It’s the case of the mysteriously popular growler! The e-commerce company Huckberry sold tons of growlers during the holiday season—but the people who bought the growlers disappeared afterwards. They never came back to buy more products, which was very unusual for Huckberry. What was going on? The answer forced the company to rethink its entire marketing approach. (Here’s a hint: The buyers weren’t who Huckberry expected.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do you do when conditions change, and your business starts to fail? You could try to save the business. Or, you could “kill your business with a better business”—essentially take what you’ve learned from the failing business, and create a new one that thrives. That was the strategy employed by Adam Schwartz, who killed his t-shirt business called BustedTees with another one called TeePublic. (And “kill your business with a better business” is a direct quote from him.) On this episode, he walks us through the transition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be honest: What do you do when the world around you changes? Most people probably say they change along with the world... but few actually do. Most people resist. And resistance leads nowhere. That’s the big lesson of the rise of chain stores, a transformational event in American business that pitted entrepreneur against entrepreneur, and ultimately led to some big lessons in what it takes to be competitive. This episode comes to us from Pessimists Archive, another podcast hosted by Problem Solvers host Jason Feifer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you get what you want—from customers, partners, investors, and more? You don’t just come out and ask for it! Instead, you focus on what THEY want, and how you can deliver it. In this episode, Mazda CMO Dino Bernacchi and host Jason Feifer (editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine) and discuss how this works, and why entrepreneurs and brands must always stay relentlessly focused on value. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s a classic managerial mistake: You know an employee isn't working out, and yet you give them more time. You hope—foolishly, of course!—for some magical turnaround. And in the meantime, your company suffers from that employee's bad work. This is what happened to James Heller of the startup Wrapify, but at a bigger scale. He was growing his new advertising company, and hired a sales team he thought would lead to fast growth. Instead, the team stumbled and James moved too slowly to fix the problem. On this episode, we learn what happened when James gave his employees more time... and how he finally learned to take control. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know Smarties. It’s a classic American candy—and so classic, in fact, that its leadership became afraid to make any branding changes. As a result, decades passed and the brand looked increasingly stale. Then a new generation of leaders took over the company and had to wrestle with a big question: What’s worth changing… and what’s worth keeping the same? On this episode of Problem Solvers, Smarties co-president Liz Dee takes us through the change that’s rolling out onto stores now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When things are going wrong, how do you know whether or not to keep going? That's the question that faced Kabir Shahani of Amperity, a company that, in its early days, missed a huge deadline and seemed unable to develop the technology it needed to thrive. Important, difficult questions had to be answered. Investors wanted to make sure their money wasn't being squandered. And in the end, Kabir learned an important lesson—both about when to keep going, and how to measure success. Episode sponsored by Shapr - https://bit.ly/2U0InkC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What’s the secret to having a great work partnership… with someone you’re also personally close to? That’s what we aimed to learn in this special conversation, in which we put two Entrepreneur readers on the phone with our March issue cover stars, the Property Brothers. We asked Drew and Jonathan Scott (better known as HGTV’s Property Brothers) to counsel the husband-and-wife duo of Dean Praetorius and Kiki Von Glinow, founders of Toast Media Group. Kiki and Dean are actively learning to refine their working relationship, and the Scotts had a lot of wisdom to offer. Check it out, and then read more about the brothers in our March, 2019 issue! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Employers often discourage their team members from having side hustles. That's an insane policy, guaranteed to drive your most ambitious and creative people out of your company. Here's a better idea: Think of flexibility as a retention strategy. On this episode of Problem Solvers, we make the business case for embracing your side-hustling employees, and then talk to Jack Taylor PR founder Jon Bier—an employer who has completely changed his view on this subject. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Numbers can be deceptive: Just because you have more customers, locations, or dollars coming in, that doesn’t necessarily mean your brand is growing strong and stable. That’s what Jill Salzman discovered with her company The Founding Moms, a collective of meet-ups and resources for mom entrepreneurs. At first, she wanted to be in every city as fast as possible. So she expanded rapidly -- and although her membership numbers were going up, her brand was falling apart. This is the story of how she stepped back and fixed it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s become a truism of startup life: To grow a company, first go out and get investors. But is that true? Does every company need investment? Not really. That’s what Eric and Sasha of the men’s retailer Buck Mason discovered, after they went out to raise cash and were rejected by every investor they met. It forced them to step back and rethink who they are as a company, and how they can thrive. Their conclusion: They needed to grow smarter, not faster. And now they’re doing just that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you find your first customers? It’s a question first-time founders are often flummoxed by. But Keith Krach has developed a tried-and-true strategy—starting during his days at Ariba (which sold for billions), and extending into his current time as chairman of Docusign. In this special live edition of Problem Solvers, taped at Entrepreneur Live in Los Angeles, Keith explains how to turn a company’s first customers into valuable ambassadors. (This episode originally aired 2/26/18. At the end, we catch up with Keith for an update in 2019.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you turn a great idea into a great business? It’s an infinitely complex question. You have to build an infrastructure around that idea -- one that amplifies it and makes it compelling enough for someone to pay for. On this episode, we learn how Brian Kelly did just that. He turned a grueling side hustle into The Points Guy, which is now arguably the most well-recognized and influential site in the credit card world. It time, grit, and a lot of failure -- but that’s the real a recipe for success. (This episode is a replay, and originally aired 8/28/17. An update from 2019 is included at the end.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What’s it like when your company goes viral? Take it from Kristen Tomlan, the founder and CEO of a viral cookie dough company called DŌ: “It’s terrifying.” And exhausting. And it exacerbated every weakness in her business, including staffing, supply and production. We learn how she fixed it, and harnessed the kind of huge opportunity that may have sunk others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are a lot of Uber-like startups out there—companies that connect customers with some set of service providers, such as cleaners, lawn care pros, or, in the case of Storyhunter, companies looking for video freelancers. But these companies all face the same danger: They're at risk of disintermediation, or being cut out of the deal. (After all, if you're a consumer and find a great cleaner through a startup, why keep using the startup? Why not work with the cleaner directly?) This is the problem Storyhunter faced, and solved. Its solution: Understand its users, and then become incredibly valuable to them in every way possible. (Original air date: 7/31/17) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

IAC CEO Joey Levin told Problem Solvers host Jason Feifer that everyone -- everyone, at every level! -- feels like they're making things up as they go. On this episode, Jason dives deeper into that idea. At times when you feel intimidated, or worry you're not up to the task, or feel at a loss for the right answer, let this be your guide: It’s knowing that in actuality, nobody inherently belongs. Nobody is ready from the start. Nobody has the answer already prepared. And nobody sees you as an impostor any more than they see themselves that way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lauren Berger was like many solopreneurs: She'd built a one-person business called Intern Queen, and it made her a good amount of money. But it wasn't scaleable. She could only do so much. In this episode, we learn how Lauren ultimately transformed her one-woman shop into a company that can scale... and in the process, discovered a new line of work that now makes up 90% of her revenue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2015, Carrie Sheffield founded a live-streaming news service called BOLD. Two years later, a pair of gigantic public media companies announced that they, too, would be launching a live-streaming news service called BOLD. In this episode, we follow what happened next... and turn to an IP lawyer to help us make sense of it all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the home security company SimpliSafe launched, it marketed itself entirely towards renters. After all, they were an underserved marketplace—no other home security system was made for people who rent apartments. But SimpliSafe wasn't growing as fast as its founders expected, so it dug into its customer data and discovered something surprising: Half its customers were home-owners, the people it explicitly wasn't trying to reach. Now it had a big decision to make: Does SimpliSafe keep going with renters, or change everything (including its product!) to court this new marketplace of customers? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andy Monfried's company Lotame was thriving, but he saw trouble on the horizon: His industry was changing. Lotame was a major player in the complicated world of digital advertising, and although there was plenty of growth still to be had and plenty of money still to be made, Andy knew that his company's long-term future was going to be rocky. So he made a difficult, gut-wrenching decision. Rather than wait for the decline to come, he was going to shut down a major portion of his company now—sacrificing $30 million in revenue!—and rebuild it as a different company whose future looked brighter. This is the story of how he took such a big risk, and why it paid off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every entrepreneur struggles to manage their time, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal (Ret.) knows that challenge especially well. He previously commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and now oversees a 90-person consultancy called the McChrystal Group. How does a guy this busy keep on schedule? In this episode, we learn how McChrystal uses a calendar with the level of rigor only a former military general would think of. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Joshua Tetrick founded his plant-based food company JUST, his goal was to disrupt the entire food industry—and to do that, he decided, he'd hire industry outsiders. He didn't want people with lots of food-industry experience, who'd just carry all the marketplace's old assumptions with them! But then his company began having massive problems, and losing massive amounts of money. And Joshua came to a realization: He was totally wrong about who to hire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special episode, host Jason Feifer gets personal. Whenever he tells people that he wrote a novel (Mr. Nice Guy) with his wife, their reaction is always the same: "You're still married!?" To celebrate the release of the book, Jason and his wife Jennifer Miller talk about how they built a healthy working relationship while also strengthening their marriage, and what it takes for everyone else to do the same. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Ari and Gavi started Indiewalls, a company that wanted to manage sales of art on cafe walls, they hadn't fully thought through just how difficult it would be. But that turned out to be for the better: Because they were willing to dive into this crazy industry, they were able to meet people who wanted art, understand the marketplace, and then transform into an entirely different company. This is the story of how they began with an idea that didn't work, and pivoted into one that does. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Millions of people know Nicole Arbour as a comedian, actor, model, YouTube celebrity, and Instagram influencer—but until recently, she was afraid to reveal another side to her: Years ago, a car accident had left her with chronic, debilitating pain. She worried that if people knew, they wouldn’t want to work with her. Or, she feared, she’d become defined by her disability. But now she’s talking. This is the story of how Nicole learned to cope with the pain, surround herself with positivity, launch a new career, and be funnier and more popular than ever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sometimes, the simplest ideas turn out to be the hardest. That was the case at Dunkin' Donuts, where the company wanted to eliminate its Styrofoam cups and replace them with something more environmentally friendly. They thought it would be easy -- but the change took 10 years, countless prototyes, meetings with competitors, and a deep study of how people hold cups. This is the inside story of that quest, and how Dunkin' finally got it right. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here at Entrepreneur magazine, we hear a lot of stories about how entrepreneurs founded their companies. Many tend to follow a similar format. Someone has an idea. They take a bold risk to make it a reality, often sacrificing a fair amount of time, money, and relationships in the process. They become incredibly resourceful. They outsmart their competition. And at some point... they lie. It's so common to hear about an entrepreneur's lie -- to win over a first client, say, or to bring in resources when they're needed the most -- that we forget to pause and ask: Where's the line? On this episode, we consider the question with the cofounder of Stonyfield Yogurt, who saved his company in its early days with a particularly clever and daring bend of the truth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Matt Bodnar became CEO of Fresh Technologies, he took over a failing company and saved it from disaster. That felt great. Then he hit a wall: He couldn’t seem to get this company to grow, or to fix its internal culture. He began suffering from self-doubt. He’d always wanted to be a CEO, and he initially seemed good at it, but now here he was… failing! After a lot of soul-searching, Matt came to an important realization: He needed to identify what he was good at, and then use those strengths. And that meant no longer being a CEO. In this episode, we explore how Matt came to that conclusion -- and why it supercharged his career. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just Between Friends is a nationwide franchise that runs consignment events. About a decade ago, it experienced a crazy jolt: It sold more franchise units than it ever had... and that fast growth nearly bankrupted the company. Why? Because here’s the difficult truth about growing a business: Not all growth is equal. Sometimes, growth in one part of your business can harm another part of your business. So to fix the problem, Just Between Friends had to hit pause and consider some very important questions: What’s the right way to grow? And what does it really take to get there? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike McDerment saw the future, and it wasn’t bright. His accounting and invoicing company, Freshbooks, was doing well with customers -- but behind the scenes, its software code was a mess and it wasn’t able to innovate as quickly as it needed to. But fixing this problem was tricky. If he ordered his team to hit pause and fix the code, years could go by and Freshbooks would lose ground to its competitors. And if his team did manage to create a better Freshbooks in the process, customers might be annoyed by the sudden change. So his solution was radical: He launched a competitor to his own company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Raquel Tavares, founder and CEO of a ghee company called Fourth & Heart, had just finished raising a round of funding -- and then her team looked at the company's numbers and realized they were almost out of money. How did this happen? The answer is simple: The company wasn't properly tracking its inventory and cost of raw materials, and now it was in a terrible bind. What does an entrepreneur do in a situation like this? Raquel is here with an incredible answer: Not only can you survive a problem like this, but you can even thrive because of it. But you’ve got to be nimble, humble, willing to make a lot of changes, and able to stomach a lot of hard conversations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's perhaps the most terrifying situation an entrepreneur can face: Suddenly, the bank account is nearly empty. You can't pay your staff. You can barely keep the lights on. What now? This is what Saima Khan faced with her high-end cooking company Hampstead Kitchen. She charges a small fortune to cook intimate dinners for industry titans, celebrities, and even world leaders—but then a change in the tax law nearly wiped her out, and forced her to reconsider exactly what kind of business she was running. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Entrepreneurs must embrace change, or risk becoming outdated. In this episode, we offer a cautionary tale from history: What happened when entrepreneurs of the late 1800s tried to resist a newfangled invention called the bicycle? This episode is a special rebroadcast of a podcast called Pessimists Archive, also hosted by Entrepreneur magazine editor in chief Jason Feifer. For more like it, search Pessimists Archive on any podcast platform or visit www.pessimists.co. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone who’s experienced setbacks, rejection, and frustration will ask themselves the same inevitable question: “What if the naysayers are right?” Mike Rothman did that. As he built his company Fatherly -- a media site for dads, which is a market everyone told him was nonexistent -- he was told “no” over and over again. But instead of quitting, he made strategic decisions that enabled him to discover the truth: His idea really was a good one. And soon, the people saying no started to say yes. Sponsor: Hover - visit hover.com/problemsolver for 10% off your first purchase. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Califia Farms makes a popular line of plant-based milks, yogurts, and coffees—but they became too popular, too quick. In 2017, demand began significantly outstripping supply, and so the company had to do something it hated to do, but that was critical for its long-term health: It had to start telling retailers "no," while it fixed its entire production system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Orchard Mile, an online shopping site, had a promising platform and a talented team. But they had two very different ideas about what the company should prioritize. How CEO Jennie Baik made tough decisions to bring them together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a question almost every entrepreneur will at some point face: How do you keep a company stable while you're pulled into a personal crisis? For Chris Carter, founder of Approyo, that question came shortly after his startup launched -- when his daughter developed epilepsy. After working himself to exhaustion, Chris stepped back and retooled how his company operated and how he was treating himself. The result was a stronger company, a healthier founder, and a better balance for everyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices