For a while in October 2020, Bobbi Brown simply stopped taking calls. Even close friends didn't know what she was up to, tucked into a storage-closet-turned-office within her husband's production studio. If she'd opened her mouth to the wrong person, she could have been in breach of contract. It was nerve-racking, but also-she'll admit it now-the right kind of electrifying.
Around her neck hung a tiny gold chain with a charm she'd had made reading "10/20." It was the expiration date of the noncompete agreement she'd signed 25 years before, when her eponymous cosmetics company was acquired by Estée Lauder for some $75 million. In the years she'd been prohibited from all but touching another beauty brand, Brown had spent more than two decades doing something else almost unheard-of: staying put within Estée Lauder, an executive leading her Bobbi Brown Cosmetics to more than $1 billion in annual revenue.
Within Estée Lauder, her perseverance and problem-solving had become legendary. She was the "last founder standing" of more than a dozen prestige cosmetics, skin care, and fragrance startups the Lauders would acquire. But, in 2016, in year 21 of her noncompete, it had become too much. The quarterly meetings it took a full quarter to prepare for, the bureaucracy, the top-down management, the budgeting, the pushing back against products she didn't believe in or want her name on. And so that year, she'd stepped away and retreated to her home in Montclair, New Jersey, where Brown now found herself brandless.
WHAT'S RED AND WHITE AND IN THE BLACK?
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May - June 2023 من Inc..
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May - June 2023 من Inc..
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Screen Play
Joe Thomas and his co-founders were two weeks away from running out of money for their software startup when, in 2016, they launched a new product and went all in on prerecorded videos as a workplace communication tool.
THE GUY WHO PUTS COPS IN THE SKY
BLAKE RESNICK, A 24-YEAR-OLD WITH FUNDING FROM SAM ALTMAN AND SAM BANKMAN-FRIED, IS ON A WILD RIDE TO REINVENT THE FUTURE OF EMERGENCY RESPONSE.
AI Gets to Work
It's leading-edge, it's downright scary and it's here. Following AI's breakout year, we take a look under the hood at how entrepreneurs are applying the tech and what you need to know to stay competitive.
THE CRUSADING KOMBUCHA CEO AND 200 YEARS OF STARTUP-DESTROYING LEGAL DOCTRINE
Michael Peter wants to dismantle a longstanding legal precedent that can prevent entrepreneurs from getting their day in court. His not-so-secret weapon: A small-business superhero named Reverend Justice.
ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE FEMALE FOUNERS 250
SUCCESS often breeds success-but triumphs also arise out of necessity. Consider that Airbnb, Uber, and Rent the Runway started during the Great Recession. In many ways, the past year was defined by similar tumult. While the U.S. never technically entered a recession, the retrenchment in investment and ad spending paired with the psychological-if not direct-toll of tech layoffs yielded tough times indeed. But female founders are nothing if not resilient, and their achievements defied the conditions they faced, giving us cause to expand our list to 250 of them. They're not ranked, but they are organized around themes. In the pages that follow, you'll find snapshots of courage from women who've overcome trials-such as keeping the internet running in war zones, coping with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, or facing personal crises. You'll also learn how this year's top female founders grew their collective 2023 revenue to more than $8.86 billion, raised $6.2 billion in funding to date, and kept it together not just to survive, but to thrive.
Shelley Zalis
On that elusive work-life balance, her own version of perfection, and pivoting with positivity.
Steve Young Shares Lessons From the Private Equity Playbook With a First-Time Founder
The athlete-turned-investor helps Tessa Barton prepare to scale her bootstrapped photo-editing startup, Tezza.
AI in HR Tech: A New Era in Human Resources Technology
The next generation of HR software is here, powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Now, your business can harness the transformative power of AI in HR tech.
Think Liberally and Deliberately
Why do I devote four weeks a year to reading and thinking? So I can supercharge all the other days.
At Board Meetings, the CEO Should Get Lost
Directors need to candidly discuss company leadership. They can't do that if the top manager is also the board chair.