Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
Liza Minnelli is not only still standing, but she also can still belt out a song.
This astonishing fact was revealed to me in September, when I saw her in person at a benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina victims in New York City’s Gershwin Theater.
There she was, boot-cut pants showing off dancer’s legs, glittery swing coat concealing ponderous upper body, big eyes made huge with a pound of makeup. Backlit, and fronted by the opening to “New York, New York” played by the Liza Minnelli Band, she started delivering her number.
And I thought: If Liza can keep kicking after everything she’s been through, so can Upsize, so can any growing company.
The connection might seem unusual, but I had milestones on my mind. That’s because I had been preparing next year’s editorial calendar and had realized: In just a few months we’ll start putting together the fifth-anniversary edition of our special double issue, called the Upsize Business Builder.
Five years. How did that happen?
Before I co-founded Upsize in 1992, I had covered business for 15 years for various publications owned by other corporations. Companies would often pitch me stories, wanting me to report on their fifth anniversary, or their 10th, or their 12th, or their 20th. I usually responded, I hope not too snottily, that anniversaries weren’t the ideal news story because after all every company has one every year.
Now I know better — that in fact many, many companies don’t keep celebrating anniversaries; that they fold instead. Those that continue to reach milestones are remarkable.
So now I’m glad when I see that GeigerBevolo just celebrated its 10th, or Nordquist Sign, astonishingly, just passed its 100th, or Little & Co. is talking about what it will do in its second 25.
I think it’s cool to see Earl Bakken, the co-founder of Medtronic, at a company-hosted event in August, even though Medtronic looks nothing like it did when he was struggling to start it in the 1960s.
Call me a sentimental fool, but I even think it’s sad when the Dayton’s name falls off the marquee after more than a century, not to mention when Marshall Fields falls too. I wonder how their families feel when the anniversaries end. (Probably fine as long as the trust-fund checks don’t, but still.)
How do I feel now that Upsize is nearing its fifth?
Proud that we’ve published so many issues, 10 print and 24 electronic each year, and that readers tell us they use every one. Grateful to every reader, advertiser, sponsor, source, writer, photographer, adviser, editor and illustrator who has supported our mission, to help small-business owners build bigger and more profitable companies.
Excited that we’ve created three new events, to increase to four next year I hope, to bring business owners and experts together to learn and celebrate. Frustrated that we haven’t yet been able to start our expansion plan, in which we envision an Upsize Arizona, perhaps, an Upsize Colorado, an Upsize Texas.
Amazed that my husband still cheerfully keeps his day job, which comes with full benefits, until that grand and glorious day when he can open an art studio and paint full-time.
The mix of emotions must be familiar to any business owner, even if the specifics are different. On behalf of everyone at Upsize, I encourage all of you to keep reaching for those milestones. If Liza can keep delivering the goods, so can every one of us.
— Beth Ewen
editor and co-founder
be***@*******ag.com
