Letter From the Editor

CALLING ALL 10-YEAR-OLDS. Upsize is 10 years old this year, we’re proud to announce, and to celebrate we’d like to hear from all Minnesota-based companies that can say the same.

I pulled on a pair of Cowgirl Tuff jeans in the dressing room of a fancy boutique at 50th and France in Edina. For once, I could call an afternoon of retail therapy “research,” because this is the brand made by our Upsize Business Builder of the Year, and I was duty-bound to check them out.

Allan Haag talks eloquently about setting a high standard for the books that I See Me! produces.

“If you send a product out to market and it isn’t the best it can be the first time around, I think you’re risking your reputation. I know personally I don’t want a single book to go out with any imperfection in it,” says Haag, who co-founded the company with his wife, Maia Haag, who is president.

Sellers shouldn’t “wear the money” before the deal is done, as m&a experts like to say. Once business owners commit to selling, they often start dreaming of their new lifestyle and over-commit to a transaction or take their eye off company operations.

Two business owners with impressive track records and ambitious goals approach their work in opposite ways.
What’s beautiful is the truth revealed.

“I know why everybody doesn’t do this, because it’s just not easy.”

So says Andy Dahl, the co-founder of MyTiWi.com. With his father, veteran local meteorologist Dave Dahl, they are trying to leave behind the bootstrapping phase of their company, and move to the level where they can attract investors, build infrastructure and add employees.

“If I hadn’t been involved with the Upsize Growth Challenge, I don’t think we would still be in business,” said Kelly Roden, owner of Roden Iron Inc., when I reached her by phone in February for a status update.

Jeff Taxdahl didn’t want to hire a salesperson. That simple wish is at the root of his company’s transformation, starting two years after it was founded, to an all-Internet model.

He runs Thread Logic Inc., which sells shirts and other apparel with custom-embroidered logos to business customers. Most such companies are hyper-local, he says, selling to customers down the street or around the metro, and expanding by adding salespeople to reach ever larger regions.

“I feel kind of guilty,” said Stacy Anderson, the founder of Earth Wizards Inc., when meeting with Upsize Growth Challenge participants in October to report her company’s results.

Welcome Beth Ewen, Upsize Minnesota, said the sign outside B&F Fastener Supply in St. Anthony, where I was going to interview CEO Loren O’Brien for this month’s cover story.

How old-fashioned, I thought. How earnest. How nice. It’s been a long time since a company has “rolled out the red carpet” for me, as O’Brien put it when I thanked him for the welcome.