Richard

We entrepreneurs pour our hearts and souls into our businesses. They are the products of our creative energy, our passion-made manifest.

If you’re like me, you assume that any customer who takes the time to leave a review wouldn’t dream of giving anything less than five stars. You may have even come to expect a steady stream of glowing reviews, so when a customer leaves a one- or two-star review, it can feel like the biggest gut punch.

You’re not alone in this. I’ve gone through it personally, and I can tell you, first of all, congratulations! Any business or brand worth its salt will inevitably attract haters. Your business is growing, maturing and scaling to a point where occasional negative feedback is inevitable. That said, the way in which you respond to this feedback is critical. Don’t underestimate the damaging effect that bad reviews can have on your business, especially if the complaints are consistent in nature, highlighting problems that need urgent attention.

The entrepreneur should offer measured, thoughtful responses to negative reviews but not every complaint is created equal. Here are a few important considerations and strategies for handling the dreaded negative review.

Related: Bad Reviews Can Destroy a Small Business. But If You Get One, Here’s How to Bounce Back.

Is it legit?

Some reviews are just bogus. One of your competitors may be trying to undermine your business and thinks that leaving one or more bad reviews is the way to do it. Someone may confuse your business with another. Or, someone may simply be trolling and wants to use your business as the butt-end of an inside joke.

These reviews are a fair bit easier to deal with than the ones that have some basis in reality. If you report an illegitimate review to Google or Yelp, they are likely to remove the bogus review from their site.

When to respond

Most business owners understand that having the option to reply to negative reviews presents an advantage, a chance to mitigate the damage done. But many business owners, unfortunately, do not respond as effectively as they could.

Samara Scott-Hunter, host of the Salon Rising podcast, has noticed an off-putting defensiveness in how other business owners often respond to negative reviews and believes there’s a better way. After being blindsided by a one-star review that Scott-Hunter felt was deeply unfair, she decided to wait before posting her response. Her cool-off period lasted a whole month, and when she did respond, she made sure she was in the right frame of mind to do so.

I remember I was sitting in front of my fireplace. I was just in a really happy place, and it was a Sunday afternoon. I thought to myself, I’m going to respond to that review, because I feel really happy right now.

There’s wisdom here. If you’re like me and many other entrepreneurs, receiving a bad review elicits a highly emotional reaction. In most cases, you don’t want that red-hot emotion showing up in your public written response to the review. Nor do you want your hasty reply to be met with subsequent complaints and rebuttals from your critic. Therefore, do what Scott-Hunter did, and allow yourself a cooling-off period. Not only will this improve the quality of your response, but it will also be less likely that you’ll bait your critic into an unproductive back-and-forth.

Related: 94% of Customers Say a Bad Review Made Them Avoid Buying From a Brand. Try These 4 Techniques to Protect Your Brand Reputation.

How to respond

You may also invite the customer to reach out to your firm’s dedicated support staff. Do this by providing the name, email and phone number for your support personnel in your reply. My company has a dedicated customer experience lead who acts as a first responder in the event of a bad review.

For me, the typical format for replying to bad reviews should consist of an apology. I don’t think you need to explicitly admit to wrongdoing, but you can express regret for the customer’s negative experience. Next, you need to express empathy. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and understand that she may be providing this feedback not to hurt your business but to help it improve.

That said, let’s not be naïve; as your business grows, you will encounter some customers who are simply impossible to please. These customers may have woken up on the wrong side of the bed, recently lost their pet or a loved one, who knows — but for whatever reason, they’re determined to have a go at you online. I advise concluding your response by directing your customer to the relevant support personnel in your organization and assuring them that every reasonable action will be taken to address their complaint. My company has a dedicated customer experience lead who acts as a first responder in the event of a bad review. Her name, email and phone number is provided to the customer along with my response.

If possible, you or a member of your support team should reach out to the customer privately and do what you can to address their complaint. If you are successful here, and the customer is satisfied, then you may ask the customer to modify their negative review, perhaps changing one- or two-stars to four- or five.

Be careful here, you don’t want to come across as pushy, as if you’re dead set on getting the customer to change their review or take it down. Approach the situation with a genuine curiosity about the customer’s experience, with a real desire to know where things went wrong. Don’t ask for any favors without first making it abundantly clear how much you care about their experience with your business or brand and appreciate their feedback.

Soliciting and screening reviews

When it comes to soliciting customer reviews and containing negative feedback before it goes public, there’s no shortage of CRM (customer relationship management) software utilities from which to choose.

If you use one or more of these utilities, keep in mind that platforms such as Google and Yelp prohibit the practice of “review gating,” which is the selective promotion of positive reviews. A review-gating software may email a recent customer, ask them about their experience and direct them to post a review on Google or Yelp if and only if they’ve had a five-star experience.

While review gating is frowned upon, there’s nothing wrong with a business providing great services or products and actively soliciting honest feedback. A winning and ethical attitude for a business is to welcome all feedback and to utilize the negative feedback in pursuit of continuous improvement.

Related: How to Remove Negative Reviews Online and Protect Your Online Reputation

Try not to take it personally

Don’t take it personally. Yes, way easier said than done. But as an entrepreneur, it’s imperative that you identify the growth opportunity in every setback. Even if you find yourself heartbroken by a string of bad reviews about the business you’ve worked so hard to build, the right approach is to respond attentively, proactively and with resolve to make all the needed adjustments and improvements. Craft your responses to be impassive, empathetic and constructive. Remember, you can never please everyone all of the time. So, stay open-minded, stay humble and let every challenge sharpen your resolve to build and run a business worthy of your passion.

Ready to break through your revenue ceiling? Join us at Level Up, a conference for ambitious business leaders to unlock new growth opportunities.

Startups often spend months perfecting their product, but forget to tell the world it exists.

That’s a costly mistake.

A classic study in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science found that public relations is nearly three times more effective than advertising when it comes to launching new products. PR doesn’t just promote — it positions, builds credibility, and creates the kind of buzz money can’t buy.

But here’s the catch: you only get one shot at being “new.” If you miss the PR window during your launch, the opportunity doesn’t come back. That’s why timing and strategy are everything.

Related: 11 Effective Marketing Strategies to Help Streamline Your Startup

Why the media cares about your launch (but only once)

Journalists are wired to cover what’s new. New company. New product. New idea. But only while it’s new. Once your startup is live and quietly running in the background, it’s no longer a story — no matter how brilliant it is.

That makes the months leading up to your launch critical. PR isn’t something you add after you go live — it’s something you bake in beforehand.

Startups that treat PR as an afterthought don’t just lose media opportunities. They lose credibility, visibility and momentum right out of the gate.

A smarter launch: Build buzz before you go public

Think of PR as your soft opening. Reporters love early access. Just like music journalists get advance streams and book reviewers receive early copies, your product should be previewed by media insiders before the public sees it.

Offer select journalists early access. Create an experience that makes them feel included and excited, not just informed.

Ideally, set aside at least three to six months before launch to focus exclusively on PR. If that time’s not built into your plan, consider delaying the launch. Seriously. The lost attention from skipping PR often costs far more than a postponed release.

Step-by-step: Laying the foundation for a successful PR launch

Here’s how to start building your PR momentum now:

1. Identify the right journalists

Look for reporters who already cover your space. Study what they write about. Note which ones your target audience follows. Then gather their contact details — Twitter, LinkedIn, email — and track everything in a media list spreadsheet.

2. Build relationships before you pitch

Start engaging now. Comment on their articles. Share their stories. Send a quick message of appreciation. Do not pitch your company yet — the goal is simply to get on their radar in a genuine way.

3. Develop a clear PR strategy (not just a press release)

PR isn’t marketing. Your goal is to help journalists tell a story that matters to their readers. Ask yourself: What’s the angle here? Why would this audience care?

In addition to press releases, consider:

• Hosting a pre-launch event or virtual demo
• Sending out early access or product samples
• Creating a media advisory (not just a press release)
• Developing unique story pitches for different outlets

Start with broad business outlets. Then move to trade publications. Then niche verticals. This staggered strategy protects your team from being overwhelmed and keeps your brand in the spotlight longer.

Don’t have time? Outsource to experts who do

Yes, this takes real effort. But you don’t have to do it all yourself.

Some PR agencies now specialize in short-term launch campaigns — no expensive retainer required. These firms often have pre-existing media relationships and know exactly how to turn your launch into a headline.

This approach also avoids the cost and complexity of hiring full-time, in-house PR staff.

Even if your business is already live, bringing in trusted PR professionals can help you recover momentum. Journalists are far more likely to respond to a pitch from someone they already know.

Related: Four Tried-and-True Ways to Better Market Your Business

You only launch once — make it count

You can always tweak your product or adjust your marketing. But you only get one shot at a first impression — and that’s what PR is built for.

Whether you run your own campaign or hire an expert team, don’t waste your “new” status. The right PR strategy at launch can earn the visibility, trust, and authority that advertising can’t match.

And it all starts before anyone knows your name.

Ready to break through your revenue ceiling? Join us at Level Up, a conference for ambitious business leaders to unlock new growth opportunities.

AI search engine startup Perplexity internally mandated the use of AI coding tools — and says that its engineers have been noticeably more productive.

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas told Y Combinator that the startup “made it compulsory” for its engineers to use AI coding tools such as Cursor or GitHub Copilot. These tools can generate blocks of code and debug programs.

Related: AI Is Already Writing About 30% of Code at Microsoft and Google. Here’s What It Means for Software Engineers.

Srinivas said that Perplexity engineers have seen measurable outcomes so far: Using the tools cuts down on “experimentation time” for new tasks from “three, four days to literally one hour,” he said.

“That level of change is incredible,” Srinivas stated. “The speed at which we can fix bugs and ship to production is crazy.”

Perplexity’s AI search engine reported a 20% month-over-month growth in May with 780 million queries.

^{Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images}

Related: Google’s CEO Is Spending His Free Time ‘Vibe Coding’ a Webpage with AI: ‘I’ve Just Been Messing Around’

At Bloomberg’s Tech Summit in May, Srinivas predicted that within a year, Perplexity would be handling “a billion queries a week.” He pointed out that when the AI search engine first got started in 2022, it processed 3,000 queries a day, advancing to 30 million queries a day by May.

“It’s been phenomenal growth,” Srinivas stated at the event.

Still, there “are issues,” Srinivas said about using AI coding assistants, noting that the tools can introduce new bugs that software engineers aren’t familiar with and don’t know how to fix.

Last week, Perplexity introduced Comet, an AI-powered web browser that takes on Google Search and Google Chrome. Comet uses Perplexity’s AI search engine as its default tool, putting the company’s core product front and center for users.

In May, Perplexity was reportedly in late-stage talks for a $500 million funding round that would value the company at $14 billion.

Related: ‘Building It Ourselves’: Morgan Stanley Created an AI Tool to Fix the Most Annoying Part of Coding. Here’s How It Works.

Join top CEOs, founders and operators at the Level Up conference to unlock strategies for scaling your business, boosting revenue and building sustainable success.

It’s 2025, and the business landscape is more crowded than ever. In almost every industry, buyers have endless choices — and less patience for cold calls, generic email blasts or outdated lead forms. Traditional lead generation isn’t just ineffective—it’s being ignored.

Instead, organic marketing has taken center stage. In fact, up to 27% of businesses now say the majority of their leads come from organic search. It’s no surprise that more companies are shifting away from interruption-based strategies and leaning into credibility-driven approaches, especially through thought leadership PR.

Related: 5 Effective Thought Leadership PR Tactics for Your Startup

What is thought leadership PR — and why should you care?

Thought leadership PR isn’t about blanketing your brand name across every outlet or going viral on social media. It’s about positioning you — the founder, executive or expert — as a trusted authority in your space.

When someone Googles a question related to your industry, do they find your voice offering insight, or someone else’s? Thought leadership puts you at the center of that conversation. It builds a digital footprint that not only earns trust but also turns you into the go-to source when prospects are looking for solutions.

Three ways to build thought leadership authority

You don’t need a PR team or a massive media budget to get started. Here are three powerful ways to establish yourself as a thought leader:

• Content marketing and media coverage: Publish insightful blog posts, LinkedIn articles and industry op-eds that show your depth of thinking. Contribute to relevant media outlets. When others cite your expertise, your credibility grows.
• Podcasts: Tap into loyal, niche audiences by appearing on podcasts or launching your own. Podcast listeners are high-intent and tend to view guests as trusted guides.
• Social media: Share behind-the-scenes knowledge, timely takes and actionable insights on platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram or TikTok. Informative content — not flashy branding — is what earns trust.

Why thought leadership wins in today’s market

Modern buyers — especially in B2B — are savvier than ever. They’re not waiting to be sold to; they’re researching before you even know they exist. One study found that 70% of the B2B buying process happens before a prospect reaches out.

That means your public presence matters. When potential clients search for answers and consistently find you offering them, you’ve already earned their trust before the first call.

And that trust accelerates everything — your credibility, your sales process, and your word-of-mouth momentum. Thought leadership turns your name into a shortcut for quality.

Even more: it builds long-term loyalty. When customers see you not just as a vendor but as a trusted advisor, your value increases and your relationships become stickier.

What real thought leadership looks like

To be clear, thought leadership isn’t just about posting content. It’s about being relevant, helpful and authentic.

Here’s what works:

• Speak from experience. Share stories and lessons — not just facts. Talk about challenges you’ve faced or trends you’ve navigated.
• Offer guidance, not self-promotion. No one wants a sales pitch masked as content. Give people ideas they can use, even if they never buy from you.
• Pick a niche and go deep. You don’t need to be everywhere. You need to be clear about who you serve and what you stand for. This clarity helps the right people find you — and follow you.

For example, if you run a wellness brand, talk about how your approach to stress management helped a client avoid burnout. If you run a PR firm, break down real-world strategies that helped a small brand punch above its weight.

Related: Own Your Expertise — 13 Ways to Elevate Your Thought Leadership

Choosing the right platform and strategy

Where you show up matters as much as what you say. Align your thought leadership strategy with where your audience actually spends time:

• LinkedIn: Ideal for B2B leaders, consultants and service providers.
• Instagram and TikTok: Better for consumer-facing experts and brands.
• YouTube or Substack: Great for deep dives and long-form storytelling.

Don’t try to be everywhere — pick one or two platforms where you can consistently show up with substance.

The long-term power of evergreen authority

Unlike cold outreach or paid ads that stop working the moment you pause spending, thought leadership is a compounding asset. Blog posts, podcast interviews and articles keep working for you long after they’re published. They show up in search results, circulate among peers and reinforce your credibility over time.

Yes, it takes consistency and intention. But for entrepreneurs who want to build a trusted name and attract ideal clients without chasing them, it’s one of the most effective moves you can make.

In a market full of noise, be the signal

Today’s buyers don’t just want to know what you sell — they want to know what you stand for. Thought leadership PR helps you rise above the noise, become known for your expertise and create inbound momentum that feels effortless — because it’s built on earned trust, not constant pitching.

Your next customer is already searching for answers. Thought leadership makes sure you’re the one they find.

This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Nikki Seaman, the 29-year-old, Atlanta, Georgia-based entrepreneur behind olive brand Freestyle Snacks. Learn more about her business journey, here. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Freestyle Snacks. Nikki Seaman.}

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What was your day job or primary occupation when you started your side hustle?
I was on an externship from my management consulting job at Bain & Co, leading special projects at Whisps Cheese Crisps.

When did you start your side hustle, and where did you find the inspiration for it?
The idea of Freestyle Snacks came about in 2021. I found inspiration during the pandemic, as olive bars in grocery stores shut down, and I was forced to get my olive fix from the traditional olive aisle. The “eyeballs” in a jar just weren’t cutting it for me in terms of quality and convenience. So I decided to create an easier, more enjoyable way to eat olives.

Related: They Started a Side Hustle Producing an ‘Obvious’ Food Item. It Hit $300,000 Monthly Revenue Fast — On Track for Over $20 Million in 2025.

What were some of the first steps you took to get your side hustle off the ground? How much money/investment did it take to launch?
I started by focusing on consumer data. I lived in Mintel reports, and I ran a bunch of surveys to pressure-test if there was real demand. I would stand in the olive aisle at the grocery store and interview olive-lovers about their preferences. After calling over 200 co-packers, I was able to find a partner to bring my vision for Freestyle Snacks to life. Including our packaging design, materials and first production run, I spent around $50,000 in savings to get to market.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Freestyle Snacks}

Are there any free or paid resources that have been especially helpful for you in starting and running this business?
No matter the industry, finding a community and other founders to chat with is invaluable. When I was first getting started, I would stack my Fridays with meetings with other CPG founders to see what I could learn from their wins and their mistakes. For my industry, the Startup CPG community is a great place to find other like-minded individuals who are eager to help and support. In running the business, one resource that has been incredible for us lately is TikTok — it is free organic reach to millions of potential customers, and we are investing a lot of time on this platform.

If you could go back in your business journey and change one process or approach, what would it be, and how do you wish you’d done it differently?
I would have taken more time to build a stronger bench of part-time help earlier. In the beginning, I was doing everything from shipping samples to managing QuickBooks and answering customer emails at midnight. It was, of course, scrappy, but it was also draining and unsustainable. Looking back, I could have brought in affordable support sooner to free up my time for the highest-impact work. Some of my best hires are my virtual assistants; they truly save me so much time, and the business couldn’t run without them.

Related: Tired of ‘Culturally Obtuse’ Products, This 27-Year-Old Took His Side Hustle From $1,000 a Month to 7-Figure Revenue: ‘Pick the Right Opportunity to Pursue’

When it comes to this specific business, what is something you’ve found particularly challenging and/or surprising that people who get into this type of work should be prepared for, but likely aren’t?
Retail distribution sounds exciting, but it is incredibly operationally intense. From logistics coordination to managing distributor deductions to planning for promotions, it is a constant challenge. It can be expensive to get your product on the shelf, and that’s just the beginning. The real fun comes in making sure the product is actually selling off the shelf.

Can you recall a specific instance when something went very wrong? How did you fix it?
We had a few operational hiccups very early on. One nightmare was when we received our latest packaging order from our supplier, and there were holes in the packaging near the resealable zipper. We didn’t realize this until after we’d packed thousands of products. Luckily, we were able to expedite a new order of packaging and tested it thoroughly, and now we are hypervigilant about all suppliers we work with.

How long did it take you to see consistent monthly revenue? How much did the side hustle earn?
Since I didn’t go the farmers market path, we tested product-market fit by putting the product online and seeing if it sold. Within our first two days of launch, we sold over $10,000 worth of olive snacks. I started seeing consistent revenue only after the first year, once our products landed in major retailers and demand was a bit more predictable.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Freestyle Snacks}

Related: ‘You Can Go Viral Overnight’: This College Student and His Brother Spent $5,000 to Start a Side Hustle — Now Their Brand’s Making Over $175 Million

What does growth and revenue look like now?
Freestyle is now in about 5,000 retail locations, including Whole Foods, Target, CVS, Harris Teeter and Giant Food, and we’re just getting started. We have seen strong retail velocity and six-figure monthly sales, with growth driven by expanded retail distribution and a high repeat purchase rate in our existing retail footprint.

How much time do you spend working on your business on a daily, weekly or monthly basis? How do you structure that time? What does a typical day or week of work look like for you?
This started as a side hustle but quickly turned into a full-time job and more. I now work on Freestyle full-time, often from my home office and sometimes out of our garage, which has become overflow storage. I work pretty much seven days a week, with the weekends being lighter. I love to use the weekends for catching up on admin work or internal projects and conducting store visits. My days vary but usually include a mix of operations, sales outreach and strategy, content creation and team management. I also try to carve out time for creative and strategic thinking so I do not get stuck in execution mode.

What do you enjoy most about running this business?
I love creating something from nothing and seeing people genuinely enjoy it. It never gets old when someone discovers Freestyle Snacks and shares what an essential snack it has become for them, whether they are diabetic, looking for a low-calorie snack or just craving a good olive. The best is all of the folks we’ve converted to the dark green side, who used to hate olives until they tried Freestyle!

Related: The ‘Hustle’ He Started Out of His Station Wagon Became a Nationwide Business That’s About to Hit $300 Million: ‘Everything We Do Is Pretty Simple’

What is your best piece of specific, actionable business advice?
In order to succeed, you need to have grit, passion and perseverance. You will face many rejections, have to navigate operational challenges and sometimes feel like the world is crumbling around you. Entrepreneurship is a rollercoaster. I like to stay grounded by focusing on being 1% better each day. These incremental improvements to the business truly add up to something incredible.

This article is part of our ongoing Young Entrepreneur® series highlighting the stories, challenges and triumphs of being a young business owner.

Join top CEOs, founders and operators at the Level Up conference to unlock strategies for scaling your business, boosting revenue and building sustainable success.

David Handler embodies the classic line: “If you build it, they will come.”

After graduating from the Manhattan School of Music, the violinist and composer wasn’t happy with the spaces available for audiences to experience live classical music. “The costs were prohibitive, and the concert rituals were confusing — when am I allowed to cough?” he told Entrepreneur. “I realized there was a problem of packaging that was disassociating younger listeners from the music I had an almost religious devotion to. Not just classical music, but really ambitious deep listening kind of music.”

In 2008, he and classmate Justin Kantor founded (Le) Poisson Rouge, a music and multimedia art venue, in the spot that was once home to the legendary New York City jazz club The Village Gate. Since opening its doors, LPR has become known for hosting performances by boundary-pushing artists, as well as intimate shows from icons like Thom Yorke, Yo-Yo Ma, Lady Gaga, Iggy Pop, Lorde, Beck and Philip Glass.

Handler spoke with Entrepreneur about how he turned his passion into a thriving business and offered his best advice for those who dream of bringing their artistic vision to life. (Answers have been edited for length and clarity.)

New York City has so many music venues. What did you feel was missing when you launched LPR?
The music that we now hear in concert halls used to be played in chambers that much more closely resembled a jazz club. The music was a living, breathing thing, and people were interacting with it in a different way. There was less pretension. At the time we decided to open LPR, it seemed like there was this reciprocal interest — art institutions needing more spontaneity and nightlife needing a little bit more substance. So I wrote a business plan to try and revive the arts and deepen late-night culture in New York City.

Singer-songwriter Julian Velard performs at LPR. (Photo Credit: LPR)

How did you get started writing your business plan?
I was 27 years old, and it was a tall order. I had never managed a bar, let alone opened a place. So in my pitch, I told would-be investors who were already donors to uptown institutions and said, “Look, I am a conservatory graduate, I have a finger on the pulse of what is also cool as a young person. If you give me a fraction of what you’re donating to Carnegie Hall or the Metropolitan Opera House, I will expand listenership and audience, and you might even see a return, which you will certainly never see from a donation.”

Related: This Band Has Millions of Streams on Spotify. The Only Problem — the Music and the Band Members Were Generated by AI.

How did you end up where the Village Gate once stood?
The Village Gate has a really illustrious cultural history. But in between the Gate and LPR, it was a nightclub called Life. And that caused a lot of problems. I basically had to bust out my violin at community board meetings to prove that I was not just a punk wanting to ruin the neighborhood. And along the way, we picked up a relationship with John Storyk, who designed Electric Lady Studios for Jimi Hendricks. When I told him I was going to do everything from metal to string quartets to drag bingo nights, he was down and decided to help create this space that we now know as LPR.

You were trained as a musician. What do you think gave you the confidence to pursue entrepreneurship?
I saw a gap. You hear people talk about sort of stumbling onto success or leading with your heart. That’s me. It was a mission that I was really passionate about, and it was very dear to me. I almost didn’t think of it as a business as much as a method of delivery or a way of spreading the gospel of the music and art I believed in. Before algorithms and recommendation engines, I made bespoke music mixes for friends. I had friends who listened to metal and they didn’t know Stravinsky. So I’d be like, “You can hear the same dissonance in the music you know in some of this new stuff.” That was exciting to me. A purely business-minded idea wouldn’t work for me because it exists only for that business end. This works because there’s so much passion behind it.

Related: As Gen Z Embraces Physical Media, This Entrepreneur Launched a New CD Music Service: ‘I’m Packaging All These Orders Nonstop’

Any moments that stand out to you as feeling like your plan was working?
I remember going down the line one night and speaking with someone who flew here from South America to see a show. And then right next to them was somebody who had no idea what they were in line to see. But because it was at LPR, and we earned their trust through some other night, they were like, “I don’t know this genre, but I’m going to give it a shot at LPR because I know that the standard is high.”

What would you advise to someone reading this who dreams of opening their own music or art venue?
There are a lot of location-specific logistics. In New York, for instance, some of the toughest stuff was getting a liquor license. And there’s this weird triangle of getting a liquor license and funding and signing a lease. You can’t sign a lease or get funding until you can sell liquor. And let’s face it, that’s where you’re going to make your money. If you don’t think you’re in the bar business by opening a music venue, you’re kidding yourself. And you can’t get a liquor license before you have a place to sell it. So there’s a lot of chicken-and-egg going on. But aside from logistics, I think it’s about having a clear, distilled-down vision of what the market needs and delivering it in an uncompromised way. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t evolve. We just partnered with KYD Labs to become one of the first major US venues to move all ticketing fully to blockchain technology. And always keep in mind what success means to you. I have to look at numbers for the business, but honestly, that’s not what guides me. It’s the deeper stuff in my life, in my family, in my own art and the artists we work with — those are the metrics that I want to live by.

Related: Best-Selling Author and Cartoonist Stephan Pastis on His Creative Process: ‘I Often Look Down to Make Sure I Have Pants On’

Everyone knows what it’s like to be around someone who just doesn’t make them feel great about themselves with their condescending tone of voice. There are all kinds of people who are unpleasant to be around-Debbie downers, complainers, jealous green monsters, mean-spirited snarks, and most anyone who wears neon sunglasses- but if you walk away from another person feeling worse about yourself, there’s a good chance you’ve been dealing with a condescending person. People have a patronizing attitude and exhibit condescending behavior for different reasons, but usually, it boils down to insecurity and/or arrogance. Yes, you can definitely be arrogant and insecure at the same time.

Here, we point out some behaviors people say that typically don’t land well and foster negativity. But it’s also important to keep in mind that studies suggest that 75 to 90 percent of communication is nonverbal. So when people feel like someone is talking down to them, it usually has as much to do with what they say as how they say it. Still, if you’ve been told you have a condescending streak, here are some eye-roll-worthy behaviors to discontinue.

1. Explaining things that people already know

We’ve all been in a conversation that’s moving along just fine, when suddenly you find yourself whisked off on an unexpected detour, riding out someone’s impassioned explanation of something that you already know. They’re talking at you, wide-eyed, offering each key point like a gift -“so after almost 30 years in prison, he won the Nobel Peace Prize” – and you hardly have the heart to derail their monologue and say, “Uh yeah, I know who Nelson Mandela is.”

Finding yourself in this situation is annoying, because the other person has, for whatever reason, assumed that you don’t possess the same knowledge, and sometimes emotional intelligence, they do. Chances are they haven’t actually weighed the likelihood that you do or don’t know what they’re explaining-they just know that they know it, and that’s enough reason for them to expound. This behavior is often referred to as ” mansplaining,” but the occasional woman is guilty of it too. The important thing to remember is that respectful two-way conversations involve reading cues from the other person. If you’re not certain they’re following what you’re talking about, you can always ask, “Are you familiar?” But most of the time, it’s safer to give them the benefit of the doubt.

2. Telling someone they “always” or “never” do something

No one likes to be put in a box. When you make broad generalizations about someone else’s behavior, that’s a condescending way to make them feel judged and misunderstood. Whether you’re having a casual conversation or trying to offer meaningful feedback, the person you’re talking to is way more likely to shut down and react defensively if you claim they “always” or “never” do something.

For example, were you to tell someone, “You’re always late,” or, “You never clean the toilet,” they’re likely to feel as if you’re making a definitive statement about who they are and will almost certainly rack their brains for contradictory evidence. Whereas, if you were to say, “I’ve noticed you’ve been late a lot recently,” or “It’s been a while since you cleaned the toilet,” the person you’re criticizing will still probably get defensive, but they won’t feel like you’re suggesting they’re fundamentally flawed or bringing down the gavel on their entire personality with your belittling comments.

Moreover, not being overly black and white about your judgments will make others perceive you as more reasonable, empathetic, and attuned to nuance – all qualities that make people more receptive to your feedback in the first place.

3. Interrupting to correct people’s pronunciation

If someone is in the middle of a thought, you should definitely not interrupt to correct their pronunciation. There is no faster way to break someone’s momentum or crater their confidence than to interrupt and say, “Um, it’s actually “essss-presso,’ not “ex-presso.'” Not only will you embarrass the person speaking, but everyone else listening will think you’re a know-it-all jerk for putting someone on the spot in an unnecessary and condescending manner.

If the conversation is casual, and someone mispronounces a name or a word, there’s a good chance it’s not worth correcting them at all. You’re not saving lives here. But if you feel the mistake was glaring enough that not correcting it would be like letting someone walk around with a giant shred of kale in their teeth (like, perhaps they’re mispronouncing the name of a client), it’s best to wait until they’ve finished their thought entirely. Once they are no longer the center of attention, you can say, discreetly, “Do you say debut “dee-butt?’ I always thought it was “day-byoo.’ French is weird.” Anyone with a shred of self-awareness will take that cue to track down the right pronunciation, and if they don’t bother, then going forward, it’s not worth your time to correct them anyway.

4. Saying “Take it easy”

For women in particular, being told to “Take it easy” is peak patronizing. Adjacent, equally aggravating directives include “Chill out,” “Calm down,” and “Relax!” No matter who you’re speaking to, when you tell someone to “Take it easy,” you’re suggesting that their excitement, concern or general response to something is either excessive or invalid. People are entitled to their feelings and their reactions.

Men might get this sort of response on occasion, but it happens a lot to women. Most women have had a man tell her to “relax” because he perceives her reaction as inappropriately emotional-when in fact, she doesn’t feel she’s responding emotionally at all. Research has shown time and again that men tend to perceive more “shrillness” and emotion in women’s voices. A Fortune study found that women were 17 times more likely than men to be described as abrasive. So when someone tells a woman to “Take it easy,” she’ll likely feel like that person is saying she’s “over the top” or “dramatic.” This minimizes her experience and casts her response as petty.

Related: 15 Things Men Say That Get on Women’s Nerves

5. Saying you “actually” like an idea

This is the subtle way of saying, “Wow! You did something smart, and I never expected that from you!” Many of us have received a critical email from a condescending boss that lists all the things you did wrong, and then ends with, “but I actually thought this thought was great.” This kind of backhanded compliment can feel worse than getting no praise at all. If you offer a solution to a problem in a meeting, and someone says, “Hey, that’s actually a pretty good idea,” it sounds as if they’re surprised by your intelligent contribution, and they generally expect little of you. If you “actually” like something, you can just say you like it.

6. Doling out compliment sandwiches

Many bosses swear by this feedback method, which involves starting out with a compliment, giving a critique, and then ending with another compliment. It’s seen as a way of cushioning criticism. And it’s true that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down sometimes. But at this point the formula is pretty easy to spot, and often the praise on either side of the critique-the real point of feedback, typically-can feel forced. Many people see a compliment sandwich and think, Just give it to me straight.

You don’t have to give a compliment to give a critique. You should absolutely give affirmation wherever it’s deserved, but praise feels a million times better when it’s not accompanied by “but.” Instead of compliment sandwiches, you could try a feedback method like the one Pixar has developed, which they call “plussing.” Leadership expert David Berkus has written that the technique is pulled from the improv comedy tradition, where the rule is never to say “No,” but always, “Yes, and…” At Pixar , practicing “plussing” means that when offering criticism, you do it in a direct way, but always follow with a constructive suggestion on how to remedy the issue.

7. Demeaning nicknames like “Chief” or “Honey”

Overly familiar, one-size-fits-all nicknames-especially from people you interact with in a professional capacity-are generally not a good look. This is particularly true for condescending people in positions of authority. While a male boss might think calling his subordinate “chief” is a way of being chummy, or rubbing elbows with the little people, it tends to come across with a patronizing tone. A woman boss might think she’s being approachable or motherly by calling her female employees “honey” or “sweetie,” but that can lead to a sense of false familiarity that makes it difficult for employees to speak frankly. Plus, those nicknames are almost always gender-exclusive; a male boss isn’t going to call his female employee “chief” (and hopefully in 2022 he knows not to call any woman besides his wife “honey”). So the chummy nicknames most people find condescending end up being pretty exclusionary, too.

When it comes to interacting with people who are providing you with a service of some kind-whether it’s the custodian in your office building, a server at a restaurant, your housekeeper, or your cab driver-nicknames are especially risky. Calling other men “Chief,” “Boss” or “Big Guy” is a weird sort of faux-submission posturing. In a 2019 poll taken by Men’s Health, 43 percent of respondents said that when another guy calls him “Boss,” he thinks that guy is a “condescending a**hole.” Those odds aren’t probably worth going up against. Luckily, the alternative to one-size-fits-all nicknames isn’t too hard to implement and works every time. You can just learn people’s actual names.

Related: 5 Horrible Traits That Push People Away

8. Patting people on the head

This might seem like a no-brainer, but it happens more often than you’d think. In general, it’s not a great idea to touch people who aren’t family members or close friends. It’s true that in the repertoire of touching methods, “patting” acquaintances is a better option than “stroking,” “smacking” or “pinching,” and there are certain scenarios in which patting someone on the back or shoulder is entirely acceptable. But head-patting is never okay. If you pat someone’s head they will invariably be forced to look up at you-in confusion or possibly an attempt to displace your hand-and then you’ll find yourself in the literal predicament of “looking down on them.” So if someone’s head is within patting reach-perhaps they are much shorter than you, or are sitting in a wheelchair, or an office chair-and you feel the urge to pat coming on, just remove yourself from the situation.

9. Name-dropping

This is an ancient and highly transparent method for communicating superiority from a condescending coworker. Whether you’re talking about how Jack Dorsey was at your yoga retreat last weekend, or how you’re on a first-name basis with Chrissy Teigen’s sister’s husband, you’re always going to come across as seeming like you think famous people are pretty important. It’s fine to be excited that you found yourself in the presence of a celebrity or powerful figure. The issue is when you go to the trouble to name drop, but then act like it’s no big deal, which suggests that you consider these people important enough to mention, but also consider yourself among their peers. To whoever you’re speaking to, the implicit message is, ‘I know important people, ergo I’m important.’ Others are likely to find this behavior condescending and a bit pathetic.

10. Telling someone, “Come on, you know better than that”

This sort of “sigh, shame-on-you” comment can be used in all kinds of situations but is almost always seen as a condescending remark. It’s the sort of thing an exasperated parent would say to their child, so when one adult says it to another, they sound like a scold with a condescending attitude. Say you’re having a debate over politics and someone says, “Come on, you know better than that.” You can’t help but feel like they’re belittling your perspective as short-sighted and childish. Even if you’re doing something objectively bad for you-say, smoking a cigarette-when someone says, “Come on, you know better than that,” it’s such a parental rebuke that you’ll probably relapse into adolescent “don’t tell me what to do” mode and smoke more cigarettes to spite them. If you disagree with someone’s opinion, there’s no problem with saying that directly. If you disagree with their lifestyle choices, it’s usually best to mind your own business.

Related: 25 Words That Make Other People Feel Inferior

11. Using “polite” acknowledgements to dismiss ideas

Common phrases like “Hmm, that’s interesting” or “Thanks for sharing” might seem like innocuous professional acknowledgements on the surface — and sometimes they are. However, if it’s clear that the person saying those words doesn’t intend to consider your idea or feedback, it might feel like they’re talking down to you.

Simply being upfront from the start can keep an interaction from feeling dismissive. Even if the answer is “No” or “Not right now,” owning that and explaining why it’s the case generally goes a lot further than faux consideration without any action to back it up.

Related: After This 26-Year-Old Entrepreneur Received a Condescending Message, She Responded in an Amazing and Inspiring Way

12. Demonstrating tasks they haven’t been asked to

If explaining something you already know is on one side of the condescension coin, then showing you how to complete a task you’re already capable of executing is on the other. Even if the demonstration is well-intentioned, it communicates an “I’ll just do it myself” mentality that can undercut trust.

Unsure if someone knows how to get the job done? First, consider the situation objectively based on their actual performance, not any preconceived notions about what you think they can handle. Then, if a how-to still seems like a good idea, ask them if they’d find it helpful.

Related: Is Your Workplace a ‘Jerkplace?’ Here Is How to Fix It.

13. Holding people to an irrelevant personal standard

“Back when I was where you are…” If you’re hearing that line or a similar one from a colleague, you might be in for some valuable words of wisdom — or a soapbox lesson that draws on their professional past and has little to do with your current reality.

Unless someone asks how you’ve personally approached a workplace-related challenge, consider whether the information you’re about to share will actually benefit them or if it’s just an opportunity to flex your track record and make them feel inferior.

In a new interview, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says AI is “the greatest technology equalizer” the world has ever seen — and that “100% of everybody’s jobs will be changed” as a result.

Huang told CNN‘s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday that AI was an “equalizer,” meaning that it “lifts” people who aren’t well-versed in technology to be able to use it. Huang said ChatGPT, an AI chatbot with over 500 million global weekly users, was an example of how people can easily use AI with little to no formal training in interacting with it.

“Look at how many people are using ChatGPT for the very first time,” Huang told Zakaria. “And the first time you use it, you’re getting something out of it… AI empowers people; it lifts people.”

Related: Here Are the 10 Highest-Paying Jobs with the Lowest Risk of Being Replaced By AI: ‘Safest Jobs Right Now’

AI results in people being able to do more with the technology than they would have without it, Huang said. He elaborated that he was “certain” that the “work that we do in our jobs” would be dramatically transformed due to AI.

Huang, who has been leading Nvidia as CEO since co-founding it in 1993, said his own work has changed because of AI.

“The work will change,” Huang said in the interview. “My job has already changed. The work that I do has changed, but I’m still doing my job.”

Huang said that “some” jobs would be lost because of AI, but “many” jobs would be created thanks to the technology. He predicted that AI would result in productivity gains across industries, lifting society as a whole.

^{Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images}

Huang’s predictions are less dire than those of Dario Amodei, the CEO of $61.5 billion AI startup Anthropic. In May, Amodei told Axios that within the next five years, AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and cause unemployment to rise to 10% to 20%. In March, he stated that AI would write “all of the code” for companies within a year.

Adam Dorr, research director at the think tank RethinkX, stated that by 2045, AI and robotics could make human jobs obsolete.

“We don’t have that long to get ready for this,” Dorr told The Guardian last week. “We know it’s going to be tumultuous.”

Related: ‘Fully Replacing People’: A Tech Investor Says These Two Professions Should Be the Most Wary of AI Taking Their Jobs

When Andy Hunter, founder and CEO of Bookshop.org, followed his lifelong passion for books into the publishing industry in 2009, he noticed an unsettling shift: The bookstores that had defined his childhood and communities were going out of business — rapidly losing market share to Amazon.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Bookshop.org. Andy Hunter.}

The number of U.S. bookstores decreased more than 50% in the span of about two decades, falling from 12,151 in 1998 to 6,045 in 2019, according to data from the Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns.

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon, which initially focused on selling books online, in July 1995. Today, book sales make up roughly 10% of Amazon’s profit at an estimated $28 billion; in 2020, the House Judiciary Committee found that the ecommerce giant controlled over 50% of the total print book market and more than 80% of the ebook market.

Related: Why Purpose-Driven Marketplaces Are the Antidote to Amazon

“Bookstores are advocates and activists for the importance of reading in all their communities.”

Amid Amazon and ecommerce’s quick, concurrent growth, Hunter realized that bookstores were “facing an extinction event.”

“It is really like the environment, where you can have coral reefs, and when the coral reefs die, then everything is hosed,” Hunter explains. “Bookstores are advocates and activists for the importance of reading in all their communities. As those start to die out, the importance of books in our culture also starts to recede.”

Hunter built his career in publishing for more than a decade, during which he co-founded literary websites Electric Literature and Literary Hub and the independent publisher Catapult.

Related: 5 Books Every Small Business Owner Should Read

Over the years, Hunter waited for someone to acknowledge what was happening to the nation’s bookstores, for “some champion to come along” and save them. Then, at a dinner in 2018, Hunter sat next to a member of the American Booksellers Association’s board of directors who pointed out that Hunter had internet expertise — could he help with the organization’s online sales strategy?

That’s when Hunter came up with the idea for Bookshop, the online book seller that funnels profits back to independent bookstores across the country. If shoppers choose a specific local store to support, that small business receives 100% of the sales profit; otherwise, 33% of the profit is distributed among all of the bookstores on the platform.

“Fortunately, it did succeed — and it actually succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

“ It was kind of a Hail Mary,” Hunter recalls. “At the time, I was like, Well, this almost certainly won’t succeed because I’ve never done anything like this before, and the odds are completely against us. Nobody wanted to invest in it. But nothing is going to get better if you don’t do anything about it, so at least [we were] going to try to do something about it. And, fortunately, it did succeed — and it actually succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

Bookshop launched in January 2020, and in the early days, the “very small, very scrappy” startup didn’t have a customer service team and saw modest sales. That changed when the pandemic hit about eight weeks later. Hunter says that Bookshop’s daily sales grew from $10,000 to $50,000 to $150,000 in short order. In the same period, the number of bookstores on the platform increased from 250 to more than 1,500.

Related: Why Your Business Should Be a Benefit Corporation, or B Corp

Now, Bookshop is a certified B Corp that has raised more than $39 million for independent bookstores to date.

“Our profit is not huge because if our profit is huge, then it’s off of our mission.”

The startup’s explosive growth began to wane in 2022, as customers returned to buy in-person at their local bookstores, Hunter says. Bookshop was profitable in 2020 and 2021, then lost money every year through 2024.

 ”This year, we’re profitable again,” Hunter says, “but we’re really lean. Our expenses are less than 13% of our total sales. We have something like $1.5 million of revenue per employee. We stay super lean because we are trying to always give the maximum amount to the bookstores. Even when we are profitable, our profit is not huge because if our profit is huge, then it’s off of our mission [to] support local bookstores.”

Earlier this year, Bookshop tackled its next frontier: ebooks. The goal was to build a “really easy to use” application that would function across devices in the U.S. and other countries, Hunter says. The initiative, launched in January, has been a challenge for the small company, which lacks the substantial financial backing of competitors. Digital reading subscription service Scribd has raised more than $100 million; Bookshop raised $2.3 million to support its ebook platform.

Related: Why (and How) Amazon Created the Kindle and Changed the Book Industry Forever

“ So we’re talking about a platform that has competitors that are 50 times better funded,” Hunter says, “and that doesn’t even go into Amazon and how much money Amazon has spent on the Kindle. So we are a scrappy, ragtag band of hopefully talented enough people to be able to pull us off.”

Additionally, because Bookshop gives so much of its profit to independent bookstores, it doesn’t have a large digital marketing budget. Bookshop spends about 2% of its revenue on advertisements and marketing. In contrast to the direct-to-consumer brands that saw major growth during the pandemic and spend 15% to 30% of their topline revenue on digital marketing, Bookshop relies heavily on word-of-mouth and referrals, Hunter says.

So far, Bookshop’s word-of-mouth marketing strategy is paying off: The company is about a year ahead of its projections for ebook sales, which already make up 5% of total sales.

“For us, winning is, we got 5% of Amazon customers to switch to independent bookstores.”

Of course, getting Bookshop’s ebooks on Amazon’s Kindle devices could bring even more significant growth. Although the Kindle supports some third-party applications like the library reading app Libby, ebooks from other platforms, including Scribd, aren’t available on the device. Access requires Amazon’s permission, and the request letter that Hunter sent to the company about four months ago has yet to receive a reply.

Bookshop is doing roughly three times the total independent online bookstore sales in 2019, Hunter says — and he’s determined to grow that number.

“ Amazon is really powerful and has tons of resources,” Hunter says. “They’ve got Prime and a lot of ways to lock in customers. So we try to be realistic, but for us, winning is not beating Amazon. For us, winning is, we got 5% of Amazon customers to switch to independent bookstores — that would be a huge lifeline for independent bookstores.”

Related: A Beloved 130-Year-Old Small Business in California Is Seeking a New Owner — and It Won’t Sell to the Highest Bidder: ‘Everybody’s Talking About It’

The good news is that independent bookstores appear to be making a comeback.

“ For the past five years, every single year, more bookstores have opened than closed,” Hunter says. “And there are now, from a low of about 1,900 independent bookstores in the American Booksellers Association in 2019, about 2,800 independent bookstores in the American Booksellers Association.”

The American Booksellers Association, which advocates for independent bookstores, reported 2,433 bookstore companies in 2,844 store locations in 2024, an 11% increase in membership year over year. Bookshop currently hosts more than 2,200 independent stores on its platform.

“The cost is ultimately what kind of society we’re creating.”

Hunter encourages everyone to consider the future they want for themselves and the next generation — and how the small decisions we make every day will shape it.

“Convenience has a cost that isn’t apparent to everybody at the face, and the cost is ultimately what kind of society we’re creating,” Hunter says. “[People should] make the effort of making good choices because they’re going to be living in the world that those choices created.”

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, 62, has reached the same amount of wealth as Warren Buffett.

Huang and Buffett have been ping-ponging back and forth for the No. 9 and No. 10 richest people spots with around $143 billion to $144 billion in wealth each, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.

Related: Nvidia Pulls Ahead of Apple and Microsoft to Become the World’s First $4 Trillion Public Company

Huang, who has been selling Nvidia stock as part of pre-arranged agreements, has gained $28.7 billion in wealth this year alone, per the Index. He unloaded $36.4 million worth of stock on July 8, per an SEC filing.

Earlier this week, Nvidia became the world’s first-ever $4 trillion company, flying past Microsoft and Apple. Huang has sold more than $1.9 billion in Nvidia shares to date, per Bloomberg.

Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and has been leading it ever since. He owned about 3.5% of the AI chipmaker as of March.

CNBC reports that Huang still has more than 858 million shares of Nvidia in various trusts and partnerships.

Related: ‘Decade of Autonomous Vehicles’: Nvidia CEO Predicts Major Growth in Robotics, Self-Driving Cars