Recession to Opportunity: An Interview with Tim Chen:

The Mind Behind the $500 million Business
How Tim Chen, the founder of NerdWallet, worked up the nerve to start a company after getting laid off during a recession.

Tim Chen had recently been laid off from his job as a financial analyst at a hedge fund, during the recession of 2008, when his sister asked him for help finding a good credit card. Much of the information he found online was confusing and disorganized, so he decided to start a personal-finance website; it would go on to become NerdWallet, which is now worth $500 million and employs almost 350 people. Lola Fadulu recently spoke with Chen about how it feels to get laid off, starting a business during a recession, and why workers should pay attention to who their managers are. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity. Citation: 'When Losing Your Job Is a Blessing'
Interview by Lola Fadulu via The Atlantic

When Losing Your Job Is a Blessing

Fadulu: The way you grew up was very different from the way your parents grew up. Chen: Until 2008, I thought that the economy was this super-stable thing, and everything was good. I didn't realize that crazy economic shocks can happen. 2008 really changed my life.

Stumbling Onto an Idea: “I always dreamed of doing something entrepreneurial. I just never felt like I had the permission to.”— Tim Chen

Sarah LaFleur and Rebecca Minkoff: What makes their brands thrive―

Successfully starting a fashion business from two women who know
Sarah LaFleur, founder and CEO of MM.LaFleur, and Rebecca Minkoff, co-founder and creative director of Rebecca Minkoff, discuss what helps make each of their brands thrive.
Video Content via FastCo

VIDEO | Successfully starting a fashion business from two women who know | Fast Company

Sarah LaFleur, founder and CEO of MM.LaFleur, and Rebecca Minkoff, cofounder and creative director of Rebecca Minkoff, discuss what helps make each of their brands thrive.

Next Generation of Leaders: Sustain the Family Enterprise—

The Rise
Family business: Is it your livelihood? Your legacy? Both?
Regardless of your level of involvement, you want the enterprise to succeed and endure.

Successful businesses often struggle to remain viable against uncertain economic times, technological advances, shifting consumer preferences, and volatile markets—even without the complexity of dealing with family members. And some family businesses manage to flourish through multiple generations despite these challenges. What makes them different? A new research by Joshua Nacht describes: how innovation often emerges from the young people who are becoming owners and leaders and take the initiative to infuse their company with new ideas, energy, and skills. They aren’t formally asked to do this; they just see a need for change and they take it on, eventually earning the acceptance and embrace of their family.
Here are some examples of how this has happened.

Champions Of Change: 'The Rising Generation'

Image: Getty
Rise: Enter the next generation
Raised in a culture of affluence, young family leaders and leaders-to-be are well educated and grow up in a digital, connected environment. While they appreciate the sacrifices and achievements of their elders — and are often in awe of them — they are also in touch with and passionate about genuine opportunities and creative ideas. They are impatient to see change and reluctant to become involved with the business unless it pursues a new path.
Citation: Family Businesses: 'The Rising Generation' by Dennis Jaffe

The FBCG serve families and the enterprises that they have built by guiding them through the process of building structures, systems, and skills for a comprehensive strategy, better decision making, stronger competitive advantage, and continuity of enterprises for future generations. With over 2,500 client families in 70 countries, FBCG's consultant team has successfully led businesses across industries, family structures, and cultures through the issues, both common and uncommon, faced by families in business together.

Family Business Consultants & Advisors | The Family Business Consulting Group

The Family Business Consulting Group's experienced business consultants provide consulting services for your family business, including family business governance, succession planning and family mediation.

The History of Business is Thus the Story of Entrepreneurs:

Whether we’re conscious of it or not, every management decision is motivated by a desire to find universal answers to very specific questions. People who succeed in organizations tend to be pragmatic problem solvers. They have to be, because of the myriad challenges they face. How to grow the enterprise. How to get work done. How to find customers. How to be themselves in the workplace. And so on. Because there are no easy answers to these complex problems, they test the answers by starting a company, launching a project, or making a move. As they succeed and fail, the most attentive of them learn from the results.

The history of business is thus the story of entrepreneurs, executives, leaders, and employees, lurching from one experimental answer to another. They gain expertise and acumen, and profits and revenues, and, along the way, add to the theory of management. 'The entire history of management ideas can be seen as a series of answers to a few pragmatic queries.'—
20 Questions for Business Leaders
Citation: Art Kleiner and Nancy A. Nichols via Strategy+Business

strategy+business: international business strategy news articles and award-winning analysis

Business strategy news articles for CEOs, corporate executives, and decision makers who influence international business management. Corporate strategy, competition, marketing strategies, and leadership.

Margaret Heffernan: "Let's not play the game, let's change it."

Margaret Heffernan: Management thinker
The former CEO of five businesses, Margaret Heffernan explores the all-too-human thought patterns — like conflict avoidance and selective blindness — that lead organizations and managers astray.

Why you should listen
How do organizations think? In her book Willful Blindness, Margaret Heffernan examines why businesses and the people who run them often ignore the obvious -- with consequences as dire as the global financial crisis and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Heffernan began her career in television production,
building a track record at the BBC before going on to run the film and television producer trade association IPPA. In the US, Heffernan became a serial entrepreneur and CEO in the wild early days of web business. Her blogs are listed on Huffington Post and BNET.com/CBS Cited.

Heffernan's latest book, Beyond Measure, a TED Books original, explores the small steps companies can make that lead to big changes in their culture.

Business news and ideas from Margaret Heffernan

Margaret Heffernan

It's a few months after graduation, which means the luckiest new college grads are knee-deep into internships and entry-level jobs. How to stand out? Business writer Margaret Heffernan suggests: Start by taking a coffee break with your coworkers. Companies grow best, she suggests, when workers are connected by social bonds.