According to McKinsey & Company and the Council for Textile Recycling, the world fashion industry produces 100 billion garments for seven billion people each year, the average American throws out 80 pounds of clothes each year, and 85 percent of all apparel ends up in landfills, even the ones we feel good about donating! Those shocking statistics were seen as an opportunity for an increasingly popular San Francisco based startup.

Why not fashion new clothes out of used clothes and recycled fibers? Why not address the growing number of consumers who are making purchasing decisions based on their desire to preserve and improve their own health and welfare, as well as that of their families and the environment? Why not offer consumers a chance to demonstrate their concern with the very clothes on their backs?

To read the complete article, please visit Entrepreneur 

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post Entrepreneur – Taylor Stitch Makes Us Rethink Our Wardrobe appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

The post Problem Solvers Entrepreneur Podcast Interview appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Last month at O’Hare International in Chicago, we were waiting at the gate for our flight back to San Francisco. We thought we’d use the time to discuss our upcoming article on entrepreneurship. We were looking for another example of an entrepreneur who is demonstrating a new way to make a deposit by making a difference.

We must have been getting a little excited about our favorite subject because suddenly, a young man who was working feverishly on his computer overheard us, stopped, looked up and said, “I’m an entrepreneur!”

When we asked him about his business, we were immediately drawn into an exciting conversation. This young entrepreneur had figured out a practical way to take the spent grains used in beer brewing and market them as healthy and delicious foods! Wow! Like, “Eat your beer!”

To read the complete article, please visit Entrepreneur 

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post Entrepreneur – ReGrained Markets Food Made From Upcycled Brewery ‘Spent’ Grain appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

They typically ask for an NDA right off the bat, then present us with over 1,000 words of copy, and a 30+ slide deck. They try to anticipate as many questions as they can in advance and they go into extensive detail on how and why their solution is what the world needs.

Although we appreciate the time involved preparing all this documentation, we are almost discouraged by the sheer time commitment we have to make before we have determined if we’re interested. It forces us to drag our heads through a lot of information that we may not even be looking for. The sheer size of the presentation also discourages us from sending it around to folks in our network.

To read the complete article, please visit Entrepreneur 

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post The 50-Word Blurb and the 5-Slide Deck appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

We’ve often said, “If you really want to change things, put a buck on it.” That philosophy has been recently documented by Nielsen, the leader in CPG market data. The biggest mega trend we see for 2019 is being driven by consumers who want to “vote with their purchases.” They are increasingly demanding transparency from CPG producers …and getting it!

Americans love their dogs. So why shouldn’t they want transparency from the company that provides them with their dog chews? That was the catalyst for Nature Gnaws founders Jay Mokbel and Steve Mamak. The risk they took in 2016 to produce and sell, all-natural dog chews has been validated by stellar growth over the past two years.

To read the complete article, please visit Entrepreneur 

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post Entrepreneur – Chewing Their Way to the Top appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

About this time of year, many students are near completion of their college year and wondering if they should continue. They keep hearing stories about successful entrepreneurs who gave up on formal education early to get the jump on their entrepreneurial pursuits. They wonder about the value of a college degree in the world of entrepreneurship.

But these concerns discount the more subtle advantages of attending and finishing college.

These advantages are not widely heralded as the primary benefits of completing a formal education. But they are the exact skills you need to succeed as an entrepreneur. We’re not talking about the skills that are taught in the classroom, but the ones you must develop and use just to survive in the classroom.

We’re talking about personal discipline, delayed gratification and good judgment. These behavioral skills are all required to complete your education. They are all required to increase your chances of success in business.

To read the complete article, please visit The Business Journals 

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post 5 Entrepreneurial Skills You Learn in College appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

1. The Big Picture

Michael & Bonnie: We’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years on social marketers. We found that generally speaking, they understood one or two parts of the puzzle but didn’t have a comprehensive picture and certainly couldn’t deliver all the details necessary to make it happen. Typically, they would create and charge us for a funnel and put a lot of emphasis on landing pages but could not get many people into the funnel. Can you outline for us the various different aspects of social marketing that have to be in place to make it work?

To read the complete article, please visit Entrepreneur 

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post Does Social Marketing Really Make Dollars and Cents? appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Inadequate Testing

Inadequate Testing was by far the most mentioned reason for startup failure. This factor is identified by several other terms like not getting started, not understanding how to access the market, and not understanding the barriers to entry. But Greg Wright, founder of HATCH pitch, put it quite succinctly: “Failure to test and validate hypotheses and assumptions,” and its corollary, “Premature scaling (seeking/obtaining funding too early, ramping production/team/advertising before achieving product market fit).”

Keith Hopper, CEO of Danger Fort Labs, adds, “Not addressing an important enough need that customers are willing to pay for.” Ben Hsieh, program manager of Nest and Jason Cole, CEO of Da Primus Consulting, both agree that “not finding product market fit” is a main cause of failure.

To read the complete article, please visit Entrepreneur 

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post Entrepreneur – The Top 4 Reasons Startups Fail, According to 14 International Accelerators appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

But many students discount the more subtle advantages of attending and finishing college. These advantages are not widely heralded as the primary benefits of completing a formal education, but they are the exact skillsets you need to succeed as an entrepreneur. We are talking about the skillsets that are not taught in the classroom, but the skillsets you must develop and utilize just to survive in the classroom.

We are talking about personal discipline, delayed gratification, and good judgement. These behavioral skills are all required to complete your education and they are all required to increase your chances of success in business. Here’s some critical business skills you gain by completing your education:

1. How to Prioritize (Also known as strategic planning)

In school, you must develop the ability to Identify and organize a plan of action that gets the most important and time-sensitive jobs done first. Being able to judge the consequences of your various choices is critical to your scholastic survival.

In business, by focusing on your top priorities you are less likely to get blindsided by a fatal oversight. Recognizing the basics, focusing, and not getting easily distracted, are all essential skills necessary to succeed.

2. How to Extrapolate (Also known as conceptualization)

In order to pass college exams, you must develop the ability to extract concepts from examples and apply them to new situations. You don’t have time to memorize and regurgitate every example. Sooner or later you have to look for, discover, recognize, and apply the reoccurring principles behind those examples.

In business you must learn from your mistakes, and fast! You can’t be successful if you are asking, “Like what?” and, “Give me an example,” over and over again. Extrapolating the principles from the experiences of others as well as your own, and applying them, will save you precious time and dollars.

3. How to Juggle (Also known as cashflow management)

In college, you have to pay for books and tuition, food and housing, transportation and social life. You are likely undercapitalized and may have a job to support yourself. You have all these bills to pay, plus you have to spread your precious time between all these demands.

In business you will need those juggling skills. Especially starting up, you will be faced with colossal time and money shortages. You will have to juggle your bills with your income, and your time with your commitments.

4. How to Learn (Also known as analysis and documentation)

In order to pass multiple classes each semester, you must listen for, and not just to, what is being said. You must listen actively, ask questions often, and take notes. You must develop a hypothesis about what is being taught. You simply don’t have the time to take down everything that is said. Outlining helps you learn, retain, and access the important parts of what is being taught.

In business, you must remain objective, take notes, outline, and develop policies and procedures. Because you learned how to learn in college, you are more likely to be a quick study, sift through mountains of information quickly, and understand and apply the essence of what you are learning. You will be more likely to learn from your mistakes. You will be able to create, change, and improve the documents that will make those mistakes less likely to reoccur.

5. How to Honor Your Commitments (Also known as integrity)

When you see your education through to your degree, you are experiencing the fruits of your labor. You are validating the long nights and personal sacrifices. You completed your goal. You honored your commitment. You did not give up.

In business, your reputation, payment terms and credit limits are on the line! Vendors, lenders, banks and buyers are holding you accountable to do what you say you’re going to do. Seeing project’s through, no matter what the obstacles, is the basis of credibility.  Success always takes longer and costs more than you thought. It will require tenacity, patience, and commitment.

Bottom Line: Stay in school and learn what they’re teaching that is not in the curriculum. You’ll be glad you did when you get out there in the world of business!

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post 5 Entrepreneurial Skillsets You Learn in College appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

About this time of year, many students are questioning the value of staying in school. There’s an increasing chorus of proponents urging them to drop out.

They say, “You don’t need a formal education anymore, especially if you are planning on being an entrepreneur.” They say, “Just get started, the real-world experience will be more effective than the abstract and theoretical education you get in college.”

They are quick to support this advice with an impressive list of some hugely successful people who dropped out of college and made gazillions.

Our advice: Don’t do it.

Here’s why, if you are truly planning on becoming an entrepreneur, you should stay in school:

To read the complete article, please visit The Business Journals 

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post 3 Reasons Budding Entrepreneurs Should Finish College appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.