The Talkroute Blog

  From car designer to rock musician to car restoration expert, the career of Rob Dickinson has most certainly come full circle. As the singular vision behind Singer Vehicle Design, Rob Dickinson has helped breathe new life into the car restoration world. Specifically, he helps revitalize the cult-favorite Porsche 911. Starting at $475,000 and quickly climbing to prices exceeding $1.8 million, the Singer Porsche 911 Reimagined is the dream vehicle of car aficionados everywhere. Each car is carefully restored to make it roadworthy and the envy of other motorists. What led a rock singer to the world of car restoration? What makes Singer Vehicle Design stand out and command such high prices for classic cars? To answer these questions, we need to take a closer look at the history of Rob Dickinson and the cars he loves.   So Who Is Rob Dickinson?   Rob Dickinson was born and raised …

  Halo Top is not your ordinary ice cream. It’s a low-sugar ice cream created in a kitchen and now found on store shelves around the world. Launched in 2011, Halo Top became an overnight sensation in 2016 and sold to Wells Enterprises in 2019 for an undisclosed sum. Insiders predict the deal was potentially worth close to $2 billion. The man behind the wildly successful ice cream is Justin Woolverton. Woolverton was a corporate lawyer by trade, which came in handy as he built his ice cream empire. The company has faced a few legal hurdles, including a lawsuit from a New Jersey Dairy Farm and a class-action lawsuit from an unsatisfied customer. Despite some hiccups, Woolverton and his company have persevered. So, how did Woolverton go from mixing ingredients in his kitchen to selling millions of dollars’ worth of ice cream? Let’s take a closer look at his …

  Starting a footwear company without branding or flashy marketing ads seems as if it would be a recipe for disaster. For Tim Brown and Joey Zwillinger, it was the key to their success. The story appears unlikely but true. Tim Brown, a former professional footballer, and Joey Zwillinger, the president of a biotech firm, built Allbirds. For those who aren’t familiar with the brand, Allbirds is a New Zealand-American shoe company founded in 2016. Allbirds has a small line of footwear for women, men, and children, featuring shoes made from sustainable sources such as wool and castor bean oil. The company was valued at over $1.4 billion in 2018 and continues to grow. They’ve made shoes worn by the biggest celebs. They’ve managed to do all this in just a few years with a product line that only includes a few different shoes and a limited selection of colors. …

  If there’s a gene for entrepreneurship, the Wojcicki family has it. Susan Wojcicki is the CEO of YouTube. Her sister Janet is a leading anthropologist and epidemiologist. Their youngest sister Anne is the CEO and co-founder of 23andMe, the world’s first direct-to-consumer genetics testing service. And yes, their mother Esther Wojcicki wrote a book about parenting, which is called How to Raise Successful People. (The key is letting your child lead, she says.) Perhaps it was the family’s propensity for entrepreneurship that prompted Anne to explore the idea of an FDA-approved genetics testing service for anyone willing to part with $100 and some saliva. The core concept is not, after all, something many entrepreneurs consider. She herself, however, says her idea emerged because she is “obsessed with bringing the consumer voice to healthcare.” 23andMe has certainly given individual people unprecedented access to their own genetic information, data that even …