It’s safe to say that Brynn Putnam, a former professional ballerina and the founder of Refine, a group of three fitness clubs in New York City, knows a thing or two about exercise. But, after having a baby, she found herself in an unthinkable position: she was a gym owner with no time to go to the gym. Putnam also noticed her Refine members loved it when she installed more mirrors, something Putnam had been used to as a ballerina. Putnam hooked up a Raspberry Pi computer to a mirror to create a hacked-together mirror-slash-fitness instructor. Many iterations later, that product became Mirror, which streams fitness classes and is second only to Peloton as the breakout fitness product of the pandemic. Retailing at $1,495 plus subscription fees of $39 a month for on-demand classes, Mirror is not for everyone. In July, though, Lululemon decided it definitely was for them, and purchased the company for $500 million. –Gabrielle Bienasz

In Michigan, where the current minimum wage is $9.65 an hour, Carla Walker-Miller took a stand in 2018 when she began hiring workers at a minimum of $15 an hour. She didn’t stop there: She adopted a policy where people with criminal records are still fairly considered for employment. “I believe in modeling decisions that put the team first,” says Walker-Miller. “That way, everyone from the receptionist to the security guard to your customer experience manager knows that you’re invested in them, and they’ll put that same investment in you and your company.”

Walker-Miller Energy Services was initially founded in 2000 to be an energy product supplier, but grew to focus on energy efficiency for residential and commercial clients after Michigan passed 2009 legislation requiring better efficiency in energy use. Walker-Miller’s company landed on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies for five of the years between 2007 and 2016. – Anna Meyer

Carolyn Rodz is no stranger to entrepreneurship: She’s started two digital marketing businesses (one successful, one less so) and ran a luxury retail copmany. More recently, she launched a virtual accelerator aimed at women and people of color, then teamed up with fellow entrepreneur Elizabeth Gore to evolve that program into Hello Alice, a learning platform for under-represented founders. The platform has partners including eBay and PepsiCo and is free to entrepreneurs.

The partnership between Rodz and Gore has been key to the success of Hello Alice: Rodz and her family moved in with Gore and her family in the Bay Area – so four kids total -- to get Hello Alice off the ground. When Rodz’ dad died right before Hello Alice launched, Gore jumped in, and Rodz took over when Gore’s mom was diagnosed with cancer. And when possible, they’re looking out for their larger community of entrepreneurs. When Hello Alice raised its most recent round of funding, it designed legal language to make it easier to get rid of investors who turn out to be harassers or assaulters – and is making that language available to other founders, too. –Gabrielle Bienasz