The Marvelous Mentor

Chris Johnson’s massive success affords next-gen business leaders the opportunity to grow

In the coming months, Chris Johnson will ask a lot of his employees, whose average age is just 24 years old. He expects to do $30 million in retail sales this third year of manufacturing, recently signed a powerful licensing deal with Disney’s Marvel, and plans to expand from the four products currently on shelves to more than 100 next year. But Johnson’s hiring strategy emphasizes passion over experience, something he says his team has in spades.

Nov 17, 2015 Andy Galloway

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Cask & Barrel brings approachable dining to Del Paso Boulevard

At Cask & Barrel in north Sacramento, there are no entrees. The restaurant has a small kitchen staff and high-end food at low prices. Chef Gabriel Glasier and his pastry chef, business partner and fiancée, Kristel Flores, are bringing something different to a corner of Del Paso Boulevard that’s proved to be enigmatic, to say the least, for two decades.

Nov 16, 2015 Rick Kushman

Send in the Crowd

Equity crowdfunding offers small investors a slice of the pie, but will they take a giant hit?

Pauline Marx, 63, had been a pretty conventional investor in stocks and bonds until April 2014. But to her, the rock-bottom interest rates on fixed-income tools like Treasury bills and CDs felt like stuffing money under the mattress.Then a friend told her about Fundrise, a website that lets investors buy small shares of real estate ventures around the country.

Nov 24, 2015 Steven Yoder
(Shutterstock)

Budget-Busting Childcare Costs Are Talk of U.S. Campaign Trail

Policy makers are responding to the cries of parents who are forced to choose between paying childcare bills, which have climbed more than twice as fast as overall inflation since the end of 1990, or foregoing work. The soaring costs crowd out other forms of household spending, distorting the biggest part of the U.S. economy.

Nov 24, 2015 Michelle Jamrisko