Entrepreneur's Startups Fall 2019

Some people worry about whether they have what it takes to be an entrepreneur. If this is you, stop worrying. We firmly believe anyone with the desire and the initiative can go into business for themselves. And since you picked up this magazine, it’s likely you have both. THE ENTREPRENEURIAL PERSONALITY Every year, hundreds of thousands of people start their own businesses. But while most succeed (yes, that’s the truth!), many fail. Why? One of the common causes of startup failure is lack of preparation. People come to the entrepreneurial path from different directions. Some start fresh out of college or after a stint at home raising their kids, or simply because the idea of retiring is abhorrent to them. Most, though, come to entrepreneurship straight out of the workforce. And many of…

Solopreneurs are a powerful and growing force in today’s career landscape. A solopreneur is a business owner who works and runs their business alone. A solopreneur is also the proverbial chief cook and bottle washer, who started the business, owns the business, runs the business, and is responsible for the business’s failure or success. The benefits of solopreneurship are better experienced than reported. That said, if you’re curious about the lives of these disentangled, high-risk, high-reward captains of their own fate and are considering taking the same plunge, here’s what you can expect. You can be a workaholic if you want to. Workaholics get a bad rap for all the wrong reasons. If working relentlessly is your thing, then you get to do it, no holds barred. No boss to please.…

It’s entirely possible to have an entrepreneurial mindset but not have the personality or drive to be an entrepreneur. According to psychology, a mindset is a belief or set of beliefs that orient how we assess, approach, and handle various situations. Our mindset also determines how we view and approach the world. For most of us, mindset is a bit like autopilot—it’s our go-to way of thinking about just about everything. Personality, on the other hand, comes from little individual differences in patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, according to the American Psychology Association. Combined, it is these things that make us who we are. Are you introspective or impulsive? Maybe you’re a risk-taker or rather conservative. You could also be outgoing or reserved and sensitive. What does this have to do…

Imagine that you are sitting in the boardroom of a major global drinks company, charged with producing a new product that will rival the position of Coca-Cola as the world’s second-most-popular cold nonalcoholic drink. How would you respond? The first thing I would say, unless I were in a particularly mischievous mood, is something like this: “We need to produce a drink that tastes nicer than Coke, that costs less than Coke, and comes in a really big bottle so people get great value for their money.” What I’m fairly sure nobody would say is this: “Hey, let’s try marketing a really expensive drink that comes in a tiny can…and tastes kind of disgusting.” Yet that is exactly what one company did. And by doing so, they launched a soft-drink brand…

Packaging design is an opportunity, one that often gets overlooked in the day-to-day crush of running a business. Smart brands understand that beyond protecting the products, exceptional packaging can also create an unboxing experience that can delight customers. “In our age of consumerism and anxiety, any sense of luxury or personal diffierentiation is a big deal,” says Isis Shiffer, the founder of Spitfire Industry, a New York City-based industrial design consultancy. Packaging can also communicate your company’s values, whether that’s a commitment to a seamless user experience, sustainability, or a focus on health. Wellness brands, for example, often use undyed simple prints and plain, unvarnished corrugated cardboard, an aesthetic that conveys simplicity and transparency. Below, Shiffer shares tips for harnessing the innovative applications of paper to create packaging that gives your product…

Two things led Melissa Butler to become an entrepreneur: She hated her Wall Street job; and as a black woman, she couldn’t find lipstick that complemented her skin tone. “Growing up, I never saw people who looked like me and were considered beautiful,” she says. “As I got older, I started understanding how the beauty industry perpetuates this BS, linear idea of beauty.” So Butler set out to create a better beauty brand, offering vegan, cruelty-free lipsticks in bold shades like purple and green. She had no idea what she was doing—but naïveté served her well, forcing her to take risks when she had no other option. Today, thanks to relentless hard work (and a little bit of stalking), The Lip Bar is an 8-year-old brand with $2 million in funding…