HomeBy All Means


By All Means

Making Business Work in Minnesota.

Entrepreneurs and leaders share the stories behind their beloved brands, and the ones you’ll want to know next. Discover how they got started, and gain insights to apply to your own ventures. Subscribe now and you’ll be first to know when a new episode launches.

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Chris Plantan

Chris Plantan

russell + hazel Founder

Chris Plantan left a lucrative architecture career to start rusell + hazel, the first brand in a commodity-driven category to treat office supplies as design objects. She talks about spotting the "white space" in consumer goods and creating new products to fill it.
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Sue Remes

Sue Remes

Sue Remes Resources Founder

She's one of the most sought-after experts in the beauty business and has helped build brands and sales strategies for Keven Murphy, Kiehl's, and many others. And she does it from the outside. Remes demystifies the world of consulting.
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Nancy Lyons

Nancy Lyons

Clockwork founder and CEO

Nancy Lyons is the founder and CEO of Clockwork, a Minneapolis-based experience design and technology agency. She’s a leader with a personal mission to “think strategically, act thoughtfully, be a good human.” She works at the intersection of leadership, entrepreneurship, technology and people. “I don’t love tech,” Lyons says. “I love people and how tech supports and empowers people.”
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Brandon Sampson

Brandon Sampson

Limb Lab founder and prosthetist

After 15 years of working as a prosthetist, Brandon Sampson embraced his inner entrepreneur and set out to create a new kind of artificial limb company focused on function over form. Limb Lab now has four locations in Minnesota and Wisconsin. “I just love getting up and going to work," Sampson says. "Every day there’s a chance I might be able to create something that never existed before.”
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Maia Haag

Maia Haag

I See Me! Co-Founder and President

Minneapolis-based I See Me! is the largest publisher of personalized books in the U.S. With more than 50 titles and many other personalized products, I See Me! has sold millions of books. Maia Haag walks us through building a brand—before social media—at the intersection of publishing, technology and e-commerce.
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Benjamin VandenWymelenberg

Benjamin VandenWymelenberg

Woodchuck USA Founder and Chairman

Wiping out on Rollerblades and cracking his iPhone prompted Benjamin VandenWymelenberg to make his first phone case out of wood scraps. That was the beginning of Woodchuck USA. In a matter of months, the Minneapolis-manufacturer was selling through Best Buy and Target. Woodchuck counts Google, US Bank, and Ecolab, and Aveda among its custom clients, and plants a tree for every item sold, which has resulted in millions of trees planted on six continents. 
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Claire Powell

Claire Powell

J.W. Hulme CEO

Claire Powell didn't start J.W. Hulme; she was brought in to resuscitate the century-old St. Paul-based leather goods brand and found herself in the difficult position of having to change the business model. She talks about how to pivot while staying true to a brand, and the challenge of leading through turmoil.
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Joe Keeley

Joe Keeley

College Nannies, Sitters + Tutors Founder

Joe Keeley turned a summer babysitting gig into the nation's largest employer of nannies, sitters and tutors. He describes the process of discovering his inner entrepreneur, offers advice for other founders, and talks about what's next, now that he has sold and stepped away from the company he started while he was a student at the University of St. Thomas.
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Sona Mehring

Sona Mehring

CaringBridge Founder

It started with a simple website designed to help friends share news about their premature baby. The power of that instant connection—at a time before Facebook—prompted Sona Mehring to build CaringBridge, a free social network that makes it easy for people to communicate with loved ones during a health crisis. From the newborn intensive care unit at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics in St. Paul, CaringBridge has grown into a global nonprofit with users in 235 countries. 
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Kate Arends

Kate Arends

Wit & Delight founder and creative director

Kate Arends’ eye for design and instinct for connection helped her build an audience of more than 3.3 million for Wit & Delight, her blog turned social media platform. How to leverage that devoted following and capitalize on the opportunities that come with being a lifestyle brand continues to a work in progress.
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Clarence Bethea

Clarence Bethea

Upsie founder and CEO

Clarence Bethea does not fit the typical venture capitalist’s profile of a promising founder. He grew up in a broken home, got into trouble with the law, dropped out of college. But when he started working in a group home with vulnerable adults, something clicked.
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Kristin Shane

Kristin Shane

Fly Feet Running Founder and CEO

Kristin Shane is the founder of Fly Feet Running, a group fitness workout with two successful studios and national aspirations. Shane was part of team that led Target's disastrous expansion into Canada. She talks about how that failure set her up for success as an entrepreneur, the challenges of scaling a business, and the leadership lessons she's learned along the way.
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Rhoda Olsen

Rhoda Olsen

Vice Chair of the Board and former CEO

Rhoda Olsen didn’t grow up thinking she’d one day run a $1.5 billion company. She didn’t have any female role models in business. But she found the way to lead with heart, and data, and in the process, she helped Great Clips become the world's largest salon brand.
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Michael Fanuele

Michael Fanuele

Founder and CEO Talk Like Music

Michael Fanuele is a brand strategist who has worked at JWT, Havas, Fallon, and most recently served as chief creative officer at General Mills where he tried to inspire a big food company to be a good food company. Currently, he’s the founder and CEO of Talk Like Music, a consultancy that helps people, places, and brands become more inspiring. His new book is called Stop Making Sense: The Art of Inspiring Anybody.
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Dave Kapell

Dave Kapell

Magnetic Poetry Founder and CEO

Dave Kapell founded Magnetic Poetry, a first-of-its-kind novelty item that brought poetry into the kitchens and onto the refrigerators of millions of people around the world in the mid-‘90s. An accidental entrepreneur, he came up with the idea of putting words on magnets while writing song lyrics, and when friends wanted magnetic poetry kits of their own, he turned it into a business. “I went viral before there was going viral,” he says. 
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Ann Kim

Ann Kim

Young Joni and Pizzeria Lola Founder and Executive Chef

Ann Kim is the James Beard Award-winning owner and executive chef of Young Joni, Pizzeria Lola and Hello Pizza in Minneapolis. A Korean immigrant influenced by her mother's dishes, she didn't follow a traditional path to the restaurant industry, which she believes has worked in her favor as she continues to create unique restaurant concepts.
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Andrew Dayton – Constellation Fund CEO

Andrew Dayton – Constellation Fund CEO

CEO Constellation Fund

ABOUT THIS EPISODE: How do you define success when your family names are Dayton and Rockefeller? Andrew Dayton is the son of former Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton and philanthropist Alida
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Andrew Dayton

Andrew Dayton

CEO Constellation Fund

How do you define success when your family names are Dayton and Rockefeller? Andrew Dayton, co-founder of North Corp. retail and hospitality group, talks about the concern over growing inequities in Minnesota that led him to create Constellation Fund, a grand making organization that takes a data-driven approach to the fight against poverty.
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