Entrepreneur's Startups Spring 2018

In 2008, after five years as a stay-at-home mom, hairstylist Alli Webb was ready for some grown-up time. She started traveling from home to home in Los Angeles, providing affordable blowouts (that’s a wash, a dry, and a style, gentlemen) to other moms who, like her, were eager for a small break from nonstop responsibilities. Nearly a decade later, Webb’s brainchild has grown into Drybar, a blowouts-only salon chain beloved by women across the country. The bar-themed business—styles offered include the Cosmo (loose curls) and the Mai Tai (beachy waves)—is chic and girly, and serves up as many mimosas as hairstyles in a given day. As the business works toward its 100th location and eyes international expansion, Webb is the first to admit that she and her cofounders—who are also her…

Amazon has grown into the largest internet retailer in the world; it’s home to an Oscar- and Emmy-winning production studio; its subscription service, Amazon Prime, reached 90 million members last year (up from 58 million in 2016); and it’s made founder Jeff Bezos one of the richest men on the planet. This success alone—to see opportunities where others haven’t, and move into them faster than others can—makes him one of the most daring entrepreneurs of all time. But alongside that, Bezos has proven himself adept at taking on totally unexpected challenges. Case in point: Last year’s purchase of Whole Foods markets and his stewardship of The Washington Post . In sum, Bezos doesn’t just buy a company—he uses it to rethink an industry. To understand how his impact spreads beyond his…

1 YOU DON’T HATE THEM. “I ask myself what I call ‘the airport question.’ I imagine I’m stranded at the airport and my flight is delayed by three hours. If I saw this investor in the airport, would I walk right up to them and say, ‘Great, we get to spend some time together!’ or would I turn away and hope they didn’t notice me? If I can’t emphatically say it’s the former, they aren’t the right fit.” —Patrick Quinlan, CEO, Convercent 2 THEIR REFERENCES CHECK OUT. “I ask potential investors for an introduction to a portfolio company that isn’t a high performer or that has been challenging to support. Every early-stage investor, at some point, struggles with a company, because startups have big ups and downs. Do a reference check with the portfolio…

We’re past the point where we should be surprised by anything Terry Crews does. The former NFL player and current actor ( Brooklyn Nine-Nine) and author is now in the design business—both as a patron and an acclaimed furniture designer. In the process, he has learned a lot about the nature of creativity, the art of managing creative people, and the exhilarating terror of entrepreneurship. How’d you wind up in the furniture business, Terry? It’s amazing what happens when you just go for things. I have a friend who studied design. Ini Archibong. We would always bump into each other in Pasadena and talk art, talk design, the whole thing. And then we fell out of contact—I went my way, and he went his. But once I started getting a little more…

Don’t annoy your customers. If there’s a cardinal rule of email marketing, that’s it. Thus, most marketers describe the ideal email strategy as a careful balancing act between frequency and engagement. Sure, you need to send enough emails to stay on the customer’s radar. But send too many and your subscribers will flee, your click and open rates will plummet, and you will find yourself branded a common spammer. For a time, Dela Quist shared this fear. Quist, CEO of British and U.S. email marketing firm Alchemy Worx, “started out where everyone else did, worrying about open rates and trying to get them as high as possible,” he says. Then he began digging into the numbers, looking at client campaigns for evidence that a business could get better results by sending…

I’m about to start a business, but I want someone to help juggle the responsibilities. How do I find a cofounder who’s the right fit? —ELIZABETH L. TO COFOUND or not to cofound? It’s a complicated question many entrepreneurs face, and the search for a partner can feel more like a game of roulette than a calculated business decision. Do you need a cofounder to succeed? Not necessarily. But if you want to build a dynamic duo, there are several factors to consider. Elizabeth, if you were located in Denver, I’d have you sit down for coffee with Andrew Schremp, a friend of mine and the founder and CEO of Health Sqyre, a patient-oriented online marketplace for medical equipment. He went through a valuable breakup with a potential cofounder—and I say “valuable”…