http://www.donnafenn.com/ en Donna Fenn Copyright 2012 2012-07-23T15:54:55+00:00 http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/the_value_of_owning_your_brand/ http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/the_value_of_owning_your_brand/#When:15:54:55Z My latest column on AmEx Open Forum is about NatureBox, a startup founded by Gautam Gupta and Ken Chen.  The company delivers full-sized packages of healthy snacks to subscribers’ doorsteps for $19.95 a month.  As the mom of two young adults who no longer live at home, I loved this idea immediately. What a great way to make sure my cash-strapped and super-busy kids get a little something nutritious into their bodies once in a while. I thought of what I’d put in a healthy care package:  a few Kind bars, some Craisins, maybe some Green and Black dark chocolate, and a box of Sesmark rice crackers. Gupta and Chen think along similar lines, but there’s one crucial difference. 2012-07-23T15:54:55+00:00 http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/the_best_thing_about_a_career_in_investment_banking_it_feels_so_good_when_i/ http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/the_best_thing_about_a_career_in_investment_banking_it_feels_so_good_when_i/#When:15:40:47Z There’s a lot to like about the founders of TripTrotting.  Shana Zheng and Aigerim Shorman met as students at USC and shared a common love of travel, which they did frequently through the University. But they both longed to get off the beaten tourist track and started noodling around an idea for a business that would help travelers do just that. TripTrotting is an online platform that matches travelers with like-minded local hosts who want to show off their cities’ hidden gems. 2012-07-16T15:40:47+00:00 http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/inc/ http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/inc/#When:00:38:59Z Last week, we launched this year’s 30 Under 30 Coolest Young Entrepreneurs list on Inc.com—the culmination of a good six months of work by me and the Inc.com team. This year, we collected online applications (we received over 400!), and enlisted an outside panel of judges to help us create the list. The result is an outstanding group of young innovators, some whose names you’ll recognize (Daniel Ek of Spotify and Ben Silbermann of Pinterest, for instance) and some who you’ll meet for the first time (like Jeremy Johnson of 2tor and Ben Milne of Dwolla). 2012-07-10T00:38:59+00:00 http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/check_out_the_upstarts_video/ http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/check_out_the_upstarts_video/#When:12:14:38Z I had this video made in iMovie made by my awesome web developer Jeff Nordstedt for the presentation I did at SXSW in March. It’s fun to watch, but also gives you a really good flavor for what/who is in the book. Not everyone who’s in the book is in the movie, BTW, because we wanted to keep it on the short side. Take a look and tell me what you think! 2010-06-17T12:14:38+00:00 http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/call_in_the_reinforcements/ http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/call_in_the_reinforcements/#When:12:08:47Z Most entrepreneurs have a tough time transitioning from the heady start-up days to growth-mode, when companies need more than a steady flow of great ideas and a few devoted souls to execute them. Growing companies require management skills and great entrepreneurs are very rarely great managers. Young entrepreneurs, particularly, often lack not only the desire, but the solid experience to manage growing staffs. That’s when it’s time to call in reinforcements, as Nick Thomley at Pinnacle Services did three years ago.  Thomley, whose company provides home health care, housing, and employment services for seniors and people with disabilities, is featured in the “Social Capitalists” section of Upstarts!. He’ll tell you that he became a much happier CEO—and that his company became a much better place to work—when he hired a trusted COO and gave her responsibility for most of the day-to-day decision making that he had come to loathe.  You can read about his journey on my BNET/CBSi blog. For Thomley, one of the best by-products of ceding many of his management duties was having the time to focus on making Pinnacle’s corporate culture a bit more fun. For a little glimpse of that, take a look at the video below! 2010-04-06T12:08:47+00:00 http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/incubating_new_social_enterpri/ http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/incubating_new_social_enterpri/#When:21:11:53Z I’ve been following the progress of a very cool new organization called The Unreasonable Institute.  It’s a Boulder, CO-based incubator for not-for-profit and for-profit social enterprises that’s based upon the TechStars model: bring together people with great ideas, give them access to a little capital, mentors, and (most importantly) each other, and watch them soar.  I love the idea of the incubation/accelerator model being used for social enterprises and I’ll be watching the progress of the 25 Unreasonable fellow throughout the summer. To catch up on what I’ve written already, check out my blog on Inc.com. 2010-03-31T21:11:53+00:00 http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/making_ideas_happen_sxsw_interview/ http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/making_ideas_happen_sxsw_interview/#When:21:45:39Z I caught up with Scott Belsky, the CEO of Behance at SXSW and had a great conversation with him about his new book, Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality, (Portfolio, April 2010). It seems to me that this book will be particularly valuable to young entrepreneurs, who are frequently filled with wonderful ideas, but who sometimes fall short in the execution department. You can read my interview with Scott on my new BNET/CBSi blog 2010-03-26T21:45:39+00:00 http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/upstart_brand_mophie_helps_save_a_life_in_haiti/ http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/upstart_brand_mophie_helps_save_a_life_in_haiti/#When:19:05:04Z You may have already heard the amazing story of Haiti earthquake survivor Dan Woolley, who was buried under the rubble of the Hotel Montana for 65 hours with only his iPhone and an SLR camera as survival tools. But you may not know that this story has an Upstart connection. Woolley extended his iPhone’s battery life with a “Juice Pack” battery extender made by Mophie, a company that was founded in 2004 by Upstart Ben Kaufman, and then sold in 2007. Woolley used his iPhone’s Pocket First Aid and CPR app to make sure he was treating his wounds properly; he listened to his music when he was feeling discouraged; and he set his iPhone’s alarm to wake him up every twenty minutes when he feared he might go into shock. Without the battery extender, Woolley may well have been cursing his iPhone’s dismal battery life like the rest of us. No, the iPhone didn’t save his life (a French rescue team gets the credit for that) but it sure did give him some valuable support and comfort. Don’t know about you, but I’m springing for both the First Aid app ($3.99) and the Juice Pack. Mophie, by the way, continues to make very cool accessories for the iPod and iPhone, and Kaufman’s new company, Quirky, a social product development company, is rocking it with a growing stable of innovative products.  You can check out the Mophie to Quirky evolution on this video. 2010-02-18T19:05:04+00:00 http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/finding_your_pulley_system/ http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/finding_your_pulley_system/#When:15:23:25Z I had a big breakthrough yesterday:  I did my first handstand in yoga class! This may not sound like a big deal to you but for me it was HUGE. I hate going upside down; I hurt myself a few years ago doing a forearm stand and my shoulder was screwed up for months. So it took years for me to get comfortable just doing a headstand against the wall and I had pretty much convinced myself that that was the extent of my comfort zone. I had even stopped being envious of the class “yoga beast”, who seemed to have an invisible pulley system attached to the soles of her feet—so gracefully and effortlessly did she fly up every single time.  But yesterday, after doing the requisite headstand, our teacher suggested we all try a handstand, with her spotting us but not assisting. I had planned on passing (again) but then another woman in our class—someone who I sensed was similarly reticent—agreed to give it a go. She was clearly scared, but she pushed through her fear and guess what?  She found her invisible pulley system! I’ll admit it: I wasn’t just inspired and encouraged; I was also feeling the teeniest bit competitive because, well, that’s my nature. So I declared my intention: I would try the handstand. The first attempt to kick up failed. As did the second. And the third. “Rest,” said my teacher. “Try again another time.”  Arrgh! “One more try,” I said. And voila! As it turns out, I had a pulley system, too. Applause.  High fives. It felt amazing! Gosh, I thought, courage really is contagious. So what on earth does this have to do with entrepreneurs? Plenty, I think. While I frequently practice yoga at home alone and enjoy it, I never would have attempted a handstand on my own. But yesterday’s class provided the perfect risk-taking environment: I had a trusted teacher, a role model, and a peer, each giving me a different kind of encouraging, yet unspoken, message: “I will coach you to push your limits, but I will not let you hurt yourself”; “This is what’s possible if you work hard,”; “I was afraid and I tried anyway; so should you.”  It struck me that those are EXACTLY the three kinds of voices that entrepreneurs need when they’re starting and growing companies. As I’ve said many times before, GenY entrepreneurs are particularly good at surrounding themselves with mentors, role models, and peers. They know that while you sometimes need to work in isolation to get things done, it’s your trusted, collaborative tribe that often helps you find the pulley system you never knew you had. 2010-01-27T15:23:25+00:00 http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/upstarts_and_strategic_partnerships/ http://www.donnafenn.com/index.php?/blog/comments/upstarts_and_strategic_partnerships/#When:23:17:03Z Upstarts! are moving targets and one goal of this blog is to chronicle what’s new among the people in the book as well as in the broader world of young entrepreneurs. As I’ve mentioned many times, one of my favorite characteristics of GenY entrepreneurs is their knack for leveraging all kinds of collaboration to grow their companies. For instance, this generation is particularly skilled at creating strategic partnerships.  I think of Tom Szaky of TerraCycle  and the game-changing partnership he forged with big packaged goods companies like Kraft to “upcycle” their used packaging into useful items like tote bags and shower curtains. Or consider the streetwear apparel company, The Hundreds, and their new partnership with Disney to give the Lost Boys an urban makeover.  And just recently, I spoke to Jordan Goldman, the 26-year-old founder of Unigo.com,  who told me that he’s just landed a very sweet deal with The Wall Street Journal to create a new online brand called WSJ on Campus. 2009-10-29T23:17:03+00:00