Lauren Lerch witnessed the unthinkable: She was at a Las Vegas music festival in 2017 when a gunman opened fire and killed 58 people. Lerch escaped physically unharmed, but the experience gave her PTSD. “I’d hear a car backfire and I’d hit the ground,” says the 37-year-old California mother of three. She struggled with depression, anxiety, and panic attacks, but medications only made her gain weight and feel disoriented.
That’s when a friend mailed Lerch a CBD tincture. “After three weeks of taking the product, I woke up one day and I was like, God, I almost feel normal right now,” Lerch recalls.
As the symptoms of her anxiety began to fade, Lerch grew increasingly interested in CBD. The hemp-derived compound—CBD is shorthand for cannabidiol—is being used to treat sleeplessness, pain, depression, and a host of other common ailments (though the actual science on CBD’s effectiveness is still in early stages). Lerch wanted to help other people like her and found an opportunity to do so: She became a franchisee of one of the leading CBD retail franchises, Your CBD Store. “I didn’t get into it originally for the business opportunity,” she says. “It can be overwhelming walking into a shop and having so many options. I loved the fact that I could provide a personalized experience and connect with customers.”
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How Small Shops Take Big Risks - It's not easy for mom-and-pops to try something new, because they rarely have a safety net to fail.But there are ways to innovate cautiously-as one small business on our list, All My Heart tattoo studio, has found.
The Charlotte, North Carolina, studio is airy and suffused with natural light. In the reception area, there are modular chairs, midcentury couches, and a vase of fresh flowers on a Japanese-influenced cabinet. But the real surprise goes beyond aesthetics. All My Heart's owner, Graham Beech, isn't just playing with a new look; he's trying out a whole new business model. Historically, tattoo shops have wanted to control the clientele, and use the tattoo artist as kind of a cog in the wheel, Beech says. What's different about our business is that the client is the artist, and they have their own individual clients.
5 Ways to Multitask Your Fall - From a corporate office to working from the living room, Emmy Award winner Mario Armstrong has five new products designed to make putting in the hours more enjoyable.
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Speedy Growth Killed My Startup - We seemed to be rocking it-lots of press, major partnerships. Then we learned the harsh consequences of overlooking our customers.
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How to Hire for the Future - Small businesses are struggling to find quality labor. So flip the conversation: Show workers how your business will set them up for opportunity.
Small businesses have a hiring problem. According to the July monthly jobs report from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), 19% of small businesses rank the inability to find quality labor as the single most important issue facing their company, while 38% reported job openings they could not fill. Overall, 49% reported few or no qualified applicants for the positions they were trying to fill.
Three Pivots to $100 Million - How do you find a working business model? Do it like Rowan-a brand that reinvented itself many times before finally piercing the ear-piercing market
If you have a tween girl, you've probably heard of Rowan. It's the cool brand for piercings, where licensed nurses insert hypoallergenic studs into thousands of ears every day. With more than 500 employees, it's on track to have 65 stores and an annual run rate of $100 million in revenue this year.But in 2017, Rowan was just a fledgling startup with a great idea and a bad business model. It survived because founder Louisa Schneider was willing to pivot, and pivot, and pivot again, until its mission, profit, and market all clicked into place.
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