Warren Buffett, 94, surprised investors earlier this month when he announced at Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, that his nearly 60-year career as CEO was ending. Buffett’s successor, Greg Abel, 62, will take the reins on Jan. 1, 2026, though Buffett will continue as chairman of Berkshire’s board.

Buffett revealed his decision to step down as CEO in the final five minutes of a five-hour question-and-answer session. Now, new details have come to light about why Buffett decided to pass the torch to Abel—and it has to do with his age.

“How do you know the day that you become old?” Buffett told The Wall Street Journal in an interview on Wednesday. “I didn’t really start getting old, for some strange reason, until I was about 90. But when you start getting old, it does become—it’s irreversible.”

Related: Warren Buffett Says to Forget About 10,000 Hours of Practice — If You Want to Master Something, Do This Instead

Buffett told the WSJ that, in the last few years as he crossed his 90th birthday, he had started feeling the effects of his age. He had trouble remembering names and found it more difficult to read newspapers, which suddenly looked like they had unclear text.

Buffett was born in Omaha in 1930 and took control of Berkshire Hathaway, then a textile maker, in 1965 when he was just 34 years old. He became CEO and chairman of the company in 1970 and turns 95 in August.

^{Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett. Photo by Daniel Zuchnik/WireImage}

Buffett told WSJ that he never intended to be Berkshire’s CEO for life and was “surprised” at how long his tenure had lasted. He also observed that his days had slowed down, while Abel brought more energy to the table and accomplished more during a workday.

Related: Warren Buffett’s Successor, Greg Abel, Outlined Berkshire Hathaway’s Critical Values at the Company’s Annual Meeting.

“The difference in energy level and just how much he [Abel] could accomplish in a 10-hour day compared to what I could accomplish in a 10-hour day — the difference became more and more dramatic,” Buffett told WSJ.

Buffett said that Abel was “so much more effective” in handling day-to-day operations at Berkshire that “it was unfair, really,” not to have him serve as CEO.

Abel joined Berkshire in 1999 after the firm acquired MidAmerican Energy Holdings, an energy company where he served as an executive. Buffett made Abel Berkshire’s vice chairman of non-insurance operations in 2018. At a shareholder meeting in 2021, Buffett disclosed that Abel would succeed him as CEO.

Buffett told WSJ that he plans to keep working at Berkshire and says his health is in good shape.

Related: ‘Father Time Always Wins’: Warren Buffett, 94, Just Announced Major Changes to His Plan to Give Away His Money

When we first set out to launch a telehealth startup, my brother Eli and I were hit with obstacle after obstacle, each one more confusing and contradictory than the last. It felt like the system was designed to keep outsiders out. And for a while, we believed what so many others do: that breaking into telehealth required deep pockets, advanced degrees and a law firm on speed dial.

But here’s the truth most people don’t know: the biggest barriers to entry aren’t real barriers at all, they’re myths. Myths that circulate so persistently, they end up scaring off exactly the kind of innovative thinkers this industry desperately needs.

Telehealth is projected to hit over $200 billion in global market size. Yet countless entrepreneurs, especially those outside of medicine, assume the space is off-limits. It’s not. You just need to know how to separate fact from fiction.

Here are the most common myths holding founders back, and how to move past them.

Myth #1: You need a medical degree to start a telehealth company

The Truth: You don’t need to wear a white coat to build a successful healthcare brand. Just like Jeff Bezos didn’t need to sew every book jacket Amazon sold personally, telehealth founders don’t need to treat patients themselves.

What You Actually Need: Infrastructure. A compliant, scalable system that connects licensed providers with patients and keeps everything above board.

How to Overcome It: Partner with licensed medical professionals and/or use platforms that manage provider relationships, prescription workflows and regulatory compliance. Some platforms (like Bask Health) now offer white-labeled solutions that allow non-medical founders to launch brands without having to hire an in-house clinical team.

Related: This Founder Didn’t Want to Be the ‘Face’ of Her Brand. But She Pushed Through the Discomfort — and Now She’s a Household Name.

Myth #2: The regulatory maze is too complicated to navigate

The Truth: Yes, healthcare is regulated. But “regulated” doesn’t mean “impossible.” It just means there are rules. And most of them are well-defined, transparent and navigable with the right tools.

Where Entrepreneurs Go Wrong: Trying to reinvent the regulatory wheel alone, or giving up before even trying.

How to Overcome It: Use turnkey compliance services. Many platforms now handle everything from HIPAA compliance to provider credentialing to pharmacy fulfillment. Some even offer integrations with familiar e-commerce platforms like Shopify. The path has been paved; you don’t need to build the road from scratch.

Myth #3: It takes years to launch a telehealth business

The Truth: That might have been true in 2010. Today, startups can go live in weeks, not years.

Why? The rise of no-code software, pre-licensed provider networks and plug-and-play health tech platforms. The time and financial cost of building from the ground up is no longer necessary or strategic.

How to Overcome It: Instead of coding a platform or recruiting providers one by one, opt for modular, pre-built systems that handle intake, virtual visits, e-prescriptions and more. Many founders now go from idea to launch in under 30 days.

Related: E-Commerce Is Getting Tougher — Is Telehealth the Answer?

Myth #4: You need massive capital to get started

The Truth: It used to cost hundreds of thousands to stand up a telehealth brand, custom software, legal retainers, provider salaries, insurance…the list went on.

Today, that’s changed.

What’s Different Now: SaaS-based telehealth platforms offer everything from patient portals to multi-state provider networks to legal frameworks, all on a subscription basis.

How to Overcome It: Treat your launch like a modern DTC brand. Skip the six-figure dev spend and plug into tools that charge monthly fees. In the same way Shopify enabled a new generation of retail brands, telehealth platforms now let you launch with low overhead and scale as you grow.

Myth #5: Telehealth is only for big healthcare providers

The Truth: The telehealth boom has democratized access. In fact, many of the most successful new players aren’t hospital systems; they’re small, focused consumer brands in niches like mental health, dermatology, women’s health and sexual wellness.

What They Have in Common: A clear audience, a compelling brand and a digital-first approach.

How to Overcome It: Focus on a specific problem underserved by traditional care, whether that’s managing migraines, tackling hair loss, or providing menopause support. Then use digital marketing strategies (SEO, influencer partnerships, paid ads) to build an audience. Compliance and infrastructure can be handled by your tech stack, your job is to own the brand and customer relationship.

Related: Cut Through Digital Noise With These 4 Kinds of Creative Content

Myth #6: You’ll get sued if you get it wrong

The Truth: Healthcare liability is real. But the fear of litigation often outweighs the actual risk, especially when you operate within a compliant framework.

The Key Difference: There’s a world of difference between ignoring regulations and using vetted, regulatory-compliant systems designed for telehealth delivery.

How to Overcome It: Work with vendors that prioritize compliance and have built-in protections, like encrypted data storage, secure video consultations and documented consent workflows. Think of it like driving a car with airbags, seatbelts and lane assist. You’re not invincible, but you’re far from reckless.

It’s not the rules holding you back — it’s the rumors

Most of what’s “common knowledge” about telehealth is outdated or outright wrong. The real story? Telehealth is one of the most wide-open opportunities in modern entrepreneurship.

It’s e-commerce in 2010. It’s SaaS in 2005. It’s still early, and the only thing stopping most founders from entering is misinformation.

There’s never been a better time to launch a telehealth brand. Whether you want to build a side hustle or the next billion-dollar exit, the playbook exists. The infrastructure is ready. The market is growing.

So if you’ve been sitting on an idea, or writing it off because you’re “not a doctor” or “don’t have millions”, it’s time to rethink that.

You don’t need an MD. You need a vision, a niche and the right platform to power your idea.

The $200 billion telehealth wave is already underway. The only question is whether you’ll be part of it—or watch it pass you by.

Many business leaders still see a pivot as a sign of failure. That mindset is not only outdated — it’s dangerous. In fast-moving markets driven by rapid technological change, staying the course can be riskier than changing direction. Persistence is admirable, but inflexibility is costly.

Think of the industry giants that missed their moment to adapt: Kodak, Blockbuster, Xerox, Tower Records. All were dominant in their time. All ignored shifts in consumer behavior and emerging competition. The result? Obsolescence.

Contrast that with companies like Toyota, which began as a loom manufacturer before becoming a global car brand. Or Nokia, which started as a paper mill. Some of today’s most iconic brands didn’t just survive change— they were born from it.

Related: Navigating Crucial Business Decisions — How to Know When to Pivot and When to Persevere

A pivot isn’t a setback — it’s a strategic move

A well-timed pivot can mean the difference between stagnation and long-term success. It may involve changing your product focus, redefining your mission, or overhauling your operations to meet a new opportunity.

Amazon is a textbook case. It launched as an online bookstore. Today, a significant portion of its profits comes not from retail, but from Amazon Web Services — its cloud computing business. Likewise, Facebook saw the writing on the wall and acquired Instagram, capturing a new generation of users and extending its dominance.

Pivots can be uncomfortable, even scary. But they’re often necessary for survival. The key is knowing when and how to do it right.

Step 1: Let customers tell you what they really need

The clearest signal it’s time to pivot? Customers want something you’re not offering.

My company, FORE Enterprise, started by helping businesses predict employee turnover. But we quickly realized our clients lacked the infrastructure to implement our insights. Over 90% asked for help building the data pipelines required for AI analysis. So, we expanded our mission and team to deliver full-service AI solutions — from infrastructure to insight. That shift opened new revenue streams and made our product significantly more valuable.

Listen to the market. Often, customers will ask for the pivot before you even realize you need one.

Step 2: Define the market — or it will define you

Large companies may have the weight to shape the market. Apple did this masterfully, evolving from the iPod to the iPhone and fundamentally changing how we interact with technology.

Startups don’t have that luxury. They need to discover their product-market fit through rapid iteration and customer feedback. Market research can point you in the right direction — but only real usage will reveal whether you’re truly solving a problem worth paying for.

Case in point: I launched Vella as a dating app based on personality matching. But we quickly saw that the market was saturated. What stood out was our profiling technology. So, we pivoted to focus on wellness and personal development, where the tech had more traction and a less crowded playing field.

The lesson? Pay attention to how your product is actually being used, not just how you imagined it would be.

Related: Knowing When — and How — to Pivot Is Key to Your Business’ Survival. Here’s What You Need to Do.

Step 3: Adapt or die

Entrepreneurship rewards speed, decisiveness and flexibility. The best founders move like sharks — always forward, always adjusting. They don’t fall in love with their first idea. They fall in love with solving real problems.

That doesn’t mean abandoning your core competency. The smartest pivots are evolutionary, not revolutionary. They take what you’re already good at and apply it in a more valuable, scalable, or sustainable direction.

So ask yourself:

• Are we still solving the right problem?
• Is our technology being used in the most valuable way?
• Is the market changing faster than we are?

If the answer to any of those raises a red flag, it might be time to pivot — before your competition forces you to.

Don’t fear the pivot — master it

A pivot isn’t an admission of failure. It’s a mark of strategic maturity. The best businesses aren’t the ones that get it right from day one. They’re the ones that learn, adapt and evolve ahead of the curve.

Don’t wait for declining sales or market irrelevance to force your hand. Listen to your customers. Watch the trends. Build for where the market is going — not where it’s been.

The pivot isn’t a detour. It’s the road to your company’s next stage of growth.

This year, AAA is predicting a new Memorial Day weekend travel record with an estimated 45.1 million people venturing at least 50 miles from their homes from Thursday, May 22, to Monday, May 26. That’s an increase of 1.4 million travelers compared to last year. (The previous record was set in 2005 with 44 million people, the company notes.)

If that gives you pause to hit the road, Airbnb wants to make things easier by being your own personal concierge when traveling (or deciding to hang out at home).

Related: ‘I Can’t Get Everyone to Move Here’: Why Airbnb’s CEO Is Sticking With a Once-a-Month Hybrid Schedule

On Tuesday, the company announced a redesigned app with a spate of new features, including one called “Services.”

“Hotels do have one thing that we don’t have, and those are services,” CEO and Cofounder Brian Chesky, 43, said at the launch event in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Now, Airbnb users in 260 cities can book things like food (in-home and ready-to-eat meals from professional chefs or full-service catering); photography sessions; massages and spa treatments (Swedish, deep tissue, reflexology, facials, microdermabrasion, body scrubs); personal training (yoga, strength training, HIIT); and beauty services (hair, makeup, nails).

Chesky told the New York Times the company was always “destined to do more” than just be an app to book or offer a place to stay.

^Airbnb

Airbnb says that all service professionals are “vetted for quality,” have an “average of 10 years of experience, completed Airbnb’s identity verification process, and are required to submit relevant licenses and certifications.”

It’s not Joe-from-down-the-block who’s coming to cook your meal (no disrespect to Joe). Airbnb is touting its connections and offering “chefs from Michelin-starred restaurants, award-winning photographers, and elite trainers.”

Related: People Are Making Tons of Money With Airbnb and They Don’t Even Own Property. Here’s How.

But even though that may sound expensive, the company says there are services at all price points, with many below $50.

“Airbnb is currently used as a noun and a verb, and it means a place to stay,” Chesky told the New York Times. “The question we then asked was what if you could Airbnb more than an Airbnb and essentially monetize the biggest asset in your life, which is probably not your home but your time, passion, and skill set.”

Longtime “Shark Tank” investor Barbara Corcoran, 76, announced last week that she was putting her beloved New York City penthouse on the market for $12 million — and the apartment almost immediately found a buyer.

According to the latest Olshan Luxury Market Report, Corcoran’s duplex penthouse at 1158 Fifth had multiple bidders and sold for over the asking price within 24 hours of being listed. The final price paid for the unit and the identity of the new owner are still unknown, but will be disclosed as soon as the deal closes.

The property was one of 36 contracts signed last week in Manhattan with a value of $4 million or more, per the Olshan report.

Related: Barbara Corcoran Says the Best Entrepreneurs Are Good at This One Thing

“Real estate is always emotional, but I never thought I’d say goodbye to this beautiful palace in the sky,” Corcoran wrote on Instagram last week. “I’m just hoping the special person who buys it cherishes it as much as I do!”

The 4,600-square-foot, 11-room co-op has four bedrooms, four full baths, and two half baths. Monthly maintenance fees are $11,693.32. Corcoran listed the property with The Corcoran Group, the real estate firm she founded in 1973 and sold in 2001 for $66 million.

Corcoran first spotted the penthouse in 1992, when she was delivering letters for a messenger service as a side hustle. She was impressed by the apartment’s terrace with views of Central Park, and asked the home’s then-owner to call if they ever thought about selling the unit.

Related: Barbara Corcoran Says This Is the One Question to Ask Before Selling Your Home

More than two decades went by without a phone call. Finally, in 2015, the owner was ready to sell. Corcoran bought the property for $10 million and spent an additional $2 million in renovations, designing the home exactly as she imagined it. She added a library with a fireplace, a full kitchen next to the terrace, and a butler’s pantry.

Corcoran is moving out of the duplex penthouse and into a single-story one to save her and her husband, Bill Higgins, 80, the trip up and down the stairs. The duo has already found a single-story apartment in the same Carnegie Hill neighborhood.

Corcoran previously disclosed that she makes $300,000 as a “Shark Tank” investor, but usually invests over $1 million per year in startups that come on the show. She also stated that she makes $4.5 million annually from her stocks, bonds, and other investments.

Corcoran has been on “Shark Tank” for 16 years and has closed 650 deals on the show.

Steve Yeng, co-founder with his wife, Brittany, of Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey, was born in Cambodia in the wake of the Cambodian genocide, which left more than 1.7 million people dead at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. When Steve was one year old, he was diagnosed with polio. His right leg became permanently paralyzed, and his parents sought medical help across the border in Thailand.

“We entered into a refugee camp, essentially a prison where we couldn’t get out,” Steve tells Entrepreneur. “We stood in line for food and water. After six years, which is quite a long time for those types of camps, we got sponsored to [move to] California by a couple who wanted to do a random act of kindness.”

The family settled in San Diego. Steve’s parents got jobs at a local donut shop a block away from his elementary school, where he first met Brittany. The pair started dating in high school and stayed together even as they pursued different paths post-graduation. She received her master’s in chemistry and attended law school. He jumped into the restaurant business.

^{Image Credit: Walking Eagle Photography. Steve and Brittany Yeng.}

Steve’s parents had gone on to buy the donut shop they’d worked at, and he followed in their entrepreneurial footsteps. He and his brother Scott opened OB Noodle House in 2008 and The Holding Company in 2016.

“We realized we had really built two separate worlds,” Brittany says, “where [Steve] was getting home at 4:30 in the morning, and I was leaving for work at 4:30 in the morning. And we were expecting our first daughter.”

“We used that underdog mentality [and said], ‘Let’s do it.'”

The couple had been toying with the idea of a new project that would allow for more time together: starting a peanut butter whiskey brand. Peanut butter, which Steve and his family often received in baskets of food during their early days in the U.S., was a favorite flavor. He’d been experimenting with adding it to all sorts of things: wings, noodles, fried rice — then Jameson.

The Yengs tinkered with the peanut butter whiskey recipe to make it shelf stable, which ultimately meant landing on one that wasn’t creamy, but mixable and good for cocktails. Despite the different lives they led at the time, “Peanut butter is the glue that really brought us together,” Steve says. The duo seized their “now or never moment” and started a business.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey}

The Yengs’ peanut butter whiskey had a solid fan base in their small community of Ocean Beach, San Diego, but they faced more skepticism from investors and research and development companies. At one point, an industry consultant discouraged the venture altogether, saying they seemed like a nice family who shouldn’t spend all of their life savings on a non-viable business idea.

“They all laughed,” Steve recalls. “Everybody was a doubter. No one believed in us. They saw us as a novelty, not a phenomenon. [But the] skepticism fueled our drive. We’d been successful before; we used that underdog mentality [and said], ‘Let’s do it.'”

 ”It finally clicked with us that the product itself was an outsider,” Brittany adds. “It wasn’t just us who were outsiders. It’s this peanut butter whiskey. The first time people hear it, they’re like, ‘I don’t know.’ So that product and origin story combined to [perfectly] encapsulate the brand.”

“We wanted to own it and put the black sheep leading the group.”

Having already honed the brand’s recipe through trial and error, the Yengs leaned into their “underdog” status when it came to their branding, too. Skrewball’s label features a large black sheep surrounded by smaller white sheep. “We look at [being a black sheep] as our superpower,” Brittany explains. “We wanted to own it and put the black sheep leading the group.” The founders also note a double meaning in the “Skrewball” name: evoking the odd one out but also the hope of finding your “krew.”

Skrewball officially launched in San Diego in 2018 — and the bootstrapped business was a massive hit. The brand remained only in San Diego that year because it couldn’t yet keep pace with the production required to expand. Independent liquor stores like Keg N Bottle, Newport Farms and Crest Liquor were crucial to Skrewball’s early success, the founders say. So was the San Diego bar and restaurant community, which “immediately brought Skrewball in and treated it like their own brand.”

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey}

Still, some naysayers considered the significant victory a flash in the pan, the founders recall. But when the brand went on to launch in California at large, it replicated its sold-out success. Ultimately, Skrewball achieved national distribution across all 50 states in January 2020. “We were the fastest to a million cases for any brand over $20 in history,” Steve says. “Nobody expected it.”

“In 2020, the only brands that grew faster than us in dollar sales were Tito’s and Hennessy.”

Of course, like most growing businesses, Skrewball had to contend with some serious challenges along the way. In the midst of the brand’s expansion, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history ground the process of acquiring proper labels to a halt. Heading into 2020, the business faced major production and bottle shortages that almost bankrupted it. There were times the founders “came home to no electricity because we couldn’t pay the bill.”

However, the Yengs consider those very obstacles the catalyst for Skrewball’s eventual lasting success, explaining that they helped them prepare for the pandemic years. Skrewball built up a surplus of bottles and dry goods late in 2019, and that allowed the company to expand and keep up with demand when global shortages hit.

Hitting the road when many major suppliers stayed home was another key move that boosted the business. “I lived on the road — safely — and personally promoted Skrewball, supporting the bars and restaurants that were open,” Steve says. “It brought a lot of awareness to Skrewball at a time when few other brands were present. In 2020, the only brands that grew faster than us in dollar sales were Tito’s and Hennessy.”

The couple stresses it’s not luck that’s brought Skrewball this far, but their refusal to give up and commitment to listening to the brand’s customers.

“We still do tastings,” Brittany says. “We were just at a market. Keeping that feedback loop to make sure you’re still relevant to your customer, providing them value and responding to their needs [is important]. It’s easy to get behind a desk and forget about why you’re actually doing what you’re doing.”

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey}

“You have to be able to adapt. Adapt to changes and overcome those obstacles.”

Now, Skrewball is a multimillion-dollar, globally recognized spirits brand. By March 2023, it felt like the right time to find a strategic partner for the business. “My daughters were growing up, and I didn’t want to miss it,” Steve says. The founders decided to partner with Pernod Ricard, confident in values that mirrored their own. The wine and spirits company acquired a majority stake in Skrewball. The Yengs also enjoyed a bit of a full-circle moment: Their brand had started with peanut butter in shots of Jameson, one of Pernod Ricard’s spirits.

The Yengs look forward to the brand’s continued growth — and continuing to win over any doubters.

 ”[We’re still] proving those skeptics wrong,” Steve says. “[When people first hear about it, they’re like], ‘I don’t know.'” But then they try it, their face lights up, and they introduce it to another friend or family member, who typically has the same reaction — and it’s one that “never gets old.”

Both Steve and Skrewball beat the odds they’d ever arrive at this point.  ”When I caught polio, there’s not much that’s expected of you, especially in Cambodia,” Steve says. “When I was in that refugee camp, I remember [wondering] Why? I was a healthy kid; all I needed was one shot, and none of this would have happened. [But what seems like] an obstacle, looking back, may be a blessing. You have to be able to adapt. Adapt to changes and overcome those obstacles.”

This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features siblings Jaime Holm and Matt Hannula. Holm is the founder and VP of design, and Hannula is the CEO at Tinker Tin, which spearheads experiential marketing and advertising projects for companies like Lexus and on Hollywood sets like the infamous trailers of the Manson family in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Holm started Tinker Tin as a side hustle more than a decade ago while working at Trader Joe’s and recalls taking phone calls about the business in between stocking bananas; eventually, she had so many inquiries that she quit the job to focus on the venture full-time. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Tinker Tin. Matt Hannula and Jaime Holm.}

When did you start your side hustle, and how did you get it up and running?
Holm: I started Tinker Tin 13 years ago. I had just gotten married and was reminiscing about the time I spent living in a camper and surfing in Australia before my now-husband and I started dating. I was perusing the internet to see if there were any campers or funky vans to rent in California for a road trip. At that point, the U.S. had things like RV America and maybe one other company that rented modern-day RVs, but that was it. I told my husband we should find an old, funky trailer, fix it up and rent it out like I did when I was in Australia. He liked the idea. (He had worked on hot rods in high school.)

Related: She Quit Corporate Life to Pursue a Side Hustle With Her Sister. They Saw Over $100,000 During Launch Weekend — and Now Have an 8-Figure Brand.

From there, we got our first camper for $800 and became the first vintage trailer rental company in the U.S. We pivoted fairly quickly from camping rentals to renting these vintage trailers out to Hollywood studios for movies and commercials. We started getting calls for branded trailers for cosmetic companies’ road shows, such as LUSH or Pacifica, and we did activations for Facebook, Pepsi, Williams Sonoma, New Belgium and many more. The companies would always ask us to build a retail display to pair with the trailer to showcase their product. Early on, the companies stopped asking for the trailer rentals and started solely asking for us to design and build another retail product display, and then another. It went from one to hundreds to thousands, to not just a single retail display SKU, but then to designing and building entire retail stores. That’s how we went from being inspired by vintage camping to a full-fledged design and manufacturing company.

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?
Holm: I might hire for key positions faster. We are a zero-debt company, so we saw slower growth in the beginning and [had] some burnout from having a skeleton team for longer than we probably should have. Once my brother became an owner in the company and our CEO, and I was able to step back and focus on what I do best without juggling the entire company — that is when our true growth took off. Matt was able to implement lean manufacturing principles, our combined vision and so much more to streamline our growth.

Hannula: When scaling a business, talent is so important. Sometimes, it is hard to get good talent early on, especially paying for it, but if I could have interviewed folks longer, asked more questions, run personality tests, etc., we would have saved so much stress, time and money (actual cost and costs from mistakes and underperformance).

I also wish I had fired faster. When running and scaling the business, it often felt like a death sentence to fire someone because I “thought” I needed them. But really, getting rid of a bad seed or poor talent is the exact thing I should have done early on to help scale better, faster and more efficiently.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Tinker Tin}

Related: These College Friends Started a Side Hustle Out of ‘Sheer Frustration.’ It Did $1 Million in the First 9 Months and $20 Million in Year 4.

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?
Hannula: The devil is in the details, especially in manufacturing. There are so many moving parts that make or break manufacturing. Tying it into building a product specific to a client adds another complexity. We always say here at Tinker Tin, “Do the right things, right.” Focusing on what we should be doing and how to do it correctly. There is no room for big mistakes in manufacturing because it’s not just a lost sale — it’s a lost product. The pain compounds when mistakes happen, and being aware of these mistakes early on is very critical to success. You can burn cash flow very quickly by not getting it right. One missed screw could render a product useless.

Can you recall a specific instance when something went very wrong? How did you fix it?
Holm: In the beginning, when we were looking to expand our retail client base, we would design beautiful stores, retail displays and more for free. These decks were gorgeous, and the clients were so happy! As young entrepreneurs, we didn’t want to scare them away with design contracts or large manufacturing limits out of the gate. We got word that some of the retail clients were shopping out our designs in China or using the decks for their board of investors to make them look good, but would never circle back with us. This was a big fail on our parts, but it also gave us a lot of confidence in our capabilities. Instead of taking a scarcity approach, we treated this process as R&D and were able to restructure, knowing our worth and value add to our clients was bar none.

Hannula: I could write a book called The Million Things That Went Wrong, VERY WRONG! The one that comes to mind was when we first started producing large quantities of product in Mexico. Logistics matters in Mexico, and having trustworthy logistics partners through the entire supply chain is as critical as it gets. Long story short, we had a bad partner within our supply chain that ended with us losing a semitruck of product worth over $250,000 for about two weeks. The supply chain went silent. We pulled in the sheriff, the Department of Justice and the CIA in local offices to shed light on the entire situation. Luckily, because I own a cybersecurity services company, we were able to run very detailed information searches on the entire supply chain and received valuable information that brought the criminals back online. After this event, we fired our entire supply chain. A supply chain that took over a year to develop, and we got rid of it instantly. It was painful but 100% necessary in order to have the confidence that it will never happen again.

How long did it take you to see consistent monthly revenue? How much did the side hustle earn?
Holm: Luckily for us, it was fairly quick out of the gate within the first year. Our industry didn’t exist, so it was a big fish, small pond scenario that worked in our favor. In year one, we made a couple hundred thousand. Our side hustle turned into a real business that supported our family in the first year, which was not what we had anticipated or planned on.

Related: This 34-Year-Old Was ‘Wildly Un-Passionate’ About His Day Job, So He Started a 9-Figure Side Hustle: ‘Be an Animal’

What does growth and revenue look like now?
Holm: We started with one employee on payroll and an entire family of volunteers. We grew year over year, and 13 years later, we are a $20 million company with no debt, and three of us in the family are full-time now — no more volunteers.

Hannula: When I came onto Tinker Tin in 2018, we had done $650,000 the year prior. Now we’re at $20 million — and just scratching the surface. Manufacturing is not a space that everyone is jumping into. We are fresh and focused on building a manufacturer of tomorrow. We near-shored a while back because we saw the issues and tensions with China bubbling up over a decade ago. We plan to continue to bolster our domestic manufacturing presence in the U.S. and Mexico.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Tinker Tin}

What do you enjoy most about running this business?
Holm: We hang our hat on “beauty at scale,” and this is something I absolutely love — to be able to design a retail display that is not just a pretty rendering, but translates into a physical product that looks better than the digital. These days, everything looks prettier online versus in person, but I believe in the tiny details, the tiny “whys” throughout each project. It keeps me excited.

Hannula: Every day, there’s a new problem to solve. For some, this is stressful, exhausting and just plain terrible, and although I feel those emotions, I enjoy all of the challenges. An entrepreneur buddy of mine once said, “Pressure is a privilege,” and I couldn’t agree more. The pressure of running a successful business is one of the greatest privileges one can experience. Creating something for yourself that you can control and choosing to do all the things that suck and getting the reward for all the things that go well is just an incredible feeling. As Jaime always says, it’s all about the journey, not the finish line.

Related: This 17-Year-Old High School Student Has a $20,000-a-Month Side Hustle — and It All Started With a Skill He Learned in Class

What is your best piece of specific, actionable business advice?
Holm: Don’t let your hobbies take a back seat, and if you don’t have any hobbies, do not let your business become your hobby. Hobbies are your inner fire-starter that help the hard work days feel less hard. They help regulate your nervous system, can motivate or inspire new ideas and can help you mentally check out and re-check in with yourself and your truth. Losing your sense of self in your business helps no one, especially the business. Having a hobby allows you to separate yourself from your work in a way that invites you to step into your creative side more fully.

Hannula: It is maybe cliche, but I have not experienced any better advice than working your ass off. If you can force yourself to work your ass off day in and day out, you will crush it. Every success takes time and hard work. No one ever hit a home run without swinging the bat. The more you swing the bat, the more effort you put into it daily, weekly, monthly, yearly (it’s not overnight), [the more] you will succeed. Also, you have to commit! 100%. If you have an idea and try it for a couple of months or a year, that’s probably not enough time. If you have an idea and you hit hard and commit and don’t do anything else, you might be successful quickly, but you will be successful in the long run.

This deli made too much bread not to attract attention.

In September of 2023, North Carolina businessman Peter L. Coker Sr., his son Peter Coker Jr., and a third accomplice, James T. Patten, pled guilty to securities fraud in a scheme that falsely valued their single-location New Jersey-based Hometown Deli at $100 million.

The Cokers and Patten artificially inflated the price of two companies, Hometown International, which owned the deli, and E-Waste, to make them more appealing to private firms. It was later revealed that Hometown only owned one money-losing deli, and E-Waste was not operating in any capacity.

Related: Reality Stars Are Sentenced To Prison For a ’15-Year Fraud Spree’

Today, Coker Sr., 82, was sentenced Tuesday to six months in prison and ordered to serve six months of home confinement after his release. He will also be required to pay a $500,000 fine and up to $644,000 in restitution, reports CNBC.

“I’m terribly sorry for my part,” Coker Sr. said at his sentencing. “This episode has been the worst time of my life.”

“I’m sorry for every investor harmed by my actions,” he added.

Related: ‘We Got Back to Work’: Kevin Bacon Opens Up About Losing ‘Millions’ in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme

Coker Jr. and Patten’s sentencing will follow. After his initial arrest in 2022, Coker Jr. went on the run and was found hiding in a hotel room in Thailand’s Phuket province. He will face deportation after he serves his sentence, per CNBC.

“This was a fraudulent scheme from the inception,” Judge Christine O’Hearn said at the start of the hearing. She labeled the companies worthless and said she “learned more than I ever care to” about their fraudulent operations.

On a busy Saturday afternoon in Mountain View, California, the line at Alexander’s Patisserie — a pastry shop known for its precision and innovation — can stretch out the door. Customers eye a display case of delicacies, from black sesame croissants to more than 20 flavors of macarons. It’s easy to assume the appeal is in the presentation, but beneath the patisserie’s viral popularity is an authentic story: one of team leadership, craftsmanship and a dedication to continuous improvement.

Central to this story is Shuyao Cao, better known as Chef Shu. As the pastry chef behind the Alexander’s menu, she leads with creativity and intention, uniting the business with a collaborative spirit.

Related: Want to Work With Influencers? Here’s What Small Business Owners Need to Know.

“I feel like our whole team, everyone has their own talents,” Cao says. “Each one of them is unique, and I take the string from them, and then I put it together. I can’t come up with [the brunch menu] all by myself.”

The team dynamic is evident from the moment customers walk in the door. Whether staff are managing a packed tea service or catching up with regulars, the atmosphere is warm and welcoming. David Brungard, vice president of operations for Alexander’s Group Corporate, says Cao’s leadership has helped make this work environment possible.

“[Chef Shu] earned every single person’s respect, including the dishwasher, because she does everything,” Brungard says. “She cleans the walk-in, makes the croissants, comes up with ideas and walks around to taste stuff. She makes family meals for our employees so that when they come to work, [they don’t have to eat pastries all day].”

According to Brungard, Cao’s hands-on leadership style has fostered a workplace culture built on trust and appreciation: “The level of quality in your life depends a lot on how you feel when you are at work, and [Chef Shu] knows how to make everyone in our team feel valued,” he says.

Related: 5 Secrets to Success From a Sustainable Business That’s Grown 95% in 3 Years

One of the patisserie’s most talked-about menu items — the famous flat croissant — wasn’t even for customers at first. “I wanted to try it because it went viral in my Asian area,” Cao says. “I wanted to taste it myself, so I made one at the patisserie, and the front and the back of the house really enjoyed it. So I said, ‘Let’s put it on the menu.'”

Since then, Cao’s flat croissants have become a fan favorite, driving traffic in-person and on social media. But trending pastries are only responsible for a portion of the patisserie’s success. What keeps Alexander’s relevant is its commitment to adaptation through customer feedback.

“ We see how customers react and how much we sell every day,” Cao says. “We see how people react on the internet, too. I read every review the customer leaves me, and I mean it. I take opinions, and then I let the whole team taste it. Even [Brungard], when he comes, I pull him.”

For Brungard, reviews function as both valuable feedback and a celebration of the team’s efforts: “When they mention an employee by name in a raving review, it makes me super happy because they deserve the credit,” he says. “I love it when the public recognizes their hard work. And then when they don’t, I take it on. That’s what I’m here for.”

Part of Alexander’s staying power comes from thoughtful sourcing that spares no expense for quality. “We use chocolate imported from France… the best chocolate in the world,” Cao says. “We make sure we use an AOP butter for our croissant. AOP butter is super expensive, and only one region of France makes it.”

And when specialty ingredients aren’t available through traditional vendors, Cao gets creative. “Sometimes I find matcha powder [or] the best sesame paste brand in the supermarket or the Chinese grocery store,” she says. “I can pick out different stuff for myself and then ask my sales guy if he can find me a bulk item.”

Related: How This North Carolina Lawn Care Company Earns Customer Loyalty

From recipe tasting to fixing kitchen equipment, Cao and Brungard run operations like clockwork, but always with heart. “Part of our meeting is to talk about new products, reviews, what’s broken in the kitchen,” Brungard says. “How can I fix it? How can I give you what you need to be successful?”

This behind-the-scenes support reinforces a company-wide policy: Take care of the team, and they’ll take care of the guest.

Ultimately, Alexander’s success comes from the patisserie staying true to its values. Thoughtful leadership and room for experimentation allow the team to chase their passions, resulting in a sweeter experience for the guests. “When you put love into something, it reverberates into the world,” Brungard says.

Consider Alexander’s Patisserie’s guiding principles for creating a thoughtful experience for both customers and staff:

• Lead from within. Respect is earned. Set the tone by working alongside the team and staying hands-on in the operation.
• Innovate with intention. Let curiosity, creativity and customer feedback drive your menu changes, rather than trends alone.
• Feedback helps you pivot and grow. Read and discuss every review to identify areas for refinement and improvement.
• Quality begins with sourcing. Whether it’s imported French butter or the perfect sesame paste, sourcing should be deliberate and can help your business align with its (and customers’) values.
• Culture is the secret ingredient. A welcoming team translates into a positive guest interaction. When your team feels supported, the entire operation succeeds.

Related: She Runs a James Beard Award-Nominated Restaurant. Here’s Her 2-Step Process for Hiring the Best Employees.

Listen to the episode below to hear directly from Cao and Brungard, and subscribe to Behind the Review for more from new business owners and reviewers every Thursday.

Editorial contributions by Alex Miranda and Kristi Lindahl

This article is part of our ongoing America’s Favorite Mom & Pop Shops™ series highlighting family-owned and operated businesses

When we see high-profile leaders in government and industry promising to boost efficiency, the automatic association might be that workforce efficiency equals cutting jobs. But that’s rarely the case.

Across-the-board layoffs are not, in and of themselves, a recipe for efficiency. In fact, they could lead to exactly the opposite: loss of high performers or critical talent.

That said, efficiency is having a moment — and for good reason. Companies are being buffeted by new tech, shifting tariffs, flagging productivity and inflation. In these uncertain times, finding ways to get more from your people is often a matter of survival.

At its core, efficiency is a nuanced concept, but an absolutely critical one. Too many businesses fail to understand and measure it. Getting more with less requires thinking differently and using data differently, with a little help from AI.

Here’s how companies can harness data to boost workforce efficiency the right way.

Related: 6 Transformative Methods for Boosting Workplace Efficiency

1. Start with why

Before a company does anything in the name of efficiency, it should look at the big picture. The key question: What problem are you trying to solve?

Efficiency means different things to different businesses, after all. One furniture manufacturer might have a goal to produce as many chairs as possible, while another decides to focus on quality over quantity.

But too often, the de facto goal of efficiency exercises becomes cost-cutting. Laying off 10% of your employees might yield short-term savings, but in the long run, it’s exceedingly hard to cut your way to better results.

Replacing high-potential talent can cost a business up to three times the outgoing worker’s salary. When businesses factor in the total cost of recruitment, training, time to proficiency for new hires and lost productivity, haphazard downsizing often emerges as the least effective path forward.

Related: 4 Ways Leaders Can Increase Workplace Efficiency

2. Understand the people and resources you actually have

Even after working in people analytics for more than a decade, it still surprises me how many organizations are in the dark about their own workforce. Many large companies struggle even to get an accurate headcount of permanent and temporary employees across different business units.

Meanwhile, businesses continue to define employees in terms of rigid “roles,” rather than thinking in terms of “skills.” Someone’s job title might say “customer support rep,” for instance, but their underlying skillset includes product knowledge, people skills, technical know-how, etc.

At a time when tech is changing jobs overnight, smart businesses are increasingly using AI to catalog employee skills and match them to new and evolving roles. Rather than laying off that customer support rep, for instance, they’re reskilling and shifting talent to sales or business development.

This approach yields clear dividends. Besides being more than twice as likely to place talent effectively, skills-based organizations are about 50% more likely to improve processes that maximize efficiency.

3. Connect people with business results

There is perhaps no more important and overlooked way to improve efficiency than this: bringing people and business data together.

People data is all the information about what employees do, such as their performance and contributions. Business data is all about how they work — metrics like sales figures, customer satisfaction and profitability.

At so many companies, this information remains siloed. HR is entrusted with people data, while finance, operations, and sales and marketing hoard business data. Only when a company breaks down those silos by combining people and work data does a true picture of its employees emerge.

Here’s a real-life example from Cartier, the luxury jeweler. For its hundreds of stores worldwide, the company integrated people data and point-of-sale data. That let it see which locations were performing better than others, plus each store manager’s training history. Knowing which sales training got the best results, Cartier could apply it where needed to improve efficiency.

Compared to their average peers, high performers are 400% more productive. That climbs to 800% for managers, software developers and other complex roles. By pinpointing the right people at the right time for the right job, a company can avoid blanket layoffs that could end up slashing precisely the wrong people.

Related: 12 Unconventional Ways to Boost Employee Productivity

4. Democratize access to data and insights

It’s hard, if not impossible, to improve efficiency if you’re flying blind. To make the right decisions, people and performance data need to be accessible, not just to VPs but to the frontline managers making key hiring decisions.

This is where so many organizations fall woefully short. Historically, workforce data has either been jealously guarded or else buried in spreadsheets and scattered across multiple systems. Even basic questions require waiting weeks, sometimes months, for analysts to crunch the numbers. Meanwhile, managers have been left to rely on intuition to make time-sensitive talent calls.

Making better decisions requires democratizing workforce data, while preserving privacy and security, and that’s where AI is proving a boon. Need to know who your top performers are by location? Which managers are most effective? How does employee engagement compare to industry benchmarks?

New AI tools stitch together data across disparate systems, pulling out insights in a matter of seconds. Dense jargon and spreadsheets are replaced by explanations in plain English. And much like a human analyst, the best tools make informed suggestions about what next steps could make the biggest impact.

5. Review results and adapt in real-time

Efficiency is not a one-and-done exercise. At a moment when companies are contending with rapidly changing business conditions (Tariffs? No tariffs? Your guess is as good as mine), workforce planning can’t simply be an annual event.

The better tack here is to take a continuous approach to assessing how many workers your organization needs to support growth, ensure profitability and achieve goals.

New dynamic analytics tools help companies do just that. By tracking workforce plans against what’s happening on the ground, they let management make adjustments in real-time so forecasts are constantly up-to-date. These tools also help HR and finance get on the same page by reviewing planned, forecasted and actual headcount costs and course-correcting when needed.

Another real-life example: Providence Healthcare recently found itself looking at turnover in key roles. Using past data to make predictions, it was able to identify a group of employees where the organization would at least break even by paying them more to stay — and, in some cases, would even save money.

By using the estimated costs of turnover and calculating the cost to adjust salaries in the targeted groups, Providence saved an estimated $6 million a year.

Nor are these results unusual. Taking a more dynamic approach to workforce planning pays off. In one study, businesses with robust workforce planning boosted productivity by up to 25% over two years.

For companies in today’s unpredictable business climate, improving workforce efficiency is a very real priority. But simply slashing and burning can create more problems than it solves. A data-backed approach, with some help from AI, is a surer path to efficiency gains.