Inside the Issue: January/February 2009
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Jeff Minton
Mark Hartman
Gabriela Hasbun
Courtesy Company [4]
Sam Comen
Flying Chilli
Courtesy I-Wen Hung
Courtesy of Noah Weiss
Brandon Sullivan
Roy Ritchie
Jupiter Images
Tim Klein
Cover Story: And the Money Comes Rolling In Street Smarts Case Study: Mighty Leaf Tea Special Report: Angel Investing 2009 Introducing: The Goods How I Did It: Ron Popeil, the King of the Infomercial The Ultimate Business Tune-Up The Gen.-Y Sales ForceHow do you reward an employee for a million-dollar idea?Bob Parsons, founder of Go Daddy The Way I Work: Bob Parsons, founder of Go DaddyElevator Pitch: Would you invest in Conservative Café?Outsourcing to Save Money? Be Careful. How Bird Watching Launched a Business
Meet an unlikely entrepreneur whose business pretty much runs itself. Markus Frind (above) works barely an hour a day, he ignores his users’ upgrade recommendations, his office is nearly empty, and he has yet to set up e-mail on his Blackberry. Yet his bare-bones dating site Plenty of Fish grosses $10 million a year, and clears $5 million. Frind isn’t a typical entrepreneur, but with 1.6 billion page views per month, he doesn’t let that stop him.
Norm Brodsky introduces The Event Studio, the first of several businesses he’ll be mentoring and writing about in his "Street Smarts" column now that he has sold his business CitiStorage. The Event Studio’s founders—three self-employed conference planners named Elizabeth Busch, Anne Frey-Mott, and Beckie Jankiewicz (above)—joined forces to launch a full-service events business that would have greater scale and be more effective than any of them could be individually. An unexpected accounting issue nearly derailed their efforts—until our columnist stepped in to help them.
Mighty Leaf Tea spent 7 years building an upscale, premium brand on organic tea. Lately, founders Gary Shinner and Jill Portman faced a fork in the road: Should they limit the company to high-end hotels, restaurants, and specialty-food shops to preserve their luxe image—or should they expand into the cut-throat world of supermarket distribution? Here what the experts have to say, and what the company ultimately decided to do.
With the economy in turmoil and even individuals of high net worth feeling some portfolio pain, angel investors are likely to be more cautious than ever in 2009. Still, savvy and experienced angels are always in the hunt for good business opportunities, even in hard times. Entrepreneurs hoping to obtain angel financing should expect to give up more control and to be offered lower valuations. This special report from Inc. tells first-timers how to pitch angels, and advises companies that have raised money already on how to approach their investors for a second round. Plus: A directory of the most active angel investors.
Curious about the coolest gadgets, products, software, and services? Check out The Goods, a new section in the magazine devoted to the tools that help you manage your business, and your life. In this issue: The best noise-cancelling Bluetooth headsets, the iPhone’s challengers, tools for tracking expenses, potential Skype-killer VoxOx, and the things that Jay Steinmetz, CEO of tracking software and hardware-maker Barcoding, can’t live without.
The man who can sell anything—from the Veg-O-Matic to spray-on hair—tells Inc. how he became the king of TV salesmanship. Ron Popeil got his start hawking his father’s spiral slicers at county fairs and flea markets, but his own inventions made him famous. "If I create a product," Popeil says, "I can market it as well or better than anyone on the planet."
In a tough economy with credit extremely tight, big investments are not an option for most companies. Yet no business can afford to stand still. We asked our favorite entrepreneurs—Bob Metcalfe, Tony Hsieh, Scott Cook, and more—for the tips and tricks they have used to pilot their businesses through difficult times. The result: 23 things you can do right now to energize your employees, wow your customers, and get your business back on track.
Looking for a few good, Gen-Y sales reps? MIT’s Sloan School of Management’s second annual sales competition brought together some of the best young closers, and offered attendees a window on how today's young turks feel about sales. The event aims to steer young salespeople clear of rookie mistakes—and to instill greater respect for the art of sales in the next generation’s best and brightest.
In his latest column, Joel Spolsky talks about Noah Weiss, a college intern who came up with an idea that has already generated a million dollars in revenue (almost all of it profit) for Joel's company, Fog Creek Software. How do you reward an employee for a million-dollar idea? Will other employees feel slighted if you do? And should you even have to reward someone for doing a good job? Joel's decision and the ultimate outcome may surprise you.
What’s it like to be the guy who engineered those racy Go Daddy Super Bowl ads? Bob Parsons, founder of the world’s largest domain-name registrar, begins his morning with a motorcycle ride, and spends a good chunk of his day shopping online for guns. But his life isn’t the 24-hour party you might expect. A look at the workstyle of an authentic and eccentric entrepreneur.
With its TVs turned to Fox News, blends named Liberal, Moderate, Conservative, and Radical Right, and T-shirts advocating “Peace Through Superior Firepower,” co-founder David Beckham hopes that his new coffee shop, the Conservative Café, has what its takes to become a franchise. But first he needs to raise $1 million in capital. As the Obama administration takes shape, are is a business based on conservative counter-programming a good idea? Three seasoned investors weigh in.
In a tough economy, many businesses are scrambling for ways to cut costs, and outsourcing is a popular solution. But if you don’t carefully calculate additional expenses, it could cost you more than it saves. Here are three factors that could run up your outsourcing bill.
Vernon LaVia is a certified bird-watching all star. As a “superlister,” he has seen and identified more than 3,300 species—a third of the planet’s total. He caught the obsession from his father, who would drive eight hours to catch sight of a rare bird. Sadly, his latest venture, Defibrillators, Inc., is connected to his bird-watching: his father went into cardiac arrest while on a birding trip, and LaVia believes that one of his company’s portable defibrillator could have saved him.
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