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.

The past few years have been catastrophic for many coworking spaces. WeWork’s dramatic crash was the most well known–but spaces created by and for women, too, hit walls due to pandemic lockdowns and leadership crises. But in Minneapolis, there was a holdout. It’s called The Coven, and it is a coworking space with virtual and in-person memberships, designed to be inclusive and welcoming to all types of entrepreneurs, creatives, and workers. Host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin spoke with The Coven’s co-founder and CEO, Alex West Steinman, about how she and three friends launched their idea with backing from their community–and precisely how she built a sturdy business that withheld the pressures of the pandemic and the George Floyd protests, with a little help from that very community she nurtured.

When Matthew Herman quit his job in L.A.’s fashion industry to work full time on his brand, Boy Smells, he’d been pouring wax and formulating fragrances for candles in the evenings in his kitchen for more than a year. Since growing his brand into retail and direct-to-consumer sales, he’s maintained his creative vision–and still is the brand’s creative director. He explains to host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin how his creative mind works, including plotting out mood boards for new fragrances, and naming the company’s candles–which is one of the most fun parts of his job.

It started as a side-hustle, pouring wax for candles at his dining-room table in the evenings. But what Matthew Herman began selling was soon attracting the attention of major fragrance houses…and customers around the world. In building his brand, Herman burned through his savings in 18 months…and that was before the pandemic hit. But during it, direct-to-consumer sales took off. But so much interest all of a sudden almost broke the business. Host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin spoke with Matthew about his innovative approach to branding, naming candles, and designing concepts that embrace complex dualities–and add up to a brand that’s helping to blur the gender binary in retail.

Stu Landesberg, The co-founder and CEO of Grove Collaborative, describes why he has gratitude for his job and puts positive energy into everything that he does.

Since he was a grade-schooler, Stu Landesberg dreamed–as odd as it sounds–of starting a sustainable home-products company. When he founded it, in 2012, he called it ePantry, and it didn’t exactly soar. Investors were lukewarm–and customers hard to come by. But with a rebrand and reshaped strategy in 2016, Grove Collaborative started finding lots of eco-minded consumers online and over social media. This year, as the San Francisco-based company turned 10 years old, it was valued at $1.5 billion. In June, it went public with help from a Richard Branson-backed SPAC. Host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin speaks with Landesberg about his journey, from struggling to keep the lights on to running a public company with hundreds of employees–and his promise to the future to be entirely plastic-free by 2025.