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Recent Press Releases (U.S. and international) for magazine issues and staff changes may be found below. Please note that for many issues there exists only a highlights sheet, while for others there may also be a full press release. The cover of FSB's current issue is pictured at right. Please contact the appropriate communications staff member with any questions.
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Highlights of the December 2007 Issue of FSB: FORTUNE Small Business
COVER STORY PACKAGE: The Next Little Thing, by Chris Taylor, page 68 Richard Branson will offer funding, upstart carmakers will take on Detroit, weedy wines will sell for $50 a bottle, jetpacks will finally fly, and charcoal will get cheap and green. Strange as it may seem, even a billionaire businessman like Richard Branson started out small. While a student, he launched two failed ventures, one growing Christmas trees, the other raising parakeets. Then he left school, started a magazine, and began selling cut-price records from the trunk of his car. The rest, as they say, is punk rock and business history. In this, FSB's annual Next Little Thing feature, you'll meet entrepreneurs who are still in what you might call their late car-trunk period. Here are types so ambitious that they see no distinction between saving the planet and making a killing. And Branson? The billionaire is going back to his roots with his Virgin Money venture, which will help finance small businesses.
Easy Money, by Jessica Harris, page 70 Billionaire Richard Branson wants to help small businesses borrow and grow. Branson's new firm will change the face of money by replacing inflexible loans from big banks with a more personal, nimble approach to lending. Earlier this year Branson bought Circle Lending, a Waltham, Mass., company founded six years ago by former management consultant Asheesh Advani, and christened it Virgin Money. The firm formalizes lending relationships among friends and family. Rather than lend money for mortgages, student loans, and small business directly, Virgin Money is a third-party broker, or "marriage counselor," that manages repayment plans among friends and family members — long the major source of funding for startups. PLUS:
Catch the Falling Dollar, by Renuka Rayasam, page 14 Europe is lowering the boom on the greenback — and that's great news for many small U.S. companies. The greenback's decline — in the third quarter it depreciated 3% against seven major currencies, hit an all-time low against the euro, and reached parity with the Canadian dollar for the first time in more than 30 years — represents a boon to many U.S. businesses facing tough competition. Small exporters are benefiting disproportionately, as their ranks have swelled in recent years. U.S. companies up against imports are also profiting as their prices become more attractive compared with those of foreign competitors.
INVESTMENTS: Parenting Skills, by Stacy Cowley, page 16 Which company best nurtures its upstart acquisitions: Yahoo or Google? The favored exit strategy for Internet startups is no longer an IPO but a splashy acquisition — preferably by Yahoo or Google. In the past decade each company has purchased around 40 small businesses, but for every YouTube (Google) or Flickr (Yahoo), there have been less flashy integrations and outright flameouts. So, head-to-head, how successful have Google and Yahoo been at advancing their purchases? Take a peek at FSB's scorecard.
TECHNOLOGY: GPS for Your Shoes, by Ian Mount, page 18 Isaac Daniel will never forget the call alerting him that his 8-year-old son had disappeared from his school bus queue. Daniel immediately jumped on a plane home — only to learn that his boy had snuck back into school. That experience got Daniel thinking. Result: the Isaac Daniel Co. GPS shoe (Isaacdaniel.com), which just received its U.S. patent. Daniel's hiking boot goes on sale in December, and his running shoe and children's shoe will follow in early 2008. The footwear ranges from $289 to $479 a pair, plus $30 a month for GPS monitoring.
Websites for Cell Phones, by Mina Kimes, page 24 More small firms reach out to on-the-go customers. If the first wave of online business was all about getting a dot-com, the next may be about adding a dot-mobi. The new web address became available for the first time in May and is administered by Mobile Top Level Domain (mTLD; mtld.mobi), a private company based in Dublin. Nearly all new cellphones are set up to browse the web, but what users often see is a site designed for viewing on a PC that is being squeezed onto a matchbook-sized screen. A better browsing experience could provide a much-needed boost for mobile commerce in the U.S.
Sell to Rent, by Jennifer D. Duell, page 42 Sale-leaseback real estate deals are helping more small-business owners make the most of their capital. Large companies have used sale-leasebacks for decades to unlock cash trapped in brick and mortar and apply it to more productive uses — paying down the debt, buying equipment, or hiring more employees. Small and midsized firms are now seeing the advantages too.
Able Baker, as told to Brandi Stewart, page 52 Panera Bread founder Ron Shaich built a national chain of high-end food shops by paying exceptional attention to his customers. He started college thinking he would end up working in politics. But after he was falsely accused of shoplifting and then kicked out of a convenience store while still a student, Shaich launched a rival shop — and his business career. Twenty years later, Shaich made a name for himself as the owner of Au Bon Pain, an East Coast bakery chain he grew from three stores into a $200 million a year company. Many thought Shaich was crazy when, in 1999, he sold Au Bon Pain to concentrate on developing Panera, its small bakery division. Shaich met with FSB at one of his bakery shops near the company's headquarters in Needham, Mass. After busing a few tables he talked about his journey from that first general store to the top of the food chain.
PLUS: Swooshing in Style, by Brandi Stewart, page 102 New winter sports gear from small companies.
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