The Entrepreneurs

Sunny outlook

Retail
Country pursuits
UK

If you’re a young buck in Italy looking for a sunny pair of socks, a turn-heads jacket or some flattering strides, all you need to do is nip into town on your scooter. Every Italian town seems to have a good menswear shop – and one for women too. This year is set to leave a few more UK towns equally well equipped as brand owners survey the national retail scene and decide that, for now, they will opt out of shops in big-city centres.

Take The Workers Club, known as TWC, which makes the sort of functional, detailed items that quickly become wardrobe favourites. Founded in 2015 by Adam and Charlotte Cameron, the business has been run from rural Oxfordshire for some years, even as it grew and the owners took on interesting consulting work. And now? “We’ve been working remotely for years and people couldn’t understand how we did it but recently there’s been a real cultural shift,” says Adam.

“We’ve been working remotely for years… recently there’s been a real cultural shift”

During lockdown they decided to deepen their country roots and take on a high-street shop in Goring, a village that sits on the River Thames in an affluent area full of people who like fashion. “It’s really interesting seeing people shop the collection,” says Adam, adding that they can also fulfil orders from here and that the rent is half what they would pay in London. He also says that Goring is busy, even pulling in tourists and shoppers from London.

This is a move that other labels will want to look at because it brings together quality of life and direct access to wealthy shoppers, many of whom have barely been out of shorts since March and could do with a fresh look.
theworkersclub.co.uk

Manufacturing
Street smarts
Norway

“From shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves in three generations,” is an American phrase that encapsulates a commonly held view that business empires, and wealth, rarely survive being passed on. Jan Christian Vestre (pictured), the third generation to run his clan’s street-furniture brand, clearly hasn’t been listening.

In 2012, aged 25, Jan Christian became CEO of Norwegian family-firm Vestre and has since tripled turnover to a healthy NOK202.5m (€21.2m) with an average sales growth of 20 per cent every year since taking over. And he now employs 60 people. Founded in 1947 by former sailor Johannes Vestre as a mechanical workshop in Haugesund, a coastal town in Norway’s west, today the company’s benches, bins, planters and bicycle racks dot public spaces in the US, Germany, Italy and beyond.

Only two of Norway’s export categories – salmon and furniture – experienced growth last year and Vestre is poised to ride this wave of international demand, with sales outside of Norway and Sweden estimated to hit NOK60m (€5.7m) in 2020. Vestre’s success defies the common perception that it is too costly to manufacture in Norway. And Jan Christian even argues that there is no better place to move towards a greener approach than in a country where sustainable raw materials and clean production practices abound. Vestre’s factories operate on renewable energy and the firm is on track to produce all of its own energy by 2025. Vestre also offers a lifetime guarantee against rust.

“It’s much easier than people believe to do things differently”

In July, Jan Christian made headlines by announcing that he would spend NOK300m (€28.4m) building a factory designed by Bjarke Ingels, set to open in 2021. Called The Plus, the ambition is for it to be the world’s most sustainable furniture factory, while also accommodating Vestre’s growing team and production capacity. It’s also a call to arms. “It’s possible to save the environment and make a profit,” says Jan Christian, challenging other Scandinavian firms to follow suit. “It’s much easier than people believe to do things differently.”

His daring attitude also includes saying no, such as the time when he declined a lucrative project in London to create benches with spikes to deter rough sleepers. This approach is informed by Vestre’s tight-knit family-run model. “We lose in the short term but, in the long run, we’re on the winning team,” he says, explaining that being family-owned means that they can make long-term decisions without feeling the wrath of investors, who often have short-term profits on their minds.

Inside Vestre’s Snøhetta-designed headquarters in Oslo’s affluent Frogner neighbourhood, Jan Christian sits across from his mother Elisabeth. Visiting from New York are also his cousin, Kristoffer Vestre, and his wife, Allegra Garretti, who heads up Vestre’s team in the US, a flourishing market. Kristoffer says that business often spills over to the dinner table and family gatherings, which he appreciates for the synergy of ideas.

Talk predictably turns to the pandemic and Vestre’s Stoop: an innovative nine-seat, multi-level bench that, while sitting as pretty in Vestre’s showroom as it does in New York’s Times Square, wasn’t designed with physical distancing in mind. Might benches need another redesign to accommodate our new world? Perhaps. But whatever the issue at hand, Jan Christian says that he is not afraid to tackle it head on. “Outdoor spaces will become even more important now.”

Best of Vestre

• Stoop bench
  Sure, it may not be made for physical distancing. But its clever three-tiered design means that we’ll be eagerly awaiting the day we can all pack back on.
• Parklets 2.0
  Designed to fit inside one parking space, Vestre’s clever seating and dining areas are especially relevant now that alfresco dining has taken over city streets.
• Folk litter bin
  Standing on a single post, the sleek silhouette of the Folk litter bin adds a touch of grace to one of the more unsightly pieces of urban infrastructure.

Advertising
Age of the manifesto ad
Global

There was a time in British advertising when television ads were so good that they drew as many viewers as the shows themselves. The 1980s saw creative freedom mixed with huge budgets. Ads went from selling soap and cornflakes to airlines and computers, and the result was cinema-scale entertainment. Things have changed a bit since then and the quality has taken a hit. Earnest moralising has replaced entertainment and what we are left with is the manifesto ad.

It usually begins with a defiant voice giving a toast to a group of people (“Here’s to the have-a-go heroes”). Cue uplifting piano keys, sweeping strings, clunky poetry and a complete lack of self-awareness. The scripts are written like political speeches, all dramatic repetition and fragmented sentences. Visually, they’re mood boards on a screen and they run on for longer than any normal human attention span, stretching the limits of how much you might care about frozen oven chips.

Where’s the wit, where’s the irreverence? Where’s the entertainment? And why does it have to be so long? Surely, this much earnest wholesomeness can’t be good for you. It’s easy to see how we got here, as brands desperately grasp around for a purpose or a cause to align to. In branding, manifestos are usually used as an internal tool to rally the troops or explain the business’s story but they always stayed behind the curtain. Now the curtain’s up and manifestos are centre-stage.

The thing that many brands haven’t grasped is that, by and large, people don’t want to be instructed on morality by corporations that sell consumer goods. While the gist of what they’re saying is often admirable, the appearance of the logo at the end simply serves to undermine the whole thing. It’s unarguable that there’s plenty of good intention behind the messaging – increasing inclusivity and helping others in need are clearly good things – but they would be better served to say less and do more. Put the budget into action that makes a difference or make an entertaining ad that stays relevant to your brand.

This isn’t strictly a new phenomenon. Apple’s “Here’s to the crazy ones” ad in 1997 was a stake in the ground for a company positioning itself as a bastion of creativity against the vanilla Microsoft behemoth. It hit all the right notes and set Apple on the path to domination. But that was Apple and 1997 was a simpler time. Surviving our hyper-politicised news cycle can be tough and advertising should be a refuge from the language of politics. After all, it’s convoluted, opaque and dull. Is that really what a business should be aspiring to?

Design
Why it’s bye-bye ping-pong
Global

There’s a lot of debate about the future of office design, with many predicting the demise of open-plan layouts. Maybe. Let’s see how real the shifts are in the months and years to come. But it is worth questioning all of these design elements. For example, removing walls was done to improve communication but according to one Harvard study, open-plan offices actually reduce face-to-face conversations by 70 per cent, while also leading to 50 per cent more emails (who wants to be overheard asking about finances or performance targets?).

But what is clear is that, for now, the office is going to be a place where work gets done. All those silly office designs that were spawned by Silicon Valley – a world of beanbags and inter-floor slides – suddenly seem out of step with the times. We need handsome offices fit for purpose; places that are smart and comfortable. Here are five office-design elements that are headed for the history bin. Why, after all, design an office to look like an apartment, when lots of workers are, well, still at home? Indeed, these design clichés are hopefully being ripped out as we speak.

1.
Ping-pong tables

The most visible sign that you work in a technology office. Are you “disrupting” or just knocking a tiny ball over a net? Along with overly familiar copywriting and an aversion to collared clothing, the ping-pong table became a staple of a sector desperate to appear easy-going. There’s nothing wrong with being casual (nor ping-pong) but too many businesses came to rely on “forced fun” as a stand-in for what defines a good office.

2.
Bean bags

Is a bean bag really a chair? Or is it just an oversized pillow with the always looming threat of a major mess attached to it? Either way, bean bags certainly never project an air of authority. And, even when their slumped occupants managed to win a client’s business, they were always hard-pressed to stand up and shake hands on the deal.

3.
Themed rooms

It was always a little perverse to have your employees pore over a brief in what appeared to be a surf shack or a ski chalet when, in fact, they’re stuck in an office in a suburban business park. Themed rooms never fooled anyone, nor did they stoke creativity. Keep the office tasteful and allow your employees to hop on a surfboard or skis on their well-deserved holiday.

4.
Slides

Yes, we mean the playground type. Why were they in offices? Good question. Slides are the ping-pong table’s more deranged sibling in the “forced fun” family of office design. While your office’s slide was probably used about three times, ripping it out is no easy task. We recommend filling it with concrete and letting it stand as a monument to bad decisions vowed never to be repeated.

5.
Bars

A drinks trolley is nice and an office fridge for beer and wine is always appreciated but there’s no need to make your office resemble a pub. Plus, an office is supposed to support its neighbours, not act as a fortress where employees never venture beyond its walls.

Urban farming
Growth spurt
Japan

Launched this spring, Tokyo Midori Labo is a visionary green platform tasked with creating a self-sustaining urban neighbourhood. Situated in Nihonbashi Hama-cho in east Tokyo, its four-storey botanical garden-like office catches the attention of every passerby. “It was important to visualise our mission in the form of a building,” says the project leader, Taichi Saito (pictured).

Saito was already the founder of Daishizen Inc, a Tokyo company that provides gardening and landscape-design services, but his entrepreneurial drive saw him embark on this new venture. “I’ve travelled across Japan and have also been asked by municipalities to revitalise their regions,” says Saito. “One day I realised that these places are full of rich nature; they have fishing and farming. But urban areas produce almost nothing when it comes to food.”

So he decided to change that. When he spotted that the Hama-cho area was dotted with empty properties, tucked behind large commercial developments, he smelled an opportunity. “It’s a traditional area, home to manufacturing and culture. It was the centre of Tokyo where people created a lot of things. So I thought of starting local production for local consumption.” He assembled a team that included three other businesses: indoor-farming-market leader Farmship, technology-meets-agriculture company Plantio and Green Snap, one of Japan’s largest online green-application services.

The team’s vision immediately won support from property giant Yasuda Real Estate. “They were already working to make Hama-cho a green, creative area,” says Saito. After two years of building, the result is Tokyo Midori Labo, home to 70 employees and 300 varieties of plants. The farm produces crops such as grapes, melons, kinkan fruit and tomatoes.

“I thought of starting local production for local consumption”

The four executives meet every two weeks. “You can get admin done remotely but it’s important to share a physical space because you need energy to make something new.” There are already new projects in the pipeline, aided by neighbouring businesses and the Chiyoda Ward. The ground-floor café will house a seed bank where people can pick up seeds and compost and sign up with renewable energy companies.

The vision might sound idealistic but Saito knows his onions about running a business. “We’re different from a traditional start-up,” he says. “We are four [leading] companies producing extra resources to pour into this.”
tokyomidorilabo.jp

Work culture
Clout of office

Dinner with a former colleague – one of the initial intake of writers who helped to get Monocle started. We talk about all the people who he worked with and I’m struck by how they have stayed so tight with each other. He’s been to their weddings, is godfather to one of their children, speaks to them regularly. They are his network. There are some who are getting a little overexcited about the demise of the office. They suggest that no longer having to go to one will deliver unimagined freedoms – even if the main ones seem to be the right to wear athleisure at all times. But offices are about so much more. And a good one can set you up for life. One of the most important things that they can deliver is a fledgling network that kicks into play when times are tricky. A good office, filled with good people, can see you through anything. For a young generation it is a sin to make them believe that a lack of personal networks will be a long-term benefit. We need to feel that we are part of something bigger. We need someone to ask, “How was your weekend?”

This comment first appeared in The Monocle Minute, our free daily newsletter. To read more business views, sign up at Monocle.com/minute

Transport
Up in the air
Global

The era of the modern airship is about to arrive. It’s a claim that’s been made again and again in recent decades – and then nothing happens. But several manufacturers and operators claim that this time it’s for real and that they will revolutionise air transport.

The reason: airships are fantastically efficient compared to other aircraft, with up to 90 per cent energy savings on comparable trips. What’s more, they don’t need infrastructure such as runways to operate. Of particular interest are airships’ ability to transport large cargo. Paris-based manufacturer Flying Whales, for example, began with ambitions of changing logistics for the French logging industry: an airship could carry timber from remote forests without the need for roads and trucks. That would save money and be better for the environment.

Airships are fantastically efficient compared to other aircraft, with up to 90 per cent energy savings on comparable trips

The airship is nothing new so what has hindered its comeback in recent decades? For one, they’re expensive to develop. Without proven production lines or a guaranteed market, risk is high. But Igor Pasternak, CEO of US-based manufacturer Aeros, says that the coronavirus is going to accelerate things as we rethink our global logistics system. “You talk to the end user about cargo airships and they know they need them. The benefits are clear,” he says.

If that’s true, Flying Whales might be the best positioned of all. With an initial assembly line planned in France and further facilities planned for China and Canada, the company says that we’ll see its first airship operating by 2023. Flying Whales foresees dozens of industry-altering uses, from carrying wind turbines from factory to installation sites to placing prefabricated houses in remote areas (currently being looked at by Canada for its far north) to unloading shipping containers on small islands and in areas without deep-sea ports. With a lifting capacity of 60 metric tonnes, the airship could accomplish in one trip what it takes helicopters many to do, with a fraction of the fuel burn.

The business case for passenger airships is less developed but also being pursued. Swedish start-up OceanSky Cruises is already selling tickets for its first voyages to the North Pole, starting at SEK900,000 (€87,000) for a two-person cabin. CEO Carl-Oscar Lawaczeck says that the company, which will function like an airline, is positioning itself for the ultra high-end market first with hopes of lowering the price and broadening its customer base later. They’ve also promised customers a refund on their deposit if they don’t operate by 2024.

Unfortunately for the industry, airships still call to mind the Hindenburg disaster, which happened in 1937 (and saw 36 deaths, including 13 passengers). But prospective clients will be happy to know that helium (unlike hydrogen, which turned the Hindenburg into a flying bomb) is an inert gas that can’t catch fire. Airships are also slow, with most cruising at about 100km/HR. That’s a hindrance if you need to get somewhere fast for a meeting but if there were to be an accident on landing at, say, 40km/HR, consequences would likely be minor. “You’ll get a bruise if you’re unlucky,” says Lawaczeck.

The striking thing is that airships, which are potentially big business, are based on 150-year-old ideas. It has just taken this long for technology to catch up, and a renewed focus on environmental concerns, to make the airship a viable vehicle once again. Lawaczeck says that if we want to cut our transport emissions, the notion of intercontinental flights or heavy-lift cargo operations on all-electric planes is a pipe dream because batteries simply won’t have the necessary energy density for years to come. “The only solution to the problem is airships.”

Doing business
New horizons
Africa

Headlines about African business talk up the foreign investment pouring in from China and while infrastructure is improving, so too is social mobility. A new crop of small businesses is tapping into a young and growing population and offering founders new niches. Here we survey three places on the up with alluring prospects.

1.
Mauritius
By Andrew Mueller

In many respects, Mauritius is an easy sell. In the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings for 2020, Mauritius placed 13th – ahead of Australia, Taiwan and the UAE, and by far the highest in Africa. “We wanted a stable environment,” says Forbes Mavros of jeweller Patrick Mavros, which moved here from Zimbabwe. “But we still wanted to be in Africa – we’re an African brand. We also wanted an environment that inspired us.”

Businesspeople speak highly of the country’s political and economic stability; Mauritius has polled consistently at the top of the Ibrahim Index of African Governance. Also frequently cited are its plentiful air links to Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia, and a time zone handily in between Europe and Asia.

2.
Tunisia
By Mary Fitzgerald

Next year Tunisians mark 10 years since the revolution that ended decades of autocratic rule. Tunisia’s path since has been smoother than its neighbours’ but high youth unemployment remains. One upshot is that younger Tunisians see entrepreneurship as a way forward – universities now offer modules in it – and are challenging the old way of doing things. Tourism and hospitality are the backbone of the economy but there’s also a spate of designers and artists who draw on craftsmanship and Tunisian materials.

Entrepreneurial efforts were boosted by the Startup Act, passed in 2018, which aims to make it easier for businesses to launch, run and wind up. Walid Sultan Midani, founder of video-game company DigitalMania, was key to the process. His company launched in 2011 when only a handful of start-ups existed in Tunisia. Today, he says, that there are more than 600.

Using Tunisia as a base to sell from was profitable in the case of Fouta Harissa. The two Tunisian-Americans behind it rethought the traditional hammam towel and ship the hand-loomed handicrafts worldwide. “Entrepreneurship is not a silver bullet,” says co-founder Alia Mahmoud. That said, start-ups are a start.

3.
Durban, South Africa
By Samora Chapman

Durban’s population of 3.8 million is diverse – a mosaic of African, Indian and European descendants who call this beautiful but not always straightforward city home. One potential lure for enterprising individuals is that it is home to the largest Indian diaspora outside of India. Trade between the nations has grown steeply – India’s exports to South Africa have increased threefold in the past 10 years.

Some businesses are looking to make a difference closer to home too. Homii is making security solutions including facial-recognition software to create safer inner-city spaces and residences in order to tempt people back to the CBD. It’s a smart idea in a city with a grim past: people were moved from the business district during apartheid and the majority of the population still lives outside the city. If the city centre continues to improve, then Durban might have more than the beach to recommend it to entrepreneurs from across the continent.

Design
Private function
USA

The Schlumberger Administration Building in Ridgefield, Connecticut, may not be the first Philip Johnson-designed building that Scott Fellows and Craig Bassam (pictured, Fellows on left) have restored – the pair have owned two residences designed by the architect – but it is the latest. At 600 sq m, the building was Johnson’s first commercial project, built in 1952 as part of the Schlumberger Oil Company’s commercial campus. In 2006 Schlumberger left town and the building stood empty. But in 2017, after eight years of painstaking restorations, Bassam and Fellows turned it into the HQ of their eponymous furniture brand.

The building is thoroughly modernist: its rectangular steel frame is enclosed with glass walls and a leafy courtyard. The interior, which has a glass-cased meeting room and communal spaces, is awash in natural light thanks to 80 skylights. And ringing the building is a design feature more common to the mid-20th century than today: private offices, each with high ceilings and a large window wall. “It’s very gracious,” says Fellows. “There’s a connection to nature, there’s light everywhere and fresh air in every office.”

“We wanted something that went back to this mixture of private offices and collaborative spaces”

While coronavirus has forced some businesses to reconsider their open-floor plans, BassamFellows was ahead of the curve. As former creative directors at Herman Miller, the pair often heard about how open plans fail to achieve what they touted: improve collaboration and communication. “You’d think it would be collaborative but it’s not,” says Fellows. “Everybody has headphones on because everyone is trying to get their work done. The pendulum swings the other way to where it almost becomes anti social. We wanted something that went back to this mixture of private offices and collaborative spaces.”

And staff “wanted to come back because it’s comfortable and nobody feels unsafe,” says Fellows. “The building is more relevant now than ever.”

On the up
Good year for business
Global

This year might have been bad news for global economies but there are some notable outliers. We highlight a handful of brands that are flourishing thanks to their business acumen and a bit of good fortune.

1.
Thousand
Co-founder Gloria Hwang
USA

Residents of cities everywhere have taken to cycling with a certain gusto in recent months, kicking off an industry-wide boom that’s seen cities fast-track construction of bike lanes and bicycle manufacturers struggle to meet demand.

Among the businesses seeing an uptick is Thousand, the Los Angeles-based helmet brand that Gloria Hwang (pictured) and Amar Patel launched in 2015. The business started with a good idea: that cycling helmets needn’t skimp on looks. “The idea struck me that if you make a bike helmet that people actually want to wear, you’d help save a lot of lives and I really felt like it could encourage cycling within cities,” says Hwang.

“About three or four weeks in, we started seeing this huge surge in anything bike-related”

The product has resonated with consumers and since launch, Thousand has seen sales double or triple every year. Yet the business was threatened in early 2020 when coronavirus ground the global economy to a halt. “But about three or four weeks in, we started seeing this huge surge in anything bike-related,” says Hwang, explaining that the boom was kicked off by people in need of an alternative to public transit or those simply looking for an activity. As a result, Thousand’s e-commerce sales grew by 800 per cent, while the brand’s dealers requested hundreds or even thousands of helmets at a time. “We couldn’t keep anything on our shelves,” says Hwang.

While the past months have posed plenty of logistical challenges, from backed up supply chains to product launches co-ordinated from home, business is looking bright. “It has been a challenge to keep up but we’re happy that we’re on this side of things,” says Hwang.

2.
Faunatar
Founder Johanna Valo
Finland

As the pandemic hit Finland in the spring, Finns moved to remote work and generally spent most of their time tucked away inside their homes. And in a bid to stave off loneliness, more Finns than ever have felt the urge to acquire some company from the animal kingdom.

“Our sales of hamsters and guinea pigs have more than doubled. It’s clear that the upsurge in sales is due to the fact that people have been spending more time at home,” says Johanna Valo, the founder and CEO of the independently owned pet supply retailer Faunatar. Founded back in 1980, Faunatar now has more than 20 shops throughout Finland – from Helsinki to Tampere – which employ close to 100 people.

While Faunatar sells everything that Finnish pets like to snack on and play with, from dog bones to scratching posts for cats, the retailer also sells all kinds of small animals, such as fish, spiders and even snakes. Snakes have been popular during the pandemic (don’t ask us why) but it’s the small furry animals such as guinea pigs and hamsters that have been the biggest hit thanks to their cuddly nature. And for good reason: plenty of studies have found that owning a pet can be a boon to both physical and mental health.

Although life in Finland has become less isolated, the pet-shop boom, according to Valo, is still very real, with demand outstripping supply.

3.
Raze
Founder Vincent Fong
Hong Kong

As Gary Ling and Jolly Tse stand inside their empty lifestyle shop in Kwun Tong, a two-man team from Raze, armed with spray-paint guns and a compressor, coat every shelf, table, mirror and flat surface with an invisible film that promises to kill viruses and bacteria for up to six months.

This photocatalytic technology is all the rage in hygiene-obsessed Hong Kong and Raze – now working in a crowded market – has a growing customer base that includes retailers, offices, restaurants and much of the city’s transport network. “This year has massively accelerated our plans and consumer education is the most important part,” says 28-year-old founder Vincent Fong, who recently signed up four joint ventures in Italy, South Africa, Macau and the UAE.

Timing is everything for a new enterprise and the two-year-old start-up only began developing a consumer product last year. Fong’s original plan for commercialising the chemistry, developed by scientists at a Hong Kong university, was to sell it to pig farms – the dirtiest proof of concept he could imagine. “That’s where I got my validation that it works,” says Fong. Raze makes no specific claims to protect against Covid-19 though; surfaces covered in Raze still need a regular clean.

With consumer interest likely to peak during the pandemic, Fong is making long-term plans by recruiting third-party brands to incorporate its technology into their own products, similar to Gore-Tex. A virus-killing wall paint will be released soon to test demand. The buzzy start-up has not forgotten its roots: Fong remains excited about pig farms and Raze still intends to clean up in agriculture.

4.
City Grange
Co-founder LaManda Joy
USA

“Our belief is that the world would be a better place if there were more gardeners in it,” says LaManda Joy, founder of Chicago’s City Grange gardening shop. Joy’s wish, if the recent success of her business is any indication, is bearing fruit.

Founded in 2019, City Grange, which has outposts in Lincoln Park and Beverly, has seen a spike in online sales in recent months. “But in-store sales have also been fantastic,” says Joy. “[And] we’ve definitely seen an uptick of new gardeners.” Many first-timers have arrived not with ambitions of vibrant flower beds but growing their own veggies. While that interest was initially driven by the same supply-chain fears that emptied grocers’ shelves of toilet paper, many novice gardeners have since become repeat customers after realising just how rewarding growing your own greens can be.

Others have simply wanted to add a dash of colour to their homes, through house plants or windowsill garden boxes. “A lot of people have just wanted joy; to beautify their places. When you’re stressed out, stuck at home and reading the news, plants are a real antidote to that,” says Joy. Also an educator, City Grange’s class about pollinating plants has proved to be especially popular (attendance for all its classes has doubled since moving online), as Chicagoans hope to lure butterflies and birds to their windows.

Coronavirus hasn’t sheared City Grange’s plans for growth. New shops are in the works, while Joy recently signed a lease for a new space that will be exclusively dedicated to making house plant and flower deliveries. Coronavirus may have cast a dark shadow in recent months but at least it’s driven many to get their hands into the earth.

Illustrator: Christophe Jacques

Making that idea a reality

If this issue catches you in the southern hemisphere then it’s likely that you’re shaking off the winter (given our distribution I’m assuming that you’re in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa or Brazil) and are now ready to give your business a final jolt before holiday season sets in. Up here in the northern hemisphere it’s full-speed ahead as we leave behind a disjointed summer and hurtle into Q4, year-end re-forecasts, cash-flow remodelling and the other essentials that come with keeping businesses nimble, responsive and, most importantly, solvent. But no matter what hemisphere you’re sitting in, this is the moment to do the following:

1.
Give your existing business a shake-up and be in front of your customers more than ever. And we mean in person, if possible.

2.
Quit your unfulfilling corporate job if it’s not delivering. Yes, you can certainly hold on for a payout but don’t wait so long that you lose your fire to do something new.

3.
Pull together all the outstanding elements for the brilliant idea that you had a few weeks ago and make it happen – team, business plan, investors, architects – whatever it takes to get your idea off the ground.

Should you still find yourself stuck and unable to unlock the idea that has managed to get lodged above your left earlobe, then try this little exercise. If you already know how to play “house” by fantasising about your dream set-up, mentally decorating it and eventually turning it into reality, then why not devote a weekend to playing “village”. All you need is the makings of a settlement (butcher, baker, high-speed broadband and so on), decent property prices, a very open mind and an informed guide.

In the days running up to the completion of this issue, my friend Andreas showed me around his village in the Lower Engadine region of Switzerland. I was dazzled by the amount of opportunities. Due to a transition between generations in the village, a few people are selling their properties, while many folk from Zürich and elsewhere are looking for a not-too-time-intensive return to the land. After coffee and fresh apricot cake, Andreas took us for a stroll around town (I cannot say its name as he fears an invasion). I spotted at least five ideas to establish businesses that could range from micro to massive. We saw one building that could be a perfect little 12-room hotel and café; a dairy beyond the town square with all the charm and potential to become an international cheese brand if it had the right branding; and those slopes full of wildflowers and pines could surely act as a base for a beauty and wellness business with super-regional reach.

By the time I got back in the car, I had not only mentally decorated a mini-headquarters and farmhouse but thought about semi-rural life in the Alps: felt caps, boiled-wool vests and goats – but still good rail connections. If you want to dream about a similar set-up, you’ll enjoy meeting the men and women who’ve opted for less-urban arrangements and many more informed, daring and wise characters in this issue of The Entrepreneurs. Remember, we’re around every week on Monocle 24 with our radio programme and podcast of the same name, which is where it all started. Enjoy!

Our editor in chief on giving businesses the best survival tools

Remember the first time you asked for a Swiss Army knife? You might have launched your first appeal sometime around your seventh birthday, already armed with a host of reasons why you not only needed one but why you were perfectly capable of managing such a device. After all, if you were allowed to use an unwieldy Spanish steak knife to cut into a beef tenderloin on a Sunday evening then there should be no issues with a pocket-sized knife designed to extricate you from all kinds of difficult situations. I got my first Swiss Army knife when I was about 10. Before that I had other pocket knives but they didn’t quite compare to my Victorinox with its toothy saw, tweezers and scissors. There was a certain rite of passage that came with getting that knife and although it’s not in active use I still know where it’s safely stored.

For this second edition of The Entrepreneurs we’ve employed a “Monocle-ised” version of the Swiss Army knife as our cover star for a variety of reasons. In many ways it informs almost every aspect of this current edition as it’s resilient, multi-functional, reassuring and a constant classic. It offers all the basics that you need to perform the simplest tasks without any distractions. At its core it’s a survival tool and, for many a start-up and business owner, it’s more than a metaphor for what’s required in these turbulent times.

Despite the complications of remote working, a largely shuttered Midori House in London, printing and logistics based in Germany and a worldwide audience, we’re happy that this issue has reached you wherever you happen to be building, restoring or launching your business. We have always counted entrepreneurs as our core audience and, through this edition and our weekly audio series of the same name, we want to be a source for the freshest ideas and most inspiring stories, as well as a compass for the opportunities that so frequently spring from a crisis.

If there’s one thing that this virus has brought to the fore it’s the importance of small to mid-sized enterprises and their contribution to innovation, employment and also the community. In too many countries, governments and banks stumbled with their assistance packages, not recognising the need for speedy solutions and swift liquidity. At the time of writing (6 April 2020), G7 economies are still fumbling around and attempting to figure out how to unpick the bureaucratic frameworks that simply don’t serve the entrepreneur who needs to meet payroll, buy services and ensure that there’s stability for the coming quarters.

Which brings us back to the knife and to Switzerland in particular. At the outset of the pandemic the country’s Federal Council promised fast bridge loans and even faster deployment of funds. As a Swiss-based enterprise, we were happy to hear about the scheme, applied through our bank and within 24 hours had more than chf500,000 (€470,000) in our account – interest free, no penalties, repayable in up to seven years – with six basic questions to answer. This should serve as a benchmark to all nations moving forwards when it comes to recognising the importance of small to mid-sized enterprises and how they should be managed.

As the world marches out of this dark period, you can count on us to be here as a sounding board, a source for enlightening reportage and an empathetic peer. Thank you for your support. Cheers.

Lessons learnt

1.
Businesses need to be nimble

It’s a truism that businesses must learn to roll with the punches. But, wow, some unexpected uppercuts have landed in 2020. Disruption has beset absolutely everything, from the supply chain to getting into the office. But wait, there’s hope. Look at the textile factories making masks when we needed them most, the perfumers turning their hands to sanitisers or the restaurants that now deliver. Many businesses will have learnt how to regroup at speed in a time of crisis and dodged a knockout blow while they’re at it.

2.
Small, traceable supply chains work

This means knowing the fisherman who supplies your restaurant and the mill that makes your yarn. For years companies have sought savings by cutting corners and moving production to that lovely clean factory in Dhaka or Hangzhou. Despite words to the contrary, this is often about cost rather than quality. As we rethink the complexity of global supply chains, there’s an opportunity to simplify and seek options closer to home. As many businesses have learnt, those plastic components are no good stuck at customs.

3.
Business isn’t (always) fair

Some have unexpectedly won big thanks to the pandemic: supermarkets, board-game manufacturers and the soap industry, for instance, all cleaned up. But those bubbles will burst and daily life’s rhythm and rituals will return in time. Sadly, some honest independents who couldn’t keep it together when their shop shut will fade and our cities will be worse off for a while. Still, we’ll appreciate the survivors all the more. And we can’t wait to see entrepreneurs bouncing back with more robust businesses.

4.
We all need support

One thing many people, from one-person shows to CEOs, have seen is who’s on their side: from family to employees and lenders to board members – even governments. Tough times show who’s pulling in the right direction (and whose two cents you could keep for petty cash). We’ve also been humbled by the once-great beasts of business needing bailouts. Let’s stay grounded moving forward.

5.
Speak up (with something to say)

There’s a time to tell your brand story but only speak when you’ve got something to say. In times of crisis we’re realising which brands we need and which we could live without. Not everyone needs a newsletter. It’s heartening to hear how the local bakery is donating profits to carers or that the family-owned furniture company is pulling through on its orders; less so that this company or that is thinking about making ventilators (often just to get their name out, we suspect). Also, if you’ve made your career running a successful clothing brand, then there’s a good chance your hunch about epidemiology isn’t that important.

6.
Face-to-face is vital

Technology has promised to take away the need for a physical office but being on lockdown has taught many of us that we need proximity. Hard as we’ve wished for it, our own homes haven’t simulated a sparky social space and video calls haven’t been a substitute for real conversation. Remote working can be less efficient and lacks the creative energy of being together. There’s space for a rethink. Do we all need to come into the office (desks are expensive)? Do we all need to be in every day (presenteeism isn’t ideal either)? Let the rebalancing begin but don’t forget: some things need to be said, sold or solved in person.

7.
Bring back privacy

Who would want to have a stranger in the kitchen? Get into a pooled taxi or even share door handles with the flat downstairs? Car, office and home ownership were all being challenged until recently but the pandemic has revealed some of the shortcomings of sharing. Things are a little more precarious for you if you opted for co-working or co-living arrangements or for public transport instead of a safe and secure four-by-four. What was once seen as wasteful, unsustainable and self-serving in big cities is now proving vital to safety and independence. Expect the fallout of this crisis to include a customer who still values some privacy. Shares in the sharing industry are down.

8.
The news renews, part one

One thing that the outbreak has confirmed is that media matters: magazines, newspapers and TV news are still important for cutting through the fuss and fake headlines, and keeping us informed. There’s still great value in accurate and robust journalism. Sadly ad revenues have fallen, which means that another lifeline for a shrinking industry has been withdrawn. We need a new model and companies concerned with telling the truth, spreading a message and projecting integrity should be stumping up now to help fund the fight.

9.
The news renews, part two

Radio has come into its own. With people feeling isolated, out of the loop and alone, many stations have found a voice and become increasingly relevant. It’s an intimate medium and brands are realising its potential. It’s often the most convincing way to take customers by the ear. There’s space for some clever broadcasts about resilient businesses bouncing back or moving interviews with people you can be inspired by. It’s a good way to get people listening – and Monocle 24’s recently relaunched programme The Entrepreneurs is a fine place to start.

10.
Pity the PR

Great PR could help your company in a crisis. That’s what you thought when you signed up to that expensive Manhattan agency. But it turns out that when tough times hit, many of the people on your payroll are churning out desperate marketing that’s a world away from the mood at HQ. We’ve also seen a nasty spate of companies being name-dropped by politicians: if you’re planning on making useful items, that’s great – but leave the marketing bit until afterwards. At their best, PR folks turn tough times into opportunities but these are the times that prove their mettle.

11.
Be honest

Things are tough for everyone so don’t be a martyr: level with people but don’t beg. Some firms have struggled and sought help and found it, others have buckled before reaching out. It’s OK to sincerely stress that you need support. We’ve seen amazing examples of people stepping in when owners and businesses need a boost.

12.
Micromanagement doesn’t work

It was hard enough monitoring what delicate David with the mint-tea fascination was doing all day in the office, it’s impossible now that he works from home. Trust that this will come out in the wash and focus on the headlines. Every second spent sweating the small stuff is a distraction from staying in the black. Now is the time for your colleagues to swing into action and take these minor concerns off your plate.

13.
Working from home is OK…

It’s not an emphatic lesson – but it’s not an emphatic feeling either: working from home is fine not fantastic. What many have noticed, though, as the workday creeps closer to both dawn and dusk is that it tends to heighten our feelings about work, the feeling of whether we love or hate what we do. If you’re in the latter camp then now is a great time to recast the way you work and rethink the kind of company you want to run and if you’re in the right business at all.

14.
Have cash

If you didn’t realise why you needed some assets set aside to weather the storm then the thunderous disruption of the pandemic will have set you straight. The boring folks with back-up plans who always say “yes” to the optional insurance and don’t drain their current accounts at the end of each month have been proven resolutely right. We’ve always advised being bold but some savings are necessary too.

15.
Being nice helps

A little kindness (to employees, a charity, each other) goes a long way when the chips are down and things are uncertain. Everybody from director to intern has noticed that humanity is vital during uncertain and hard-to-fathom times, so it’s all right to let the hierarchy slip a little (rest assured, they haven’t forgotten you’re the boss). Let’s hope that we remember this when we’re out on the other side – employees who were treated fairly and humanely now will be loyal when you need them.

16.
Targeting the home won big

From allowing those fitness firms to eye up your puny home gym (see issue 133) to ordering those window boxes, that wine by the crate and even the outdoor furniture that you recently splashed out on, many of us now appreciate nesting as the virus has meant more time at home for most. We’ve repainted, bought new pictures and fluffed every pillow a thousand times and all those people bemoaning the blight of home-delivery services have been rather quiet recently.

17.
Small businesses really do make neighbourhoods

It could have sounded twee in January to say that baristas hold communities together – but they do. So do small hardware shops and wine bars that have seats on which to snack. The whole verve of urban life has been lost as high-street shops shuttered and social distancing strode on. Things will return to normal: cafés are quiet, rather than extinct – but they have been sorely missed.

18.
We miss trade fairs

Those of us who work at Monocle know that there’s at least one must-visit trade fair in the diary every month that’s essential to understanding the health of a particular industry and its place in the world. Whether they cater for watches at Baselworld or Geneva, furniture in Milan or Köln, or art in London or Miami, trade fairs work. They’re the lifeblood of industries, facilitating the pencilling in of deals for the year to come. An email doesn’t suffice: you can’t place big orders or buy art on a screen. We miss these trade fairs and we need them back.

19.
We miss travel

The internet is vast but feels very small, especially when you spend more time in its company. The same few boring memes and headlines seem to crop up with dull regularity and we realise that despite the endless possibility of the web, most of us reside in a rather dinky echo chamber. We should remember this when we’re out and about again and the travel bans have lifted. All too often the internet offers a narrow view. Real insight comes from meeting people, exchanging ideas, being present and seeking answers (not googling them). Here’s to getting back out there.

20.
Business will look different afterwards

You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. Without going too Joni Mitchell, the pandemic has put things in perspective and shown which businesses are there for personal gain and which can benefit customers and the community. If you panicked, sacked everyone and hoarded the profits for yourself without paying suppliers then that’s a real shame – and people will remember.

21.
Influencers aren’t good in a crisis

It sounds like a cheap shot (and yes, maybe it is) but as the world turned in an unexpected direction a lot of these preening, self-obsessed “brand ambassadors” became instantly irrelevant and lots more of them disappeared. We’ve long questioned the wisdom – and, more importantly, integrity – of the influencer model and maybe a deep intake of breath was what companies needed to realise that online tutorials, dubious endorsements and paid-for posts aren’t a panacea for the ills of lazy marketing. Maybe there’s even hope for a little more creativity in the world of advertising? Fingers crossed that this is a wake-up call for canny campaigning that talks up to customers rather than down.

22.
Stick to your guns

You need to keep hold of your vision – it’s far too easy to throw your beliefs overboard in a storm. Don’t. If there’s one lesson that’s stuck with us it’s that things can change for the better or worse in the blink of an eye. And while you need to be quick on your feet and shrewd with it, you also need to stick to your brand and be yourself. If you don’t have that then what’s left?

23.
Not all governments are equal

When it came to backing entrepreneurs, not everyone stepped up to the plate. The state often gets bigger in a crisis but it’s telling where it throws its weight. Too little has been done to protect small businesses and too many loopholes were left open for sole traders and just-out-of-the-blocks businesses to miss out on funding and fail all too quickly.

24.
This is a time to think and rethink

This pandemic has not been fun. But some things are suddenly very clear for business leaders, such as which industries need protecting and when, which parts of the economy have been hardest hit and which areas require investment. Many firms found clarity – hopefully most of them in time to save their businesses.

25.
Shopkeepers should think again

Retail has further to fall than we thought. Lockdowns have deprived people of the high street but it turns out that a lot of its services can be fulfilled just fine by delivery. It’s a quandary but also maybe a good time to go back to the drawing board. Small retailers won’t be able to afford extortionate rents in future. So will property firms finally figure out that offering cheaper spaces to good retailers should be integral to their placemaking strategies? This approach would also lower the overheads for small businesses and encourage competition.

On the map

As much of the world remains hunkered down due to coronavirus, thinking about what’s outside your four walls – let alone considering a move to a new city – can feel like little more than daydreaming. How long the present situation will last is anyone’s guess. But this is not forever. Life will return to a new version of normal and by the time it does, you’re likely to have mulled over a few important questions. What have you missed? What can you do without? And, ultimately, how do you want to live?

For those with an entrepreneurial itch that you’ve been looking to scratch, or those simply in search of a gentler pace of life, the destinations we’ve selected for this edition of our Business Cities series – Bayonne, Adelaide and Boise – are resilient ones. While they, like all cities, will not emerge unscathed after the cloud of coronavirus lifts, we are confident that, once the world gets moving again, they will present an appealing climate in which to live and work – and plenty of opportunities – in the months and years to come.

Bayonne
Basque Country, France

“Let’s leave it all behind and go live in the sunshine,” says a postcard on the wall of the atelier where Belgian-born designer Mieke Mertens crafts lampshades and vases from recycled materials for her brand Emekitu. “This was our only plan when we relocated to Bayonne three years ago,” says Mertens, a former surf champion who quit a successful advertising career in Brussels for a better climate and more professional freedom in the French Basque Country. “Life here is sweeter, plus I can surf all year round. In comparison to the sea in Belgium, the water feels like a Jacuzzi.” Whether her simile is valid is a matter of opinion but, as the morning sun shines in, there is indeed a certain sweetness in the air.

Mertens’ studio and home, which she and her illustrator partner Gaston de Lapoyade rent for €600 a month, is nestled between the slender, colourful houses of Bayonne’s old town, rubbing up against leafy squares and lively tapas bars. While the nearest surfing beach is a 10-minute drive away in Biarritz (a new tram-bus connects the cities), the couple prefers the laid-back atmosphere of inland Bayonne to its glitzy coastal neighbour. And they are not alone: creative studios and boutiques have popped up across town. “Unlike Biarritz, where most shops shut down outside the high season, Bayonne is dynamic year round,” says perfumer Claire Bergognon, standing behind the counter at Pepiteko, a shop selling Basque-made espadrilles, ceramics and Bergognon’s own perfume brand, Touches de Parfum.

With the Atlantic to the west and the Pyrenees to the east, Bayonne is marked by a rich food tradition that a new generation of entrepreneurs is busy reviving. Among them is Cyril Pouil of Monsieur Txokola. Along with his business partner Ronan Lagadec, Pouil has made it his mission to reconnect the city to its rich confectionery history. “Bayonne was the first place in France to receive cocoa from Spain,” says Pouil. “We want to bring the scent of chocolate back to the streets of our town.” Although there are dozens of chocolatiers trading in Bayonne, Pouil and Lagadec are the last to produce bean-to-bar confections in the city itself. Regionally inspired flavours include Espelette pepper and Salies-de-Béarn salt. As Monsieur Txokola’s shop is in Petit Bayonne, across the river from the old town, its rent is below those found in the city’s commercial centre. Yet footfall in the shop is near guaranteed: city hall is planning to turn the area into a cultural hub. It’s already home to the Musée Basque and the Bonnat-Helleu art museum, which is currently closed for renovations.

Bayonne’s manageable size makes for a business environment where collaboration trumps competition. “People here are used to working a lot,” says Cédric Duplessis, a reference to the Basque country’s flourishing economy fuelled by the food, tourism and surf industries (40 surf companies manufacture in the region). “Those who have started out on their own know that we are stronger if we’re working together and sharing clientele.” Since founding his smoked-fish business in 2017, Duplessis has been supplying an ever-growing network of chefs in the area, including David Legeay, whose eatery Janine is down the road from Duplessis’ épicerie. While lunch is served at Janine, tables spill out onto the pavement and the bustle reflects the entrepreneurial spirit of Bayonne, where conviviality reigns.

Adelaide
South Australia

As a young architecture graduate, it didn’t take much to convince Ryan Genesin to leave his home city of Adelaide and head to Melbourne for a job. It was only after he decided to found his own interior-design studio – behind projects such as Korean restaurant Ban Ban, womenswear retailer Denim Iniquity and Sydney coffee shop Story – that he made the choice to go home. “There’s so much goiang on in Adelaide,” says Genesin, who was also contemplating starting a family when he returned to the city. “The stigma of being a small town is quickly shaken off when you head out to some of our amazing nightspots.”

For years the South Australian capital had been almost forgotten by the rest of the country. In the meantime, this hardworking city was quietly building its own fortune. “We do more with less in Adelaide,” says Genesin. “There are some really great firms that are small yet are winning the big national gongs for design.”

This coastal city is booming thanks to local companies that pick up defence contracts, the relocation of the nation’s space agency from Canberra, the country’s most prolific cluster of wine regions and a packed cultural calendar. Between 2016 and 2019, the city’s gross regional product increased by 5.9 per cent; it currently sits at €12bn.

Adelaide initially grew out of British wealth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and then saw major investment again during the 1970s thanks to the car-manufacturing industry. This series of economic highs can be seen in the skyline of stately colonial-era builds and looming brutalist blocks. And the current boom is marked by cranes on the horizon, which are building €2.2bn worth of city infrastructure and commercial developments.

“It’s the most exciting time the city has seen in decades,” says Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor. “Liveability is incredibly high and, paired with the current dynamic city culture, it’s fueling residential growth, which then triggers business growth. It’s a virtuous cycle.”

Part of this is down to the 2013 introduction of an affordable small-bar licence. It has allowed more than 100 small bars, cafés, restaurants and galleries to open within the city centre. It’s a far cry from the draconian laws that stifled night-time economies in Sydney and Brisbane.

“I didn’t think I’d be able to stay and do something I really loved in Adelaide,” says Oliver Brown, director of hospitality group The Big Easy, which is responsible for some of the hottest tables in town including pizza bar Anchovy Bandit and Greek taverna Yiasou George. “Adelaide has grown up quite a lot in the past five years and the small-venue licence was a big catalyst for this change.” Brown studied wine-making at university before setting up pop-up bar Red Trousers during the annual Adelaide Fringe arts festival. “Then a landlord who was also the chair of the board of Renew Adelaide allowed us to open our first outpost, Nola, back in 2015 in a really great space,” he says. “Far more experienced operators were tendering for the space but the landlord saw an opportunity in change.”

The Big Easy’s sharply designed and bustling three-restaurant stronghold in the city’s East End owes its success in part to industry-led nonprofit initiatives such as Renew Adelaide. A network of property owners provides subsidies in order to fill empty city lots with young entrepreneurs who want to test their food or retail concepts. It’s a smart move for a state that has traditionally haemorrhaged young talent.

On the southern border of the central business district is concept store Ensemble. Co-owners Bing Rowland, Beccy Bromilow and Emma Thomson impressed their landlord with grand self-funded renovation plans to win the contract for the nearly 200 sq m shop in the once sleepy inner neighbourhood. “There were tumbleweeds rolling down the street a few years ago, so we were nervous about opening in this spot,” says Rowland. But, at €1,650 per month, the place was a steal.

The shop selling leather shoes, womenswear and plants occupies the front of the site, with an exhibition space and artist in residence at the back, and Bromilow’s shoe workshop sandwiched between. “We receive a lot of support from our neighbours and our customers are very loyal and make the effort to support our growing business,” says Bromilow.

The cheaper rents and greater availability of central property compared to other cities mean that people can take risks they might not be able to elsewhere. For example, Rowland’s sister Caitlin and her husband left the Melbourne hospitality scene to open Sibling, a café, next door, all while she was pregnant. “The climate is changing and people are going out and trying things,” says Rowland. “There’s no harm in trying and there seems to be a consensus in Adelaide that we don’t get caught up in our failures. We would much rather celebrate our successes.”

On the up Down Under

Setting up:
Obtaining a working visa for Australia remains difficult. But there are options; a nomination by a government organisation or an investment close to €1m certainly helps.

Growth sectors:
The South Australian government is heavily investing in the space-innovation, defence and film-making sectors. An old city hospital and a former Mitsubishi manufacturing site are currently being transformed into education and innovation precincts.

High-speed connections:
City hall’s 10 gigabit Adelaide network will bring lightning-fast internet to the central business district and North Adelaide.

Air travel:
Adelaide Airport offers direct international flights to nine destinations including Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong and Auckland. It’s also serviced by all major domestic airlines and offers a wide range of regional and charter options.

Quality of life:
They call Adelaide the “20-minute city” for a reason: it’s just a short drive to the beach and wine regions, commutes are quick and you’re never far from a park.

Boise
Idaho, US

One surefire way to gauge the desirability of a place is by asking residents where they hail from. In the city of Boise (pronounced “boy-zee”), you’ll soon discover that the answer is almost anywhere but the Idahoan capital itself. Some settled 20 years ago; others have been in town a few months. But all seem to have been attracted for the same reasons: a small-town slice of the West with a better lifestyle than their previous home. More recently, the appeal of hiking, skiing and mountain-biking in the surrounding Rockies has been matched by a growing economy. And it’s putting Idaho, a state that many would struggle to locate, on the map (clue: it’s nearer the Pacific Northwest than you might think and nowhere near the Midwest).

“The first question I get is: ‘Oh, you’re new – how much do you love Boise?’” says Jennifer Hensley, executive director of the Downtown Boise Association, sitting inside Neckar Coffee, the sort of gourmet café that wouldn’t have existed here a few years ago. Originally from Texas, Hensley lived in Minnesota before a roadtrip with her husband brought them to Boise. They were immediately hooked; within a year she was back with a job. Hensley, whose organisation oversees everything from rubbish collection to flower-planting, mentions 28 business that have either recently opened, or are due to do so soon, in the downtown area.

One advantage of a thriving but fledgling scene is the glut of opportunities it presents for those with entrepreneurial ideas. Michelin-starred chef Cal Elliott might be from Boise but he spent more than 20 years in Williamsburg, New York, where he ran Rye restaurant. He felt the pull of home for various reasons but also sniffed the chance to do something that others weren’t. “It’s like a blank canvas,” he says. “As a restaurateur, I don’t feel like, if I do something interesting, there will be 10 people like me [but] with more money in less than a year.” With partners, Elliott has purchased a 119-year-old brick building in the heart of downtown that he plans to convert into a 39-room hotel with two street-level restaurants by 2022. “It’s a lot easier than doing something in New York,” he says.

Part of the ease of migrating from a larger metropolis is lower overhead costs. That was the case for Madre, a gourmet taquería run by couple John and Julie Cuevas in the Lusk District, over the bridge from downtown. Like over 40 per cent of people currently moving to Boise, they came from California. “We would always talk about having a restaurant of our own but it would have cost a lot of money in California,” says chef John. “Boise was an untapped [culinary] market and we’re very outdoorsy people. So it was perfect.” Julie adds that Idaho is more business-friendly than California and, for them, a better place to raise a family.

While Idaho’s capital might not be the well-kept secret it once was (home prices are spiking), good deals can still be found. Lucas Marshall moved here from Los Angeles in 2018 and, a year later, bought a four-bedroom home for his family in the Bench neighbourhood for €230,000 – a fraction of what it would have cost back in Venice Beach. Marshall Goods, his menswear shop that’s due to move to bigger digs on Main Street in April, is what he calls a “pioneer space” in his bid to expand fashion tastes in the city. He’s aided by affordable rents and what he describes as a “consumer-friendly” sales tax.

Boise is a town with its fair share of quirks, including a block of Basque restaurants, a legacy of the sheep herders who moved here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But is also nurturing larger enterprises. IndieDwell is a modular home construction company that was founded in Boise in 2017 with the aim of creating quality affordable housing with a focus on sustainability. Co-founder Pete Gombert, originally from Chicago, talks about the “fantastic quality of life” and says that running a business in the region works if you’re prepared to get on a plane. “The operation costs are fantastic,” he says. IndieDwell plans to grow from 73 to 300 employees by the end of the year and to open seven more factories around the US.

At the nearby offices of early childhood toy brand Lovevery, co-founders Roderick Morris and Jessica Rolph are also eyeing ambitious expansion, this time to Europe. Lovevery tripled its revenue last year and it now provides jobs for software developers who previously had to work remotely for Californian companies. Rolph, also a founding partner of one of the US’s fastest-growing baby-food companies, moved to Boise when her husband, Decker, landed a venture-capital job in town. She wasn’t originally sold but her experience of growing Lovevery has shown just how far the city has come. “Decker is a bit of a futurist,” she says about her husband’s ability to predict Boise’s boom. “I don’t always believe him – but I come around.”

Ticking ahead

With many of us housebound and the global economy in an uncertain state, now is the time to invest in things that will last. And there’s no better investment than a watch – whether it’s a cutting-edge sporty design or a more classic model with a soft leather strap.

The watches industry, like most other consumer sectors, has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Its biggest trade fairs – Baselworld and Geneva’s Watches & Wonders – were due to take place in April but have been cancelled, while Geneva Watch Days has been pushed back to August.

Although watch brands big and small are dealing with challenges, including delays to production, there are plenty of exciting new releases on the market. These pieces will help you stay ahead of the game once life speeds up once more.

Breguet Classique 7137 watch, Breguet (MEN’s)
A classic, refined look from the historic house founded in 1775.
breguet.com
(Coin purse by Louis Vuitton)

Constellation Gents watch, Omega (MEN’s)
With a 39mm steel case and leather strap, this model is smart yet understated.
omegawatches.com

Tudor Black Bay watch, Tudor (MEN’s)
An attractive, functional diving watch inspired by the brand’s 1950s designs, it’s waterproof up to 200m and comes in a choice of accent colours.
tudorwatch.com

Portugieser chronograph watch, IWC Schaffhausen (MEN’s)
A new addition to the brand’s popular Portugieser line, this handsome automatic timepiece is finished with a blue dial and an alligator strap.
iwc.com

Master Control Calendar watch, Jaeger-LeCoultre (MEN’s)
This model looks to Jaeger LeCoultre’s triple-calendar moon-phase timepieces from the 1940s and 1950s. The case comes in steel or rose gold.
jaeger-lecoultre.com

Maillon de Cartier watch, Cartier (WOMEN’s)
Cartier’s latest design – with its elegant interlocking wristband – looks likely to become a future classic.
cartier.com
(Earrings, rings and bangles by Cartier)

Égérie Moon Phase steel watch with diamonds, Vacheron Constantin (WOMEN’s)
A star of the Swiss brand’s recently launched Égérie collection, it’s accented with a diamond-set bezel.
vacheron-constantin.com

Classic Fusion Gold Crystal watch, Hublot (WOMEN’s)
A striking model with a polished black dial that’s decorated with gold crystal (made using flakes of gold).
hublot.com

J12 Paradoxe watch, Chanel Watches (WOMEN’s)
An arresting black and white addition to the French house’s j12 collection.
chanel.com
(Coco Crush Rings by Chanel Fine Jewellery)

Alpine Eagle collection watch, Chopard (WOMEN’s)
This delicate model from the brand’s recently launched Alpine Eagle collection features a “Bernina Grey” dial inspired by an eagle’s iris.
chopard.com

Stylists: Shun Katakai and Kyoko Tamoto

Urban developers

“Good work isn’t possible without good commissions,” says Melbourne graphic designer Patrick Scanlan, discussing the realities of his profession. Luckily for the co-founder of Studio Hi Ho, the firm he set up with Wesley Waddell in 2011, good design projects are present in the city, which within 10 years is set to become Australia’s most populated. The work of Scanlan’s three-man team – known for sharp typography and bright, clever illustration – has become lauded in design circles. Yet most of Studio Hi Ho’s best creative art direction is commissioned by an unlikely source: property developers.

As foreign investment flooded the city in recent years, Melbourne’s property market boomed and, according to Scanlan, smart developers realised that Melburnians were under-serviced. Boutique estate agent, and long-standing Studio Hi Ho client, Milieu Property was one of them. Milieu began to commission designs for sensitively built apartment blocks in up-and-coming neighbourhoods such as Brunswick. The projects would be beautiful (and make for wise investments) but as they went up behind construction hoardings their stories needed to be told to potential buyers. This is where Studio Hi Ho found its niche.

“Architects talk like they are talking to other architects,” says Scanlan. “So we had to find a simple way to communicate [with potential buyers].” He rolls out an elegantly crafted property brochure for a Milieu project in Fitzroy. Here, on tactile stock, the character of the city’s architectural vernacular is highlighted through bold photography and warm renders of the forthcoming property, with eloquent writing outlining its design. “It’s pretty simple: people tend to love good design, which these projects were about, so we just had to strip all the jargon away,” says Scanlan. “For us it’s always about boiling things down to their most simple form and stripping the clutter away.”

Aided by smart marketing, many a Milieu property has been sold off-plan. As this boutique style of development has grown in popularity, so too has the clever collateral that’s commissioned around it. In the property industry, however, the style of communications has become painfully similar to that forged by Studio Hi Ho.

Unfortunately, copycatting is a familiar story in Melbourne, particularly in the hospitality trade. Before the pandemic slowed things down in 2020, new coffee shops and restaurants seemed to be opening constantly, all hoping to provide a small point of difference but often presenting themselves in unoriginal ways. As a result, the hospitality businesses that tend to survive in Melbourne have a common trait: they apply design-conscious, original art direction to bolster their appealing menus and service.

Graphic-design firm Studio Round, which operates from a light-filled venue in the agency-laden suburb of Carlton, knows this well and has built its business around the f&b industry. One of the company’s most successful partnerships has been with chef Andrew McConnell, who is responsible for many of Melbourne’s most-loved modern dining destinations. For McConnell’s popular Asian-fusion restaurant Supernormal, which opened in 2014, Studio Round designed Tokyo-inspired takeaway boxes for lobster rolls, complete with cut-out cardboard lobster trimmings, and serviettes featuring illustrated Super Mario-style clouds. Scenography is key at such venues and, at McConnell’s restaurants, good graphic design is in abundance.

It is also present inside informal wine bar Marion, the latest collaboration between Studio Round and McConnell. Designed as a sibling to McConnell’s flagship Cutler & Co, Marion is imbued with a lived-in authenticity; Studio Round’s tagline for this new venture is: “A bar that feels like it’s always been there”. The site’s historic urban context inspired the condensed heavy signage that sets the tone for Marion’s wider identity. “Brand to us is not a veneer,” says Studio Round co-director Robert Nudds. “Instead it builds a project from the inside out.” He notes that the wine bar’s identity is cohesive and considered: the menu boards, tableware and uniforms all reflect its brand ethos. Nudds believes that Melbourne’s “isolation has allowed [Studio Round] to take on a bigger role”. Rather than being purely about graphic design, the firm’s work could alter an item on a menu or impact service culture – in a positive way.

Another Melbourne firm that’s enlivening some of the city’s restaurants is Projects of Imagination (POI), whose work includes designing for Australian-Asian favourite Chin Chin. poi’s business model fuses branding with interior design. Directors Nick Cox and Dion Hall believe that, as a result of Melbourne’s remoteness, they’ve been able to develop a collaborative model that’s outside the norm for a graphic-design studio. “Typical client-creative boundaries are ignored in favour of an approach based on curiosity and problem-solving,” says Cox. For a recent project for Collingwood gelateria Piccolina, for example, poi took references from mid-century Italian design, drawing on iconic fonts and forms articulated in shades of green, white and red. This base provides a palette that can be adapted when new items are added to the menu, or when the owners change the interior design. “The visual cultures that we create evolve as our clients’ menus evolve, as their customers evolve, as their businesses evolve,” says Cox.

These ideas come full circle at Congress, a wine bar that Studio Hi Ho worked on with both Milieu and the interiors firm Design Office. Studio Hi Ho was tasked with creating the bar’s brand identity and scenography, and designing its menus, glasses and tableware. It was a dream brief for Scanlan, who says that the style is “Bob Hawke, 1980s boardroom”, referring to Australia’s eccentric former prime minister.

Design influences include old parliament clocks. Interestingly, the red and green lights that indicated an imminent vote in the House or Senate have been referenced here in a device showing when Congress is open and closed. The success of the bar has seen its owners recently open another outpost, with the design brief again awarded to Studio Hi Ho. Like its entrepreneurial contemporaries, the firm is embracing the theory that, in Melbourne, graphic design goes beyond the screen or printed page. As Scanlan says: “It’s that idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

Working wonders

As offices shuttered in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, working from the kitchen table suddenly became the new norm. And it’s made many of us realise how much we miss those buildings that are dedicated to enhancing the way we work. Office design is rarely celebrated in the way that the home is, or even the holiday resorts where we spend a tiny portion of our year (well, usually). But now we’re all realising how much the office is an environment that’s deeply connected with ourselves, our wellbeing and, naturally, our livelihoods.

Remote working has its practicalities, of course, particularly for those companies that are on the smaller side. But we miss the human experience. We miss the ease of face-to-face (not screen-to-screen) communication and we miss how the best-designed offices can enhance collaboration and help productivity.

Reflecting on the value that a real office holds for an entrepreneur, we’ve called upon the creative industry’s top thinkers and designers to remind us (and educate us on) the office elements that we should all be heaping praise upon. The wisdom of these bright business minds will not only help us to appreciate the office for what it is but also for what it can be when design smarts and a little more thought and care are applied to it.

In praise of
Colour
David Kohn
David Kohn Architects

“Colour is nothing to be afraid of. In offices, variety and changes in atmosphere through the day should be common so that working life isn’t monotonous. You can create differentiation between spaces by having complementary colours in each room and strongly diverging colours from room to room. Using bold colour is effective in impacting the character of an office compared with making structural changes. One can almost create rooms through colour.”

1.
Tape chairs
by Minotti
Italy

Make office guests feel at ease with these armchairs by Japanese studio Nendo for Minotti. They come in fabric and leather coverings.
minotti.com

2.
Wall-mounted post organiser
by Think of Things
Japan

When did we do away with physical in-trays? In Japan these essentials of office organisation never went out of style, as these neat pieces exemplify.
think-of-things.com

In praise of
Rooms
Ilse Crawford
Studioilse

“Co-working offices might be stylistically cool but the reality is that many of them just cram people into an open space filled with armchairs and lined with Crittall windows. I don’t think we want open plan; we want rooms that are well thought out. Rooms should be sized right for the amount of people working in them, whether that’s a room that comfortably fits a team of six or a simple hallway with a bench in it, where two people can have a chat or someone can make a call. Let’s be a bit more granular and create proper frames for the things we do at work.”

In praise of
Office plants
Eliza Blank
The Sill

“People have an inherent desire to connect with nature and be around plants. And the best way to do that is to incorporate greenery into our interior spaces – it has a material impact on our ability to be productive and creative. There are a number of ways in which you can provide access throughout the office, whether it’s something decorative such as a piece of moss art on a wall or a hanging plant in the corner. But plants don’t have to just be aesthetic – they can serve a real purpose in an office, whether it’s functionally dividing a space, creating privacy or blocking and filtering sunlight.”

3.
HiLow table
by Montana
Denmark

The design-focused Danes have actually managed to make a standing desk that looks aesthetically sleek. And when adjusting it down to seating height you can pair it with a Montana Panton One chair, as illustrated. Now you’re in business.
montanafurniture.com

4.
Documents folder
by Kokuyo
Japan

The Japanese stationery-maker knows how to add lively colour and style to the workplace. Its cute organiser is also sturdy enough to hold a serious pile of papers.
kokuyo.com

5.
Wogg 70 shelving
by Wogg
Switzerland

Form a lobby display to be proud of with Wogg’s tubular steel shelvingsystem. Its trays can be positioned horizontally for storage or at a jaunty angle to show off your favourite printed matter.
wogg.ch

6.
Wagner chair
by Objekte Unserer Tage
Germany

These stackable chairs are practical in their space-saving nature and comfortable too. The oak backrest curves into an armrest.
objekteunserertage.com

7.
Vanity unit
by Boffi
Italy

A quality bathroom reflects a company’s investment in people and can boost staff morale. This Italian manufacturer’s fine modular systems can be equipped with shelves and compartments.
boffi.com

8.
Skillrow rowing machine
by TechnoGym
Italy

While Technogym’s team of interior designers can plan the perfect workout room for your office, those with a cosier workspace can utilise its slimline rowing machine.
technogym.com

9.
Dancing Wall
by Vitra
Switzerland

The modular Dancing Wall’s sturdy metal frame can be reconfigured as a bookshelf, TV unit or room divider to provide privacy or a useful office tool
vitra.com

10.
1291 hanging lamp
by Wald-Haus
Switzerland

Our ideal office has no ceiling lights at all – too radical? With great task lamps and hanging pendants we can create a warmer environment and these slim, timber hanging lamps are essential to our scheme.
wald-haus.ch

In praise of
Natural materials
Yuki Ikeguchi
Kengo Kuma & Associates

“A biophilic design approach is beneficial in an office. Just because it’s an office it doesn’t have to be rigid and rational. Humans find comfort and inspiration in natural elements, which should be present in an office. Simple things, from wooden flooring to interior gardens or a terrace to bring in fresh air and natural light, will enhance creativity and productivity. I focus on this and implement nature as much as possible.”

In praise of
Silence
Oliver Jahn
German Architectural Digest

“Nobody likes to be glued to their desk eight hours a day. But creating fancy recreation areas does not work. Yes, you need project rooms and sofa islands to facilitate communication but you must provide airy, silent space as well. Some current workspace concepts seem to venture into coffee shop meets cubicle. That’s a fail. The key to success is to offer a whole variety of opportunities – technically and conceptually.”

In praise of
A convivial conference room
Britt Moran
Dimorestudio

“The office conference room is often sterile and devoid of decoration. I’ve never understood this, as it’s a room you do business in and should be representative of your brand. We’ve designed beautiful desks for our conference room, we have nice art on the walls and an attractive fresco ceiling – no one is falling asleep in there.”

11.
Tolomeo lamp
by Artemide
Italy

Add a pop of colour with Artemide’s switched-on relaunch of its best-selling Tolomeo Micro lamp, which comes in some dashing bright shades.
artemide.com

12.
Sigill outdoor bench
by Nola
Sweden

Stockholm’s Nola and Note Design Studio are improving alfresco staff lunches the world over with this outdoor bench, which can easily be stacked and packed away for another day.
nola.se

13.
Cutlery
by Mono Germany
Germany

Designed in the 1950s, Mono’s stylish and functional forks, knives and spoons have remained the best-looking utensils in office canteens for decades.
mono.de

In praise of
Owning a space
Ernst van der Hoeven
MacGuffin

“Central to our office is a clustering of desks by Egon Eiermann. We chose them not because of the iconic design but because of the design ‘disappearance’: it becomes a huge white platform that we put everything on. Shelves you keep ordered, a table you keep empty but a desk can have chaos and the chaos on my side [of the desk] is different to the chaos on my co-editor in chief’s. It’s good to have a physical place to work that is yours and you can leave your clutter. We respect each other’s mess – there is a border.”

14.
Mailbox
by Stebler
Switzerland

Make their delivery of your documents a pleasure with a sleek letterbox.
stebler.ch

In praise of
Repurposing
Fanny Bauer Grung
Quincoces-Dragò & Partners

“We work with re-use as a conscious choice. There’s so much new being built today that it’s more interesting to work with existing spaces rather than something that’s built from scratch. When it comes to office design, working in an existing space can be challenging but also easier because you get to work with a story that was already there – and it allows you to add a layer of your own.”

In praise of
History
Karin Novozamsky
Karin Novozamsky

“In some offices you can feel the good energy straight away, particularly in old buildings that are imbued with history. Here you can imagine and feel the stories of many lives – and it adds to the environment. Old buildings were built to last. In my office, a baroque-style palais in Graz, you feel the beauty and elegance of its architecture while you work.”

15.
Boby trolley
by B-Line
Italy

A list-topper for fastidious office organisers, B-Line’s cute, recently relaunched 1970s tidy trolley is customisable and comes in both bright and sober tones.
b-line.it

16.
Click shelving
by New Tendency
Germany

As it says on the box, these click-together shelves are minimalist and without bolts. Hang the slim steel pieces on a girder to store books, documents and decoration.
newtendency.com

17.
Electrified S2 Bike
by Vanmoof
The Netherlands

Dutch brand Vanmoof has been pedalling its handsome electric bicycles to companies small and big – its bike-hire scheme is used by the likes of Ace & Tate.
vanmoof.com

18.
Haller system
by USM
Switzerland

No office-furniture glossary would be acceptable without highlighting this system. Making offices smarter since 1965, usm’s bespoke shelves provide adaptability and can scale up alongside your company.
usm.com

19.
Layers Oak flooring
by Dinesen
Denmark

Whether it’s for a cosy basement conversion or a spacious corner office, timber touches have a health-enhancing benefit. Which makes an investment in Dinesen’s European oak flooring a worthy one.
dinesen.com

In praise of
Office Humour
Daan Roosegaarde
Studio Roosegaarde

“One of the most annoying things in a creative meeting is when, after a pitch, the client says, ‘Yes, but…’ We’d rather talk about ‘What now?’ To combat this, we designed a chair that has voice recognition built into it and when it hears the phrase ‘Yes, but’ (‘Ja, maar’) it gives an electric shock to the bottom. Obviously we don’t sit clients on it but the fact that it’s there is a talking point.”

In praise of
Homeliness
Anna Liu
Tonkin Liu

“As architects we’ve watched the workspace evolve to be more homelike – but we’ve always worked from home. You can’t fake homeliness in an office. The home-office allows for different modes of work: you can do the ‘work work’, such as answering emails, in a formalised setting, and the things you love, like reading and research, in your cosy home library.”

In praise of
The central kitchen
Charlotte Rey
Campbell-Rey

“The idea of the central kitchen is wonderful. It’s an old-fashioned concept that’s been reinvented in the workplace in the past five or 10 years, as we realise the importance of a human touch. A central kitchen is a strong investment in an office community because it’s an easy way to make people feel included and get them exchanging ideas. In the 1940s and 1950s, Italian factories such as Fiat all had central canteens because they were social levellers.”

20.
Regua table
by Unifor
Italy

Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza draws beauty from function in this handsome solid-wood desk.
unifor.it

From the art

Dottir Attorneys
Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki law firm Dottir feels more gallery than workspace. Colourful pop art paintings, installations and sculptures dominate the luminous offices overlooking the city’s leafy Esplanadi park. “Art is more than just a decorative element here; it really goes to the heart of who we are as a company,” says Jaakko Lindgren, one of the firm’s nine partners. That doesn’t mean that Dottir specialises in the legal aspects of the art market, nor that it represents artists. Instead, the company specialises in the technology and creative industries – relatively uncharted fields in terms of the laws that regulate them. “Our lawyers need to think creatively,” says Lindgren. “The art is here to help foster this.”

Many of Dottir’s 30 or so artworks are playful and thought-provoking, and occasionally controversial: some make fun of the modern age and its icons. With a few exceptions – Salvador Dalí, British typography artist Ben Eine and American abstract expressionist Jasper Johns – most of the pieces are by contemporary Finnish artists, such as Riiko Sakkinen, Riikka Hyvönen and graffiti painter egs. This is a conscious choice. “We believe that the art should be a commentary on the time in which we as a company live,” says Lindgren. The firm often invites artists to give talks about their work and regularly organises art events for their clients. Despite having grown rapidly since its beginnings in 2016, Dottir is still a relatively small, entrepreneurial venture on the Finnish law scene. “We want to shake up the market,” says managing partner Johanna Rantanen. “Having unexpected art in our office suits this identity well.”

The decision to acquire works is usually made by Lindgren and a few of his partners. Sourcing work for the office is different to building a personal collection. “When you buy art for a more public space, you need to consider other people too,” says Lindgren. “Large public companies are often too sensitive and end up buying conservative art.” Predictable showpieces wouldn’t be as effective in inspiring employees to come up with innovative strategies – and connect the creative dots.

Bonotto
Molvena, Italy

“This factory is a work of art, the 200 workers here are part of the art and every day is a performance,” says Giovanni Bonotto, the fourth-generation scion of his family business. Textile company Bonotto is renowned in the fashion industry as one of the world’s best and most imaginative fabric-makers but the inspiration behind its products is less well known. According to Giovanni, Bonotto’s team members “work like artists, because they work in an artistic context”. The factory is filled with an awe-inspiring collection of creations.

A robot made using eight televisions – an emblematic work by Korean-American video artist Nam June Paik – sits near the entrance to the factory. US performance artist John Giorno’s framed poetry hangs just above a pair of vending machines. A giant tarp that Yoko Ono emblazoned with the word “Dream” covers a loading gate. Multimedia artist Carolee Schneemann’s self-portraits showing her as a nude ice-skater line a wall next to the looms. The works of Joseph Beuys, John Cage, Ben Patterson and many more ground-breaking artists cover every wall in the workspace.

Founded in 1912 in the northern Italian hinterlands of Vicenza as a straw-hat manufacturer, Bonotto transformed into a textile company in 1972, when Giovanni’s father Luigi took over. Luigi Bonotto learnt fabric-making from Gaetano Marzotto – one of a generation of enlightened Italian industrialists who sought to use the factory as a springboard for humanism and workers’ rights. The annual Marzotto prize for arts and sciences regularly brought intellectuals to this corner of Italy. This is how Luigi Bonotto forged many friendships with artists. He played chess with Marcel Duchamp and invited creatives to visit him, where they would stay in rooms at the factory that he had fixed up as an apartment. The guests would enjoy his hospitality and the space to create new work – and they would often sell him a piece (for a friendly price) at the end of their stay. Yet Luigi never thought of it as a residency programme. “When a friend comes to stay, you don’t call it a ‘residence’,” he says. Instead he thought of it as an amicable exchange of ideas. “Every day you begin living all over again. Everything can be turned on its head. That’s a concept John Cage taught me that’s always served us well in the factory.”

More than 300 artists have since visited Bonotto in Molvena. The factory may now be officially known as the Bonotto Foundation but its valuable art – which has been exhibited at institutions such as Paris’s Palais de Tokyo and London’s Whitechapel Gallery – is still hung casually throughout the space, a working warehouse of concrete floors, fluorescent lights and forklifts.

“People worry that the art is too valuable for this environment but it communicates to everyone here that their work is truly valuable and it instils the sensitivity of artists in them,” says Giovanni. This philosophy chimes with Bonotto’s production ethic which he calls “fabbrica lenta” (slow factory). Bonotto uses reclaimed mechanical looms from 1956 that generate only 10 per cent of the fabric that an automated machine would – but it’s particularly rich and dense. This way of working also encourages customisation and experimentation.

The tight-knit texture and often unusual patterns of Bonotto fabrics have earnt the company long-standing relationships with top fashion houses including Prada, Gucci, Valentino, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton. And inventing more than 1,000 new styles of fabric each year requires everyone to work with the attitude of an artist.

“At first the artists who came to visit were seen as strange and foreign,” says Giovanni. “But then we understood that the artists had given us what I would call ‘imagination eyeglasses’ to see our work differently. Our workers began to perceive themselves as artists and to see every fabric as a small work of art.” It’s an approach that’s descended, he believes, from Italy’s Renaissance legacy of combining art and artistry in one workshop. “As manufacturers in Italy today, we have to be artists to survive. Rather than compete with mass production, we’re inventing new solutions and visual languages.”

Be-poles
New York, US

The uncluttered New York office of Be-poles, a branding and interior-design studio that also has a branch in Paris, occupies the eight floor of a building in Soho. Crisp white walls are lined with a neat series of photographs, illustrations and prints that are often in rotation. On the shelves, stacks of books and accessories including ceramic lamps help give the office a homely feel.

If much of the art feels as though it could hang in somebody’s house, it’s because it was often originally bought for that purpose: many pieces come from the team members’ personal collections. “There’s not enough wall space in my apartment,” says Reynald Philippe, the company’s associate partner and New York art director. “I like to collect [art] but if I have nowhere to hang it then I showcase it here,” says managing director Rafael Weil, whose own Louise Bourgeois print and signed Roy Lichtenstein poster are on display in the office. “Our aim is to create a residential tone,” he adds. “We see this as less of an office and more of a living space.” Considering that one of Be-poles’ most high-profile projects has been curating art programmes for Nomad hotels, the pieces in the studio – where many client meetings take place – need to stand up to the strictest scrutiny. The creative team has access to both up-and-coming and well-known artists, be it through their collaborations or via their Paris-based curator, Virginie Boulenger. “She opens great doors for us,” says Weil. “Whether we want to buy pieces for the office or for our homes.” Boulenger supervises all the art curation on Be-poles’ projects as well as framing the works, in Paris, and then shipping them around the globe. (The New York team sometimes brings framed pieces back from Paris in their hand luggage.)

Many of the works have great emotional worth; two prints by Fred Lebain were a gift from the photographer, whom the studio has worked with. Others have significant monetary value, including prints by mid-century street photographers Weegee and Vivian Maier. “It’s not always about how well known the artist may be; for us it’s a memento,” says Weil. “The idea is to keep it alive; in constant motion, like a gallery.”

As a large number of clients come through the doors, investing in work by younger artists can also help support their careers. “Having a piece by someone who isn’t a household name is an opportunity to provide them with a chance to be discovered by someone who doesn’t already know their work,” adds Weil.

Ultimately the artworks have the biggest impact on the people who spend the most time with them: the employees themselves. “We like to show clients what we do,” says Philippe. “But it’s also great for us because it’s inspiring to be around and we’re here for nine hours a day.” Weil agrees. “We’re able to exchange ideas in how we rotate the artwork,” he says. “This is a forum for us to share our collections. It’s not just for our clients – it’s for us too.”

Thinking big

1.
What is an entrepreneur worth?
By David Sax

Is there value in creating jobs, generating revenue (and taxes) or building new products and markets? Yes and more: it’s about human fulfilment too. And that’s why we need entrepreneurs now more than ever.

As the coronavirus pandemic upends businesses around the world, many have been forced to examine the worth of entrepreneurship. The companies affected by the outbreak span industries and geographies, and range from global firms employing hundreds to freelancers working for themselves. But regardless of scale, many saw work dry up seemingly overnight.

Governments and other organisations have responded with loans, grants and financial assistance, arguing that much of the economic health of our society rests in the ability of small businesses and entrepreneurs to continue providing jobs, paying taxes and growing GDP. There is no shortage of data about the importance of entrepreneurship to every kind of economy. In fact, it has become somewhat of an obsession in recent decades, as entrepreneurship became a buzzword tied to sexy start-ups, technological innovation and the promise of transformative riches.

But as someone who has spent his career writing about entrepreneurs of every type – wizened Jewish deli operators in north London, Dutch apple farmers in rural Ontario, inventors working on laptops in Brooklyn cafés, informal popcorn vendors on Rio beaches and African-American hairstylists in New Orleans – I can tell you with certainty that the primary value of entrepreneurship is not money.

The vast majority of entrepreneurs are driven to go out on their own for non-financial reasons. Some have a burning idea that they simply cannot get out of their heads. This was the case for Florian Kaps, an Austrian biologist who decided, against all logic and financial sense, to save Polaroid’s last instant-film factory when the entire film-photography business was dying. Kaps then opened a combined studio, shop, performance space and café in Vienna called Supersense that became a sort of global headquarters of the analogue resurgence.

Others, such as the innumerable Syrian refugees who have opened restaurants around the world in recent years, became entrepreneurs because it offered them not just the promise of an income but also a way to regain control after years of dislocation. “We are done working for other people,” Husam al-Soufi told me, on the back patio of Soufi’s, his family’s restaurant in Toronto. When I asked him whether he would consider taking a job if the business failed, he said, “A job? Never.” The war had taken away his home and his previous career. Entrepreneurship had restored his freedom and renewed his sense of agency despite the uncertainty that came with it. That empowerment was worth more than any salary.

There are entrepreneurs who are driven by their values: by working for themselves they are able to shape their business around their beliefs. Take, for instance, Patagonia, whose founder, Yvon Chouinard put people and planet ahead of profits from day one, dictating everything from the company’s childcare facilities to its choice of materials. Or think of restaurants that donate a portion of their food to soup kitchens, or the hairdresser in a low-income area who never asks twice if someone has trouble paying, saying, “Don’t worry, you’ll pay me back when you can,” because they know how much a haircut means to that individual’s self-worth.

Yes, all of these entrepreneurs wish to succeed financially. They want to profit from their work and grow their businesses. And, of course, that work contributes to our economies in many ways. But if we focus only on the monetary contributions, we miss the larger point of the soul of entrepreneurship.

The entrepreneur is not some variable in a spreadsheet that economists can fiddle with to find the right incentive or subsidy that triggers stock-market growth. Entrepreneurs are imperfect humans whose hopes and dreams, pluck and hustle are what motivate them to start something new and then to work at it year after year. They form the core of the communities we live in: the restaurants, cafés and shops that form the texture of our streets, the bakeries where we buy our bread and the hardware shop that will not only sell us sandpaper but teach us how to strip and refinish a coffee table.

That is what we are fighting for now, as they work to keep businesses alive in the face of unimaginable challenges. And that is what we need to keep in our hearts as the next generation of entrepreneurs emerges, filled with ideas and hope, ready to accept the risks to gain all that entrepreneurship can offer.

2.
Did the Victorians invent the idea of Amazon?
By Adam Hart-Davis

You don’t have to go far back in time to find evidence of the allure of browsing and buying goods from home. Perhaps it’s time to rethink the online versus “traditional” retail debate.

Amazon is looming over our lives now as never before. Housebound folk, bored and frustrated, not only get groceries delivered to their doorsteps but also try to fill the empty hours by shopping online. Business was already booming prior to the pandemic, of course: in New York, trucks were delivering 1.5 million packages every day in 2019. Yet global demand has now increased so much that Amazon has had to hire an additional 100,000 warehouse and delivery workers.

In Manhattan there are no designated parking spaces for the trucks and so they have also been collecting half a million parking tickets a year. I don’t mind if a truck is delivering, say, £30 (€34) worth of groceries to each destination but the traffic problem is made much worse when Amazon sends a large van to my house bringing only a packet of paperclips. Cities all over the world feel the same traffic pressure: in pre-virus times, the UK’s average traffic speeds were 11km/h in Edinburgh and Manchester, and just 8km/h in central London. Delivery trucks are a major contributing factor to that discrepancy.

Today we think of Amazon and other companies that make home deliveries as innovative. But we should remember that the idea started more than 100 years ago. In Victorian times poor people had little money and rarely shopped at all but shopping was simple for the rich. They sent their cooks or housekeepers to do it or if they went themselves, they would often wait in their carriages while the shopkeeper brought his wares out to the pavement for them to inspect. Some households were luckier still for, if they were sufficiently good customers, they could telephone their orders and have the groceries delivered to their homes (by 1900 hundreds of thousands of homes had a phone).

Home deliveries had started even before the invention of the telephone in 1876 and they were not confined to groceries. In 1868 a weekly newspaper appeared: Bazaar, Exchange and Mart, and Journal of the Household. Following the advertisements inside, anyone could buy a huge variety of desirable things, ranging from talking cockatoos and forage for cattle to eiderdowns and charcoal for decayed teeth. There were also queries, letters and articles on everything from the latest fashions to wood-carving patterns and even travelling in Sicily.

Other magazines too were packed with advertisements for mail-order goods. In Settle in Yorkshire in the 1880s, Ellwood Brockbank ran The Warehouse (which was exactly that: a warehouse not a shop) and coined the expression “Fireside Shopping” for anyone who wanted to buy by post. The Lady magazine was delighted at the possibility of having “goods straight from the manufactory – no middleman’s prices intervening, the goods too being of the latest style and value”.

Charles Riley, of Moor Street in Birmingham, promised to supply bedroom furnishings direct from the works, carriage paid. Imperial Pottery of Burslem in Staffordshire offered a complete dinner service for six people at the amazing price of 21 shillings (about €1 in today’s money). Department store Swan & Edgar of London’s Regent Street, meanwhile, would supply spring and summer fashions: “Shop through the post. Every want supplied.”

People have always wanted to accumulate stuff, whether it be food for the larder or trinkets to show off their status. What’s more, people have always wanted that stuff now – or preferably even sooner – and Amazon responds to that demand. So while those rich Victorians might not have actually created the monster that is online shopping, they do seem to have ushered it in. Today we are merely seeing the inevitable result of human greed and acquisitiveness writ more widely.

One hundred and fifty years ago “Fireside shopping” was mainly for the wealthy but now the dreaded coronavirus has made all of us fireside shoppers. All you need is an internet connection and a credit card – and patience while you wait to see whether what you asked for is delivered.

3.
Does the Mittelstand need to change?
By Markus Albers

Germany’s quiet ranks of highly specialised, often family-owned companies are uniquely well placed to weather economic flux. But recent global shifts mean that they might have to accept investment and input from abroad.

A few years ago an engineer from the German industrial-robotics company Kuka told me about his experiences with the company’s new owner, Midea, a Chinese conglomerate that mostly makes home appliances. He had gone to China to witness the construction of its first robot-producing factory and was stunned by what he saw. “It took them just a few months to build; for us, it would have been years,” he said. According to German standards, the factory building was far from perfect – but it worked. The same would apply to designing robots, he said: he expected that his new Chinese colleagues would come up with prototypes in a fraction of the time that it would have taken him and his team in the past. Far from being dispirited by having been bought by a microwave company, he was thrilled by the prospect of combining German engineering with Chinese scale and speed.

This opinion contrasted sharply with the mainstream thinking in German media, politics and business circles. There, the sale of Kuka was seen as another sign of the erosion of what was once the pride and backbone of the German economy: its mighty Mittelstand. These are small-to-medium-sized companies (SMES) that are often family-owned and have strict ideas about quality control, training and retention of employees. Many of them are what Germans call “hidden champions”, meaning firms that belong to the top three in their global sector in terms of market share, have less than €5bn in annual revenue and are little known to the general public.

The coronavirus pandemic has affected the Mittelstand just like any part of the global economy. But there is a good chance that smes will weather the storm. This is mainly because, as well as offering cheap credit, the German government implemented a tool that helped Germany get through the financial crisis: Kurzarbeit, or short-time working. This means that employers can reduce working hours – and pay – by up to 50 per cent while the government compensates employees for a major part of the difference. The result: companies don’t have to let experienced staff go and they can jumpstart business again when things look better.

But there are other concerns for smes. Some experts fear that the economic downturn will weaken otherwise healthy companies and might produce lots of vulnerable candidates for takeover bids – even more than there were previously. Indeed, before the pandemic, significant amounts of money were being offered to bring these companies under Chinese leadership. Since 2015, China has invested four times as much in Germany than vice versa. China wants to be the market leader in many “future-facing” industries and the quickest way to achieve this is to buy the best companies and technologies.

Another apparent threat to the Mittelstand comes from private-equity firms. They already control a surprisingly large part of Germany’s economy – with stakes in more than 5,000 companies totalling almost one million employees – and are setting their sights on smes (or “hunting the Mittelstand”, as German business newspaper Handelsblatt put it).

Why are proud Teutonic brands seen as such attractive takeover candidates? One reason is that sme efforts to reinvent themselves for a digital age often fail. They are good at making high-quality products but not great at marketing them digitally and building ecosystems of new services around them. Bigger international players want to acquire smes’ product expertise and talent pools, and then amplify these with their own global networks and hefty marketing budgets. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, is worried: she says that Mittelstand companies run the risk of becoming nothing more than “workbenches”.

So are the golden years of the Mittelstand over? Will these companies be gobbled up by international investors?

I believe there’s hope in the Kuka story. In fact, adding Chinese, or other high-technology, execution power to Teutonic ingenuity may sometimes be necessary to compete on a global scale. As the founder of a Mittelstand company myself, I believe that the German course to future success lies in combining traditional values with modern thinking. Firms such as my own should keep designing and crafting first-rate products but we need to apply our expertise in “making things” to a digital age. Successful German start-ups – such as Infarm (automated farming), Door2Door (rural ridesharing), FlixMobility (long-distance travel), Horizn (smart luggage) and n26 (banking) – already do this. The country’s economic future depends on translating its production prowess to new, sometimes less tangible, products. Yes, you can manufacture a great digital user journey too.

If we merge Mittelstand’s focus on precision and building one thing exceptionally well with the data-driven, fast-growth mindset of technology start-ups, we will come up with a new generation of champions – “hidden” or not.

4.
What is the macroeconomic effect of the pandemic?
By Christopher Cermak

How will the post-pandemic economy be different? We’re not placing bets but here’s a considered set of predictions about the big shifts to expect for businesses, consumers and governments.

The events of 2008 were different. There was heaps of blame to go around and far-reaching conclusions to be drawn. Entirely new financial regulatory architectures and multilateral institutions, such as the g20 summit, were set up as governments vowed to never let such a man-made crisis happen again.

This time there’s no easy target to blame for the epidemic (though many will try) and no obvious consequential actions to be taken (aside, perhaps, from stocking up on medical supplies). There’s a version of this where life carries on as normal. In theory, at least, a sudden shock to the global economy – even a complete standstill that lasts for months – shouldn’t have a lasting impact. Why would we change our regular habits once we can be out on the streets again, dining with friends and business partners, flying to far-flung lands to check out that great spa hotel or trade show, visiting our favourite high-street or boutique shops? What, exactly, needs to change about any of that?

In reality, though, such thinking is probably idealistic. “What we are expecting is that several longer-term trends that we were already predicting will accelerate,” says Paul Donovan, chief economist at Swiss bank UBS. And while it’s hard to predict exactly what will happen, there are some early signs of shifts that could be here to stay – for businesses, consumers and governments.

Let’s start with the obvious: unfortunately there will be fewer businesses. Despite trillions being spent by governments around the world to help alleviate pressure, many companies, small businesses in particular, are unlikely to survive. Consolidation in certain industries – travel chief among them – is likely as cash-strapped companies try to pool resources. But there are some less obvious consequences for surviving businesses. For one, Donovan predicts a build-up in inventories – a reversal of what happened after the global financial crisis of 2008, when many companies believed that a key lesson was the need for flexibility. The epidemic has seen many factories grind to a halt and supply chains struggling to cope under the strain of demand for items. The lesson that some companies take from this could well be the opposite of flexibility: it’s not a bad idea to stock up on goods to ensure that there’s enough inventory in your warehouses, especially in case of a second or third phase of the outbreak down the road.

Supply chains are also likely to be affected more broadly; expect them to shorten. Yes, we live in a globalised economy and we’re unlikely to see that fundamentally changing. But it is still to be expected that some companies will work to simplify their supply chains where possible – perhaps build some things domestically or at least closer to home. It’s one way to avoid disruptions in the future and a shift that is worth thinking about if you’re a supplier (don’t cold-shoulder your international clients but do consider knocking on your neighbour’s door for some extra business).

As for consumers, there’s one key factor to remember: habits, once altered, don’t necessarily return to their previous patterns. That goes for two things in particular: online shopping and home working. If you’ve registered for online shopping for the first time during this epidemic, you’re likely to return to it even once physical shops reopen. Donovan points to the Sars outbreak in Asia in 2003, which boosted the early days of online shopping on the continent. Similarly, if you’ve developed a taste for home working then you’re likely to prod your employer to allow you that flexibility more often. Donovan cites the London Olympics in 2012, when many in the city got a taste for remote working.

What do these shifts mean for companies? Retailers that do best in the post-epidemic economy will offer a more comprehensive blend of online and in-store options, known as omni-channel shopping. Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at German-Dutch bank ing, predicts a lasting decline in demand for commercial property – due both to home working and less in-store shopping – and says that investment in broadband infrastructure might increase to make remote working easier.

Then there’s the role of government which, in a word, has grown. Not only might many companies find themselves with the government as a shareholder or major creditor but society’s expectations of what a government can and should do for its country’s citizens have changed too. In the US and elsewhere, statutory sick pay and broader social safety nets could gain momentum, while salary cheques handed out by governments during the epidemic could open the door to more conversations about universal basic income.

In Europe, the burden on some national governments, such as Italy’s, forced eurozone countries to consider once-unthinkable forms of common financial aid. Despite insistence that these were one-time emergency measures, it’s hard to imagine that they won’t change how eurozone members work together in future. Of course, this is speculation – there are a lot of “coulds” in all of this, as Brzeski says – but it’s clear that the global economy will never look quite the same again.

5.
Direct-to-consumer businesses: what went wrong
By Hamish Anderson

The advantages of selling straight to your customers are clear but they’re not enough to deliver exponential profits in all conditions. Now is the time to get real about online retail.

The past decade saw a boom in direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands: companies that manufacture and sell their own products, mostly online, through their own channels instead of via wholesale. But even before coronavirus upended the economy, there were signs that such businesses might be stumbling.

Ty Haney was removed as CEO of her athleisure company Outdoor Voices; the share price of Casper mattresses dropped precipitously after it went public; and digital-first menswear company Bonobos laid off employees as its parent company, Walmart, said it expected to lose $1bn (€913m) in its e-commerce this year. The pandemic means that people are staying at home, glued to their phones and shopping online. This should be the time that dtc brands triumph. But is it actually the moment when we realise that they were built on shaky foundations?

One disadvantage dtc companies have faced is an unusual cashflow problem: too much money. “The first and second generation of dtc brands launched [in the wake of] massive technology and software deals,” says David Heath, CEO of online sock brand Bombas. “The venture-capital firms (VCS) had so much money that they had to find places to deploy it and they tried to replicate the success they had with tech, saying ‘Here’s this thing, direct to consumer; it’s leveraging technology.’”

“There’s a misalignment between venture capital and building a brand,” says Ryan Babenzien, CEO of dtc trainer brand Greats. “vcs want to deploy capital and get a return in seven years: that goes against the ethos of building a brand. We’re seeing the result of that. Even great brands are getting absolutely hammered after their ipos.”

In part, that’s because ipos were the goal in the first place. Many VC-funded companies seem designed to sell shares not products. vcs might not care if a brand works in an efficient way but people who buy stocks seem to. Casper sells mattresses, which customers only purchase every eight to 10 years. They’re heavy and bulky, thus expensive to store, ship and handle when returned – free to the customer – at the company’s expense. No wonder potential stock buyers didn’t think the brand was worth the $1.1bn (€1bn) valuation vcs gave it. And Casper’s disappointing IPO happened before coronavirus caused the US stock market to plummet. It will be interesting to see what happens when companies such as luggage brand Away and Silicon Valley’s favourite footwear company Allbirds – each valued at more than $1bn (€1bn) – go public. The outlook can’t be all that sunny.

Admittedly, some dtc brands have done well. Dollar Shave Club, a grooming brand, launched with modest funding in 2011, had annual revenue of $240m (€222m) by 2016, then sold to Unilever for $1bn (€921m). One of its competitors, Harry’s Razors, only missed out on a similar deal because it was already too successful: consumer products giant (and razor-maker) Edgewell planned to buy Harry’s for $1.37bn (€1.25bn) but the US Federal Trade Commission blocked the acquisition because it was concerned about the resulting monopoly.

Like razors, socks are a frequent purchase, which worked well for Bombas: it racked up more than $170m (€157m) in revenue last year. “Being dtc allows us to tell a story about a product that is often an afterthought,” says Heath. Bombas’s origin story is based around the need for socks among the homeless (the company donates one pair for every pair sold); it revealed this in a three-minute video on its website that Heath says led to 150,000 sales in a month. “If you’re walking around a shop there’s no way that you’ll watch that video,” he says. “But online we have an unlimited canvas.”

Most importantly, perhaps, dtc sales enable brands to collect customer information. Sebastian Agace, CEO of online casualwear brand Alma De Ace, says that he can “monitor what people are looking at” and “finesse designs and marketing plans” accordingly. New York designer Thakoon Panichgul, who switched to a dtc model last year, is similarly enthusiastic. “You get real-time, concrete information direct from the customer,” he says. “When we were wholesale it was like pulling teeth to get any kind of sales information.”

With much of the world on lockdown, dtc businesses find themselves at a crossroads. On one hand, as Greats’ Babenzien notes, they are “equipped to work from home fairly quickly” and are “better off than companies that rely on wholesale because now all of that revenue is going to get wiped out”. Yet an economic recession will cause the venture capital spending spree to cease, so the dtc brands that survive will be the ones generating money by running a sustainable business, rather than by having a shiny new idea that attracts investment.

Relying on slow, steady growth is a surprisingly old-fashioned idea for this most modern breed of brand. “We’ve been wrapped up in this world where you’re led to believe that anything under $100m (€91m) of revenue is failure,” says Heath. “I hope people can reset their expectations and understand that if you’re doing $10m (€9.1m) a year that’s a really good business. You can run a healthy, profitable small company – that’s admirable.”

6.
Why we need more apprenticeships and fewer MBAs
By Anna Codrea-Rado

The pandemic has highlighted the extent to which society relies on skilled technicians. The next step is to look at what can be done to train the workforce we need for the future.

For too long, mbas have been the filmstars of business qualifications and apprenticeships the reality-show contestants: mbas are seen as glamorous and prestigious, while apprenticeships are viewed as a second-rate alternative to tertiary education (with regular university degrees somewhere in between). This attitude about the value of in-work training compared to degrees is backed up by statistics: in 2017 research by not-for-profit organisation Investors in People found that 62 per cent of young British people would rather do A-levels or go to university instead of an apprenticeship. It’s a worrying perception; according to the UK’s Open University, it has contributed to a skills gap in the UK that costs companies £6.3bn (€7.1bn) every year on, for example, recruitment fees and training.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought the urgent need for skilled workers into sharp focus. The UK government identified as vital in the fight against the virus healthcare workers and education professionals, among others. “Many of the crucial skills needed for these roles have been built through quality further education and training programmes, including apprenticeships,” says David Phillips, managing director at the educational organisation City & Guilds in London.

With universities currently closed and the UK government set to cap future admissions, employers and workers must rethink the role of apprenticeships. On-the-job training schemes will offer people who’ve lost jobs – as well as new entrants to the workforce – a chance to acquire coveted skills, without being saddled with hefty debts. According to Phillips, they will be vital to help people train, retrain and reskill in the most in-demand sectors such as data science, software engineering, marketing and business. “Throughout history, apprenticeships have provided the skills, passion and energy that have helped to build industries and economies,” says Phillips. “This is exactly what they will do after Covid-19.”

Sophie Adelman, co-founder of apprenticeship company WhiteHat, thinks that the university model, the shinier alternative to on-the-job training programmes, “is broken”. “[University] doesn’t provide people with the skills they need for the jobs of the future and isn’t serving the needs of employers,” she says. The sheer volume of students attending universities merely because an out-of-touch career adviser told them to has diluted these institutions’ value proposition.

Beyond university degrees generally, many people are specifically challenging the thinking behind mbas – the business of selling business education. In her book The MBA Bubble, Mariana Zanetti points out that while studies have shown that mba graduates earn, on average, significantly more than non-mba professionals, the mba is not necessarily the reason why. “Most mba graduates were admitted to business school because they had what it takes to succeed,” writes Zanetti, who received her own mba at Spain’s IE Business School. “They belong to a high-potential group of professionals, but they were already there before their business school picked them.” Additionally, a few years ago, Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organisational behaviour at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (one of the world’s top business schools), told the Financial Times that he’s not convinced that mbas are worth the money. “A degree has value only if the degree is scarce, and the mba is completely unscarce,” said Pfeffer.

If mbas and other university degrees are ubiquitous and apprenticeships are scarce, we need to address that imbalance. And fast. Adelman says that the pandemic has strengthened her belief that apprentices are a solution for the UK’s skills shortage. “Young people coming out of the crisis will be looking to apprenticeships rather than university because of the economic uncertainty,” she says. It’s time that apprenticeships were treated like the A-list qualifications they are.