By All Means

Before the boutique fitness craze that landed spinning studios and bootcamp gyms on every corner, there was Steele Fitness, a team of personal trainers who would show up at your home in a BMW and provide one-on-one fitness training. Behind the VIP service was an ambitious entrepreneur named Steele Smiley, whose first exercise in creating a brand was remaking himself into the businessman he wanted to be. “In 2000, I said: I need to become a different person in order to manifest my life,” Smiley says. “You have to play the part.” Since selling Steele Fitness to the private equity firm that owned global chain Snap Fitness, Smiley moved into the business of healthy eating. First came salad chain Crisp & Green, and in April 2021, he launched his newest venture, a fast casual plant-based burger shop called Stalk & Spade. “Plant-based eating is the future,” Smiley says. The first Stalk & Spade opened in Wayzata, Minn., where all of Smiley’s businesses have launched. But he’s thinking big. “Ultimately, our goal

Seena Hodges is that person everyone calls when they want to learn about racism and equity building. When they want to get woke. “I always love having the conversation, helping people unpack the things they don’t see, I just don’t want to do it for free.” Hodges parlayed her background in nonprofit, social justice, marketing and theater work into The Woke Coach, a Minneapolis-based agency that offers programs for businesses and individuals designed to help them understand bias and become antiracist. Launched in 2018, demand for The Woke Coach’s services skyrocketed following the May 2020 murder of George Floyd. “Once you start to see and witness, injustice you can’t unsee it. And it’s absolutely everywhere,” Hodges says. “At this point there’s really no denying that we have to have these conversations. We have a moral imperative to put our best foot forward.” Hodges shares the personal journey that led her to the work, and the challenge of a job she can’t ever leave at the office. “While I do this work—

Special education teacher Angie Gallus made dog treats in class with her students as a way to help them learn job skills. They would bake, package, and sell to friends and family. When Angie reunited with a couple of former students who hadn’t been able to find jobs after graduation, she and her husband Kyle, also a special ed teacher, decided to fire up the oven again. The combination of producing treats that dogs love and creating jobs for individuals with disabilities made the Galluses realize: “There’s something bigger here.” On the spot, a company was born. They named it Finely’s after their own pocket shepherd. Brand motto: “Treat with kindness.” That was 2016. For the first two years, they worked nights and weekends with their former students, and sold the treats at farmer’s markets, breweries, and online. Then came their viral accelerator: Ashton Kutcher heard about Finley’s commitment to being an inclusive employer. His A Plus news site published a story, which the actor/entrepreneur shared on his o

Dr. Jeremy Friese left a prestigious medical practice at Mayo Clinic to solve one of healthcare’s great headaches: the prior authorization process. Three years later, in December 2020, he sold his venture-backed AI technology company Verata Health to its biggest competitor, Olive, for $120 million. He brought almost the entire Verata team of around 60 with him, and took on the role of president of Olive’s Payer Market. His work to automate the administrative side of health care services continues, now with a much larger team. He’s yet to meet any of them in person or visit Olive’s Ohio headquarters. The entire acquisition transpired virtually during the Covid-19 pandemic. Verata, which was a “Zoom company” with employees spread around the country even pre-Covid, saw the adoption of its software services accelerate during the pandemic. “One of the positives [out of this time] is the way our healthcare system has embraced a new way of working—the adoption of tele-health and a variety of other technologies. Th

Having reached her ultimate career goal before age 30—New York Times best-selling author; staff writer for ESPN—Maria Burns Ortiz turned her attention to a new challenge: promoting equitable education. She’s the co-founder of 7 Generation Games, a mission-based ed-tech startup focused on closing the math gap for students from Native American, Latino, and underserved and rural communities. She started the company with her mom, Anna Maria De Mars, World Judo Champion turned educational psychology professor. Since her days as an eighth grade math teacher, De Mars wanted to make video games to teach kids math, but at the time, the technology didn’t exist. With Burns Ortiz’s career at a crossroads, her mom convinced her to take the money she would have spent on an MBA and invest it in starting a business. Eight years later (five, full-time), 7 Generation Games counts more than 40,000 active uses in schools and homes across the country. The company recently received $1 million in grant funding from the U.S. Dep

Bizzy Coffee isn’t like most other coffee brands. No coffee shops. No single serve bottles or cans or pods. Bizzy founders Alex French and Andrew Healy are singularly focused on a fast-growing segment of the coffee industry: cold brew. And by staying laser focused, they’ve become the best-selling cold brew brand on Amazon. Meanwhile, their grocery store presence is steadily growing. The momentum they have today is proof that picking a lane can pay off. Determination and a willingness to learning from failures can help. And caffeine is essential. A born entrepreneur, French studied entrepreneurship and finance at the University of St. Thomas and tried as many as 20 different startup ideas before landing on Bizzy with his friend Healy. One of those early attempts was a snowboarding accessory called the Lifty. Its failure to take off gave them a key insight: “no one was searching for it.” So French and Healy studied Google search trends to identify a consumable product people were actively looking for. At th

Perhaps you’ve noticed when you hit the checkout button on your online purchases there’s often an option to buy now, pay later. It’s reverse layaway—you get the goods now, and you pay them off in a four or six interest free installments. No fees, no need for credit. Young consumers seem to love it and so buy now pay later is being embraced by more and more retailers, from small indie shops to the big direct to consumer brands like Peloton and Warby Parker. The pandemic only accelerated adoption rates and analysts project buy now pay later solutions could rack up $680 billion in transaction volume worldwide by 2025. There are several big players in the field, like Afterpay and Affirm, which hit a $24 billion valuation after going public in January. But that hasn’t deterred Sezzle, a Minneapolis-based buy now pay later platform that went public on the Australian securities exchange in 2019 and continues to gain traction in the U.S. “I want to win,” says Sezzle founder/CEO Charlie Youakim, who was featured on

Growing up in and around computer labs, with a mother who was a trailblazer in computer sciences, Yu Sunny Han developed a knack for solving problems through technology. He built computer games as a kid and sold his first piece of software at age 12, requesting the $500 fee be paid in quarters to play arcade games. Determined to chart his own course, Han chose chemistry as his college major but says “most of the problems I solved in school ended up leading me back to computer sciences.” So it happened that while working as a business consultant, he identified a problem in the manufacturing industry: a lack of modern business software to connect companies. “Manufacturing adopted so many aspects of technology first…20 years ago, but they haven’t changed since. And they expect it to be a painful process to update. I thought: what if all of these companies and people were connected: how much faster could we make stuff?” Still, it took Han a year and a half to quit a good-paying job and start a company with his

“Video games are an amazing covert teaching mechanism,” says Jules Porter, founder of Seraph 7 Studios, a Minneapolis-based videogame development studio on a mission to fight racism and build empathy by creating diverse characters and games that show the BIPOC community in a positive light. The epiphany hit as she toured Rome for the first time and realized she knew her way around because she had learned the city through a video game. Porter was a law student at the time, a path she decided to pursue following a troubling string of shootings of Black teenagers by white police officers. “I just felt so powerless,” Porter says. She listened to a Tedx Talk given by Dr. Artika Tyner, a University of St. Thomas law professor who said: “Law is the language of power.” And that solidified Porter’s decision to enroll. But midway through, Porter began to question whether it was enough. “The law can provide consequences, it can help set policy. But the issue, if a person doesn’t even see us as human, there’s somet

Never in modern history has office space been more disrupted than during the Covid-19 pandemic. And as CEOs contemplate how to bring workers back—whether they’ll bring workers back—architect and commercial designer Betsy Vohs is helping businesses reconsider the purpose of the office. “When else do you get a chance like this, to rethink the office?” Vohs is the founder and CEO of Studio BV in Minneapolis, a boutique design firm that works across industries, from medical clinics to apartment buildings to the headquarters for companies such as Digi International, nVent, and Evereve. Studio BV’s pro bono arm, Design Forward, works on projects for non-profit clients. “Good design creates something powerful,” Vohs says. “Space can tell your story.” How does that story change as a result of Covid-19? “Now we know why office space matters,” Vohs says. “We can do a fine job on Zoom, but we can’t innovate, we can’t create culture.” Not one Studio BV client plans a full-time return to the office. Vohs expects mo

Renay Dossman built her career with Fortune 500 companies, moving from Cargill to Target, where she found her passion in food innovation. But after years of traveling the world for food trends, developing products, and eventually taking her expertise to Winn-Dixie where she developed concept stores to serve Black and LatinX neighborhoods, Dossman left the corporate world in search of something more. She found her way to the Neighborhood Development Center, a nationally lauded community development financial institution that provides training, small business loans, and incubator space to low income and BIPOC entrepreneurs. “NDC believes in building communities from within,” says Dossman, who became president of the nonprofit in 2019. “They believe in the power of entrepreneurship to develop generational wealth, to develop a community.” That mission resonated with Dossman, who grew up in Chicago public housing projects. “Where I lived, we didn’t have a lot of businesses. If you saw a business owner, they wer

Behind every plant-based burger, oat milk latte, and protein shake is one essential ingredient: pea protein. Without it, there’s no Beyond Meat. Minneapolis-based PURIS, fueled by a $100 million investment from Cargill, is the largest U.S. manufacturer of pea protein, and PURIS CEO Tyler Lorenzen says the company is just getting started. “Anything currently consumed as animal protein, PURIS is going to solve with plants to build a more efficient, sustainable, resilient food system,” Lorenzen says. “If we can do it in the U.S., we can do abroad.” Lorenzen didn’t expect to be leading a division of PURIS Holdings, the company started by his visionary father Jerry Lorenzen in 1985 in Iowa to develop high protein crops. Tyler Lorenzen played professional football for the New Orleans Saints, which won Super Bowl XLIV his rookie year. But when his football career ended sooner than expected—“I got cut,” Lorenzen deadpans—he quickly shifted to the other field that had figured prominently in his life thanks to hi

After 15 years at Google, Mary Grove made a sharp career turn that baffled many Silicon Valley insiders. She decided to become a venture capital investor—in Minnesota. “We got a lot of raised eyebrows…it didn’t necessarily make linear sense.” But Grove looked ahead, thinking: “where is the future of the innovation economy going to be written?” Serving as founding director of Google for Startups, supporting entrepreneurs in more than 100 countries gave Grove a taste of the innovation happening far beyond Silicon Valley. She joined Steve Case’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund with a focus on Midwest ventures. In 2020, she co-founded her own VC firm with entrepreneur Brett Brohl called Bread & Butter Ventures—a nod to her adopted home state and to Minnesota’s deep industry expertise and corporate connections. Bread & Butter focuses on early-stage ventures in ag tech, med tech and enterprise software—with an emphasis not only on the products, but the people. Of the 36 companies they’ve invested in so far, 43 percent

In the 1990s, when Lee Wallace told business schools she was interested in studying the intersection of mission and money, they steered her into public policy. It was a time before B-corps and one-for-one brands. “Purpose” wasn’t the business buzzword it is today. But even armed with that master’s degree in public policy, Wallace continued to believe in the power of doing good while doing well. Eventually she found her way to a for-profit company founded on a mission to help farmers. That was Peace Coffee, an early champion of the fair trade model to create a transparent and sustainable system that directly benefits farmers and their communities. “The thing that’s so amazing about being presented with the opportunity to run a business founded to do the right thing is authenticity,” says Wallace, who came on as CEO in 2002 and bought the business in 2018 from its founding nonprofit, the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy. Today, Wallace is a recognized leader in social enterprise business, as well as

Have you ever come up with what you thought was a really clever social media handle, sure to be your key to fame and fortune, only to find it’s been taken? Ahmed El Shourbagy is the envy of all would-be influencers. He’s the guy who grabbed the handle @dogsofinstagram in 2011. It happened not with a business plan in mind—influencer marketing wasn’t even a thing back then in the early days of Instagram—it was just a fun way to gather cute images of dogs, like his own Boston terrier/pug mix, Lucy. But as the following quickly grew to hundreds, thousands, and then millions, Ahmed and his now-wife Ashley, whom he met on day 10 of @dogsofinstagram, started seeing possibilities. They also saw the limitations of building a brand on a social media platform. Ahmed and Ashley parlayed a social media following that now stands at 4.7 million into a retail brand and platform they own. Lucy & Co. is a direct-to-consumer brand specializing in stylish dog accessories and apparel (the likes of which you might find on @dog

“Sales will take you anywhere.” That skill took Jill Blashack Strahan from a small farm town where she ran a café and didn’t dare to dream much bigger to founder and CEO of national meal prep brand Tastefully Simple. At its peak in 2008, Tastefully Simple hit $143 million in sales with 20,000 sales associates executing home parties in small towns and big cities across the country. Mission: bringing people together to answer that age-old question, “What are we going to eat for dinner?” But after hitting that peak, sales began to slide. And slide. For 11 straight years, Tastefully Simple lost ground. For nearly seven years, there was no profit whatsoever. Strahan invested her own money to keep the company afloat—ignoring the advice of several turnaround consultants. “I just believed in my heart it was not time to give up on this.” Indeed, Tastefully Simple is once again profitable. With a much leaner executive team and renewed focus on sales and marketing training, Tastefully Simple was well positioned to

“Our vision is to be a role model for inclusion in the industry,” says Rosemary Ugboajah, founder and CEO of Neka Creative, a Minneapolis-based brand development agency that makes inclusion a centerpiece of every project it takes on through a proprietary process dubbed Inclusivity Marketing. She entered the advertising industry without many preconceptions, having grown up primarily in Nigeria, without television. While in college in London to study engineering, she found herself drawn to design; an opportunity to learn the business side of advertising led her to the University of Minnesota. Ugboajah started her agency a decade ago, after years of working in other agencies and for Target Corp. She calls Neka Creative her “protest movement”—a response to stereotypes being perpetuated in marketing and a lack of diversity in the field. Her efforts toward inclusion included eliminating set office hours and diverse hiring practices. “We made a commitment and we’re still working on it. You’re always working on i

It’s a good time to be in the business of selling immunity. Minneapolis-based wellness company So Good So You makes plant-based juice shots packed with probiotics that support the immune and digestive system. Each variety is named for the “need’ it addresses: Energy, Sleep, Detox, and the No. 1 seller, Immunity. At the start of 2020, the 2-ounce So Good So You shots were sold at 3,000 stores; now they’re at more than 4,000 stores in 47 states including Target, Publix, and Sprouts. The company, which has the backing of investors, managed to meet and exceed its 2020 sales projections and hit profitability. “What the pandemic has done is accelerate this movement of people understanding that investing proactively and managing their own health pays dividends when it comes to their immunity,” says co-founder Rita Katona. In 2014, she left a corporate job at Target Corp. to start a health and wellness company with her husband Eric Hall, a serial entrepreneur. It started as a cold-pressed juice café called Juice So

Abilitech Medical is on the brink of launching the first-of-its-kind wearable assistive device that makes it possible for patients with upper-limb weakness or injury to use their arms for everyday activities. “This is my imprint on the world,” says founder Angie Conley. Even before the Abiliitech Assist device becomes widely available through hospitals and clinics, it has already won numerous awards including the Tekne Award for innovation from the Minnesota High Tech Association and the Grand Prize and Top Woman-led Business at the Minnesota Cup, which is the largest state-led business competition. Abilitech has also been recognized as a Top 20 Medical Device Startup You Need to Know by MassDevice magazine; and a Top Promising Life Science Company by Rice University. So far Conley has raised $12 million, primarily in equity funding. Abilitech is Conley’s first startup, but years of experience in the medical device industry prepared her for the challenge. Following several years as a senior product marketin

Tammy Lee launched a line of wearable cool therapy medical devices in February, 2020, and one month later, she had to shut down her new company due to Covid-19. It wasn’t the start she dreamed of for Xena Therapies. But then, Lee’s entire career is built on unexpected turns. Lee studied journalism and political science and landed a job as a Washington D.C. news correspondent. She crossed over to politics to become press secretary for then U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan, a “prairie populist” from North Dakota. “I loved helping to influence public policy.” In 2006, she ran for U.S. Representative of Minnesota’s fifth district and lost. “The way I ran that campaign opened the door to the next great opportunity.” Lee was hired by Northwest Airlines to oversee communications during the Northwest-Delta merger. Then after vice president roles with the University of Minnesota Foundation and Carlson, Lee was recruited for the role that changed her career trajectory. Recombinetics, a St. Paul-based gene editing tech start