What I Know

When the U.S. baby formula shortage hit, Bobbie was still a startup, scaling its own operations and customer-base. But it had to make its most important decision: How to answer that crisis for its own customers. It decided to stop growing, in favor of serving its existing subscribers. Turns out: It wasn’t the first crisis the young startup had overcome. Host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin interviewed Bobbie co-founder and CEO Laura Modi about how she made that extremely challenging decision–and how she built a company of parents, by parents–with world-class benefits for employees.

Nina Vaca is the chairperson and CEO of Pinnacle Group, an IT and staffing firm based in Dallas, which has grown so fast it has made the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies thirteen times. It was named the fastest-growing woman-owned business in the United States by the Women Presidents Organization in 2015–when her company crossed a billion dollars in revenue, and again in 2018. Nina founded it 25 years ago, when she was just out of college, with just $300. In part, it seemed natural: he’d been schooled in entrepreneurship by her family, which emigrated from Ecuador when she was little. She tells host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin what she’s learned about entrepreneurship along the way–and takes a bird’s eye view on what’s changed, and what hasn’t.

Bill Shufelt was a trader at a hedge fund who got tired of drinking. It was doing nothing for his performance at work–or while trail running. So he decided to start a non-alcoholic craft brewery. Not that anyone else believed in his mission. He tells host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin how he struggled for years to find a co-founder, and met with 120 investors before putting together enough money to start his own brewing facility–because no other brewery wanted to work with him. Now, his company, Athletic Brewing, is growing so fast it has been struggling to meet demand in the $109 billion craft brewery industry's fastest growing segment. Athletic Brewing grew 13,071 percent over the past three years, making it the 26th fastest growing company in the United States, as recognized by the Inc. 5000.

His company grew 1,131 percent over the past three years–and he realizes that kind of fast pace isn’t for everybody, even with an important mission in mind. Xiao Wang in 2017 had founded Boundless Immigration, a Seattle-based tech company that helps individuals and families navigate immigration paperwork and processes through data, and through its online platform. Today its process has a 99 percent success rate, and the company has helped more than 70,000 individuals file for green cards or citizenship. To keep growing at its rate, Xiao maintains an “adapt and evolve” strategy, and realizes that perfection is sometimes the enemy of progress. He tells host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin that his company’s culture of fast-growth and constant change isn’t for everyone–just like black licorice. 

After the birth of her second daughter, she began feeling marginalized in the workplace–even though she was a seven-figure sales exec. Stephanie Nadi Olson felt the drive to create a legacy for herself and for her daughters–and named her new flexible-employment community We Are Rosie after her youngest. That was 2018, and since, the company has grown to a platform with 17,000 flexible workers signed up, more than 60 full time employees, and a three-year growth rate of 2,267 percent. We Are Rosie is No. 232 on the 2022 Inc. 5000. Host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin speaks with Olso about her vision for the future of work, and how she built a truly inclusive, diverse workforce.

Jesslyn Rollins’s dad created a product in secret. She brought it to the masses. What would it take for him to let her run the company? Christine Lagorio-Chafkin speaks to the CEO of the electrolyte beverage company, Biolyte, that saw a remarkable three-year growth rate of 1,052 percent. The first in our season series exploring the stories behind fascinating companies that made the 2022 Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing businesses.

In this flashback episode, Christine Lagorio-Chafkin talks with Rosie Mattio, founder and CEO of Mattio Communications, about saying yes and taking a risk on a burgeoning industry.(Original Air Date: Sept 13, 2021)

Being chief executive doesn’t mean doing everything–or, necessarily, being good at every little thing your company does. In “What I Don’t Know,” What I Know host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin asks founders to explain a skill or task they just aren’t good at. Maybe it’s the first thing they delegated once they hired staff–or something they would like to get off their plate. On this week’s bonus episode, Shivani Siroya, the founder and CEO of Tala, talks about her relationship with being the face of her company–and all the publicity that comes along with it. She doesn’t love public speaking; she’d rather be heads-down solving a problem. But, she says, she’s found a silver lining.

Shivani Siroya had worked in microfinance around the world for major banks–and saw a lot of structural issues with lending to unbanked or non-traditional entrepreneurs in small doses. Before launching her own company to fix those, she went back to school–and also worked in Kenya, for the UN Population Fund. It was there she began lending her own money to small-business owners–and learned firsthand how to establish trust in lending. When she founded Tala in 2013, she also learned the value of risk–or, as she calls it, “taking the first risk.” She explains to host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin how the company took many audacious leaps through its growth to 6 million customers–including one that shook Tala to its core during the pandemic. 

Being chief executive doesn’t mean doing everything–or, necessarily, being good at every little thing your company does. In “What I Don’t Know,” What I Know host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin asks founders to explain a skill or task they just aren’t good at. Maybe it’s the first thing they delegated once they hired staff–or something they would like to get off their plate.On this week’s bonus episode, Alex West Steinman says: “People look at a business like ours or see the category of businesses like ours, like the Riveter and The Wing, and they go, ‘oh, like, they're really good at social media!’” No so, says Steinman, the co-founder and CEO of The Coven, a co-working and collaboration membership space in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. She admits social media is not her strong suit. She doesn’t like keeping up with the algorithmic changes, or processing things via social networks’ endless scroll of content. Her takeaway: What’s good for the business might not be good for any given individual.