Tag: chicago brandstarters
-
How to Find Your Niche Market That You Actually Care About
Most advice on how to find your niche market is backwards. People tell you to follow your passion, pick a broad category, then polish a brand. That's how you end up with a cute idea and no customers. Passion is nice. Payment is nicer. If nobody wakes up annoyed enough to fix the problem you're…
Written by
-
What Is Product Validation: Guide for Founders 2026
You're probably in the ugliest part of building right now. It's late. You've got a notes app full of half-baked ideas, a Figma file, maybe a Shopify draft, maybe a no-code prototype, maybe just a weird conviction that this thing should exist. You can feel the pull to start building because building feels productive. It…
Written by
-
How to Launch a Brand: Your Playbook for 2026 Success
Most advice on how to launch a brand is backward. It tells you to get louder, post more, fake confidence, and build a personal brand before you've built any real trust. I think that's bad advice. It trains kind people to act like street performers when what they need is clarity, proof, and a few…
Written by
-
Build Your Trusted Advisor Network: Grow Your Career
Most networking advice is trash. It tells you to go meet more people, work the room, collect cards, and build a huge LinkedIn audience. I've done enough of that to know the truth. When your business is shaky, your hire is wrong, your margins are collapsing, or you're one bad month away from panic, a…
Written by
-
Idea Week Chicago: A Founder’s No-Nonsense Playbook
Most advice about Idea Week Chicago is wrong. People tell you to “stay open,” “follow your curiosity,” and “meet as many people as possible.” That's how you spend a full day listening to smart people, eating a stale cookie, and going home with nothing you can use on Monday. I want you to do the…
Written by
-
City of Chicago Small Business Expo: Your 2026 Playbook
You're probably staring at the event page for the City of Chicago Small Business Expo and thinking the same thing most founders think. “Is this actually useful, or am I about to spend half a day collecting brochures I'll never read?” Fair question. Most expo advice is garbage because it treats every event like a…
Written by
-
E Commerce Investments: A Founder’s Guide
You're probably sitting with two tabs open. One tab has some story about a flashy e-commerce raise. The other tab is your actual business: product samples, shipping quotes, ad tests, maybe a Shopify draft store, maybe an inbox full of suppliers who still haven't answered your last question. You read about “e commerce investments” and…
Written by
-
Center for Green Technology Chicago: Empowering Founders
A few years ago, I walked into a “sustainability” conversation expecting the usual theater. Buzzwords, glossy decks, no practical payoff. Then I spent time learning what the center for green technology chicago represents, and my reaction changed fast: this place isn’t branding fluff. It’s a founder resource hiding in plain sight. If you’re building in…
Written by
-
Young Presidents Organisation: An Insider’s Guide for 2026
You’re probably here because someone said YPO in that quiet, loaded way people say things when they want you to know they’re in a different league. You know the moment. You’re at a founder dinner, a conference hallway, or a “casual” networking event that somehow feels like a job interview with cocktails. Someone mentions the…
Written by
-
Mastering Process Improvements in Manufacturing
Your first real production run doesn’t feel like success. It feels like getting tackled by your own business. One vendor says the labels arrived late. Another says your packaging spec changed. A customer emails a photo of a defect you somehow missed. You’re staring at a spreadsheet, a text thread, and three open browser tabs,…
Written by
