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.
On day 31 at her new bar that shows only women’s sports on all its TVs, owner Jillian Hiscock assessed a gonzo opening punctuated by women’s March Madness and Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark.
“We survived. That’s what it was like,” she said with a laugh, detailing lines down the block to patronize the first sports bar of its kind in Minnesota and one of only a handful around the world, so far.
Formerly in higher ed and not-for-profits, Hiscock began working full-time on A Bar of Their Own last July, pouncing when the former Tracy’s Saloon closed on East Franklin Avenue and raising $140,000 in a crowd-funding campaign. “It was a bear to get it open,” Hiscock said, marveling at “the fact that we were able to pull off the opening in time for March Madness.”
Hiscock was a three-sport athlete in her youth who became a huge fan of women’s sports. But finding games on TV practically required a master’s degree. In April of 2022 she visited The Sports Bra in Portland, Oregon, owned by Jenny Nguyen and the first to show only women’s sports. Some of the best advice from Nguyen “is holding true to what I wanted to do. I continually had to do the gut check,” Hiscock said, when experts gave her advice that she ultimately ignored.
“The example I give is beer,” she said. “I had people tell me, ‘You have to have Michelob Golden Lite on tap. You have to. You have to.’ And I said, ‘what if I didn’t?’”
Instead, she sought out two women-owned breweries in Minnesota that produced Bent Paddle and Cowbell Cream.
“I’m not going to have a crappy beer on tap,” she insisted, but her stance was unpopular. “So, Jenny’s advice to hold true to your dream” became her rallying cry. “At the end of the day it’s mine.”
That’s not always easy, but her wife’s perspective is helpful. Megan Slater holds a doctorate in epidemiology and says each piece of feedback should be considered merely a data point, no more and no less. “What feedback is worth changing your plans?” is the question to answer.
“It’s very easy to get swayed by people,” Hiscock says, especially those she trusts and respects, but she’ll say no as often as necessary. “That’s scary because you’re putting your confidence in something uncertain, a dream, a vision.”
Then I told her what happened when I watched the riveting women’s basketball final at a regular sports bar. The man next to me opined at length—despite my withering glare followed by a request he stop talking—why the women’s game is inferior to the men’s.
“Yup!” Hiscock said ruefully in response to a story she’s heard time after time. “I don’t know how long we need to yell about investing in women. There’s progress being made but it’s the old trope that nobody watches women’s sports. It’s when I go into Google and type in March Madness and the first 15 are men’s games. Why are there so many things that men are the default? Is there a way to put women first in everything?”
At A Bar of Their Own, only one month in, she’s paving the way. “We’re on the right path,” she says.
