By All Means

“Video games are an amazing covert teaching mechanism,” says Jules Porter, founder of Seraph 7 Studios, a Minneapolis-based videogame development studio on a mission to fight racism and build empathy by creating diverse characters and games that show the BIPOC community in a positive light.

The epiphany hit as she toured Rome for the first time and realized she knew her way around because she had learned the city through a video game. Porter was a law student at the time, a path she decided to pursue following a troubling string of shootings of Black teenagers by white police officers.

“I just felt so powerless,” Porter says. She listened to a Tedx Talk given by Dr. Artika Tyner, a University of St. Thomas law professor who said: “Law is the language of power.” And that solidified Porter’s decision to enroll. But midway through, Porter began to question whether it was enough.

“The law can provide consequences, it can help set policy. But the issue, if a person doesn’t even see us as human, there’s something in the heart that the law can’t reach. How do we build empathy from the inside out?”

Porter’s answer: video games.

“Eighty percent of Black youths play video games, but only 3 percent of the protagonists look like us and they’re not even good guys. It’s so rare to find positive Black characters,” Porter says, pointing out that the number of BIPOC individuals and women who work as gaming programmers is negligible. “The decision makers are white men…in order for us to change the narrative and put more positive images out there, we need BIPOC folks to be part of the creative side.”

Porter started sketching out game ideas while finishing law school. For a while, she clerked for a judge by day, and worked on her startup by night. Being accepted to the Finnovation Lab accelerator allowed her to finally focus on the business. Additional mentorship and funding comes from the American Express x iFund Women of Color 100 for 100 program.

Porter’s first console video game, due out later this year, is called Elder Battle Royale and features an even split of male and female characters from diverse backgrounds. The characters are also seniors who fight enemies with weaponized walkers.

There’s another side to Seraph 7 Studios. Porter wants to raise up a more diverse generation of coders by teaching BIPOC students to code. “There’s a lot of untapped opportunity.”

The early attention Porter has received for her efforts, coupled with a string of grants and awards, could create undue pressure for a first time founder. But Porter says she feels driven, and optimistic. She thinks often of a favorite Oprah Winfrey quote: “Don’t focus on being successful; focus on being substantial and the success will come.”

Following our conversation with Porter, we go Back to the Classroom with AnnMarie Thomas, professor of entrepreneurship at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business and director of the UST Playful Learning Lab where she's observed firsthand how much kids absorb through play.

“We know that kids are engaged differently in their learning when they’re having fun, seeing people who look like them,” Porter says.

Thomas also points out how Porter’s eclectic interests—gaming, law, travel, theology—led to her idea for Seraph 7.

“The secret to new ideas: they don’t come from just business classes; they come from all aspects of life. Ideas are everywhere,” says Thomas, pointing out that a liberal arts college like St. Thomas was able to support Porter as her interests and focus evolved. “Ideas are everywhere. Put yourself in situations for lifelong learning. Jules brings one heck of a toolbox to everything she does.”

Never in modern history has office space been more disrupted than during the Covid-19 pandemic. And as CEOs contemplate how to bring workers back—whether they’ll bring workers back—architect and commercial designer Betsy Vohs is helping businesses reconsider the purpose of the office.

“When else do you get a chance like this, to rethink the office?”

Vohs is the founder and CEO of Studio BV in Minneapolis, a boutique design firm that works across industries, from medical clinics to apartment buildings to the headquarters for companies such as Digi International, nVent, and Evereve. Studio BV’s pro bono arm, Design Forward, works on projects for non-profit clients.

“Good design creates something powerful,” Vohs says. “Space can tell your story.”

How does that story change as a result of Covid-19? “Now we know why office space matters,” Vohs says. “We can do a fine job on Zoom, but we can’t innovate, we can’t create culture.”

Not one Studio BV client plans a full-time return to the office. Vohs expects more independent work to happen at home, even when it’s safe to come back, so that means fewer cubicles and dedicated workstations while upping the emphasis on what she calls “innovation space.”

Take note: Vohs shares some of her favorite design tips and resources.

After our conversation with Vohs we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Associate Professor of Management Erica Diehn studies meaningful work, and in the wake of Covid, that includes thinking about where we find meaning, and the important role place plays in creating high quality connections.

“Our best work—curiosity, new ideas—that kind of creation doesn’t happen in solitude or when we’re powering through tasks. We need idle space in our brains.” Commuting to the office used to provide that time, and part of the reason working from home is proving stressful to many is that “every second of time is taken up by a present need.”

“Stepping into the office can be a relief,” Diehn says, echoing Vohs’ sentiments on the way companies are going to rethink the office. “How do we create environments that reward the fact that I get to go to the office today. How do we make spaces that inspire more of that?”

Renay Dossman built her career with Fortune 500 companies, moving from Cargill to Target, where she found her passion in food innovation. But after years of traveling the world for food trends, developing products, and eventually taking her expertise to Winn-Dixie where she developed concept stores to serve Black and LatinX neighborhoods, Dossman left the corporate world in search of something more. She found her way to the Neighborhood Development Center, a nationally lauded community development financial institution that provides training, small business loans, and incubator space to low income and BIPOC entrepreneurs.

“NDC believes in building communities from within,” says Dossman, who became president of the nonprofit in 2019. “They believe in the power of entrepreneurship to develop generational wealth, to develop a community.”

That mission resonated with Dossman, who grew up in Chicago public housing projects. “Where I lived, we didn’t have a lot of businesses. If you saw a business owner, they were usually a leader in the community.”

NDC has helped more than 6,000 entrepreneurs. The organization estimates that for every dollar put into a local business, $40 goes back to the community. And the entrepreneurs who come to NDC don’t have options like angel investors or friends and family funding.

“These are people coming to this country – what America is about,” Dossman says. “You should be able to come here and do things and make it. They just need a leg up, just need an opportunity.”

NDC co-owns the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis, home to many ethnic restaurants and retail businesses started by immigrants from all parts of the world. The market was particularly hard hit by the pandemic—many of its vendors don’t even have websites, let alone the ability to offer e-commerce or delivery. So NDC introduced tech support, reduced rent, and stepped up loans. And just when it felt like they were getting a handle on the economic impact, George Floyd was killed eight blocks from the market.

“It just felt like everything stopped. I honestly didn’t know how to go on.”

But there was no time to grieve as the market and the small businesses that surround it were threatened, and in many cases, destroyed, in protests that turned violent. “These are immigrants—people trying to make a living, and they’re trying to burn the market down,” Dossman recalls of that harrowing week in May, choking back the tears. “These were not people from our community who know what that market means.”

The work continues, from more funding to help with rebuilding efforts to legal assistance and culturally specific mental health services. “We dug in and stepped up. I’ll do everything I can to keep these entrepreneurs going. I’m not giving up.”

Following our conversation with Dossman, we go Back to the Classroom with University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business associate dean and diversity, equity, and inclusion ambassador Nakeisha Lewis to talk about disparities in funding for entrepreneurs of color.

“Minority businesses are three times more likely to be denied credit, they rarely VC funding, they often pay higher interest rates. There are distinct differences and gaps in how they’re treated as entrepreneurs,” Lewis says.

The answer, she says, is more tools, resources, and a fair chance at capital. “As we’re designing solutions for entrepreneurs, they should reflect local realities. We need programming that speaks to what’s culturally relevant and important to these groups.”

Behind every plant-based burger, oat milk latte, and protein shake is one essential ingredient: pea protein. Without it, there’s no Beyond Meat.

Minneapolis-based PURIS, fueled by a $100 million investment from Cargill, is the largest U.S. manufacturer of pea protein, and PURIS CEO Tyler Lorenzen says the company is just getting started.

“Anything currently consumed as animal protein, PURIS is going to solve with plants to build a more efficient, sustainable, resilient food system,” Lorenzen says. “If we can do it in the U.S., we can do abroad.”

Lorenzen didn’t expect to be leading a division of PURIS Holdings, the company started by his visionary father Jerry Lorenzen in 1985 in Iowa to develop high protein crops. Tyler Lorenzen played professional football for the New Orleans Saints, which won Super Bowl XLIV his rookie year. But when his football career ended sooner than expected—“I got cut,” Lorenzen deadpans—he quickly shifted to the other field that had figured prominently in his life thanks to his father’s work as a plant breeder: the farm field.

“My dad saw in the mid-‘80s that eating animals to get protein was not sustainable. We needed to grow plants to feed people. And if we can make plants higher in protein, we can build a more efficient food system. That was the business my dad started, and the business we operate at scale today.”

With the support of Cargill, PURIS will open a new pea protein processing plant this year in Dawson, Minn. Lorenzen expects the business to double in 2021 as PURIS continues to make strides in regenerative agriculture—from seed to shelf.

“How do you create something game changing? It’s this concept of not being afraid to fail,” Lorenzen says. “You’ve got to be willing to take risks to do things that can change the world.”

His goal is lofty: improve the health of people and planet. But he relates that mission back to football. “Having the drive to do things bigger than myself—that’s what sports has helped to create. Winning is so much better than losing. So we try to win as much as possible.”

Fun fact: Tom Brady’s TB12 plant-based protein mixes are made with PURIS pea protein.

After our conversation with Lorenzen about innovation and the future of food, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Executive Fellow and adjunct marketing professor Craig Herkert encourages entrepreneurs to “do something you believe in.”

“I don’t know that we can point to any successful business person who says the goal was to get rich. The goal is do so something big, something that matters.”

After 15 years at Google, Mary Grove made a sharp career turn that baffled many Silicon Valley insiders. She decided to become a venture capital investor—in Minnesota. “We got a lot of raised eyebrows…it didn’t necessarily make linear sense.” But Grove looked ahead, thinking: “where is the future of the innovation economy going to be written?”

Serving as founding director of Google for Startups, supporting entrepreneurs in more than 100 countries gave Grove a taste of the innovation happening far beyond Silicon Valley. She joined Steve Case’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund with a focus on Midwest ventures. In 2020, she co-founded her own VC firm with entrepreneur Brett Brohl called Bread & Butter Ventures—a nod to her adopted home state and to Minnesota’s deep industry expertise and corporate connections. Bread & Butter focuses on early-stage ventures in ag tech, med tech and enterprise software—with an emphasis not only on the products, but the people. Of the 36 companies they’ve invested in so far, 43 percent have a founder of color; 30 percent are female.

“We invest in team, team, team, product, market, traction,” Grove says emphasizing that the product might change, but “if we pick the right team, we’ll find the answer.”

She believes in providing opportunities to entrepreneurs who don’t fit the mold, and that starts early. Grove is the co-founder and executive director of Silicon North Stars, a nonprofit that she and her husband Steve founded in 2013 to help young Minnesotans from underserved communities pursue careers in tech. She also serves on the boards of Vital Voices, the Minneapolis Foundation, and the Techstars Foundation.

Grove talks about the experience of working for one of the ultimate Silicon Valley startups, offers advice for entrepreneurs who seek funding, and discusses how Covid-19 will change the innovation economy.

After our conversation we go Back to the Classroom with University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Associate professor of entrepreneurship John McVea points out several takeaways that have contributed to Grove’s success in tech without being a technologist. “She loves to find new areas, dive deep, learn fast, and immerse herself. Critical thinking will never go out of date.” Don’t be afraid of failure, he adds. “Reach for partners, take small risks. Start where you are—know what you know, who you know, and build out from there.”

In the 1990s, when Lee Wallace told business schools she was interested in studying the intersection of mission and money, they steered her into public policy. It was a time before B-corps and one-for-one brands. “Purpose” wasn’t the business buzzword it is today. But even armed with that master’s degree in public policy, Wallace continued to believe in the power of doing good while doing well. Eventually she found her way to a for-profit company founded on a mission to help farmers. That was Peace Coffee, an early champion of the fair trade model to create a transparent and sustainable system that directly benefits farmers and their communities.

“The thing that’s so amazing about being presented with the opportunity to run a business founded to do the right thing is authenticity,” says Wallace, who came on as CEO in 2002 and bought the business in 2018 from its founding nonprofit, the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy.

Today, Wallace is a recognized leader in social enterprise business, as well as fair trade enterprises and specialty coffee importers. She holds leadership roles in the Climate Collaborative and the B corps movement. And she doesn’t apologize for Peace Coffee’s success, because selling more coffee means purchasing more coffee beans at fair prices from farming cooperatives around the world.

With a new eco-friendly Minneapolis manufacturing facility, Peace was well positioned at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis to respond to the sudden spike in coffee bean sales for home brewing. In 2020, Peace Coffee doubled its store accounts with Target and added 70 more Whole Foods stores. Despite losing the 15 percent of sales that came from restaurants, theaters, and offices, Wallace says she expects to end the year up 17 percent.

But the challenges persist. The Peace Coffee headquarters is just off East Lake Street, near the Minneapolis Police Third Precinct that was burned down in protests following George Floyd’s killing. She talks about what it will take to restore the multicultural neighborhood’s vibrancy. And although it had not yet been announced publicly at the time of this conversation, Wallace shared that Peace Coffee is getting out of the coffee shop business to focus on growing wholesale. But even in that, she found a way to make it count, by partnering with nonprofit Wildflyer Coffee, which provides jobs to homeless youth.

After our conversation with Wallace, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Case Frid is an assistant professor in the department of entrepreneurship whose work focuses on how business relates to community. “A corporate purpose is about your core reason for being and the impact your organization wants to have on the world,” Frid says. “It’s got to be relational, not transactional.”

Have you ever come up with what you thought was a really clever social media handle, sure to be your key to fame and fortune, only to find it’s been taken?

Ahmed El Shourbagy is the envy of all would-be influencers. He’s the guy who grabbed the handle @dogsofinstagram in 2011. It happened not with a business plan in mind—influencer marketing wasn’t even a thing back then in the early days of Instagram—it was just a fun way to gather cute images of dogs, like his own Boston terrier/pug mix, Lucy. But as the following quickly grew to hundreds, thousands, and then millions, Ahmed and his now-wife Ashley, whom he met on day 10 of @dogsofinstagram, started seeing possibilities.

They also saw the limitations of building a brand on a social media platform. Ahmed and Ashley parlayed a social media following that now stands at 4.7 million into a retail brand and platform they own. Lucy & Co. is a direct-to-consumer brand specializing in stylish dog accessories and apparel (the likes of which you might find on @dogsofinstagram). It took a while to find its footing, but Lucy & Co. it is now the fastest growing and most lucrative part of their business, with demand accelerated in 2020 thanks to a pandemic uptick in dog ownership and online shopping.

Ahmed and Ashley talk about the paths that led them to entrepreneurship, the evolution of influencer marketing, and the transition from founder to CEO of a growing company.

Then we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Retail marketing expert Kim Sovell, participating adjunct marketing faculty, says the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated conversion to online shopping. “We’ve seen 10 years worth of changes in the way we shop in just a few months,” she says. Her best advice to retail brands launching today: “Know your consumers at a granular level.”

“Sales will take you anywhere.”

That skill took Jill Blashack Strahan from a small farm town where she ran a café and didn’t dare to dream much bigger to founder and CEO of national meal prep brand Tastefully Simple. At its peak in 2008, Tastefully Simple hit $143 million in sales with 20,000 sales associates executing home parties in small towns and big cities across the country. Mission: bringing people together to answer that age-old question, “What are we going to eat for dinner?”

But after hitting that peak, sales began to slide. And slide. For 11 straight years, Tastefully Simple lost ground. For nearly seven years, there was no profit whatsoever. Strahan invested her own money to keep the company afloat—ignoring the advice of several turnaround consultants. “I just believed in my heart it was not time to give up on this.”

Indeed, Tastefully Simple is once again profitable. With a much leaner executive team and renewed focus on sales and marketing training, Tastefully Simple was well positioned to pivot to virtual parties during the Covid-19 pandemic and has benefitted from renewed interest in home cooking and a desire to socialize—even if over Zoom—around food.

Strahan takes us on her entrepreneurial—the jobs that led to her a-ha moment and the sacrifice it took to pull it off. “Fear is a great motivator,” she says.

But what would a business professor have told her during the dark days of declining sales? After our conversation with Strahan, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Professor David Deeds, the Schulze Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship points out the fundamental difference between founder and CEO. “There’s a commitment and passion in an entrepreneur that is different than in a CEO. In terms of economics, she should have found a buyer. But from a personal standpoint, it made sense to keep going.”

“Our vision is to be a role model for inclusion in the industry,” says Rosemary Ugboajah, founder and CEO of Neka Creative, a Minneapolis-based brand development agency that makes inclusion a centerpiece of every project it takes on through a proprietary process dubbed Inclusivity Marketing.

She entered the advertising industry without many preconceptions, having grown up primarily in Nigeria, without television. While in college in London to study engineering, she found herself drawn to design; an opportunity to learn the business side of advertising led her to the University of Minnesota.

Ugboajah started her agency a decade ago, after years of working in other agencies and for Target Corp. She calls Neka Creative her “protest movement”—a response to stereotypes being perpetuated in marketing and a lack of diversity in the field. Her efforts toward inclusion included eliminating set office hours and diverse hiring practices. “We made a commitment and we’re still working on it. You’re always working on it.”

The racial reckoning sparked by the death of George Floyd left Ugboajah feeling frustrated. “I was so angered by all the commitment emails I received—‘We’re committed to racial equity; we’re committed to diversity and inclusion.' I kept reading for concrete action steps, thinking: there’s no plan here. You have to tell us what you’re going to measure….People don’t want to stay in an uncomfortable place, but there’s no quick fix to becoming inclusive.”

Ugboajah shares how her upbringing in Nigeria and London influenced her views on equity and inclusion, and steps businesses can take to move toward transformative change. After our conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business diversity, equity and inclusion ambassador Nakeisha Lewis.

“It’s a great time for making change, holding people accountable,” Lewis says. “My suggestion: think about what are some actionable things we can hold our organizations to. Business organizations understand metrics: recruitment, retention, how are we ensuring voices are amplified.”

It’s a good time to be in the business of selling immunity. Minneapolis-based wellness company So Good So You makes plant-based juice shots packed with probiotics that support the immune and digestive system. Each variety is named for the “need’ it addresses: Energy, Sleep, Detox, and the No. 1 seller, Immunity. At the start of 2020, the 2-ounce So Good So You shots were sold at 3,000 stores; now they’re at more than 4,000 stores in 47 states including Target, Publix, and Sprouts. The company, which has the backing of investors, managed to meet and exceed its 2020 sales projections and hit profitability.

“What the pandemic has done is accelerate this movement of people understanding that investing proactively and managing their own health pays dividends when it comes to their immunity,” says co-founder Rita Katona. In 2014, she left a corporate job at Target Corp. to start a health and wellness company with her husband Eric Hall, a serial entrepreneur. It started as a cold-pressed juice café called Juice So Good, which expanded to three Minneapolis locations. Juice shots were simply an item on the menu, but became so popular, Katona and Hall decided to packaging them for wholesale and quickly realized the shots were a far bigger opportunity.

“In entrepreneurship, you can’t let any single failure stop you,” Hall says. “You have to keep iterating.”

So Good So You recently introduced its biggest innovation to date: a sustainable bottle it calls the BtrBtl that features a proprietary additive which allows it to biodegrade in landfills at an accelerated rate.

“Everything we do goes through the filter of is it the best we can do at this moment for the environment?” Hall says. “This a long-term investment that is authentic to who we are, but we did it because we think it’s the right thing to do.” It’s one of many things the couple loves about building their own company: “As a company, you can do more good in the world than you can as an individual.”

Katona and Hall talk about their very different paths to entrepreneurship, the opportunities ahead in the wellness space, and the importance of being willing to pivot. Afterwards, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Professor David Deeds, the Schulze Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship, emphasizes the important of listening to consumers in the early days of a startup.