around and let franchisees vent. Here’s what he learned.

by KIM KAVIN

Peter Riggs saved Pita Pit once. But can he do it twice?

Two decades ago, Riggs was a student at the University of Idaho and loved his local Pita Pit. After graduating, he and some friends bought a few franchises in California, and then asked for a development agreement for the whole state. Instead, the Canada-based company asked them to take over all U.S. operations. “They were ready to move on,” Riggs says. So he and some partners bought the business, grew it to 250 locations, and sold off their stake in 2018. But during the pandemic, the U.S. brand shrunk to 65 locations. So this last March, Riggs (who’d become an Idaho state senator) returned as U.S. CEO.

To save Pita Pit again, he knew he’d have to work with his remaining franchisees—but they were distrustful. “There hadn’t been a lot of support from corporate in the years we were gone,” he says. “The only way I could convince these franchisees that everything was going to be OK is if I said it to their faces.” So he bought a camper van and hit the road. Fifty thousand miles later, he has some lessons to share.

Were those hard conversations with Pita Pit’s remaining franchisees?

nothing. So we had to introduce more sides and hearty snacks, like our Greek Grilled Cheese, to get those customers back. It’s half a pita grilled with limited ingredients for $6, depending on location.

Did the franchisees accept your ideas for the future?

We have a design we’re prototyping for a drive-thru-only unit, and we want to make our stores look better. Some franchisees disagreed—they wanted things to go back to the late ’90s and 2000s. I said I couldn’t do that, and we were helpful with people who wanted to get out, finding new owners for their locations.

You also visited distributors. Why?

and ask for their feedback. They’re dealing with problems too, including labor shortages. It made them feel valued. It’s important because if something goes wrong, there’s somebody at the local level I can call.

How long did those warehouse visits take?

An hour, max. If you think about how rarely somebody is acknowledged for doing their job—we’re all people. Treat people with respect, and it makes everything easier.

These sound like conversations full of life lessons.

What did you learn from them?

We’re on a lot of college campuses. One big problem was that Pita Pit started out 25 years ago selling a $5 or $6 sandwich. Now it needs to be a $10 sandwich, but that’s pricey for college kids. They wanted something smaller, and we had

It was me just listening for the most part. Some of them wanted to vent, even though I wasn’t there when this stuff happened and I wasn’t responsible for the global pandemic. They needed a release valve, so I could be that. So I sat there and let them take it out on me.

You have to be very careful with pita bread or it breaks and becomes unusable. Sometimes what we tell our fooddistribution network doesn’t get through at the warehouse level. So I went to the warehouses and talked to the guys.

That sounds unusual. They said no CEOs ever go there

Well, my marketing team asked me to document this trip, so I turned the inside of my van into a podcast studio. We launched the podcast Vantastic Voyage. I interviewed restaurant executives, marketing executives—I wanted to get a feel for broader topics of discussion across the industry. Just see where the conversations went. We think there’s a really cool opportunity to redefine the way we’ve been doing the fast-food business.

Top Performers

From $430K to $1.8 Million in Revenue

This franchisee bought a struggling location of Bad Ass Coffee of

, and then slammed the gas on growth. Here’s how. by KIM

Kristen Williams-Haseotes bought a struggling Bad Ass Coffee and made it the brand’s top-performing location. Now it’s on track to drive at least $1.8 million in revenue in 2024. How? She knew nothing about the coffee business, but she understood the importance of community, and how it gives places meaning.

Haseotes once ran a home for ex-offenders reentering the community, and then worked in community development at a bank. In 2019, while living in Naples, Florida, she was a regular at the local Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, because she loved the sense of community there: “It’s where everybody came and sat together and had a cup of coffee,” she says—from local electricians and landscapers to millionaires and billionaires. But the location was struggling, with revenue of only $430,000 a year. So she bought it. Here’s what she did next.

1/ Promote from within.

Haseotes hired some new staffers, but also got to know the existing team members, and looked for outsize potential. One barista in particular, Daniel Guimond, seemed ready for a major promotion—so she made him a manager. “It made all the difference. My advice is to look around and see who does the work and exceeds expectations. That’s who deserves a shot.”

2/ See the bigger opportunity.

Haseotes had a chance to expand into the space next door. This made little financial sense—twice as much rent, but no ability to expand the menu (due to a parking and zoning issue). But to Haseotes, her shop wasn’t really about coffee. It was about community—and the new space could host music, lectures, and more.

→ AWARD WINNER

Kristen Haseotes (second from right) receives an IFA Franchisee of the Year Award in 2023.

3/ Always foster connections.

Haseotes had to close for the shop’s renovation, but during that time she offered free coffee to customers outside. And after a hurricane, she took free coffee to first responders. “We didn’t want people to go elsewhere. It’s about routine,” she says. “I paid the staff. But with the tip cup, we donated that money to charity. When people gave, they gave generously.”

ADVICE FROM THE FRANCHISOR

Don’t let big changes distract you from business fundamentals, says Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii CEO Scott Snyder. For example, the franchise was acquired the same year that Haseotes bought the Naples location—and the new owner launched a total brand redesign soon after. But Haseotes knew she had to iron out the basics before aesthetics. She was laser-focused on “inventory, having equipment that works, and following the guidelines we were setting,” Snyder says. And it worked. “She nearly doubled the store in the first year without making any fundamental changes to the design.”

Hawaii

KAVIN

HOW TRUST SAVED KFC

The former CEO of Yum! Brands explains how he turned around a struggling KFC—and the important lesson it offers for anyone in franchising. by DAVID

NOVAK

In 1994, I became the president of Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was a big job, and I was excited. But when the news got out, I got more calls offering condolences than congratulations.

I understood why. KFC had been struggling. It hadn’t achieved its business plan and had no same-store sales growth for seven straight years. The company was owned by PepsiCo at the time, and it had become a graveyard for PepsiCo executives. I could have easily been the next one in the grave: I was the COO of PepsiCola, the company’s beverage division, and PepsiCo chairman Wayne Calloway had asked me to take this job because of my reputation for turning around struggling businesses.

Now I had my work cut out for me.

To start, I was walking into a deeply distrustful environment. Franchisees owned 70% of KFC restaurants, and they saw Corporate as a bunch of outsiders who didn’t enjoy fried chicken and didn’t believe KFC could beat its competitors. Franchisees also held a majority of the marketing votes, which meant they controlled everything from advertising to new products, and they often voted as a bloc—against the corporate executives. Trust was so frayed at the time that the franchisees were suing us over territorial rights.

In other words, I had inherited a business in decline and a broken franchise system waging open warfare.

But I had a secret weapon. It’s called Theory Y.

The term comes from Douglas McGregor, a management professor at MIT. Back in 1960, in a book called The

Human Side of Enterprise, he described two leadership outlooks on human behavior: Theory X and Theory Y.

Theory X leaders believe that employees must be coerced, controlled, and threatened to do good work or take responsibility. Theory Y leaders believe that people are generally creative, ingenious, and ready to take on responsibility—if they are treated accordingly.

I was always a Theory Y guy. And now was my chance to prove it.

I started at KFC on a Monday. We had a conference with the best franchisees in the system scheduled for that Wednesday. The department heads were urging me to cancel it. “Oh, no,” I said. “I can’t wait to meet these people.” Even if all I accomplished was telling them I was looking forward to working with them, I was going to have that meeting.

I believe in running an organization based on the assumption that 99.9% of people want to do good work. I trust in their positive intentions.

My experience at KFC proves that it works. Here’s what happened.

Active learners understand the power of trust, and they leverage it to learn more, faster. Trusting in positive intentions helps us overcome our natural defensiveness and listen with an open mind. It helps us overcome our bias against ideas from people we may not see as “on our side”— which is often just a story we’ve made up about them. When we move beyond that kind of thinking, we’re more collaborative and we get to better action more quickly.

But that kind of trust doesn’t always come naturally. We’re

overly vigilant for threats in our environment. We’re too ready to interpret people’s actions through a negative lens, especially when there’s a longstanding issue or conflict. I don’t want you to think I’m naive, and I don’t mean to sound like a Pollyanna. My biggest disappointments in life haven’t been in business results or ideas that flopped; instead, they’ve been in people who have betrayed my trust. But I know that it’s still worth starting from a position of optimism.

This is what I was thinking back in 1994, when I became the new president at KFC.

My corporate-level KFC colleagues were mired in battles. They knew the franchisees hated them, which put them in a defensive crouch. That’s why they suggested that I cancel my first meeting with the system’s best

franchisees. They thought nothing good could come from it. But I wanted to believe otherwise.

We had the call. “I want you to know one thing: I love Kentucky Fried Chicken,” I told the franchisees. That was true! Then I said, “Look, I don’t know this business, but I’m going to go through the process of learning it. I’m going to find out what the front lines are thinking, and I’m going to listen to our customers. Then I’m going to go out to share what I’ve learned with you. And then I’m going to ask you how to fix what’s not working. Together, we’re going to develop a plan to turn this business around.”

This was a tough bunch, and I knew that no matter what I said, they were focused on the territory rights issue. This was a battle over the franchise

contract that they’d signed. So I added, “I know there’s a contract issue, but we can’t fix this business by fighting each other. If we can’t work together, there isn’t going to be any business left to fight over anyway. I’m not going to even talk about the contract until we fix this business, so don’t even bring it up.”

We started turning the business around in less than a year, in large part because we extended our trust first. We rounded up rather than down, assuming franchisees were more than their most biting remarks or their most aggressive actions. And that helped them return the trust. In any relationship, business or personal, somebody must trust more or trust first to break inertia and build up positive momentum.

The strategy I used—and that you can use whenever you’re finding it hard to overcome your cynicism or shift your attitude—is to focus on shared goals. When you spend more time thinking about how you and another person or group are alike, rather than how you’re different, you can work around the natural tendency to consider other groups a threat.

I began shifting the attitudes of everybody who worked in corporate by “shocking the system,” which means taking whatever the conventional wisdom or prevailing attitudes are and turning them on their ear. I announced to everyone in the building: “We’ve hated franchisees for so long it’s killing us. From now on, we love franchisees. We absolutely adore them. We want to work with them, we want to learn from them, and we want them to feel the love. Why? Because we don’t have a choice.” I saw us as one big in-group, with a long list of shared goals, all of us depend-

ing on each other to succeed.

Besides, the franchisees are entrepreneurs. A lot of them started with nothing and worked to become multimillionaires owning well-run organizations that manage more than 100 restaurants. We would have been crazy not to listen to them, learn from them, and rely on them. But first, we had to stop seeing them as the enemy. Despite the voting bloc and the lawsuit, we had to trust them and their intentions.

I had enough leadership experience by that point to understand the power of trust.

Stephen M. R. Covey calls it “the speed of trust”—which is also the title of his bestselling book—because when trust in an environment is high, everything moves faster.

I spoke to Covey about this. He told me that he had this revelation early on as CEO of

ny’s trust-building programs.

KFC’s situation with franchisees was perfect anecdotal proof. Progress on important initiatives had been molasses-slow, and that had to change.

After two years at KFC, I saw real progress. The brand had added $100,000 of incremental sales to their annual unit volumes. I moved up to become CEO and president of KFC and Pizza Hut, and eventually became CEO of the newly formed Yum! Brands, which housed those brands and others. I was at Yum! Brands for 18 years.

Looking back, if you ask people what turned KFC around, they’re likely to say it was the new products. That’s true—we launched many new products, and they attracted great energy and attention. But those products were really a triumph of the human spirit. We only

Restaurant chains rely on familiarity and consistency. For a franchisee to develop their own product line is typically a huge negative. In the old days, before we were focused on developing trust and collaboration, I guarantee the franchisee wouldn’t have even told us what he was doing—and if we had found out on our own, we would have gone there and squashed him like a bug for changing products without permission.

Instead, I sent our marketing and R&D teams to see how he was doing it. He took them to his supplier, who showed them how we could deliver the same product nationally. That insight evolved into the most successful new product KFC had introduced since the Colonel’s original recipe. And when it worked, it sent a message to franchisees that we trusted their intentions, and they could

WHEN SOMEBODY MAKES A MISTAKE OR FAILS TO FOLLOW THROUGH, OUR TRUST IS TESTED. BUT WE HAVE THE PHRASE “HONEST MISTAKE” FOR A REASON. ASSUMING NEGATIVE INTENT CUTS US OFF FROM POSSIBILITY AND POSITIVE EXPERIENCES.

the Covey Leadership Center, the company founded by his father Stephen R. Covey that evolved into FranklinCovey. The company was working with two suppliers to produce a product. One was a high-trust partner, and all the work with them happened smoothly and quickly. The other was a lowtrust relationship that required extra meetings, processes, and inspections. It was slow and costly. Stephen began to see the world through this lens of trust-as-speed. Eventually, he validated it with research, and it became the core of his compa-

began generating or discovering the ideas for them once we started trusting each other enough to work together.

Take chicken tenders, which we originally called Crispy Strips. Research and Development couldn’t figure out how to distribute them nationally, at a time when it seemed that every competitor had some kind of chicken tenders product. I’d been at KFC for about seven months when I learned that there was a franchisee in Arkansas selling Crispy Strips, and sales at his stores were up 9%.

trust ours—that we just wanted to champion good, successful ideas. It was a brand-new day.

Shortly after that, we solved the contract issue. We gave franchisees the one-and-a-half-mile exclusivity they wanted around each of their restaurants. In turn, we got the right to hire and fire our advertising agency, which gave us more marketing control. A dispute that had lasted nearly a decade was solved fairly and quickly—because we had learned to trust each other.

Trust-building pays off bigtime, especially within teams or organizations. It creates

environments of psychological safety, which, according to Amy Edmondson, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of The Fearless Organization, blend trust and respect. Her research has proven that in companies that work to eliminate fear, people are far more likely to speak up, share ideas, tell the truth, innovate, and learn from each other. They give their best individual effort for the benefit of the whole.

The triumph of Theory Y—and the power of trusting people—can transform franchising. It can help franchisees drive better results from their teams, and can help franchisors build stronger and more productive relationships with their franchisees. But it can go much further than that. This lesson applies everywhere, both inside and outside of business.

For example, look at sports: Brad Richards was an accomplished NHL player who won the Stanley Cup with both the Tampa Bay Lightning and Chicago Blackhawks, and he talked about how crucial trust was to his teams’ ability to succeed in the high-pressure, bright-lights playoff games. Sometimes the first-tier hockey line, which contains the team’s top players, isn’t clicking on the ice. In those moments, a coach will substitute in players from the second line or even the third. For those players, this can be a big deal. They don’t always get playing time in big games. On less safe teams, those moments can lead to resentment or jealousy. The first-line players don’t want to share the spotlight or be outdone by others on their team. Meanwhile, the second-line players could let their desire to shine drive them on the ice, which doesn’t lead to good team play.

But on successful teams, everybody trusts that every player is there to do what’s best for the team. They all believe in putting together the best line in the moment to win. They trust in each other’s positive intentions, so they can offer authentic support and encouragement. And together, they win.

I’ve even used this theory to build my podcast. Most of my guests are CEOs of large public companies, and some almost never agree to interviews. I hosted the first-ever podcast interview with Dave Calhoun, the president and CEO of Boeing at the time. He had been hired as CEO to lead the company through the crisis it faced after two of its 737 Maxes crashed, killing 346 people. The company was under investigation, its culture was in trouble, and he had a lot of work to do to turn the com-

in ours, we need to behave accordingly. We need to build a well of trust to draw on—and as Stephen Covey explains, an important factor in that is our integrity. For example, many years ago, my family had a vision for creating a new institution called the Novak Leadership Institute at the University of Missouri. We committed to funding it with a massive donation, and the school committed to housing it in a permanent, dedicated building. We felt this new building would give the institute even more legitimacy, showcase the university’s dedication to leadership education, and attract students by leveraging it as a competitive advantage.

Years after this commitment, that building still doesn’t exist. COVID, rising construction costs, and supply chain issues have conspired to halt progress.

When somebody makes a mistake or fails to follow through on a commitment, our trust is tested. But we have the phrase “honest mistake” for a reason. Assuming negative intent cuts us off from possibility and positive experiences.

We’re all human. We’re all going to lose our tempers, or handle a delicate situation poorly, or not show as much compassion as we should, or make a poor judgment call. When we’re on the receiving end, if we can take a breath, find a little empathy, and trust that the other person had good intentions that didn’t pan out, then we can avoid a total breakdown in the flow of ideas and learning and collaboration.

I read a striking definition of trust recently: “Trust is a relationship of reliance.” Aren’t

I HAD ENOUGH LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE BY THAT POINT TO UNDERSTAND THE POWER OF TRUST. STEPHEN M. R. COVEY CALLS IT “THE SPEED OF TRUST”—BECAUSE WHEN TRUST IN AN ENVIRONMENT IS HIGH, EVERYTHING MOVES FASTER.

pany around. But he came on the show because he trusts me. Guests know I’m not going to trick them into saying the wrong thing or use some kind of bait-and-switch interview tactic. That said, I’ll be fair and ask them about tough situations, because those are some of the most important learning moments they can share with listeners. But trust and safety allow people to be vulnerable, and that’s what makes our conversations so powerful.

As important as it is for us to trust in positive intentions, if we want people to trust

I could get angry about the lack of follow-through on a commitment. I could stamp my feet and make threats. Or I could be guided by the work that is happening, the incredible leadership of the institute’s executive director Margaret Duffy, the other forms of support from the university, and my trust that, eventually, it will happen. The university’s leaders have built a well of trust to draw on, so I feel confident that as we work toward that goal, we’ll keep collaborating and learning new ways to make the institute everything we want it to be.

we all reliant on each other if we want to learn, grow, and expand our possibilities? We can choose to support that relationship or tear it down. If we choose the second option, we’re only limiting ourselves. If we choose the first, the possibilities are infinite.

Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Adapted from How Leaders Learn: Master the Habits of the World’s Most Successful People by David Novak with Lari Bishop. Copyright 2024 David C. Novak. All rights reserved.

Top 200 Global Franchises

Want to open a franchise outside the U.S., or just buy into a brand known around the world? This list is for you.

by TRACY STAPP HEROLD

Franchising can be one of the most effective ways to grow a brand—not just nationally, but globally. But growing outside the U.S. won’t be easy. Expanding into other countries and cultures creates unique challenges, including finding local partners and adapting to local tastes. The challenge is often worth it, though: Success strengthens a brand as a whole and makes its systems even better here at home. That’s why we celebrate the companies with the most successful international franchising programs in this annual ranking.

To determine this ranking, we start with our proprietary Franchise 500 ranking formula—which evaluates franchise companies on more than 150 data points, in the areas of costs and fees, size and growth,

franchisee support, brand strength, and financial strength—and adjust it to give more weight to system size and growth outside the U.S. Each company receives a score after being run through this formula, and the top-scoring companies become our 200 top global franchises. Whether you’re interested in opening a franchise outside the U.S. or just want to buy into a brand that’s known around the world, this list can serve as a great starting point. But it is not intended as an endorsement of any particular company. Before investing in any franchise opportunity, always do your own careful research. Read the company’s legal documents, consult with an attorney and an accountant, and talk to current and former franchisees to find out if it’s right for you.

1

KFC Chicken STARTUP COST

$1.9M-$3.8M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 28,257/218

2

Taco Bell

Mexican-inspired food STARTUP COST

$610.8K-$3.98M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 7,847/473

3

Pizza Hut Pizza, pasta, wings STARTUP COST

$412K-$2.1M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 17,975/21

4 Dunkin’ Coffee, doughnuts, baked goods STARTUP COST

$437.5K-$1.8M

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 13,372/0

5 McDonald’s Burgers, chicken, salads, beverages STARTUP COST

$1.5M-$2.6M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 40,238/2,168

6

7-Eleven Convenience stores STARTUP COST

$139.2K-$1.4M TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 77,886/5,893

7 Hampton by Hilton Upper midscale hotels STARTUP COST

$12.8M-$24.1M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 2,919/0

8 Ace Hardware Hardware and home improvement stores STARTUP COST

$579.4K-$1.9M TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 5,582/231

9

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen

Fried chicken, seafood, biscuits

STARTUP COST

$383.5K-$3.7M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 4,050/41

10

Kumon Supplemental education STARTUP COST

$73.8K-$165.9K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 25,390/28

11

IHOP

Family restaurants

STARTUP COST

$1.2M-$6.6M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,832/0

12

Hilton Hotels and Resorts

Upper upscale hotels and resorts

STARTUP COST

$38.9M-$162.5M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 495/47

13

The UPS Store Shipping, packing, mailboxes, printing, faxing, shredding, notary services

STARTUP COST

$86.9K-$495.9K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 5,656/2

14

Arby’s Sandwiches, fries, shakes STARTUP COST

$644.95K-$2.5M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 2,492/1,110

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 7,682/0

19

Snap-on Tools

Professional tools and equipment STARTUP COST

$217.5K-$481.6K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 4,461/213

20

Hilton Garden Inn Upscale hotels STARTUP COST

$21.4M-$32.8M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 985/0

21

Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express Hotels STARTUP COST

$10.98M-$23.3M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 4,306/2

22 Cinnabon Cinnamon rolls, baked goods, coffee STARTUP COST

$60.3K-$621.4K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,882/0

23 Paris Baguette Bakery cafes STARTUP COST

$652.6K-$1.8M TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 3,807/19

24 RE/MAX Real estate STARTUP COST $43K-$289.5K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 9,111/0

25 Anytime Fitness Fitness centers STARTUP COST $388.97K-$970.1K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 5,184/12

26

Budget Blinds Window coverings, window film, rugs, accessories STARTUP COST

$140.5K-$211.8K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,472/0

27 PIRTEK Hydraulic and industrial hose maintenance, repair, and replacement STARTUP COST

$211.4K-$610.3K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 647/0

28 Burger King Burgers, fries, breakfast STARTUP COST $1.8M-$4.5M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 19,689/50

$297K-$1.2M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 31/9

37

Pearle Vision Eye care and eyewear STARTUP COST

$70.2K-$990.7K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 461/109

38

Petland

Pets, pet supplies, boarding, daycare, grooming STARTUP COST

$313K-$1.1M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 280/27

39 Auntie Soft pretzels

STARTUP COST

$104.6K-$572.1K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,974/11

40

H&R Block Tax preparation, electronic filing

STARTUP COST

$31.7K-$158.3K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 3,055/6,582

41 Leadership Management International Leadership and organizational training and development

STARTUP COST

$20K-$27.5K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 495/0

42 Express Employment Professionals Staffing, HR solutions STARTUP COST

$140K-$400K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 863/2

43

Planet Fitness Fitness clubs STARTUP COST

$1.5M-$5.1M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 2,319/256

44 Denny’s Full-service restaurants STARTUP COST $1M-$2.3M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,522/66

45 Wingstop Chicken wings, tenders, and sandwiches, fries, sides

STARTUP COST

$325.6K-$974.7K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 2,001/45

46 Paul Davis Restoration Insurance restoration STARTUP COST

$238.1K-$617.1K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 297/0

47 Embassy Suites by Hilton Upper upscale extendedstay hotels STARTUP COST

$47.9M-$75.6M TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 245/0

48 Curio Collection by Hilton Upper upscale hotels STARTUP COST

$3.98M-$140.5M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 144/0

49 The Maids Residential cleaning STARTUP COST

$77.6K-$155.9K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,454/152

50 Great Clips Hair salons STARTUP COST

$182.95K-$414.4K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 4,427/0

51 Tapestry Collection by Hilton Upscale hotels STARTUP COST

$3.3M-$118.2M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 113/0

52

Home2 Suites by Hilton Upper midscale extendedstay hotels

STARTUP COST

$14.5M-$21.6M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 614/0

53 Circle K Convenience stores

STARTUP COST

$935.5K-$6.95M

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 2,562/9,637

$607.8K-$1.3M

$984.1K-$2M

$1.6M-$4.4M

$1.3M-$86.1M TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 168/0

64 Sport Clips Haircuts

Haircuts for men and boys STARTUP COST

$276.8K-$463K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,820/82

65

FastSigns Signs, graphics STARTUP COST

$248.1K-$344.6K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 768/0

66

The Habit Burger Grill Burgers, sandwiches, salads, sides STARTUP COST

$1.5M-$1.8M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 71/307

67

CertaPro Painters

Painting and decorating services

STARTUP COST

$171K-$320.5K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 359/1

68

Marco’s Pizza Pizza, pizza bowls, subs, wings, salads, cheese bread

STARTUP COST

$285.6K-$804.9K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,124/42

69

Stratus Building Solutions Environmentally friendly commercial cleaning and disinfecting

STARTUP COST

$4.5K-$79.8K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 3,641/0

70

Ben & Jerry’s Ice cream, frozen yogurt, nondairy frozen desserts, sorbet

STARTUP COST

$155.9K-$549.3K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 550/8

71

Motel 6

Economy lodging

STARTUP COST

$236.5K-$7.9M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,235/2

72

Buffalo Wild Wings Wings, bar food, alcohol

STARTUP COST

$2.5M-$4.8M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 593/659

73

Anago Cleaning Systems Commercial cleaning STARTUP COST

$11.3K-$68.3K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,835/0

74

Pop-A-Lock Mobile locksmith and security services

STARTUP COST

$137.8K-$170.8K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 508/7

75

Color Glo

Leather, vinyl, fabric, carpet, and surface repair and restoration

STARTUP COST

$63.3K-$68.4K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 139/0

76

Gold’s Gym Health and fitness centers

STARTUP COST

$1.5M-$3.7M

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 539/60

77 Canopy by Hilton Upper upscale hotels STARTUP COST

$57.3M-$141.9M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 39/0

78

Jiffy Lube Oil changes and preventive auto maintenance STARTUP COST

$232K-$442.7K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,859/373

79

La Quinta by Wyndham Hotels

STARTUP COST

$4.3M-$15.2M

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 918/0

→ JIFFY LUBE

92

$94.5K-$144.4K

93

What’s New for Your Brand Internationally?

THREE ANSWERS/

“After our successful expansion into Australia and New Zealand, we are excited to introduce a new program that enables candidates with recruiting experience to join as employees, with a clear path and plan for franchise ownership. Additionally, we have just launched Express Health Staffing as an international franchise opportunity for those with a healthcare background.”

—Vinny Provenzano, senior vice president of global franchising, Express Employment Professionals (No. 42)

Professionals

“Expanding into Romania is an exciting opportunity for us. The country’s cultural emphasis on education, with over 50% of primary and secondary students using tutoring services, shows their commitment to academic excellence that aligns perfectly with our mission. Additionally, Romania’s growing middle class and franchise-friendly environment make it an ideal market for rapid expansion.”

—Benjamin Simon, regional vice president of international, Mathnasium (No. 118)

“We have seen a significant increase in franchise inquiries from Central and South America. We recently opened in Puerto Rico and added two more locations in Mexico, and we’re excited and ready to expand into Colom bia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, and Costa Rica. Our training, marketing, and support sys tems are now all available in Spanish, and the proper team is in place.”

—Jesse Johnstone, Fibrenew

—Jesse Johnstone, president, Fibrenew (No. 182)

The Top 200 Global Franchises

$200.1K-$1M

102 Baymont by Wyndham Hotels

$184.5K-$9.7M

103 The Little Gym Child-development/fitness programs STARTUP COST

$465.3K-$637K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 370/1

104

Image360 Signs, graphics, displays, digital imaging, visual communications

STARTUP COST

$132.1K-$522.1K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 281/2

105

Allegra Marketing Print Mail Printing, marketing, direct mail, signs, promotional products

STARTUP COST

$129.5K-$456.8K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 237/2

106 KidStrong

Physical fitness, leadership, and confidence-building training for children

STARTUP COST

$313.2K-$664.2K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 93/9

107 Subway Subs, salads

STARTUP COST

$229.1K-$522.3K TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 36,514/0

114

115 School

→ KONA ICE

A

*BAD SERVICE

The auto

The auto industry has a bad rap for bad service, but not at Midas. We’re all about transparency, giving our customers confidence in our service and a reason to return. And with our investment in evolving technology, we’re ready to help them today and down the road. At Midas, we’re leading the way in how business should be done.

124

ShelfGenie

Custom pull-out shelving for cabinets and pantries

STARTUP COST

$38.7K-$133.6K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 260/17

125

The Exercise Coach

Personal training

STARTUP COST

$136K-$348.7K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 233/0

126

Great American Cookies

Cookies, cookie cakes, brownies

STARTUP COST

$195.8K-$412.2K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 410/0

127

Candlewood Suites Hotels

STARTUP COST

$12.2M-$18.3M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 371/0

128

Closets By Design

Custom closet and home/ office organization systems

STARTUP COST

$152K-$507K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 77/6

129

Tru by Hilton Midscale hotels

STARTUP COST

$12.2M-$19.2M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 246/0

130

Senior Helpers

Personal, companion, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s home care

STARTUP COST

$127.8K-$171.8K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 356/5

131

Carvel

Ice cream, ice cream cakes

STARTUP COST

$67.9K-$536.4K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 352/0

132

ComForCare

Nonmedical home care

STARTUP COST

$72.98K-$163.9K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 250/0

133

MaidPro

Residential cleaning

STARTUP COST

$105.6K-$130.8K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 267/0

134

Bin There Dump That Residential-friendly dumpster rentals

STARTUP COST

$116.2K-$235.4K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 259/0

135

Matco Tools Mechanics’ tools and equipment

STARTUP COST

$77.2K-$313.6K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,942/8

136

Tous les Jours

Bakery cafes STARTUP COST

$718.2K-$983.9K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,540/154

137

Sola Salons Salon studios STARTUP COST

$161.3K-$317.9K

UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 71/1

142 British Swim School

Swimming lessons for ages 3 months and older STARTUP COST

$108.9K-$145.2K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 181/0

143

Tint World Auto, home, and business window tinting; vehicle wraps, mobile electronics, auto accessories, detailing services STARTUP COST

$279.95K-$439.95K TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 160/1

144 InterContinental Hotels & Resorts Hotels STARTUP COST

$96.9M-$139.3M

UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 211/4

145 Wingate by Wyndham Hotels STARTUP COST

$358.1K-$13.8M TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 196/0

146

The Alternative Board (TAB) Business owner advisory boards, coaching, strategic planning STARTUP COST

$55.9K-$96.7K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 331/11

147

&

$42.6M-$74.2M

/ Co.-Owned) 400/0

The Top 200 Global Franchises

148 Expense Reduction Analysts (ERA) Business coaching and consulting STARTUP COST

$71K-$95.9K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 687/0

149

Plato’s Closet Teen- and young-adultclothing resale stores

STARTUP COST

$287.3K-$417.3K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 514/0

150 Chester’s Fried chicken STARTUP COST

$27.5K-$296.5K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,092/0

151

The Ten Spot Nail care, waxing, facials, laser hair removal

STARTUP COST

$334K-$523K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 43/1

152

Mr. Rooter Plumbing Plumbing, drain, and sewer cleaning

STARTUP COST

$83.1K-$225.4K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 244/3

153 Real Property Management Property management STARTUP COST

$91.7K-$266.2K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 438/0

154

Hardee’s Burgers

STARTUP COST

$1.3M-$3.4M

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,904/194

155

Five Star Painting

Residential and commercial painting

STARTUP COST

$77.8K-$184.8K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 246/0

156

Hotel Indigo Hotels

STARTUP COST

$16.4M-$64.3M

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 145/0

157

Boston’s Pizza Restaurant & Sports Bar Restaurants and sports bars

STARTUP COST

$1M-$2.8M

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 421/4

158

Homewatch CareGivers

Home care services

STARTUP COST

$92.3K-$154K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 248/0

159

Perkins Restaurant & Bakery

Family-style restaurants

STARTUP COST

$1.5M-$3.3M

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 191/81

160

Men In Kilts

Window and exterior cleaning

STARTUP COST

$127.5K-$222.95K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 42/0

161

Orangetheory Fitness

Heart-rate-based group interval workout classes

STARTUP COST

$613.1K-$1.6M

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,505/22

162

Bath Tune-Up

Bathroom remodeling

STARTUP COST

$104.9K-$158.9K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 52/0

163

Heaven’s Best Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning

Carpet, upholstery, tile, and wood floor cleaning

STARTUP COST

$55.96K-$110.1K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 451/0

164

Floor Coverings International Flooring

STARTUP COST

$180.4K-$243.5K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 260/0

165

Temporary Wall Systems

Rental, installation, and service of modular containment systems

STARTUP COST

$153.4K-$365.94K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 142/0

166

Transworld Business Advisors Business brokerages; franchise consulting STARTUP COST

$94.1K-$119.6K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 450/1

167

Snap Fitness 24-hour fitness centers

STARTUP COST

$528.8K-$1M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,001/24

168

Techy Electronics repairs and sales, accessories, home installation STARTUP COST

$112.5K-$399.5K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 102/7

169 American Poolplayers Association Recreational billiard leagues

STARTUP COST

$21.9K-$30.5K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 334/6

170 Coverall Commercial cleaning STARTUP COST

$17.9K-$62.9K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 7,521/0

171

Dale Carnegie Workplace training and development STARTUP COST

$92K-$252K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 207/1

172 Signarama Sign products and services STARTUP COST

$120.2K-$318.2K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 669/0

173 HouseMaster Home Inspections Home inspections and related services STARTUP COST

$58.3K-$92.2K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 194/0

174

Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ Restaurant Japanese barbecue restaurants STARTUP COST

$1.2M-$2.6M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 750/33

175 Maid Brigade Residential cleaning STARTUP COST

$119.2K-$147.9K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 381/24

176 Play It Again Sports New and used sporting goods/equipment STARTUP COST

$314.3K-$420.8K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 298/0

183

Smashburger Burgers

STARTUP COST

$1.3M-$2.4M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 108/135

181

UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,373/1

182 Fibrenew Leather, plastic, and vinyl restoration and repair STARTUP COST

$100.6K-$120.6K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 307/1

184 Sign Gypsies

Special-occasion yard sign rentals

STARTUP COST

$4.2K-$9.9K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 715/1

185

Wyndham Grand Hotels

STARTUP COST

$1.1M-$85.3M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 70/0

186

The Grounds Guys Lawn and landscape design and maintenance

STARTUP COST

$79.3K-$192.5K

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 266/0

187 Eye Level Learning Centers

Supplemental education

STARTUP COST

$52.3K-$121.7K

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 514/752

188 Ramada by Wyndham Hotels

STARTUP COST

$209.4K-$18.3M

TOTAL UNITS

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 851/0

189 Venture X Coworking spaces STARTUP COST

$431.1K-$3.3M

TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 52/0

190 Studio Pilates Reformer Pilates studios

COST

$271.2K-$517.8K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 84/4

191 Carstar Auto collision repair

COST $298.2K-$804.3K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 768/4

192 Challenge Island Educational enrichment programs

COST $58.5K-$74.1K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 232/7

193 Enviro-Master Services Commercial cleaning and disinfecting STARTUP COST

$96.3K-$220.3K TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 100/2

194

Office

/ Co.-Owned) 55/0

→ COLD STONE CREAMERY

One of these opportunities could mark the turning point to owning a business of your own, realizing your personal dreams and securing true financial independence. So go ahead, make your first move by considerw ing all that they have to offer in this Opportunity Spotlight. Then make your first call.

This Clock Stopped, So I Could Keep Going

by Chuck James, founder and COO, SpareBox Storage

IJames,

t’s 2:04 p.m. on a summer day in August 2010. I’m at the Mayo Clinic. I have a tracheal tube down my throat, so I can’t talk. There are wires all over me, and I’m in immense pain. It is incredibly uncomfortable. The day before, I had open heart surgery.

At 2:05 p.m., a doctor walks into the room. “I know you’re feeling like death right now,” he says. Since I can’t talk, it’s not much of a conversation, but I nod in agreement. “I promise you in 15 minutes,” he continues, “you’re going to feel like a new person. We’re taking all the tubes out.”

To be honest, I didn’t believe him—but he was right. When the chest and tracheal tubes came out of me, life flowed back in. I was a new person. I went from death’s door to reborn in 15 minutes.

Since that day in 2010, I stopped winding the clock in my office. I leave it at 2:05 p.m. That moment—and the entire experience—changed everything for me, and informs my approach not only to my personal life, but to my professional career as founder and chief operating officer at SpareBox Storage.

This surgery was the culmination of 30 years of unexplained health issues—the root of which doctors couldn’t identify. After decades of symptoms, I was resigned to living my life without a diagnosis or a cure. Then, miraculously, they figured it out!

Though the clock on my desk doesn’t tell time, it tells me something far more important: Even in the worst situations, relief is just around the corner; we just can’t see it. It’s often in our moments of deepest uncertainty that resolution comes to us.

The clock’s message is as true in business as it is in life. Starting a business is full of uncertainty. Successful entrepreneurs face challenges with the optimism and knowledge that everything can change for the better, even when it looks grim. Believe that progress is possible and work for it, always believing the best is yet to come.

In 15 minutes, everything changed for me. The clock—forever set to 2:05—is my daily reminder, an inspiration to keep going. When everything is going wrong, just remember: It’s 2:05 somewhere.

WHAT INSPIRES YOU?

Tell us about a story, person, object, or something else that pushes you forward, and we may include it in a future issue. And we may make you photograph it, too. Email INSPIRE@ENTREPRENEUR.COM with the subject line “WHAT INSPIRES ME.”

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF CHUCK JAMES

→ TIME STANDS STILL The author’s clock, frozen at 2:05. It’s the moment he lives for.