Or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. For those who always find new ways to grow their business, American Express open proudly presents your business on msnbc. Hi, everyone. Im j. J. Ramberg. Welcome to your business, the show dedicated to help your growing business. It started with one guy who wanted to find funding for a concert. Years later, crowd funding platform, kickstarter helped raise money for everything from a souped up cooler to a movie. We caught up with the cofounder and ceo, Yancey Strickler to get tips on how to grow a successful business. Harry chan, the creator of starter and i wanted to throw a concert. He had this idea, what if instead of funding the money, i put the idea online and people can buy tickets, but no one is charged unless it sells out. Ebay, amazon and pets. Com was it. Four years later, here in new york, we met charles addler our third founder. The site launched in 2009. It continues to be a. Com gnat space. Its closing in on 3 billion having moved through the system, having pledged the project on kickstarter, its more than all of our competitors combined. We are calling you a disrupter. Do you think you are . Disrupter, to me, feels aggressive. The art world, product design, technology, these are all industries that are very different in the kickstarter world. For the most part, we are collaborators. We dont want a world where all funding comes through our platform. We have a diversity of sources. We have no desire to disrupt anyone. We feel the constant dissatisfaction of this can be better. As a leader and founder tharks is your responsibility to see what it can be and push for that, advocate for that. You know, feeling the frustration. Its not quite right. Its not quite right. When you tell people that you have this incredibly fast growing company, since you started and you talk to other venture backed companies, got investors in silicon valley, do they think you are crazy when you say we have no desire to be acquired or go public. I think people think its cute. You get a patronizing pat on the head or Something Like that. We feel, for our purpose and being found to a community and serving creators and serving artistic people, you hear about those things. That would be hard to do when you are expected to make as much money as possible or if you are owned by a Larger Company whose values are different. Our feeling is this is not a granola hippy thing. We think its the future of business. We think its the future of society. If you look at people in their 20s and younger, these are the values they think are important. Places they want to shop and work. Organizations that do this. In the current climate, we are outliers, which we are comfortable with, too. Transparency is part of it from the beginning. How does that manifest . I have worked in other companies before and been an employee longer than i have been a boss. I know what its like to be on the other side of that. We are all in this journey together. Theres one way to move forward. Always being open and direct with people serves you in the long run. I think thats how you get the most out of people and you are all aligned and on the same page. What is the future . What direction is this Company Going . We think of artists and greater people and the Greater Community are the customers we come here every day to make their lives better. We are very early on in that journey. Theres way more work to do than is already done. As long as we have the privilege to exist, thats what we focus on. Yancey disrupted the world of project funding with kickstarter, now another entrepreneur is doing the same with big box retailers and warehouse shopping outlets. Morgan radford tells us, box. Com is succeeding thanks to millennials who dont have the time or the means to go to the store. They call it costco for millennials and its changing the way we shop. 36 months ago, you were in your garage. Thats right. Yeah, a regular twocar garage. Look at this. Yeah. Started 3 years ago by a 35yearold, boxed is a warehouse in your pocket designed for millennials who dont have the time or transportation to shop for good deals. You mention this company is perfect for people like me, a millennial, a new yorker, dont have a car or time to go shopping. What about people in rural areas . Thats been the biggest thing thats caught us by surprise. What we found was theres literally tens of millions of americans out there without a Warehouse Club within an hour drive. You can order bulk goods from your cell phone to your door. Why boxed, why not walmart. Com or costco . We dont sell little things. We can share the shipping price of nine items. Is the pricing fair . We dont charge a membership fee. Generally, things ship for free and the fact you dont have to spend three hours in a store. It becomes even over time. Hes opened four warehouses across the country where each order is boxed and shipped to customers like this father of three in boston, massachusetts. Trying to get all the kids into the car, going to the store and going around with a shopping cart, literally, find the item you want, click buy and five minutes later, you have an order. Its not just who they serve that sets the company apart. We want to tell you, we would love to pay for you wedding so you have it. Boxed pays up to 20,000 for their employees weddings. I was surprise zed. They explained they want to pay for my wedding. Marcel sent almost a year in the companys warehouse picking, prepping and shipping orders. What does that mean in terms of your feeling of Financial Freedom . Helping uls, you know, breathe a little bit, in terms of looking toward the future. Boxed pays the full College Tuition for the children of any employee, no matter where they go. You have twin daughters . They are freshmen in college. Their education is being paid for. Such a weight off your shoulders when its taken care of. Was it a relief . We felt more confident in what the future was going to bring. I have been talking to your employees and they are telling me of a program of perks, you are paying for your employees kids to go to college. Why . Why are you doing that . When i was young, we were poor. Seeing that and know whag folks are going through and having the chance to fix that, i had to do something about it. What about competitors who say that cuts into your bottom line . I personally fund it. Now that im in a place to help them, im going to do that. A boss who cares as much about what goes into the box as the people who pack them. Morgan ratford, union, new jersey. If you are looking to reach millennials with your marketing, you may have to change a few things. In many ways, this generation is transforming the way business is done and won. Chelsea krost is a millennial strategist to share tips with us. Good to see you. Thank you for having me. I read through your tips. What i like is they definitely hit millennials. Really, everything is changing. The tips are good to reach a lot of people, not just millennials. Absolutely. I have been in the millennial space for the past ten years. Just because i target millennials, just as many baby boomers and genxors like the content. The reality is, millennials have the largest combined spending power. Learn how to appeal and target this market. Often, older people want what the millennials want, too. I want to know whats new and cool. You talk about debunking stereo types, is this about millennials . The reality is they have been titled, lazy, entitled, narcissistic. It is not fair to bracket 80 million of us in three negative stereo types. Instead, you know, of course you are going to have your sector of couch potatoes, but there are so many millennial huslers that are entrepreneurs, passionate and only want to succeed. I think the way you focus is you focus on how information is delivered. Right . Yes. Whether you are a stereo typical millennial or a husler you are talking about, how the information gets to them is the same . Absolutely. You know, social media could be our best friend and worst enemy today. Millennials happen to be spending the most time on social media. When it comes to Marketing Tactics to appealing to the millennial consumer, so much remains in the social media space. Embrace social media and think digital first. Think mobile. Yes. Absolutely. This is the biggest disappointment because you might have the most beautiful website with Great Services or great product, but if your website is not mobile, you will lose out on consumer spending. The reality is, we have the Attention Span of a goldfish today. If we log on to your website on our mobile device and it doesnt load or not mobile optimized or too many, i cant figure it out on my mobile phone, we are going to bounce out within a matter of seconds. About 72 of people demand mobile optimized website, according to google. Thats a high statistic. Absolutely. Get mobile optimized now. Talk about build relationships with inflew enser. Inflew ensing marketing is more and more important. There are networks around it to pay influencers. Do you suggest that or going and doing the hard work one by one to try to get influencers to like your product or both . You know, the beautiful thing is, you can tap agencies with builtin influencer network. Even my company does that for clients. The reality is 2017 is the year of influencer boom. Influencers can be your best friend. I call them your modern digital publicist. We, as influencers are helping you spread the word, amplify your messaging and educate consumers on what product and services are available. Its important to build that data base. You can do that use zing social media and twitter and facebook. Have them become your brand ambassadors. Feel like they are part of your brand. Reward them or incentivize them in some way and they will create content and share it on their behalf which is going to bring more eyeballs and roi on your investment. You know, we cant talk much art it, but i want to do a whole segment on influencers and how to utilize them and make it work for you. Theres so many that some things work and some dont. Unfortunately, i dont have time. Lets get to the next one. User generated content. That fits with the influencer idea. Yes. Ugc, also known as User Generated Content. Lets talk about what it is. It is any content created by the consumer. This could be a yelp review, a comment, a post, article, picture on behalf of a business, brand, service or product. It is your best friend. Millennials are 80 more influnlsed by what their peers are sharing than branded content alone. Statistics show us that because now we have the ability to utilize facebook and instagram ads, which is effective. If you insert ugc into ads instead of branded content, as an ad, you will see a higher return on investment. That is the power of User Generated Content. That also comes hand in hand with your influencer strategy. The influencers who spread awareness on behalf of your business are creating User Generated Content for your business. The smart thing is repurpose that content through your own business channels or on your website so that you are further aggregating more eyeballs, building your community and again, its about the community and that brand awareness. Thats what social media does for you. Thats the roi there, building your brand awareness, building that community. That influencer strategy. Its going to return back to you in result of sale. Got it. Unfortunately, we have to stop there. This is great information. Chelsea, so good to see you. Thank you so much. Move over millennials, here comes gen z. By 2020 they will be the Largest Consumer group in the world. Five ways to get them clicking around your website and into your store. One, gen z discovers what they want online and social media. Use snap chat, instagram and facebook to get their attention. Two, Cyber Security ranks high. Have strong Data Security policies in place to protect their financial and personal information or risk losing their business. Three, dont take diversity for granted. They are more diverse than any other generation. Your advertising should reflect a range of customers. Four, throw music into the shopping experience. This age group wants to shop in a store where music is part of the brand. A silent store just wont draw their attention. And five, strategize your online and instore lay out and product placement. They focus on products more than signage. Focus on visually pleasing, eyelevel displays and make sure prices are ease se to see another a glance. Its black history month, our partners at nbcblk. Com chose 28 trend setters and pioneers under 28 years old. One of those highlighted is muktar onifade, an engineer by day and designer by night. The day job isnt just a revenue source, though. It is the biggest inspiration for his clothing line. We are in a new generation of individual that is really dont focus on one thing and being great at a lot of things, not settling. My name is muktar onifade, im 26 originally from nigeria, calibration specialist for General Motors and also a Fashion Designer. I knew probably since 6 years old, i was going to be an engineer and i love cars. I think the day i decided i wanted to go into fashion is i actually went to this fashion show. It was african inspired pieces. Some type of emotion is attached to african designs. Theres a lot of memories. Theres a lot of culture. I kind of felt like, what if we can create pieces more universal and appealing. Outside of me wearing this african piece to a special occasion, i want to wear this african piece in my studio while going to the grocery store. Im stepping out with friends. My first ever paycheck from gm went into a sewing machine. Even though it was foreign to me. I didnt know what was going on. Being an engineer, what would i be able to accomplish the fashion brand i have. A lot of the lines you see come from different experiences from concepts like fluid mechanics to abstract lines to equations. Visual guides are a balance between my engineering background and my african cultural heritage. I want it to be a lifestyle, an idea of what we stand for, what i stand for. The idea of being biling yule in different skill sets. I want to be a Fashion Designer and engineer. I want to be a painter and architect. I want to be an astronaut. To be black now, tough be fearless, a certain level of belief of what you can accomplish. You dont have to necessarily be a preacher. You can have a body of work that inspires others for the path they are on. It is time to answer one of your business questions. Lets get the panel in here to help us out. Venture capitalist Patrick Mcginnis is the founder of dirigo advise zers. Hes author of the 10 entrepreneur. Colleen debaise is founder of the hampton bee. Good to see both of you. Great to see you. Lets get to the question. Investing in could you get past the hat . It was so great a good question, because a company, Many Companies need real estate in order to operate their business. How do you decide . I think the first question is, how fundmental is this. Then is strategic and id consider doing it. What is my roi and the money i investing. I agree with everything youre saying, and most small businesses, i would say the majority will lease their commercial property. You know, its risky enough to have a small business. If youre sinking your cash into real estate, youre really doubling your risk. So, yeah but the question, how important is it to your company, right . I just spoke to some people who have forprofit schools, actually in south africa, but it would hold for here as well. And for them, growing their schools and being in those places was incredibly important. Yeah. And so, for them, they need to raise a whole bunch of money to buy those properties. Right, right. Well, then i think if its that important for your business, then you have to look at if youre in good enough financial standing to own property, and that can be tough for a lot of businesses. You have to have a longterm plan for that property, too. You have to know that youre going to be there 10, 20 years, maybe. Exactly. Yeah. And you also have to be in a market where you can get a good deal on real estate, and thats also important. Yeah, that means finding somebody who can help you, either internally or externally, who you know, if i was running a business, id be afraid to buy real estate because im just not a real estate person. Right. Unfortunately. But i would call up somebody who is and get them to help me. And i would say one last thing. Lets all take a lesson from the longer burger Basket Company. I dont know if you know this. Its a Basket Company that some years ago built their own Office Property in the shape of a basket. Right. And of course, now sales arent as good as it used to be. They want to try selling the property. Of course, no one wants to buy a property thats shaped like a basket. So, this guy should not build build one like a hat. Exactly. Exactly. Shouldnt do that. No hat with a big flower on it. Definitely dont do that. Great. Thanks, both of you. Still to come, the steps you need to take to have your business go global. And why you should never, ever, ever let your customers down. Will your business be ready when growth presents itself . American express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. Find out how American Express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open. Com. As a software as a service company, what would be the right globalization strategy . The right globalization strategy is to actually have a strategy. Dont worry about tasks, but make sure you have a strategy as to where you want to globalize, meaning this. You want to choose the countries that you think has the biggest markets for you, where you think the culture is the best, and choose those countries where you feel that there is a good market niche for your product and that you can beat the competition. Once you figure out which countries and my advice would be to start off slow, maybe with one place outside of your country, and build on that by getting to know the culture better, hiring an agent in that area, partnering with some of the local firms and businesses that are resident in that country as well. Go slow, but make your part of it a overall strategy for growing around the world. We now have the top tips you need to know to help your growing business. Lets introduce our panel and get their advice. Melinda emerson is founder and president of quintessence group, a Marketing Consultant firm and hosts the small biz chat, and serial entrepreneur jay goltz owns and operates four businesses in chicago, maybe soon in new york, and he is also a blogger starting next week for forbes. Com. So good to see both of you. Great to be here. Good to be here. Jay, i hope you open your next business or store in new york so you can be on the set with us next time. Sure. Well see how that goes. Lets start with you, melinda. Your top tip. Never let a customer down. It really comes down to it, particularly for these guys in professional service businesses. Sometimes its hard. Sometimes clients are demanding. Sometimes you have to work on teams with people who dont know what theyre doing. It doesnt matter. You have to do what you need to do for the client, even if its not necessarily in your scope of work. If you go the extra mile, your customer will go the extra mile to keep you. But lets talk about this idea of you dont if you spend so much time going the extra mile for clients who need so much and take so much of your time and dont contribute that much of your revenue, how do you deal with that . Well, heres the thing. If you signed the contract that you would do that scope of work, you own it. Now, you can renegotiate the next time, but if youre working on an active piece of business, youve got to do what youve got to do. Okay, jay, moving on to you. I would say lower your expectations and raise your standards. Every company has probably 50 or 100 things that will define whether theyre a great company, whether its the way your store looks, whether your website, answering the phone. And for instance, if you owned a store, you could just put a manager in there and not really give them the standards of your company, and its 6 00, and if some customer shows up, they can lock the door and scream through it with the close, pointing at their watch. Or you can say the standard of the company is we dont lock the door until 6 05. Theres 100 things like that whether your delivery vans get washed once a week, you know, you make a standard. Wash the delivery vans once a week. Dont just leave it up to the employee to figure out what the standards for your company should be. Oh, i got a little bit confused of the lower the expectations. Basically, youre saying dont expect people to meet your high standards unless you codify it. Righ if you dont tell them what your standards are, your Company Standards are going to be set by whoever you last hired, whoevers dealing with the customer. Theyll be in charge of what the standards of your company are. Dont be surprised if they come dressed inappropriately for whatever job. You shouldnt have had that option. You should have said, heres how we dress when we come to work. Heres what time we get here. Set the standards, because thats what the customers going to see. Right, right, right, and maybe thats semantics. Right. But if the idea of its the same idea, for sure. Putting it down in writing. Everybody knows whats supposed to happen. You cant read my mind. You cant know that when i say the shop closes at 6 00, i actually mean for you to close at 6 05. You have to really spell it out for everyone so youre all on the same page. I think that is fantastic advice. Thank you both so much. This weeks yourbizselfie comes from leon norton of maplewood, new jersey, the creator of the black history arcade sticker app, vabavailablt u tunes and app stores. You can put these in messages to celebrate black history this month particularly but all year. Send us your business selfie at yourbest msnbc. Com or tweet it msnbcyourbiz. Include your name, the name of your business, your location, and use yourbizselfie. Thank you so much for joining us today. We would love to hear from you. So if you have any questions or want to get in touch, just send us an email at yourbusiness msnbc. Com. We read every email that comes to us. You can also go to our website. Its openforum. Com yourbusiness. We posted all of the segments from todays show, plus a whole lot more for you there. And dont forget to connect with us on all of our digital and social media platforms as well. We look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, im jj ramberg. And remember, we make your business our business. Will your business be ready when growth presents itself . American express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. Find out how American Express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open. Com. Today and every day of my presidency, i pledge to do everything i can to continue that promise of freedom for africanamericans and for every american. This tour was a meaningful reminder of why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance, and hatred in all of its very ugly forms. Good morning, and welcome to politics nation. It was a busy week for president trump