By All Means

Fitness wasn’t a career path when Chris Freytag attended college, but her lifelong passion for movement and wellness led her to become an entrepreneur—even before she knew that's what she was doing. Today, Freytag is a national fitness expert and author with a massive social media following. She's the founder of content platform Get Healthy U and on-demand subscription workout program Get Healthy U TV.

Freytag walks us through the many paths she pursued along the way to running her own business—from making dance aerobics VHS tapes in the 1980s to selling smoothie makers on QVC. Through it all, her mission is clear: “I want to educate, inspire, and sometimes make people laugh…because you’ve got to keep it real.”

Freytag talks about aging, as well as fitness trends and what it means to live a healthy life. “The fitness industry is about looking good. But if that’s your only why, it won’t last. You have to have deeper ‘why’s.’”

Through it all, Freytag says she’s learned a lot about herself, and business. “Use your connections. Get to know people. Be kind-hearted. Give to people, and get back from them because you never know where it’s going to take you.”

After our conversation with Freytag, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Marcella de la Torre, who teaches courses on leadership and business ethics, talks about turning passion into a profession.

We talk endlessly about diet and exercise. But what about sleep? There’s no class in school, and in the workplace, there’s often a stigma around admitting fatigue. That’s where Sarah Moe saw her opportunity. "I tell people: I work in sleep medicine. That's a real job."

A Board Registered Polysomnographic Technologist (RPSGT) who spent 10 years working for sleep medicine clinics, Moe created her own consultancy called Sleep Health Specialists. She spends most of her time helping businesses learn how to make their culture more sleep friendly. Today, 20 percent of the population suffers from a sleep disorder. The average employee costs an employer $3,000 per year from being tired—that’s illness, absenteeism and lack of productivity.

Moe talks about how she set up her practice, how the corporate community is responding, and the enemy of sleep that’s even worse than caffeine: blue light. And what to do about it.

After our conversation with Moe, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Mike Porter is faculty director of the health care innovation program. He says that a lot of times, entrepreneurs who are so passionate about their pursuit can be challenged to make good business decisions. He talks about what Moe is doing right and what’s in it for companies that promote sleep.

At a time when modern design wasn’t readily accessible to the masses, college friends Maurice Blanks and John Christakos, with their friend Charlie Lazor, channeled a shared passion for art, architecture and design into contemporary furniture brand Blu Dot. “There was a whole segment of the market unexplored,” Blanks says. “The J.Crew of furniture.”

The line was a hit when it launched at a trade show in 1997 and the founders never looked back. Today, Blu Dot has stores in eight U.S. cities and in Mexico and Australia and a growing commercial interiors division. Blu Dot won the 2018 Cooper Hewitt National Design award for Product Design.

“It's great to see the vision really coming to life now, 22 years later, the way we always wanted it to," Blanks says. "There’s just so much room for continued growth." 

Blanks and Christakos discuss design thinking—an approach they apply to both furniture and leadership. “Our core value: good design is good. We see everything as a design opportunity,” Christakos says. “It’s not just products, but organizational structure, compensation. Business decisions are design decisions.”

To that end, the founders say Blu Dot started as a design company. "It could have been picture frames, knick knacks—we talked a lot from the very beginning about what the brand would be about and how could we create a company that someone would describe like they would describe a person," Blanks says. "With a real sense of self." 

Christakos adds one of the best pieces of advice he received from a mentor: "Pick something you love to do and trust you'll do it better. It was a real epiphany for me. A lot of folks think when they start a business they have to come up with the big idea, something new. Starting a furniture business is not a new idea."

Blanks and Christakos talk about building a company the old-fashioned way: by reinvesting profits rather than taking outside investments, and why they think the availability of VC money has actually made starting a business more difficult. They also talk about the changing retail landscape and how it shifted their sales strategy.

After our conversation with Blanks and Christakos, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Alec Johnson is an associate professor in the department of entrepreneurship. “Most good design is human-centered design,” he says, and offers tips on how to think about a design centered approach to business.

While working at HealthPartners as a front desk registrar, Katrina Anderson noticed that medical students were having trouble getting signed up for clinical rotations. She had the idea to create a platform that would allow hospitals to post their schedules online so students can easily and securely sign up. LinkedIn meets Airbn is how Anderson describes it. She and her partner called their software program Clinician Nexus. Founded in 2016, the startup has already raised $750,000 and is being used in 95 hospitals and 136 school schools around the country. They're just getting started.

Clinician Nexus is about more than real-time scheduling, Anderson says. The platform addresses what has become a major problem for hospitals and medical schools: providing medical students with enough clinical hours to finish their degrees. “We might not have enough physicians if we don’t have enough slots to teach them and they can’t graduate on time. When you invest in the health care system, it improves patient outcomes.”

Anderson talks health care, technology, raising funds (Clinician Nexus investors include the University of St Thomas, where Anderson earned her MBA) and becoming an accidental entrepreneur. “I’m trying to grow into being a CEO. It’s not an identity I ever thought I’d work with.” So what convinced her to go for it? “A world without Clinician Nexus was scarier than quitting my job.”

After our conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with Dan McLaughlin, director of the Center for Innovation in the Business of Health Care in the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. He says Anderson used classroom lessons in founding her business. “It’s the theory of constraints: you look for a bottleneck,” McLaughlin says. “She found one in scheduling.”

Fred Haberman is co-founder and CEO of Haberman, a Minneapolis-based branding, advertising, and public relations agency that counts Volvo, Organic Valley and Boston Scientific among its clients. But he’s also a social entrepreneur with a passion for organic foods, wellness, and the outdoors, and so Haberman continues to launch other ventures, even while running his agency.

Haberman founded the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships and grew it into an annual event drawing well over 20,000 players and spectators from across the country. He also co-founded Urban Organics, one of only two USDA certified organic aquaponics facilities in the country, which was acquired by Pentair in 2017.

His latest venture is Freak Flag Organics, a line of flavorful condiments and sauces now sold online and in local grocery stores. “The idea is to be yourself in the world, and in the kitchen,” he says, adding that this is the brand he intends to focus on for the foreseeable future. But as you’ll hear, Haberman always has another idea.

“Starting a business is kind of like a disease. It’s not always the healthiest thing to be creating things. I can't help myself.”

How do you strike the right balance between passion and profits? We talk about working on things you believe in, building partnerships, and managing the instinct to keep starting things.

After our conversation with Haberman, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Katherina Pattit is an associate professor of ethics and business law. For a serial entrepreneur, “the partnership piece is critical,” Pattit says. “When you have partners who understand the mission, you can work together for the benefit of each other’s strengths.”

By All Means host Allison Kaplan sits down with one of her mentors, Burt Cohen, founding publisher of Mpls.St.Paul Magazine and Twin Cities Business, to talk about the magazine business, leadership, and sandwiches.

A 1955 graduate of the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Cohen’s publishing career included management roles with the New York Times Media Company, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and Modern Medicine Publications. He purchased a small city magazine called MPLS in 1978 and transformed it into Mpls.St.Paul, now the Twin Cities’ leading lifestyle magazine and a leader in the field of city and regional magazines nationally. That was the beginning of MSP Communications, one of the first publishing companies in the country to create content for brands. MSP-C, the company's custom division, has developed more than 225 print and digital titles and platforms to date. In 1993, Cohen created MSP's second editorial magazine, Twin Cities Business, with the help of partners Gary Johnson, president of MSP Communications, and Brian Anderson, who served as editor of Mpls.St.Paul until his death in 2010. Cohen is TCB's founding publisher.

A mentor to many in business and publishing, Cohen has served on numerous boards including Medica, Minneapolis Institute of Arts and University of St. Thomas. He played a key role in modernizing the mission of the University of Minnesota School of Journalism.

Cohen continues to write a monthly column for Mpls.St.Paul Magazine. He is likely the only person on Twitter who types his tweets on a manual typewriter and hands them to an intern to be posted online @thecohenreport, which he never looks at. His LinkedIn profile, which is is also unaware he has, lists him as “old columnist.” But Cohen says coming to the office every day, lunching with business leaders and politicians, and reading several newspapers a day keeps him young.

His motto, in life and business: “Be gracious as you can and respectful and appreciative of everyone. If you’re polite and nice and civil and openminded to people’s thoughts and ideas, it will lead to success for you and will be heartwarming to them.”

Sisters Isabel and Caroline Bercaw started making bath bombs for fun when they were just 10 and 11 years old. Entrepreneurial at heart and encouraged by their parents, Kim and Ben Bercaw, the girls entered the youth division of the Uptown Art Fair in Minneapolis and sold out of bath bombs in a day. They came back the next year and caught the eye of a spa owner who wanted to sell their fizzy bath bombs with a “surprise” inside at his shop. They never looked back. Today, their bath bombs are sold at Target, Costco, and many other national retailers. Da Bomb Bath does around $20 million in annual revenue. And that figure could catapult, thanks to new branded partnerships with Barbie, Hot Wheels and Disney. 

Isabel, 18, is now a freshman at the University of St. Thomas—part of the Schulze Scholars program for students who have demonstrated entrepreneurial leadership. Caroline is finishing her senior year of high school. The two are co-creative directors of the company they started before they were old enough to incorporate on their own. Their mom Kim serves as CEO and dad Ben is CFO and COO of the Edina, Minn. Based company, which employs more than 150.

“Our parents have always inspired curiosity rather than fear in us,” the Bercaw sisters say. 

The sisters talk about what it's liek to make it big before high school, from their surprise success to what they’ve sacrificed along the way. They explain why they want to go to college, and what they want for their company as it continues to grow.

After our conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. “This generation of students, Generation Z, are a far more entrepreneurial generation,” says Laura Dunham, associate dean of the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. “They are learning a lot about entrepreneurship at an early age—there are tons of resources online, more programs at the high school level, and the world has changed, making it easier for any company to access customers, build capital-efficient supply chains. There’s more opportunity out there, and young people are grabbing it.”

David Kristal had no intention of going into business with his father Henry, co-founder of the Ember’s restaurant chain. But with the heyday of the 24-hour diner coming to an end and the 80-restaurant Midwestern chain losing money every month, Kristal joined his dad in 1997 to try to save the business.

He managed to slow the bleed, although the restaurants never fully rebounded. In the process of trying, however, Kristal steered the company into the loyalty business. “We were in total crisis mode trying to figure out how to cash roll the business to avoid bankruptcy. We didn’t have a reputation in the loyalty space; we had to create it.” One service client turned into many and soon, the company had an entirely new focus in engagement and loyalty management programs. 

Now called Augeo, the St. Paul-based company with more than 200 employees offers incentive and debit card membership programs in more than 50 countries. In 2018, Augeo spun off a fintech loyalty division for $140 million, and the company is growing again. In September, Augeo acquired enterprise engagement company MotivAction. It is expected to generate $350 million in annual revenue. 

Kristal talks about fostering a company culture that can withstand a total pivot, and being willing to fail. “There ain’t no magic to this stuff,” Krisal says. “You’ve got to keep pounding it out every day. You hope you have more good days than bad days and hope you can make your good days great.”

After our conversation with Kristal, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Dan McLaughlin teaches in the Operations and Supply Chain Management program. He points out how culture can impact a company’s ability to pivot. “The is a classic example of agile business: you try stuff. I bet in seven years, Augeo will be doing something else because they’re willing to try things and move on.”

Chris Plantan traded building high rises for designing three-ring binders. Surprised that she couldn’t find stylish school supplies for her daughter to use in middle school, Plantan left a lucrative career as an architect in 2003 to start russell + hazel, an office products line that changed an industry. Hers was the first brand in a commodity driven category to treat paper products and office supplies as design objects. Her patterned binders, lucite sticky note holders and gold staplers blended function and fashion, and even inspired Martha Stewart who became a big fan of the brand and helped create national demand.

Plantan sold russell + hazel, which is named for her grandparents, to Gartner Studios in 2009 and stayed on for three years. Next she co-founded a company called West Emory and took a very different approach, staying behind the scenes to design products for other retail brands including Crate & Barrel, Vineyard Vines, J.Crew, Target, and Nordstrom. She left earlier this year to recharge her creative battery. “I’m trying to take the advice I give to everyone about entrepreneurship: You don’t have to define it. To get to where you want to get, it’s stepping stones. Just take the next step.”

Plantan talks about finding the “white space” in consumer product goods and what makes architecture a great background for entrepreneurship. “It’s a classical education. You do have to have that right brain with all that engineering so it’s a good foundation, but still so lofty in your thinking. The top of that building is always in the sky. How you design a building is fundamentally product solving.”

She also shares her formula for staying head of consumer trends: “Read the Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today, and throw in a little Cosmo. Understand your consumer. Make sure (your product is) relevant, and looks great.”

After our conversation with Plantan ,we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. David Deeds, the Schultz Professor of Entrepreneurship, points to what made russell + hazel a success. “If you’re going to do an entrepreneurial business, you need to be differentiated. She figured out way to get the customer to look at product, not the price.”

You might not know the name Sue Remes, but you’ve no doubt come in contact with her work for Kiehl’s, Frederic Fekkai, Lancome, Murad, Bumble and Bumble, Kevin Murphy, and others. She started her career behind the makeup counter for Clinique and worked her way up to Regional Training Manager before moving to Aveda Corp. where she was National Sales Manager and learned from industry visionary Horst Rechelbacher. The experience informed her entire career, but it was the last time Remes worked on staff. She went on to found Sue Remes Resources and become one of the most sought-after experts in the beauty business.

Remes talks about the art and science of being a consultant and maintaining an outside perspective even while working on a brand for five to seven years. “I serve my clients better by being independent. I’m always thinking or looking at whatever they’re not thinking or looking at. What’s the thing right in front of you that no one else is seeing? That’s what I learned from Horst.”

For those who go into consulting for the flexibility, take note. “As a consultant, you’re always thinking about what you’ll do next.” Remes also spends nearly as much on the road as does at home. Often, she goes from exotic locales like Dubai and Singapore to the off-the-grid cabin she and her husband built in Ely, Minn. “Living in a situation where you don’t have electricity and you don’t have running water pushed everything I thought to be true about myself. I live this incredibly weird life where I’m on the road, I’m keynote speaking, I’m meeting people. Going to Ely takes it all down a notch for me so I can go back out there into the world.”

After a conversation with Remes that includes a look at market trends including genderless beauty, sustainability and purpose, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Associate Professor John McVea from the Schultz School of Entrepreneurship suggests consulting as a useful apprenticeship before starting a venture. “You’ve got to be a fast learner. Absorbing all the details of somebody else’s business is exhausting. But that mindset is what makes consultants tick.”