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Articles by Barbara Haislip
They Started Hand-Sanitizer Businesses During Covid. How Are They Doing Now?
Journal Reports: Small Business Why It Pays to Start Companies in Recessions By Lisa Ward May 5, 2024 at 1:00 PM ET A study suggests that when jobs are hard to come by, the best workers are more available—and stay longer.
WSJ: Neli põhjust, miks patent võiks pigem oodata
Sulle tuli suurepärane mõte ja sa tahad ta turule viia. The Wall Street Journal WSJ: Neli põhjust, miks patent võiks pigem oodata The Wall Street Journal WSJ: IT-firma inimene ei ela enam nagu kuninga kass The Wall Street Journal WSJ: Lääs vajab tuumapöörde käivitamiseks Venemaa abi The Wall Street Journal WSJ: Me kaldume inflatsiooniga harjuma.
Four Reasons Entrepreneurs May Not Want to Get a Patent Right Away
Journal Reports: Small Business Entrepreneurs FamouslyWork Hard. For Many, Dangerously So. By April J. Spivack May 8, 2023 at 4:00 PM ET Research suggests that an awful lot of entrepreneurs cross the line from workaholic to addict.
The Baby Bottles Were Cold-and a New Business Was Born
How do you heat up a baby bottle when you’re not near a container of warm water? It is a question that turned Alaina Moulton into an entrepreneur. When Ms. Moulton became pregnant in 2018, she had planned to bottle feed the baby herself and share the duties with her husband, Eric Rockwell, when they traveled.
Her Son Kept Throwing His Sippy Cup on the Ground. A Startup Was Born.
When Sari Davidson’s small children were being mischievous, she called them “booginheads.” Little did she know she would someday use that name for a startup. In 2005, when her first son was nearly one year old, he would repeatedly toss his sippy cup on the ground during stroller rides. “To him, it was a game of catch. Throwing the cup and watching Mom pick it up,” she says.
How a $1.2 Million Business Was Built From Selling Soap
One of Outlaw Soaps’ “adventure-scented” products. Photo: Outlaw Soaps By Nov. 1, 2020 6:00 pm ET For Danielle Vincent, the path to a business started with a honeymoon and some well-timed sniffs. After her wedding in December 2012, she and her husband, Russ, traveled to Paso Robles, Calif. While there, she stopped at a farm store and picked up two bars of handmade goat-milk soap.
Her Shoes Were Painful. She Founded a Business to Make Them Fit Better.
The “aha” moment for Maureen Stockton’s business was “ouch.” Eight years ago, Ms. Stockton attended a business-networking event that was “filled with really interesting people,” she says. But she didn’t get a lot of face time because she constantly had to leave the meeting area to take off her fashionable—but uncomfortable—shoes and rub her feet.
Why the photos on company websites shouldn't be just an afterthought
Like the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. But many of the pictures on company websites inspire just one: "Huh?" Without the resources to hire professional shutterbugs, many small companies tap employees to handle the pointing and clicking—with disastrous results. They put up product pictures that are too fuzzy to make out. Or employee photos that are more embarrassing than the ones in a high-school yearbook.
She Wanted to Build a Fire on a Beach. And a Business Was Born.
After 9/11, Elena Colombo’s work as a director of television commercials was drying up. She needed to contemplate her future and always thought better in front of a fire. “Since I was a little girl, my dad and I would sit inside or outside in front of a fire. It would calm me down, and we would figure things out together,” says Ms. Colombo, now 57 years old.
Do You Hate When You Drop Your Soap in the Shower? So Did This Entrepreneur
When Jimmy Gould came up with the idea for his business, he didn’t have an “Aha!” moment, he says. “It was probably more of an ‘Oh, damn’ one.” Back in 2014, Mr. Gould, who had been an institutional bond salesman in Memphis, Tenn., for 30 years, was suffering through a bad hip, probably the result of too many dives onto gym floors playing basketball, he says. That made one daily chore particularly painful. “It...
How I Thought of It: Bunk Beds That Are Easy to Make
It can be tough for children to make their beds. And even tougher if it’s a bunk bed. That problem led two Utah moms to create a multimillion-dollar business. Nine years ago, Betsy Mikesell, a former full-time hairdresser and mother of three, saw her six-year-old twin boys struggle to arrange the covers on their bunk bed. Ms. Mikesell would...
Ways to Make Remote Workers Feel Like Part of the Team
One of the hallmarks of many successful startups is office camaraderie—where workers are willing to go above and beyond to benefit the team. An increasing number of startups are facing precisely that dilemma, as they hire more people who work remotely—either to save money on office space or as a way to attract the best talent. Those outside the office can feel alienated, while those at headquarters can feel like they’re working with faceless strangers.
How I Thought of It: An Entrepreneur Wanted to Keep Holiday Lights From Going Out
For years, Bryan Nooner and his wife, Mari-Beth, struggled with the same problem around the holidays: keeping the outdoor decorative lights on. It seemed every time it rained or the snow melted, water would seep in between the light-cord connections and trip the circuit, shutting off the power to most of the outdoor lights.
What Happens When Entrepreneurs Go On Vacation-and a Crisis Hits
For entrepreneurs, dealing with a work crisis on vacation comes with the territory. But what happens if that territory is on the top of a mountain peak? Or in a jungle during a rainstorm? Or the middle of the Mediterranean? Going off the grid can be a problem for any executive. But entrepreneurs—who usually don’t have a deep bench empowered...
Rethinking the Everyday Coffee Cup-and Creating a New Business
Seeing a grandfather struggle made a couple wonder how they could help him. And it made them realize they could build a business, too. In April 2013, Allen Arseneau and his now-wife, Diana, visited Mr. Arseneau’s grandfather, a former 82nd Airborne Ranger, at an assisted-living facility outside Boston. “He was my hero and [was] called Hercules in the Army, the toughest of tough,” says Mr. Arseneau.
What Startups Can Learn From Improv Comedy
Journal Reports: Small Business The Delicate Task of Asking Friends and Family for Startup Cash on Social Media By Barbara Haislip November 26, 2018, 8:35 PM ET Approaching people you know is tricky. Here’s how to do it right.
Asking Friends and Family for Startup Cash on Social Media
As many entrepreneurs know, asking friends and family for money can be one of the most stressful and awkward parts about starting a business. So why not just do it over social media? As an increasing number of entrepreneurs are doing just that, they’re also learning about what works and what doesn’t work in this new fundraising world. For...
When Entrepreneurs Get Creative in Raising Funds
When it comes to raising capital for a fledgling business, sometimes it makes sense to go the conventional route. Call investors. Schedule a time that works for everybody. Run a slideshow. Sometimes, though, it takes some more-creative tactics to round up funds. Below are the stories of entrepreneurs who used riskier approaches to persuade investors to part with their money. Here’s what they did—and how it paid off.
How a Summer Job Moving Furniture Inspired a Startup
Before heading off to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in 2000, Mike Blair spent a summer hauling furniture—and it left him obsessed with making moving a lot easier. He says he found himself repeatedly telling new tenants or homeowners, “ ‘No, that sleeper sofa is not going to fit up that narrow staircase’ or ‘That isn’t going up there.’ ”
How to Tell if Tenants Are Getting Rowdy? One Landlord Found a Solution.
Dave Krauss had a successful Airbnb rental business until one weekend in 2014. A renter supposedly looking for a quiet break with her boyfriend ended up having a two-day “mini-Coachella style rager” at Mr. Krauss’s condo, he says. It wasn’t until two days after she checked out that he discovered what had happened. Fourteen angry neighbors had filed noise complaints, and a cease-and-desist letter forced him to sell the investment property at a $30,000 loss....
How this ‘baby whisperer’ started a thriving business
Lisa Greenwald loved her long, beaded necklaces. And many babies loved them, too. When she held babies, they would grab and chew on her costume jewelry. Seeing the effect she had on children, moms called her a “baby whisperer,” but Greenwald would say, “No. It’s the necklace.” In late 2008, when she was home with her first child, Benjamin, she saw that the boy was getting just as obsessed with her jewelry as the other babies had been.
How this ‘baby whisperer’ started a thriving business
Lisa Greenwald loved her long, beaded necklaces. And many babies loved them, too. When she held babies, they would grab and chew on her costume jewelry. Seeing the effect she had on children, moms called her a “baby whisperer,” but Greenwald would say, “No. It’s the necklace.” In late 2008, when she was home with her first child, Benjamin, she saw that the boy was getting just as obsessed with her jewelry as the other babies had been.
One Mother Turned Her Concerns About Child Safety Into a Business
Taking children to an amusement park can be a stressful experience. Michele Welsh found a way to ease her fears—and turned it into a booming business. On Labor Day weekend in 2008, Ms. Welsh and her husband, Robert, took their three children to Hersheypark in Pennsylvania. As they walked in the park, her excitement quickly turned into panic: The place was packed, and she could barely hold on to her children’s hands.
A New Take on Teething Rings Sparked a Startup
Lisa Greenwald loved her long, beaded necklaces. And many babies loved them, too. When she held babies, they would grab and chew on her costume jewelry. Seeing the effect she had on children, moms called her a “baby whisperer,” but Ms. Greenwald would say, “No. It’s the necklace.” In late 2008, when she was home with her first child, Benjamin, she saw that the boy was getting just as obsessed with her jewelry as the other babies had been.
How Stable is Your Rothko?
If you’re about to purchase a major art work, there is one more bit of due diligence you will want to perform before you pay your bill: Check out the stability of the materials the artist used in the work. It’s a key bit of information you need to have before making a major purchase. Consider what happened to Harvard University. In 1962, five Mark Rothko panels were commissioned by the university and hung in Harvard’s Holyoke Center.
Lux Travel Trend: Glamping
The rage on the range is suddenly for glamping, which, for those not hip to travel-speak, stands for “glamorous camping.” Search volume for the keyword glamping currently runs at more than 175,000 searches a month, a 30% jump over the previous year, says Ryan Hutchings, general manager of Glamping.com, which calls itself a “discerning guide to experiential travel.” Demand for luxurious outdoor experiences, in either opulent tents or cabins, has caught fire in particular over the past six to...
How to turn your kids into entrepreneurs
How do you get kids ready to become entrepreneurs? The classic answer, of course, is the lemonade stand: Encourage your kids to start a homespun business instead of just bugging you for money. But entrepreneurs and educators say the real solution goes much deeper than that. There are crucial psychological traits an entrepreneur needs to succeed, they say, and parents should help kids develop them at every opportunity. Here's...
A messy toddler inspired mom’s million-dollar business
In 2010, Ahmer launched a fitness franchise. On her way to teach a class, she handed her son a disposable food pouch in the car. He squeezed it and squirted food all over him and the car seat. “It was a freak-out moment,” Ahmer says. “I was late to teach the exercise class, and I didn’t have a change of clothes for him.” When she got home, she thought there had to be an easier solution to storing a healthy, spill-proof snack. So she sketched on a napkin a design for a squeeze pouch.
Startup Taps Into Children’s Passion for Math
What happens when your children find STEM more appealing than the Magic Kingdom? Every year, Dori Roberts and her students at Colonial Forge High School in Stafford, Va., would compete in technology and engineering tournaments, and in 2008 they did well enough to reach the finals at a national competition in Orlando, Fla. Ms. Roberts decided to bring her 6-year-old son, Matthew, and her 8-year-old daughter, Kaley, along for the trip, and promised to take them to Disney World.
An Entrepreneur’s Story Can Be the Perfect Marketing Tool
Have you heard the one about the company with a really great story to tell? You see them on company websites and commercials. Businesses, particularly small ones with limited marketing budgets, use stories about their company to grab the attention of consumers, lenders and investors. Whether the tales are about the founding of the firm or how it affects customers, stories can be a powerful tool, resonating more deeply than facts and figures or traditional product pitches.
Air Force Pilot Found Startup Inspiration in the Sky
While flying over Middle Eastern deserts, Air Force officer Matt Butler started thinking about something thousands of miles away: lawn games. Lt. Col. Butler says he would look down at the desert from his reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft, and his mind would wander back to growing up in Minnesota, with lush green grass, clean water and family games, including horseshoes.
How Two Exhausted Moms Built a Business on Smoothies
Two exhausted moms went searching for a way to cure their lack of energy. They ended up generating nearly $1 million in revenue in 2015. Jen Hansard and Jadah Sellner met as first-time mothers on a playground in Studio City, Calif., in 2008. As their friendship grew over the next few years, they found themselves going through tough times—by 2011, both of their families had endured failed business ventures, and the two women had taken on jobs to make ends meet.
Entrepreneurs talk about the self-help books that actually helped them
There are countless self-help books aimed at budding entrepreneurs. But which of them have actually helped people start or improve an enterprise? We asked business owners and educators for the books that have given them the best advice. Here are some of their top picks. "Gerber's book caused me to rethink what I wanted to accomplish in my business and how I was going to do that," explains J.
The digital cookie: modernizing the Girl Scouts
Anna Maria Chávez is on a mission to rally the troops. The Girl Scout troops. As chief executive of the Girl Scouts of the USA, she has her work cut out for her. The ranks of the 104-year-old institution have declined in recent years: Membership, including adults, stood at 2.7 million for the year ended Sept. 30, 2015, down 5.3% from a year earlier. The 48-year-old Chávez, who joined the scouts herself at age 10, earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a law degree from James E.
Girl Scouts’ Plans for Modernization and the Digital Cookie
Anna Maria Chávez is on a mission to rally the troops. The Girl Scout troops. As chief executive of the Girl Scouts of the USA, she has her work cut out for her. The ranks of the 104-year-old institution have declined in recent years: Membership, including adults, stood at 2.7 million for the year ended Sept. 30, 2015, down 5.3% from a year earlier. The 48-year-old Ms. Chávez, who joined the scouts herself at age 10, earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a law degree from James E.
A Startup Takes the Stress Out of Eating Out With Children
Grace Paik found a way to turn a home-renovation nightmare into a thriving business. In 2004, Ms. Paik and her husband, Seung, now a colonel in the Air Force, hired a local contractor to double the size of their 900-square-foot home in Alexandria, Va. Then disaster struck. Eight months pregnant with their third child, Ms. Paik received a call from the Federal Bureau of Investigation warning that their contractor was a fraud. It was too late.
Energy-Storage Startup LightSail Plots Long-Term Game Plan
Few industries are more daunting for entrepreneurs these days than clean energy. Developing the technology and hardware is expensive, and setbacks are common. Even if all goes well, getting a product to market can take a decade or more. Most venture-fund investors, meanwhile, want a quicker payout. Danielle Fong, co-founder and chief scientist of LightSail Energy, is trying to keep investors happy while working toward some ambitious clean-energy goals.
Memories of Mom Inspired a Startup
When Ms. Dorogi was pregnant with her first child, she noticed how her friends would take pictures of their new babies next to a scribbled piece of paper saying “one month old” or “two months old” and post them on Facebook. She reminisced about how her mother would sew special T-shirts for birthdays and baby milestones. She mentioned to her husband, Jim, that she wished she knew how to sew, or that someone should make something that looks like it’s sewn onto the shirt but can easily be removed.
A Startup’s Founder Blames Herself for Lack of Growth
Deb Gabor’s 12-year-old business has reached milestones that would be the envy of many young companies. Sol Marketing, an Austin, Texas-based brand-strategy, market-research and marketing-services agency, does about $3 million in revenue with healthy profit margins every year. It has no debt and an unsecured credit line of $50,000 for emergencies. Its current and past client roster includes Dell Inc., Microsoft Corp., NBCUniversal, HomeAway.com and FreshDirect....
A Mother Finds a Business in Helping Frustrated Parents
Impatience can be a great spur for creativity. Lauren Pohl, a corporate lawyer, was on maternity leave three years ago when she started looking for a cooking class for her older child, who was almost three. But a search of her Chelsea neighborhood in New York City didn’t turn anything up, nor did Googling the phrase “kids cooking classes”—which, she says, netted her tons of adult classes instead.
How to Build a Business That Fits Your Lifestyle
8 Wise words from @morraam: "How to build a business that fits your lifestyle" via @WSJD cc: @thelist
How to Build a Business That Fits Your Lifestyle
For some entrepreneurs, the most important part of a business plan isn’t financing or marketing or finding more customers. Instead of starting a company and shaping their life around it—working as long and as hard as the business demands—they start a company to fit the kind of life they want to lead. Working this way doesn’t mean slacking off, or delegating everything away.
The Biggest Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make
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Small companies offer creative perks to keep workers happy
Here's a look at some of the diverse perks that business owners are using to keep employees motivated. DRINKS FOR EVERYBODY: "Free Beer Fridays" have been a great morale booster for Universal Information Services, a news-media analysis company in Omaha, Neb. It's a nice way to reward people for working hard all week, says Vice President Todd Murphy. There's also soda for those who don't want alcohol.
Researching rivals is a vital step for entrepreneurs
Yet too many small companies don't do that homework. "Entrepreneurs have a tendency toward overconfidence, and can underestimate what they can learn from their future competitors," says Clifford Holekamp, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis's Olin Business School. "The competition offers a free glimpse into seeing how different ideas work out in actual practice." Here's a look at some strategies for finding out what you need to know about rivals.
Entrepreneurs talk about the self-help books that actually helped them
"The E-Myth" By Michael E. Gerber "Gerber's book caused me to rethink what I wanted to accomplish in my business and how I was going to do that," explains J. Richard Braun, owner of Braun Agency Inc., an insurance firm based in Virginia Beach, Va. More in Small Business "The E-Myth," he explains, argues that most businesses are started by people who know how to do technical work—such as a plumber who launches a plumbing company—but who don't know how to run a business. The answer?
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