By All Means

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Episode 20 - Limb Lab Founder Brandon Sampson Sep 18, 2019

Show notes

Brandon Sampson almost lost his hand in a farming accident when he was 8 years old. Nine surgeries and months of physical therapy sparked his interest in orthopedic medicine and rehabilitation. He was pre-med at Luther College, until a mentor introduced him to the field of prosthetics and orthotics. “When I saw people building a functional tool that never existed before for people missing limbs, I thought, this is what I want to do.” What he didn’t fully realize, as he started his career working for an artificial limb maker, was the power of his own entrepreneurial spirit. “I didn’t care if I succeeded or failed. I just wanted to feel like it was my doing.” After 15 years of working for another prosthetist, and many failed attempts to show his employer how to innovate and reinvent, he left to start a different kind of artificial limb company—one that focuses on function over form. Limb Labs opened near Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. in 2014. It looks more like a design lab than a medical office, with the fabrication center visible from the lobby and street. “We wanted to design the patient experience to feel like they are part of the process,” Sampson says. Today, the privately owned Limb Lab has four offices in Minnesota and Wisconsin and plans to continue expanding. "We must be disrupting something," Sampson says, "because when we go to conferences, people want to have lunch.” Sampson talks about innovation in the field of prosthetics, the impact of insurance changes, and balancing his patient focus with running a business. “I just love getting up and going to work," Sampson says. "Every day there’s a chance I might be able to create something that never existed before.” After our conversation with Sampson, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Dan McLaughlin, director of the Center for Innovation in the Business of Health Care, talks about how innovation in prosthetics is starting to benefit other fields, like agriculture. “Crops need to be hand picked and no one wants to do that job, so they are investing in robotic pickers,” McLaughlin says. “it’s a very exciting future.”

Episode 19 — I See Me! Founder + President Maia Haag Sep 11, 2019

Show notes

When Maia Haag told her boss at General Mills that she was leaving to start a personalized children’s book company, he told her to call him when she wanted her job back. “That just made me want to prove him wrong,” Haag says. That’s just what she did. Her Minneapolis-based company, I See Me! is now the largest publisher of personalized books in the U.S. With more than 50 titles and many other personalized products, I See Me! has sold millions of books for kids as well as pets, dads, and grandparents. Haag walks us through how she set herself up for success, from taking time to write the business plan to working for other Internet startups to learn what to do, and what not to do. Launched in 2000, I See Me! found its audience without the aid of social media. Haag reflects on her earliest days in e-commerce and how direct-to-consumer retail has evolved—for better or worse. In addition to e-commerce, I See Me! sells through retailers and has strategic partnerships with Shutterfly and other brands. In 2014, Haag sold I See Me! to Chronicle Books, but she has stayed on as president. She talks about going from founder to president and having to answer to stakeholders. She talks about working with her husband Allan, a graphic designer whose firm designed I See Me! products, and why they decided he should leave the business. Plus, how she’s learned to let her leadership team handle the day-to-day operations. “Letting go has made it so much more enjoyable,” she says. After our conversation with Haag, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business professor David Deeds who offers advice and insight to entrepreneurs. “Learning on other people’s money is always a good thing for an entrepreneur,” Deeds says. “Businesses don’t die from bad ideas as often as they die from lack of cash."

Episode 18 - Woodchuck USA Founder + Chairman Benjamin VandenWymelenberg Sep 04, 2019

Show notes

Wiping out on Rollerblades and cracking his iPhone prompted Benjamin VandenWymelenberg to make his first phone case out of wood scraps. An architecture student who had grown up on a farm, he liked the idea of bridging technology and nature. Friends asked him to make phone cases for them, and that was the beginning of Woodchuck USA. In a matter of months, Woodchuck was selling through Best Buy and Target. Now seven years old, the Minneapolis-based manufacturer of wood products counts Google, US Bank, Ecolab, and Aveda among its custom clients, and sells in gift stores across the country. Woodchuck plants a tree for every item sold, which has resulted in millions of trees planted on six continents. From the start, Woodchuck’s mission was far broader than its product collection: “Nature back to people. Jobs back to America. Quality back to products.” Says VandenWymelenberg, “We might give up on the product, but we’re not going to give up on the mission.” While the core company continues to grow, Woodchuck also added an interiors division which makes wood dividers and panels for offices. Meanwhile, VandenWymelenberg, 28, has gotten into real estate development, buying the building that houses Woodchuck and creating a startup hub in Minneapolis. He’s also building a nature center in central Minnesota. And he found time to visit all seven continents, and write a book about entrepreneurship called “The World Needs Your F-ing Ideas.” On this episode of By All Means, VandenWymelenberg talks about mission, marketing and the challenge of shifting his focus from founder to leader. He shares some early failures and missteps that he believes helped him get where he is today. Success, he says, is “literally a lot of failing and getting back up.” After our conversation with VandenWymelenberg, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Faculty Director Mike Porter sheds light on how to get new products on store shelves, and the potential pitfalls of borrowing startup capital from friends and family.

Episode 17 - J.W. Hulme CEO Claire Powell Aug 28, 2019

Show notes

Claire Powell is CEO of J.W. Hulme, the century-old leather goods brand based in St. Paul, Minnesota. She didn’t start it; she was brought in to resuscitate it. J.W. Hulme road the wave of the heritage movement—enjoying national media buzz around its history of U.S. manufacturing, but that hype didn’t add up to profits. Unable to succeed as a vertically integrated manufacturer that relies primarily on catalog and online sales, Powell found herself in the challenging position of having to change the business model. “We ended up having to make a really difficult decision,” Powell says. “Are we a manufacturer? Are we a retailer? Are we a brand? Who are we? Ultimately, a business has to sustain itself. It was really a fork in the road moment.” In 2018, J.W. Hulme, which is owned by a private equity firm, stopped manufacturing and outsourced production. Around 30 employees were laid off, and only a small marketing and sales team remain. “I’ve had a lot of difficult conversations over last year,” Powell says. “I’ve tried to always be honest, as kind as you can, as supportive as you can, but not hide anything.” J.W. Hulme opened a retail store in St. Paul with plans to focus on broadening its brand. Powell shares her perspective on retail today, and how a 114-year old company can pivot while staying true to its character. She also talks about the challenges of U.S. manufacturing of artisan goods and the perception of the heritage movement, where buzz “doesn’t always translate into sales.” Having held management roles with a number of consumer product goods companies both large and small, including Bali, Wonderbra and American Giant, Powell describes the differences, and the perspective of coming in as a leader, not a founder. “It’s really healthy to have both of those in the organization. The founder can be almost irrationally attached to certain things in the business. Someone coming in can feel as passionate about driving success. But you might have a different perspective and a little less deep attachment.” After our wide-ranging conversation with Powell, which includes her self-care techniques to be a more effective leader, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Associate Professor Patricia Hedberg offers advice on leading through turmoil, and accepting that not everything works out as you might hope. “Failure is a beautiful moment for learning,” Hedberg says. “The idea is that by taking risks, you learn a lot about yourself and how to do it better the next time."

Episode 16 — College Nannies, Sitters + Tutors Founder Joe Keeley Aug 21, 2019

Show notes

Joe Keeley’s story is the stuff of business school legends—particularly at the University of St. Thomas where he was a student when he got the summer babysitting gig that sparked the idea for College Nannies, Sitters + Tutors, which he grew into the nation’s largest employer of nannies, sitters and tutors. Today, the company, which Keeley sold in 2016 to Bright Horizons, operates close to 200 franchises and has provided more than 2 million hours of child care. In 2000, Keeley answered an ad from parents who were looking for a college hockey player to nanny their two boys for the summer. Other parents started asking if he could help them find them a college student to watch their kids, and Keeley quickly realized the market was ripe for a professional placement service that would vet childcare providers and treat them as “role models” for kids. It made for a great news story, too, which is how Keeley built an early buzz without a marketing budget. But even as College Nannies, Sitters + Tutors was gaining momentum, Keeley didn’t see himself as an entrepreneur. “You get that job, a 401K, you have 3.2 children, you retire, and you die. That’s kind of the American dream, that’s the path.” Or it was the path, 20 years ago. “The times have changed—certainly a lot of companies are valuing entrepreneurship majors as intra-preneurs quite highly. As more and more industries get disrupted by entrepreneurs, they’re looking for the entrepreneurial thinking. So I think the major is something that’s even more sought after because large companies need to have small divisions that have independent thinkers.” Keeley did become an entrepreneurship major and by the time he graduated from St. Thomas in 2003, he was running a profitable business. He made the key decision to structure College Nannies as an employment agency rather than a placement service. He began franchising in 2005. By 2010, dozens of new franchises were opening each year. Then in 2014, Keeley created an app that expanded his company’s services to provide on-demand sitters, creating the Uber of licensed childcare. But always, he says, the people are at the center of the business. “We’re a childcare company with good technology.” Keeley talks about his decision to sell College Nannies to Bright Horizons, the largest provider of corporate child care in the U.S. He stayed on to run College Nannies under Bright Horizons for three years and stepped away from the business completely this summer. He offers advice for other would-be entrepreneurs and talks about what's next in his career. After our conversation with Keeley, we go back to the classroom with one of his former professors. Alec Johnson is an associate professor in the Department of Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. “No one would have doubted Joe’s intentions,” Johnson says. “He hasn’t changed a bit.” As for the role St. Thomas played in Keeley’s business, Johnson says, “We can’t make entrepreneurs, but we can teach them.”

Episode 15 — CaringBridge Founder Sona Mehring Aug 14, 2019

Show notes

About every five minutes, someone, somewhere in the world, creates a CaringBridge page. The Minneapolis-based social network makes it easy for people to communicate with loved ones during a health crisis by creating a centralized, private place to share updates and ask for help. Sona Mehring created CaringBridge in 1997. It started with a simple website designed to help friends share news about their premature daughter, Brighid. The power of that instant connection—at a time before Facebook and Twitter—prompted Mehring to build CaringBridge, a platform that was available, for free, to the public. From the newborn intensive care unit at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics in St. Paul, CaringBridge has grown into a global nonprofit with users in 235 countries. Mehring, a tech entrepreneur who was early to the Internet—launching her own web page design firm in the 1990s—talks about her decision to turn CaringBridge into a nonprofit, and leave her day job to run it. “I have a nonprofit heart with a for-profit mind,” she says. She also discusses why she believes CaringBridge has continued to thrive despite the proliferation of social media. “What I realized is, it’s not just a service; it’s an amazing way of people connecting. CaringBridge is actually something that helps people heal.” After our conversation with Mehring, we go back to the classroom with University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business marketing professor Gino Giovannelli who points out what any founder can learn from CaringBridge. “If you have the right product that solves a need in the market,” Giovannelli says, “you don’t need to go broad.”

Episode 14 — Wit & Delight Founder Kate Arends Aug 07, 2019

Show notes

Kate Arends’ eye for design and instinct for connection helped her build an audience of more than 3.3 million for Wit & Delight, her blog turned social media platform. How to leverage that devoted following and capitalize on the opportunities that come with being a lifestyle brand continues to be a work in progress. Today, Wit & Delight operates its own rentable studio space in Minneapolis, creates products, content, and consults with major brands including Nike, Amazon, Fossil, and Sleep Number. But Wit & Deight didn’t start with a business plan. It started as a creative outlet for Arends, and it grew organically for five years before Target came calling and offered her a limited edition design collaboration she couldn’t refuse. “It wasn’t until the opportunity became so apparent that I thought, if I don’t seize this, I’m going to regret it.” Even now, with a team of six and national sponsorships, Arends is constantly reevaluating her influence and opportunities. She’s thinking about how to scale a business that is so closely tied to her personal story. She talks about creating boundaries between her private life and public persona, and how to move past being identified as a blogger or influencer. “If there’s anything I’ve learned from running my own business, it’s that there’s a lot that comes from knowing when to say no.” After our conversation with Arends, we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Katherina Pattit, associate professor of ethics and business law, reflects on the role of the influencer among consumers today. “We used to go to Consumer Reports and friends to find out what to buy. Now we have people on social media, where boundaries are starting to blur. We need to recalibrate what types of things are important to us in our own judgement.”

Episode 13 - Upsie Founder and CEO Clarence Bethea Jul 31, 2019

Show notes

Clarence Bethea does not fit the typical venture capitalist’s profile of a promising founder. He grew up in a broken home, got into trouble with the law, dropped out of college. But when he started working in a group home with vulnerable adults, something clicked. Through a series of jobs and mentorships, he realized what he was meant to do: start something. “My heart and soul is built to build something big.” In 2015, he launched Upsie, a warranty app designed to make it easier and more affordable for consumers to protect their purchases. Very quickly, Bethea pitched Upsie for the Techstars business incubator program and since then, it has grown 300 percent every year, with customers in all 50 states. Bethea has raised $8.5 million for Upsie, despite odds stacked against him. “People invest in people who look like them. Venture capitalists are mostly white guys. I definitely don’t look like them.” Bethea talks about the challenges of raising money and the vast inequities that exist in the VC space. “if I was a white guy in Silicon Valley, I’d have a lot more money,” he says. “The vision is that big. Warranties are a $47 billion industry that hasn’t been tapped into from a consumer standpoint.” His plan now? Focus on growing Upsie, and mentor other minority entrepreneurs. “We’re going to see more entrepreneurs of color creating great businesses. They’re just going to outshine everyone else.” After our conversation with Bethea, we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Katherina Pattit, associate professor of ethics and business law, shares strategies for overcoming bias in business. “We know from research that once someone knows what his or her biases are, they have an opportunity to start counteracting that.”

Episode 12 - Flyfeet Running Founder and CEO Kristin Shane Jul 24, 2019

Show notes

Kristin Shane is the founder and CEO of Fly Feet Running, a group fitness workout with two studios in the Twin Cities and hopes of going national. Launched in Minneapolis in 2016, Fly Feet is thriving in an increasingly crowded field, and Shane says she’s proud to be among the 2 percent of women-owned businesses to make it over the $1 million mark in annual revenue. But she still has big hurdles to clear to achieve the goals she’s set for Fly Feet, and getting this far did not happen by chance. Shane charts the experiences that led to starting her own business—from consulting for Accenture, to a stint in the Peace Corps, and an 11 year climb at Target, where she eventually landed as a vice president in the beauty division. Shane was part of the team that led Target’s disastrous expansion into Canada. She talks about what she learned from that failure, and how it set her up to become an entrepreneur. “All the ingredients are here for a personal disaster,” she recalls of her time in Canada. “And I’m not willing to let that happen.” Shane takes us through the two years of work she did to plan Fly Feet Running before leaving Target. She talks about what it will take to get Fly Feet to the next level, and aspirations of her own. After our conversation with Shane, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas. Alec Johnson, an associate professor in the Department of Entrepreneurship at the Opus College of Business, discusses the challenges facing startups after initial success—particularly in the competitive field of fitness. “She needs to grow or she’ll find herself shrinking as part of the overall industry,” Johnson says. “The journey keeps throwing entrepreneurs challenges and hurdles to get over.”

Episode 11 - Great Clips Vice Chair of the Board Rhoda Olsen Jul 17, 2019

Show notes

Rhoda Olsen didn’t grow up thinking she’d one day run a $1.5 billion company. She didn’t have any female role models in business. But she found the way to lead with heart, and data, and in the process, she helped Great Clips become the world's largest salon brand. Olsen is vice chair of the board of Great Clips, a Minneapolis-based franchise salon chain with 4,400 locations and more than 40,000 stylists nationwide. She stepped down as CEO in 2018. But she continues to work closely with leadership, and franchisees. She’s considered the heart and soul of the company, and a major factor in its epic growth over the past 30 years. Olsen went to college at a time when women were discouraged from pursuing careers in math, so despite her natural talent with numbers, she focused on social work and started her business career in human relations. It took her brother Ray Barton’s encouragement for her to not only come to work with him at Great Clips in the 1980s, but to buy stock in the company at a time when she and her husband barely had enough money to pay for their three sons' hockey gear. It paid off. “Four to 5 percent growth a year may seem boring to people, but when it goes on for 15 years, it’s not so boring anymore,” she says. Olsen, who still goes to the office almost every day, talks about leading with heart, and data. “Data is a powerful way to drive success,” she says. “There’s nothing more caring than being honest with someone. If you care deeply, how can you not provide someone with honest feedback?” That honesty extends to Olsen's personal story, too, from growing up poor to having an alcoholic father. Olsen says she's realized that sharing her own vulnerabilities and struggles helps to motivate her team. “I stopped trying to speak, and started telling stories. People keep pretending that their lives are perfect. And life isn’t perfect. If you share, you give everyone the opportunity to feel like they aren’t alone.” After our conversation with Olsen, we go Back to the Classroom with University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business Distinguished Service Faculty Mike Porter, who talks about the art and strategy of building a franchise business. “You’ve got to try to build a community among franchisees.”

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