Episode 25 - Da Bomb Bath Founders Isabel and Caroline Bercaw

10/23/19 • 49 min

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 incorporate on their own. Their mom Kim serves as CEO and dad Ben is CFO and COO of the Edina, Minn. Based company, which employs more than 150. “Our parents have always inspired curiosity rather than fear in us,” the Bercaw sisters say. The sisters talk about what it's liek to make it big before high school, from their surprise success to what they’ve sacrificed along the way. They explain why they want to go to college, and what they want for their company as it continues to grow. After our conversation, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. “This generation of students, Generation Z, are a far more entrepreneurial generation,” says Laura Dunham, associate dean of the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. “They are learning a lot about entrepreneurship at an early age—there are tons of resources online, more programs at the high school level, and the world has changed, making it easier for any company to access customers, build capital-efficient supply chains. There’s more opportunity out there, and young people are grabbing it.”

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Episode 24 - Augeo Founder + CEO David Kristal

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 growing again. In September, Augeo acquired enterprise engagement company MotivAction. It is expected to generate $350 million in annual revenue. Kristal talks about fostering a company culture that can withstand a total pivot, and being willing to fail. “There ain’t no magic to this stuff,” Krisal says. “You’ve got to keep pounding it out every day. You hope you have more good days than bad days and hope you can make your good days great.” After our conversation with Kristal, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Dan McLaughlin teaches in the Operations and Supply Chain Management program. He points out how culture can impact a company’s ability to pivot. “The is a classic example of agile business: you try stuff. I bet in seven years, Augeo will be doing something else because they’re willing to try things and move on.”

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Bonus: Burt Cohen, Founder, MplsStPaul Magazine and Twin Cities Business

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 Johnson, president of MSP Communications, and Brian Anderson, who served as editor of Mpls.St.Paul until his death in 2010. Cohen is TCB's founding publisher. A mentor to many in business and publishing, Cohen has served on numerous boards including Medica, Minneapolis Institute of Arts and University of St. Thomas. He played a key role in modernizing the mission of the University of Minnesota School of Journalism. Cohen continues to write a monthly column for Mpls.St.Paul Magazine. He is likely the only person on Twitter who types his tweets on a manual typewriter and hands them to an intern to be posted online @thecohenreport, which he never looks at. His LinkedIn profile, which is is also unaware he has, lists him as “old columnist.” But Cohen says coming to the office every day, lunching with business leaders and politicians, and reading several newspapers a day keeps him young. His motto, in life and business: “Be gracious as you can and respectful and appreciative of everyone. If you’re polite and nice and civil and openminded to people’s thoughts and ideas, it will lead to success for you and will be heartwarming to them.”