By All Means

"If you're someone who can express yourself, be an expert, gain the trust and be an authentic with an audience, there are unlimited outlets. Media in some ways is more interesting than ever. In other ways, it's harder than ever."

Straight out of journalism school, Stephen Regenold turned his passion for outdoor adventure into a newspaper column called GearJunkie. A few years later, in 2006, he launched gearjunkie.com, which built up a large and devoted audience for its expert product reviews, and became an authority on all things travel and adventure for both experts and novices.

In 2020, he sold the brand to Lola Digital Media, now AllGear Digital, and became vice president of strategy. Now he identifies other niche websites to acquire and grow.

Regenold talks about what audiences and advertisers are looking for, and how to build an engaging content hub today.

Following our conversation, we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Alec Johnson teaches entrepreneurship. He says Regenold's story speaks to the importance of being focused, disciplined, and networking. "Always focus on content and audience, and work really really hard to understand who that audience is."

Twin brothers Rob and Ryan Weber famously started their first company, Freeze.com, out of a St. Cloud State dorm room. They had their first exit before graduating, and a decade later, sold tech startup NativeX to mobile ad platform mobVista for $25 million. All told, the Webers have been involved in more than 50 startups. Today, they're focused on funding them through their venture capital firm, Great North Ventures. They are fierce champions of entrepreneurship—particularly in greater Minnesota, and small towns that don't have all the resources. They share advice on being scrappy and determined; not raising too much and not selling too early; and the billion dollar idea they're still searching for.

After our conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. Professor Jay Ebben teaches entrepreneurship from the investor side. "We teach students to think like investors," he says. "What stands out most about Rob and Ryan is the authenticity with which they operate. That's under appreciated in the VC world, and it's a big part of their story."

It took nearly a decade for Tim Murphy and his father Dennis to build Softies into a modestly profitable women’s loungewear brand, and just one mention by Oprah to catapult it into a whole new stratosphere.

A career manufacturer’s rep specializing in women’s apparel, Dennis Murphy decided to start his own company in 2006. Inspired by his wife Peggy who was battling leukemia, Dennis Murphy created a line of super soft, moisture wicking sleepwear. His son Tim Murphy joined the business, based out of their Edina garage, in 2008 and together, they built a decent following. "It was enough to live on, but we were at the point where it was stagnant," Tim Murphy says.

Six years ago, at a Dallas trade show, the Softies Snuggle Lounger caught the eye of Oprah’s longtime creative director Adam Glassman. Softies debuted on Oprah’s Favorite Things list is 2017 and has managed to stay on the list every year since.

How does a small company prepare for an Oprah-sized spotlight and not buckle under the pressure? Tim Murphy, who has served as president since his father retired, talks about how Softies has leveraged the attention to keep growing—from hiring a CEO to expanding the product assortment. He shares advice on leadership, perseverance, and product development.

"You have to make a quality product, you have to sell a product you believe in. If you don’t believe what you’re selling, no one else is going to believe you.”

Following our conversation with Murphy, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Marketing professor Mike Porter points out that Softies didn’t just get lucky in making the Oprah list; the company positioned itself to get recognized and was ready to make the most of the opportunity. “That’s just good business,” Porter says.

She may be the only beauty industry executive who is also a veterinarian with a Ph.D. in molecular biology. In 2009, Dr. Simone Xavier founded Sigma Beauty with her husband Renee Filho, while working as an assistant clinical professor within the University of Minnesota’s College of Veterinary Medicine. By day, she led a lab that developed vaccines and diagnostic tests. By night, she studied beauty influencers on YouTube to learn what products they liked and where holes in the market existed.

Sigma Beauty started with makeup brushes, which Xavier sent to beauty YouTubers for feedback. They responded by sharing the discovery of the new indie line making high quality brushes at prices lower than the leading brands of the day, and Sigma Beauty caught fire. Today, the company brand based in Mendota Heights, Minn. produces around 300 products including makeup, brushes and cleaning items. Sigma is sold in 70 countries around the world and in major department stores across the U.S.

Xavier and her husband bootstrapped the company and have no interest in selling. “We have a vision, a plan, a lot of growth coming up,” Xavier says. That includes a partnership with Disney, a new skincare line, and a move toward clean cosmetics.

Xavier talks about the evolution of influencer marketing, product development, and building a consumer brand.

“The biggest misconception is that you need millions,” she says. “Stop. Just relax. Come up with your product, fine tune it the way you feel is best, show your passion online, and you will connect with the audience.”

As for her nontraditional background in veterinary medicine and science? Xavier says she wouldn’t change a thing. “My training was critical. You learn so much of critical thinking, trend analysis, research. All of that, I use today on this business and could have used on any business.”

Following our conversation with Xavier we go back to the classroom with University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business marketing professor Gino Giovanelli who offers advice on how businesses can leverage social media. Don’t go for the influencer with the biggest audience, he says; you’re better off partnering with someone authentic who has smaller numbers. And beyond amplifying your brand, leverage social media for brand feedback that can inform product development.

“Art is about exploration, process, potential.”

A glassblower by training, Jackson Schwartz is an entrepreneur by instinct. A graduate of the Australian National University, renowned for its glass program, Schwartz returned to the Midwest to teach, and co-founded the Hennepin Made glass lighting studio in 2012 with the goal of creating jobs for his students, and himself. Today, Hennepin Made manufactures lighting for Room & Board and sells direct to consumer while also growing its business clients in commercial architecture and luxury residential design.

You’d think that would be enough to keep the artist-turned-business owner occupied, but Schwartz set his sights on broader goals. He purchased a 30,000-square-foot industrial building on the edge of downtown Minneapolis to give the business plenty of room to scale, and also, to transform an underutilized pocket of the urban core, which he helped to name the Root District. “I want to see artistic production in the city,” Schwartz says. “We have the opportunity to weave it into the fabric of the neighborhood and what happens to downtown. We can show the business community what art does.”

With passion comes a tendency to “go both feet in really fast.” Schwartz talks about opening a café and event space at Hennepin Made’s headquarters, and realizing he was in over his head. “I’ve learned that there’s only so much you can provide for altruistic reasons; you’ve got to really understand the implications for the existing business.” The café closed and the events business has been recalibrated so that Schwartz can find balance—professionally, and personally. That means getting back to the thing that inspired it all: a love of blowing glass.

To further examine the relationship of art and business, we go Back to the Classroom with John McVea, a professor at the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. “The separation we tend to make between art and business is not very healthy and will be even less important in the future,” McVea says. “Businesses that are closer to the arts are probably the future for employment in an economy like ours. Arts are the things that mean the most to us and are hardest to replicate by machines.”

The decision Lisa Hannum made back in 1998 to leave the world of large communications agencies and start her own, to find balance as both a mother and professional, proved prescient as she scaled through the years. It made her agency especially adaptable when the pandemic hit. Beehive Strategic Communication had always been a hybrid workplace, where employees knew they could get a haircut in the middle of the day without being judged. But flexible and responsive does not mean fully remote. Beehive opened a new office in late 2022 that prioritizes gathering space, wellness, and technology. Hannum expected employees to come in one or two times per week, but they’re showing up even more than that, and clients want to meet at “The Hive” as well. Hannum walks us through the process of designing the office of the future, and creating a culture that makes employees feel trusted. “If you talk to your employees about flexibility and then don’t deliver, they will leave,” Hannum says. “Our team is so invested in the space because they designed it. When we trust in our people, it is repaid in immeasurable ways.”

There’s no going back to the way work used to be, Hannum says. “We’re wired for change. What we need to understand as leaders, regardless of if your company is micro sized or global, it’s always about the people.”

Following our conversation with Hannum, we go Back to the Classroom with Mike Porter, marketing professor at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business, who discusses the importance of culture. “To the degree you have an established culture, you can take forward what’s working,” Porter says. “If you don’t have an established culture, be intentional about it.” Culture is your magnet, Porter says, and don’t get hung up on catering to everyone. “You don’t want everybody. You want the ones who want to play with the kinds of clients, work, environment you have. It’s just a new variable in the way we do that.

"There was no one better positioned to build a solution than the three of us," says Jazz Hampton, co-founder and CEO of TurnSignl, a tech platform that provides on demand legal advice to drivers with the goal of deescalating police interactions and ensuring that everyone "gets home safe."

The app launched in 2021, a year after the murder of George Floyd at the hand of a Minneapolis Police officer. At that time in Minneapolis, Hampton was working as a corporate attorney. His partners were also in rising stars in their careers, both with MBAs: Mychal Frelix worked in sales for Sony Electronics; Andre Creighton worked for major accounting firms and Cargill. Three Black professionals.

"I spoke on so many panels," says Hampton," But it wasn't enough. I felt guilt as a Black lawyer in [Minneapolis] representing large companies. There were so many more opportunities to use this degree in a way that could help people."

TurnSignl is now live in 25 states and expects to be in all 50 this year. In addition to selling annual subscriptions to consumers, the bigger opportunity is selling to businesses that are starting to offer TurnSignl as an employee benefit. Built as a dual-sided marketplace, TurnSignl charges its on-call lawyers. Some join for altruistic reasons, the partners say, others use it to find new clients. The next frontier: partnerships with car makers that want to build TurnSignl into vehicles. "In the same way people say 'I Ubered home,' we want people to say, I was pulled over, but I used TurnSignl," Hampton says. Adds Creighton, "it's the want that everyone has: to get home safe."

Takeaways

Following our conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with Sheneeta White, associate dean of the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship for a conversation about social enterprise.

"They're using business as a vehicle for social change," she says. "It's everything we teach about social entrepreneurship." The keys to making it work: spotting a need in the community, having a vision for improvement, and then creating a sustainable business to meet that need."

"A white haired gentleman came in the door and said I heard about this deal at the Minneapolis Club and I want to invest. And I'm sitting there going, I don't see and women—white haired or otherwise—knocking on the door saying I heard about this deal and I want to invest." 

In 1998, Cathy Connett co-founded one of the nation’s first angel investment funds. Sofia Fund invests in high-growth, women-led businesses. Connett stepped away from a successful corporate manufacturing career with giants like Proctor & Gamble and 3M to buy a company of her own and in the process realized that women were being left out of dealmaking—an inequity she hoped to rectify.

“We hope we’re making progress,” she says.

Connett offers advice for would-be investors and founders, who, these days, she says, are often too quick to try to raise money.

Following our conversation with Connett, we go Back to the Classroom with University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business finance professor Mary Schmid Daugherty.

“Women are still underrepresented in deal making,” she says. Even though there are now more women entrepreneurs than men, fewer women are entering investment-related careers. “We need to speak to these women earlier. When they come up through finance, they almost all go into corporate work. We just have to fight the tide."

Dan Mallin and Scott Litman have become synonymous with entrepreneurship in Minnesota. Together, they’ve co-founders several successful technology startups starting with Imaginet in the 1990s and moving on to Magnet 360, a marketing tech firm they sold to Mindtree in 2016 for a reported $50 million. In all, they’ve had four exits of their own, and advised countless others. Beyond their own companies, Litman and Mallin may be even better known as the founders of the Minnesota Cup, the state’s largest startup competition. Launched in 2005, it’s become the gold standard for startup contents—a rite of passage for many Minnesota companies that have gone on to great success and exits of their own. For the last six years, Litman and Mallin have been building another tech company: Lucy. Unlike their previous service-based businesses, this one is a product: an AI-powered management platform designed to help businesses keep track of internal files and documents and find answers quickly.

But beyond innovation, this is a story of relationships—the enduring partnership of two independently minded founders, their encouragement of thousands of other aspiring entrepreneurs, and their commitment to building both businesses and an entrepreneurial ecosystem in Minnesota.

“This is the best place to build companies,” LItman says. “Everything we’ve ever touched is really around entrepreneurism. People working hard to achieve a mission. Not letting hurdles or pitfalls get in their way. Hopefully that rubs off on others.”

Adds Mallin, “The best ideas are not because of a great idea alone. It’s a great idea executed by a great team with the passion to do it.”

Following our conversation, we go back to the classroom with University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship Professor John McVea who picks up on the idea of being “born entrepreneurs,” to point out that we all are. “Innovation is a natural trait. Human beings are naturally inventive.”

But successful entrepreneurs don’t just make something cool—they do it to add value. “It’s an inherently social process and we do that uniquely well in Minnesota.”

“I didn’t start The Stable for it to be big. But it probably had to be big because we had a big idea.” Chad Hetherington is the co-founder and CEO of The Stable, a “next generation” retail rep group that was acquired by Accenture in the summer of 2022, after just seven years in business. The Stable takes an omnichannel approach to launching products and has help digitally native brands such as The Ring and Quip go to market both online and in stores. Hetherington shares his path from Adaliade, Australia to sales rep for Quirky, a platform that crowd sourced product ideas and developed them. That experience opened his eyes to the need for a new approach to retail rep groups that would take multiple channels into a account. The Stable launched in Minneapolis in 2015 and within two years expanded to Seattle and raised venture capital—a rarity for a service agency. By the time Accenture made an offer, The Stable had grown to more than 500 employees with offices in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Bentonville, Arkansas, six acquisitions under its belt, and expertise in Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, and social media. Now running the company under Accenture, Hetherington says “I’m on the phone with people all over the world, trying to solve issues and problems their clients are facing around commerce.” He talks about what’s next in retail.

Following our conversation with Hetherington, we go back to the classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business where Gino Giovanelli teaches digital marketing. He talks about “the power of scale” and advises businesses and founders to change their thinking if they want to achieve the sort of growth The Stable has enjoyed. “Don’t think tactically about marketing,” Giovanelli says. “Think strategically.”