By All Means

On Monday March 16, in the face of a national emergency, John Puckett joined Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz at a press conference announcing that restaurants and bars must close to stop the spread of coronavirus. It's a death blow for many in the hospitality industry, but Puckett said "it's time to hunker down and protect our vital resources." How do you lead through crisis? This conversation from our first episode of By All Means in April 2019 is sure to provide some inspiration. *** John Puckett and his wife Kim had a case of “the Mondays” that struck almost as soon as they landed corporate jobs after business school. “Life is too short to spend Sunday night dreading going in to work on Monday,” John says. “We felt like life is … too precious to not really feel connected to your work and passionate about what you’re doing.” That conviction led to the creation of Caribou Coffee, now the No. 2 coffee chain in the U.S. It's No. 1 in Minnesota—the one market Starbucks doesn’t dominate—and that’s because of several st

Behind every successful founder are the advisors, investors, mentors, and marketers who are integral to getting it right. Kent Pilakowski is one of those behind-the-scenes experts who helped to build Beyond Meat, Talenti, Good Karma and other hot food brands that have sold or gone public. Pilakowski shares his journey from General Mills to entrepreneurship and talks about the evolution of the food industry and what it takes for a new brand to break through today. “Food has become a lot more fashionable,” says Pilakowski, who got a sales job with General Mills out of college in the 1990s and moved more than a dozen times before landing in general management at corporate headquarters in Minneapolis. He worked on two organic acquisitions: Muir Glen and Kaskadian Farms, and that opened his eyes to the opportunity for industry disruption. “Entrepreneurs start a business for passion, for health, to save the world, to save the environment. I saw a groundswell happening.” Pilakowski likes to say he isn’t the “i

Growing up on an Iowa farm taught Ryan Broshar about taking risks and working hard. And it made him realize at an early age that he’d rather sell the corn than harvest it. His first startup, a university-based publication business called University Guide, grew out of an entrepreneurship class assignment at the University of Minnesota. It became a profitable business that Broshar sold two years out of college. While pursuing an MBA at Colorado University-Boulder, he got involved in the emerging startup community and worked for an investment fund. It was 2008—“the economy was crashing, but (tech startups) weren’t going down; they were thinking forward.” When he and his wife moved back to Minnesota to be closer to family, Broshar saw an opportunity to support the Twin Cities startup community. He co-founded BetaMN, a support system for founders that puts on a showcase-style event to connect founders with investors. Next, he co-founded Twin Cities Startup Week, which has become a national draw, attracting larg

Atif Siddiqi knew he wanted to build a business. When considering problems to solve, he harkened back to his high school sales job at a t-shirt shop, where there was no automated system for employees to trade or pick up available shifts. Years later, he discovered, not much had changed. He launched Branch in 2014 as a scheduling tool for hourly employees. It has since evolved into a mobile-first platform on a mission to “make the lives of hourly workers financially better.” Branch provides no-cost advances on earned wages. The app is used by hundreds of thousands of hourly employees at large companies including Life Time and Target. Along the way, Siddiqi has become an authority on the topics of employee satisfaction, financial wellness, and how employee engagement can help a company’s bottom line. “What we hear is employees are looking for more predictability in their schedules as well as flexibility. Uber has made it possible to pick up a shift any time—that’s driving consumers to want that from their wor

From maker to manufacturer: Mercedes Austin started making ceramic tiles in her apartment 18 years ago, and today, her company, Mercury Mosaics, occupies a 15,000 square foot factory in Minneapolis that produces tile for Room & Board, lululemon, PF Chang, major hotel chains, and other large clients as well selling direct to consumer. In the next year, Mercury Mosaics will open a second manufacturing center in Wadena, Minn. and a third is already being planned—both with a focus on creating jobs in small towns. It’s been a long and winding road for Austin, who stumbled into ceramics while studying psychology and took on apprenticeships to learn the trade while waiting tables to pay the bills. “I didn’t start out with the greatest self-worth,” Austin says. “My mom didn’t give me money, so I always had to figure out a way. Becoming resourceful, not having anything handed to you—it always motivated me to do really well by any means necessary. I’m most proud that I didn’t turn out how everyone said I would.”

Erik Brust was still a teenager when he came up with the idea for an all-natural popsicle—a fruit smoothie on a stick. He and some friends started making them in their dorm at St. Olaf College and by the time they graduated, Jonny Pops was a brand on the rise in the frozen foods industry. Eight years later, St. Louis Park, Minn.-based Jonny Pops is sold nationwide at Target, Costco, Sam’s Club and many other chains. In 2018, Brust and co-founder and chief financial officer Connor Wray were named to Forbes 30 under 30 list of young entrepreneurs. At 27, Brust is CEO of a fast-growing company with nearly 50 employees…most of whom are older than he is. “They love telling me I’m younger than their kids are,” he says. Brust talks about how he got Jonny Pops off the ground (“I don’t see any other way to get a business going unless you commit 100 percent to it.”), the lonely process of raising money (“It’s very humbling to go out there and pitch your idea and hope that people are going to believe in you and then g

Throughout his career as a TV meteorologist, Paul Douglas has found ways to turn weather data into business. He's launched and sold more than one weather related startup and has several others up his sleeve. "i love the intellectual challenge of launching new businesses," Douglas says. But he also loves telling weather stories, and finding ways to innovate. During his time at NBC affiliate Kare 11 in the 1980s and early 90s, Douglas launched the “backyard” format, which is still used today by that station, and many others nationwide. He also became one of the first meteorologists in the country to use graphics in his report. He worked for a time at WBBM-TV in Chicago, where he made occasional appearances on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. Then he became Minnesota’s first certified broadcast meteorologist, and returned to Minnesota where he served as Chief Meteorologist for WCCO-TV from 1997 to 2008. Meanwhile, off camera, he started realizing the opportunity to pair his meteorological expertise with

John Butcher held 15 jobs in 20 years with Target Corp. and it taught him to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. So when an executive recruiter called about a leadership role at Caribou Coffee, the Minneapolis-based premium coffee chain with nearly 700 locations worldwide, Butcher said yes to the interview, even though he knew very little about coffee or the restaurant business. “Any business that can strike an emotional chord is interesting to me,” he says. Butcher joined Caribou as president in 2017, at a time when the company was “not reaching its potential,” Butcher says. “Ultimately, we weren’t being very guest focused." Butcher talks about how he listened, learned, and made purposeful changes that have resulted in improved sales, employee retention, and the best customer service feedback Caribou has ever received. In 2019, Butcher was named CEO of Caribou, which is owned by Luxembourg-based JAB Holdings Co. but has its headquarters in a suburb of Minneapolis. He has since embarked on plans to r

Chuck Runyon and Dave Mortensen opened their first Anytime Fitness gym in 2002. Their concept was an alternative to big box gyms: A no-frills space with little supervision…just workout equipment that was available literally any time. Seventeen years later, Anytime Fitness is the world’s largest fitness franchise company with $2 billion in annual revenue and nearly 5,000 locations on all seven continents, thanks to a recent opening on a ship that spends half the year in Antarctica. Runyon and Mortensen created a parent company, Self Esteem Brands, that also includes Waxing The City, Basecamp Fitness and Bar Method. They’ve earned just about every entrepreneurial award imaginable – they’ve been recognized as one of America’s most promising companies by Forbes, and the fastest growing fitness club by the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association. They did it all on instinct and “grit.” As Runyon says, only half jokingly, “Our company wouldn’t hire us today.” The two share the lessons they’ve le

Nineteen years after mortgaging their home to open a neighborhood ice cream shop in St. Paul, Minnesota, the founders of Izzy’s are poised to take their ice cream national. “Our vision is to compete directly with Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s,” says Jeff Sommers, who focuses on sales while his wife Lara Hammel is the mastermind behind popular flavors like Midnight Graham Crunch and Butter Caramel Salted Swirl. Sommers, a former high school teacher, and Hammel, a lawyer, talk about what prompted them to leave their careers to get into the ice cream business, and how they’ve grown from one shop to two, plus grocery and restaurant distribution in Minnesota. Also why now feels like the right time to expand. “There’s a whole bunch of space in the middle now for classic ice cream,” Sommers says. From their patented “Izzy Scoop” to a collaboration with musician Dessa, the husband and wife duo talk about what drives them. Says Sommers, “You just have to be passionate about the thing you want to do in business.”

Larissa Loden is a jewelry designer whose line is now sold in more than 800 stores nationwide including high profile names like Modcloth, WildFang and the Smithsonian Museum. And only four years ago, jewelry was a side hustle to her day job as an art teacher in the Minneapolis public schools. Loden grew up in retail—her parents own a gift store in upstate New York and she knew didn’t want to go into the business. Making jewelry was simply a hobby in the quiet hours after teaching. But as the necklaces piled up, her entrepreneurial instinct kicked in and she began to sell—first on Etsy, then at pop-up markets, and when she went to her first trade show, the orders from gift stores and museum shops began pouring in. Today, she manages a growing team of 9 full-time and 15 contract employees and balances the growing demands of a creative profession with the details of running a successful business. “The past two years I’ve really tried to level myself up,” Loden says. “Creating something from nothing keeps you

Fitness wasn’t a career path when Chris Freytag attended college, but her lifelong passion for movement and wellness led her to become an entrepreneur—even before she knew that's what she was doing. Today, Freytag is a national fitness expert and author with a massive social media following. She's the founder of content platform Get Healthy U and on-demand subscription workout program Get Healthy U TV. Freytag walks us through the many paths she pursued along the way to running her own business—from making dance aerobics VHS tapes in the 1980s to selling smoothie makers on QVC. Through it all, her mission is clear: “I want to educate, inspire, and sometimes make people laugh…because you’ve got to keep it real.” Freytag talks about aging, as well as fitness trends and what it means to live a healthy life. “The fitness industry is about looking good. But if that’s your only why, it won’t last. You have to have deeper ‘why’s.’” Through it all, Freytag says she’s learned a lot about herself, and business. “

We talk endlessly about diet and exercise. But what about sleep? There’s no class in school, and in the workplace, there’s often a stigma around admitting fatigue. That’s where Sarah Moe saw her opportunity. "I tell people: I work in sleep medicine. That's a real job." A Board Registered Polysomnographic Technologist (RPSGT) who spent 10 years working for sleep medicine clinics, Moe created her own consultancy called Sleep Health Specialists. She spends most of her time helping businesses learn how to make their culture more sleep friendly. Today, 20 percent of the population suffers from a sleep disorder. The average employee costs an employer $3,000 per year from being tired—that’s illness, absenteeism and lack of productivity. Moe talks about how she set up her practice, how the corporate community is responding, and the enemy of sleep that’s even worse than caffeine: blue light. And what to do about it. After our conversation with Moe, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Op

At a time when modern design wasn’t readily accessible to the masses, college friends Maurice Blanks and John Christakos, with their friend Charlie Lazor, channeled a shared passion for art, architecture and design into contemporary furniture brand Blu Dot. “There was a whole segment of the market unexplored,” Blanks says. “The J.Crew of furniture.” The line was a hit when it launched at a trade show in 1997 and the founders never looked back. Today, Blu Dot has stores in eight U.S. cities and in Mexico and Australia and a growing commercial interiors division. Blu Dot won the 2018 Cooper Hewitt National Design award for Product Design. “It's great to see the vision really coming to life now, 22 years later, the way we always wanted it to," Blanks says. "There’s just so much room for continued growth."  Blanks and Christakos discuss design thinking—an approach they apply to both furniture and leadership. “Our core value: good design is good. We see everything as a design opportunity,” Christakos says. “It’

While working at HealthPartners as a front desk registrar, Katrina Anderson noticed that medical students were having trouble getting signed up for clinical rotations. She had the idea to create a platform that would allow hospitals to post their schedules online so students can easily and securely sign up. LinkedIn meets Airbn is how Anderson describes it. She and her partner called their software program Clinician Nexus. Founded in 2016, the startup has already raised $750,000 and is being used in 95 hospitals and 136 school schools around the country. They're just getting started. Clinician Nexus is about more than real-time scheduling, Anderson says. The platform addresses what has become a major problem for hospitals and medical schools: providing medical students with enough clinical hours to finish their degrees. “We might not have enough physicians if we don’t have enough slots to teach them and they can’t graduate on time. When you invest in the health care system, it improves patient outcomes.” A

Fred Haberman is co-founder and CEO of Haberman, a Minneapolis-based branding, advertising, and public relations agency that counts Volvo, Organic Valley and Boston Scientific among its clients. But he’s also a social entrepreneur with a passion for organic foods, wellness, and the outdoors, and so Haberman continues to launch other ventures, even while running his agency. Haberman founded the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships and grew it into an annual event drawing well over 20,000 players and spectators from across the country. He also co-founded Urban Organics, one of only two USDA certified organic aquaponics facilities in the country, which was acquired by Pentair in 2017. His latest venture is Freak Flag Organics, a line of flavorful condiments and sauces now sold online and in local grocery stores. “The idea is to be yourself in the world, and in the kitchen,” he says, adding that this is the brand he intends to focus on for the foreseeable future. But as you’ll hear, Haberman always has another idea.

By All Means host Allison Kaplan sits down with one of her mentors, Burt Cohen, founding publisher of Mpls.St.Paul Magazine and Twin Cities Business, to talk about the magazine business, leadership, and sandwiches. A 1955 graduate of the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Cohen’s publishing career included management roles with the New York Times Media Company, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and Modern Medicine Publications. He purchased a small city magazine called MPLS in 1978 and transformed it into Mpls.St.Paul, now the Twin Cities’ leading lifestyle magazine and a leader in the field of city and regional magazines nationally. That was the beginning of MSP Communications, one of the first publishing companies in the country to create content for brands. MSP-C, the company's custom division, has developed more than 225 print and digital titles and platforms to date. In 1993, Cohen created MSP's second editorial magazine, Twin Cities Business, with the help of partners Gary Jo

Sisters Isabel and Caroline Bercaw started making bath bombs for fun when they were just 10 and 11 years old. Entrepreneurial at heart and encouraged by their parents, Kim and Ben Bercaw, the girls entered the youth division of the Uptown Art Fair in Minneapolis and sold out of bath bombs in a day. They came back the next year and caught the eye of a spa owner who wanted to sell their fizzy bath bombs with a “surprise” inside at his shop. They never looked back. Today, their bath bombs are sold at Target, Costco, and many other national retailers. Da Bomb Bath does around $20 million in annual revenue. And that figure could catapult, thanks to new branded partnerships with Barbie, Hot Wheels and Disney.  Isabel, 18, is now a freshman at the University of St. Thomas—part of the Schulze Scholars program for students who have demonstrated entrepreneurial leadership. Caroline is finishing her senior year of high school. The two are co-creative directors of the company they started before they were old enough to

David Kristal had no intention of going into business with his father Henry, co-founder of the Ember’s restaurant chain. But with the heyday of the 24-hour diner coming to an end and the 80-restaurant Midwestern chain losing money every month, Kristal joined his dad in 1997 to try to save the business. He managed to slow the bleed, although the restaurants never fully rebounded. In the process of trying, however, Kristal steered the company into the loyalty business. “We were in total crisis mode trying to figure out how to cash roll the business to avoid bankruptcy. We didn’t have a reputation in the loyalty space; we had to create it.” One service client turned into many and soon, the company had an entirely new focus in engagement and loyalty management programs.  Now called Augeo, the St. Paul-based company with more than 200 employees offers incentive and debit card membership programs in more than 50 countries. In 2018, Augeo spun off a fintech loyalty division for $140 million, and the company is gro

Chris Plantan traded building high rises for designing three-ring binders. Surprised that she couldn’t find stylish school supplies for her daughter to use in middle school, Plantan left a lucrative career as an architect in 2003 to start russell + hazel, an office products line that changed an industry. Hers was the first brand in a commodity driven category to treat paper products and office supplies as design objects. Her patterned binders, lucite sticky note holders and gold staplers blended function and fashion, and even inspired Martha Stewart who became a big fan of the brand and helped create national demand. Plantan sold russell + hazel, which is named for her grandparents, to Gartner Studios in 2009 and stayed on for three years. Next she co-founded a company called West Emory and took a very different approach, staying behind the scenes to design products for other retail brands including Crate & Barrel, Vineyard Vines, J.Crew, Target, and Nordstrom. She left earlier this year to recharge her crea