The Skim - July 2019 - Skimming pebbles on water

The Skim — July 2019’s Business Inspiration Summary

2nd July 2019

With summer in full swing, these illuminating tips from brilliant business minds will brighten your day.

Angela Duckworth

‘The recipe to finding one’s calling is one-part self-reflection and nine-parts experience.’

Angela Duckworth is the bestselling author of ‘Grit’, which discusses the power of passion and perseverance, and has secured a number of accolades during her career.

In this insightful ‘In the Room’ interview with Cami Anderson, Angela discusses her career highlights like earning a Psychology doctorate and delivering a popular Ted Talk – while sharing insightful life lessons such as handling criticism in a positive manner.

Read what Angela has to say here.

Taylor Berry

‘You can turn the negative energy of a failure into something positive.’

Taylor Berry is the Chief Marketing Officer of multi-billion-dollar company Tito’s Homemade Vodka, which has been in operation for 21 years.

In this recent edition of the Playbook podcast, he discusses the growth of the brand over the past two decades with host David Meltzer. For Taylor, combining tangible differentiators like price and quality with brand values of hope and faith has been the key to securing a loyal customer base.

Listen to Taylor’s discussion here.

Ben Chestnut

‘I thought about building something that would empower small businesses to scale out of the kitchen.’

Ben Chestnut is the CEO of Mailchimp, which now boasts 15 million users. He used his DIY ethos to turn his iconic email marketing firm into a $600million dollar enterprise – without any external funding.

In this exciting episode of Masters of Scale, he discusses how the business stagnated for years due to investor cynicism, before he and his partner bootstrapped it to brilliant success.

Check out what else Ben has to say here.

Jaime Schmidt

‘We never turned down an opportunity to have our product discounted on the shelf. If you don’t do it, then your competition is going to.’

Jaime Schmidt’s entrepreneurial career began in 2010 when she started manufacturing deodorant from her kitchen. Over time, her products found their way onto the shelves of big names like Walmart and Costco and in 2017 she sold her Schmidt’s Naturals brand to consumer goods giant Unilever for an undisclosed amount.

In this Inc article, Jaime talks to co-founder and CEO of Hero Cosmetics Jo Rhyu, who hopes to follow in her footsteps. Jaime gives her mentee sounds advice based on her own entrepreneurial experiences.

Read what Jaime has to say here.

The Skim will return in August with more exciting examples of entrepreneurial excellence.

In the meantime, check out these related blogs: