Entrepreneur Media

Sean Henry has had the same eBay account since 2003 — he was 8 years old when he started selling his Christmas presents online. By the time he got to Georgia Tech on a full scholarship, he had spent his whole life selling online and had one clear conviction: everyone is going to want things faster, cheaper and online forever. The problem was that independent brands had no way to compete with Amazon's fulfillment infrastructure. He registered Stord LLC at 18 with $5,000 to $10,000 in savings — not enough to open a warehouse. So he called existing warehouses and offered them volume and technology in exchange for partnership. They said yes. He dropped out at 19, became a Thiel Fellow and went all in. The hardest part wasn't the logistics — it was building a software culture and an operations culture inside the same company and getting them to actually work together. Stord recently closed a $250 million Series F at a $3 billion valuation, doubled in under 12 months. The platform manages nearly $15 billion in annual GMV for brands including AG1, True Classic and Seed Health, delivered to nearly 20% of U.S. households in 2025 and is on track for almost $1 billion in annual revenue this year. His lesson: when you see a big audacious problem, find your wedge. Start narrow enough to create real value for the first customer — but strategic enough to get you where you want to go long term.

A multi-year study from the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, supported by JPMorganChase, set out to answer a question every founder eventually faces: what city should I start my company in? The top five metro areas for entrepreneurship: Albany-Schenectady-Troy NY, Austin-Round Rock TX, San Diego-Carlsbad CA, San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward CA and Pittsburgh PA. Shaolee Sen, who runs small-business philanthropy at JPMorganChase and grew up watching her mother build a small business in New York City, helped shape the research. Her breakdown of what actually separates the top markets is worth paying attention to. The best cities make it easy to access real estate, talent, capital and customers — and they do it through strong public-private partnerships rather than fragmented, redundant programming. Columbus stands out in the report specifically because Ohio State's research ecosystem, a diversified industry base and capital partners who specialize in "hot handoffs" all point in the same direction at once. A few of her most actionable insights for founders regardless of location: Get feedback early and build relationships before you need them. Reach out to local networks, find a mentor and connect with potential customers and capital providers now. The founders who build those relationships in advance move faster when they need to. Expand your definition of funding. Capital isn't just new dollars. Technical assistance, shared back-office services and advice on capital structure all strengthen a balance sheet. The best ecosystems offer a holistic approach, not just a check. Build talent pipelines through local institutions. Research universities, community colleges and workforce development programs are underused recruiting channels. The regions pulling ahead invest in both traditional and nontraditional pathways — apprenticeships included. And her personal focus practice: a card someone gave her years ago that read "Do What Matters Most." She repeats it several times a day when the volume of competing demands gets loud. Any repeatable phrase or ritual that restores focus is worth finding. The city matters. So does what you do once you're in it.

Give yourself somewhere to go.

The ecommerce landscape keeps shifting, but a handful of niches are pulling ahead right now, and they're driven by long-term consumer behavior and cultural momentum. A few worth paying attention to: Health, wellness and self-care has moved beyond buzzword status. Consumers are buying solutions, not just productsm which is why bundled offerings like wellness starter kits consistently outperform standalone items. The seller who packages a sleep spray, a meditation guide and calming teas together is winning over the one selling any of those things individually. Pet products continue to outperform expectations. The emotional connection between owners and pets means these purchases rarely feel optional. Sellers who lean into that bond through community-driven branding and personalization — especially via print-on-demand — are carving out durable market share. Digital products and AI tools may be the highest-margin opportunity available right now. No inventory, no shipping and margins that approach 100%. AI prompt packs, workflow automations, micro-SaaS tools and niche online courses are all scaling faster than most physical product businesses because the distribution is instant and global. The resale and secondhand market is quietly one of the fastest-growing categories in ecommerce. Vintage streetwear, retro tech and upcycled goods are thriving. The sellers winning here are curators and storytellers, not just resellers. The common thread across all of it: the businesses pulling ahead find the overlap between real consumer demand, their ability to deliver genuine value and a willingness to commit long enough to build a brand. Pick one and treat it like a business. That's still the whole game.

The 3-day work week pitch sounds great until you realize it’s actually 3 days of pay. AI boosts productivity, but without strategy, it just leads to work intensification. AI expert Ben Angel explains why you need to claim your time before the system does.

Mike Hayes spent two decades as a Navy SEAL — commanding SEAL Team Two and leading a 2,000-person special operations task force. He now channels those leadership lessons into business and nonprofit work, and recently published Mission Driven: The Path to a Life of Purpose, with proceeds going to pay off mortgages for Gold Star widows through The 1162 Foundation. Three things from his framework worth applying regardless of your industry: Stop spending energy on hypothetical problems. "Whenever anything negative happens in your life, if you spend your energy on that hypothetical potential negative thing that could happen, you are spending energy and bandwidth on the hypothetical thing that hasn't yet happened." SEALs go into execution mode because they've trained to focus only on what's directly in front of them. The same shift is available to anyone — it's a decision about where attention goes, not a personality trait. Lead around the "who" not the "what." Hayes doesn't motivate people through tasks or titles. He rallies them around shared character and purpose — who they are as a group and what they stand for together. "When you converge people around that goal, it's not work. It's a mission. It's enjoyment. It's a passion." The leaders who build the most loyal teams define identity before they define strategy. When you're at a personal low, serve someone else. Hayes's experience — and his advice — is consistent: the best way out of doubt or a career crossroads is to invest in someone else without expectation of return. Purpose tends to follow that more reliably than any amount of introspection alone. Legacy, in his words, is "unlocking other people's ability to be amazing." That's the frame he applies to everything — and it's one worth borrowing.

Kelly Hubbell spent a decade in big tech sales while quietly carrying the full cognitive load of running a home. One day she wrote down every task it took to manage their household and put hours next to each one. The total was 22 hours a week. Her husband looked at the list and said: "This is a job description." He was right. She used that list to hire a house manager. It bought her back 25 hours a week. And the questions her friends started asking — how did you find her, how does it work, can we do this too — became the foundation of Sage Haus, a staffing company that matches vetted house managers, family assistants and meal-prep chefs with busy families across the US and Canada. Sage Haus is now bootstrapped, profitable and cash flow positive with 50 employees and more than 10,000 families served. Kelly left her corporate job in May 2024 to run it full time. A few things from her story worth sitting with: The mental load has a number. Research shows around 71% of household cognitive load falls to mothers — not because they're more organized, but because no one else took it on. That's not a personal failing. It's a structural gap. And it has a practical fix. The hardest part isn't finding good candidates. It's giving yourself permission to hire. "Delegating isn't failing," she said. "It's infrastructure." Her best actionable advice: write down every task it takes to run your household — or your business — and put hours next to each one. That list is a job description. You can't offload what's only living in your head. She built the company during naps on maternity leave, ran it as a side hustle until she could go full time and never took outside funding. The irony she doesn't miss: she can only run a company about outsourcing the mental load because she outsourced her own.

Drive yourself forward.

A Reddit thread asked a simple question: what's a boring business that quietly makes its owner rich? It got 10,000 upvotes and the answers are worth paying attention to. The most upvoted response: commercial grease trap cleaning. Restaurants are legally required to have them cleaned. The work is unpleasant enough that almost nobody does it. One operator charges $300–500 per stop, runs 8 stops a day and drives a Porsche. Every customer is permanent because it's a health code requirement, not a discretionary expense. Close behind: portable toilet rentals. One commenter's single construction site pays $5,100 a month for six units. A two-person operation in Sydney pulled $25,000 from a single weekend festival. High margin, constant demand, zero glamour. Parking lots came up repeatedly. A lawyer who bought land near busy areas in the 1980s now makes $85,000 a month without working. The real long-term play: hold the land until a developer makes an offer, then lease it instead of selling. And then the ones that generated the most "wait, really?" replies: concrete street dividers rented to municipalities. Wire mesh. Wooden pallets. Metal eyelets for truck covers. Toothpicks. Urinal cakes. Businesses so specific and unglamorous that nobody thinks to compete. One commenter summarized it well: "The businesses people rarely brag about often have the best economics. Things like waste management, commercial cleaning, self-storage and B2B supply aren't exciting, but they solve recurring problems." That's the through-line. Recurring demand. Low competition. Work nobody else wants to do or even thinks to do. The boring business funds the interesting life. It's been true for a long time. This thread just reminded a lot of people.

In this edition: the leadership skill AI is eroding, a trick to skip pointless networking, and tips from a founder who started at 13.