“Making It Work” is a series about small business owners trying to persevere through tough times.
Hakki Akdeniz, founder of New York City’s Champion Pizza Chain, speaks freely about his past. When he first moved to the United States from Canada in 2001, he was homeless, sleeping in subway cars and Grand Central Terminal, then staying in shelters for three months.
Akdeniz’s experience is featured extensively on the following websites: champion pizza, and the company’s dedication to helping homeless people is key to its mission. The 43-year-old Akdeniz is part of a growing group of small business owners who have incorporated some of the most intimate aspects of his personal life into their brands, according to experts and business observers.
Company founders telling their own personal backstory is nothing new. These stories are often straightforward and rosy tales of determined individuals who set out to solve problems. But experts say the new generation of founders are trying to differentiate themselves with stories that aren’t concise and easily comprehensible about how their businesses came to be. They include stories about homelessness, addiction, incarceration, mental illness, and physical health.
Many small business owners say they are choosing to be transparent about difficult times in their lives and are trying to build deeper relationships with their consumers as a result. But what happens when a company exposes the darkest moments of its founder’s life? Will consumers resonate with too much information, or will they turn away?
Turin Erdem, a professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business and dean of the school’s department of marketing, said that in recent years, more small business owners have leaked sensitive information about their companies’ pasts in internal messages. Dr. Erdem said this is a “positive trend” that inspires customer connections, as long as it’s authentic and related to a company’s products and services.
“There will be people who don’t like it,” she says, adding that people who don’t like it probably aren’t the target audience.
Angela Lee, a professor of venture capital at Columbia Business School, also said she’s noticed more and more founders opening up about past struggles. But executives should “be careful” about oversharing, especially on complex subjects, he said. She said, “It’s hard to convey nuance when someone skims through a bio or social media post.”
Lee is also an investor and founder of 37 Angels, a network of women investors. She said that the lines between people’s professional and personal lives are becoming more and more blurred, and founders need to be candid when pitching to investors, because founders have their pasts in the background. He said it could go up. review. “The days of one person at work and one person at home are over,” Lee said.
The “About Us” section of a business website is used to differentiate a company by explaining what makes it better than its competitors, says the Bureau, a branding agency that also creates websites for small businesses. said David Gaz, founder of Small Projects. Gaz said the agency found that the “About Us” page was the second most-visited section of the company’s site, after the home page. (The company builds about 100 of his websites a year for small businesses, he said.)
Akdeniz’s biography is posted on Champion Pizza’s website, but he stressed that his intention was not to put him at the center of the brand. “I want to be a role model for many people, but I am not cocky,” said Akdeniz, who is Kurdish. He often gives out slices to homeless people who frequent his pizzeria, and volunteers once a week to two of his organizations that help those experiencing homelessness and provides them himself. donating pies.
The Turkish native said he came to New York as an asylum seeker after being deported from Canada when his tourist visa expired. He had already mastered lahmajun, a Middle Eastern meat-filled flatbread in his home country, before learning how to make Italian pizza in Canada, where he lived for several years.
He eventually secured a job washing dishes at a Hoboken eatery and then began making pizza at the restaurant himself, opening his first shop in 2009. EB-1 A green card given to a person with “extraordinary ability” in 2010 for winning the highest overall score in a pizza-making contest held by the industry magazine Pizza Marketing Quarterly at the Javits Center in New York City. obtained.
there is 33.2 million According to the Small Business Administration, the National Institute of Mental Health estimates that small businesses in the United States, and many of their owners, are most likely going through difficult times.More than 1 in 5 US adults are living with a mental illness,” For example. According to New York University marketing professor Dr. Erdem, historically most companies have not publicly revealed these difficulties through their business platforms. Some people find that the stories they tell resonate with their target consumers.
Founder George Haymaker rethink ice cream, is one such manager. Haymaker, 62, described the drug-addicted period of his life as “going round and round in the toilet drain.” He said eating lots of ice cream played a key role in Haymaker’s early sobriety, which helped him stay away from drugs and alcohol.
This experience is integral to his company’s identity. “ReThink Ice Cream was born out of my alcoholism and painkiller addiction,” reads the first line of the “Story” section of the book. company website. When he first sobered up, he had gained over 30 pounds, so he developed a healthier ice cream recipe with less sugar.
“I don’t care if there’s addiction or mental health stigma,” said Haymaker, who lives in Northern California. He said his message on recovery resonated particularly with colleges trying to address the issue. mental health students. He now sells ice cream at his 30 colleges in California and his one in Oregon and stores, and speaks on recovery and entrepreneurship on campus.
Ali Ball, a San Francisco-based food consultant who advises startups selling packaged food and beverages, said there are no hard and fast rules about what founders should and shouldn’t talk about. Told. “Even if it’s a gimmick, it’s not really shaping you, it’s just doing it to create a more compelling story. I think people can see through that,” she said. said.
She advises her clients to be upfront about their values, explaining how they attract the type of customers companies want to attract.
One manager who is determined to act frankly August, a start-up selling feminine hygiene products. Her company sells products online and in select locations in Target, allowing consumers to create personalized packages of menstrual products to be delivered to their homes.
“My entire brand has been unfiltered from the start, talking about periods, blood and mental health,” she said.
Okamoto, 25, said she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder six months after coming up with the idea for the company.she shares a story about herself mental health issuesamong which she said she was sexually abused, on her Instagram and TikTok, she has over 4 million followers. She admits that her approach isn’t for everyone.
“I wouldn’t say there’s a huge marketing incentive,” Okamoto said, adding that if August has any benefits, it’s in building sincere connections with followers.
She said her openness on social platforms fostered loyalty among many of her customers. But she acknowledged that her own candor could lead to criticism of her, making some people more wary of her and even repulsing others, saying she’s “online”. I get a lot of hate on it,” he added.
Founder Meg Smith love, lexi, A lingerie company that specializes in smaller cup size bras agrees that customers value transparency. “Today’s consumers are very smart and value brand authenticity and genuine motivation,” she said.
Smith, 38, said she developed an autoimmune disease after receiving breast implants and eventually had to have them removed. She said plastic surgery was taboo in the area she grew up in, just outside Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and she was initially hesitant to disclose her plastic surgery and health concerns for fear of criticism. said.
in the end, video On the Love, Lexxi website, she said she wanted to be beautiful after struggling with her body image and health. In retrospect, she said, she doesn’t regret sharing because her story reveals the honest motivations behind her company.
Smith said the company’s transparency “shows that our founders have overcome hardships.”
Imprisoned executives said sharing their pasts could pose a risk to their professional reputations, but some said it was worth it.When Marcus Block Founded flick shopis a website and app that allows you to send postcards to loved ones who are incarcerated.In 2012, he initially kept his experiences in prison private.
“I didn’t want to be banished from the business world,” Block said.
He spent eight years in prison from the age of 15 on a car robbery charge, and during the last six years in prison his mother sent him a letter every day. This inspired the idea for his company. Its mission is to eliminate recidivism by helping people imagine life after prison through letters from his loved ones.
After customers told us how the app had helped their families, Brock decided to share that her time in prison made her understand where she came from.
“I felt empowered by fully owning a story that had escaped me for so long,” said Block, who is based in Washington, D.C. Ultimately, we hope that being transparent will help reduce prejudice against former incarcerated people.
“Our customers were shocked to learn that the technology they use every day was started by someone like their loved one in one of those cells,” Block said. rice field. The service is being implemented in more than 3,700 correctional facilities, according to Flikshop’s website. Since then he has employed other ex-inmates, Flikshop Neighborhoodis a project that connects organizations with people in prison and educates employers on creating employment policies to give second chances to people with criminal records.
For others, including Block and Okamoto, opening up about their personal lives has been liberating.
“I hid a lot of myself for a long time,” Okamoto said. “It takes a lot more emotional energy to filter yourself and think about who you’re talking to and how you want to appear.” It might be fine,” he added.