Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways Keller and Carlisle spent nearly two years building Rorra before making their first sale. The company used AI to poke holes in the launch strategy for Rorra’s $249 water pitcher, then adjusted the plan based on the feedback. Rorra did eight figures in sales in its first year, and Keller says the company expects sales to grow two to three times this year A basic water filter pitcher typically costs around $20 to $40. Rorra, a startup water filtration company known for its stainless-steel countertop system, is asking $249 for…
Author: Staff Writer
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways If your AI agent performs a simple, easily replicated task — especially at a low price — customers can churn quickly when larger platforms offer the same capability for free. AI products that are built around a specific, “boring” industry’s paperwork, compliance and distribution channels (rather than a generic task) can command higher prices and create meaningful switching costs. Venture capital needs 10x growth off a thin horizontal wedge; a vertical AI business needs strong retention, margins and enough cash flow to fund its own growth rather than a VC’s…
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways Employee engagement directly influences customer satisfaction, making workplace culture a critical driver of business growth. Positive work environments create stronger first impressions, build customer trust and encourage long-term loyalty. Investing in employee well-being through supportive leadership, workplace amenities and growth opportunities leads to more consistent and effective customer experiences. As a CEO or business manager, ensuring customer satisfaction is a top priority. Without happy customers, achieving long-term revenue growth is nearly impossible. Consistently delivering positive customer experiences fosters trust, earns referrals and builds your reputation — all of which drive…
ASIA: The major Asian stock markets had a mixed day today: • NIKKEI 225 increased 495.04 points or 0.76% to 65,513.99 • Shanghai decreased 48.146 points or -1.22% to 3,888.374 • Hang Seng decreased 72.99 points or -0.29% to 24,761.13 • ASX 200 decreased 63.30 points or -0.72% to 8,702.00 • SENSEX decreased 1,247.71 points or -1.67% to 73,580.54 • Nifty50 decreased 383.70 points or -1.64% to 23,063.10 The major Asian currency markets had a mixed day today: • AUDUSD decreased 0.00263 or -0.37% to 0.70126 • NZDUSD decreased 0.00168 or -0.30% to 0.56572 • USDJPY increased 0.536 or 0.34%…
It’s raining boxes in Richardson, Texas. The city gave Amazon zoning approval in December to launch its Prime Air drone delivery program. Now some residents are ducking for cover. The 83-pound delivery drones, capable of carrying up to five pounds of cargo within a seven-and-a-half-mile radius, fly as low as 13 feet during drop-off, hovering while packages tumble out onto lawns and driveways, according to The New York Times. One resident, Stephanie Puri, tracked 52 drones overhead on what she called a slow day. “We hear them zoom, zoom, zoom, back and forth from morning until past dinnertime,” said Nikki…
This story has been updated. McDonald’s own menu innovation was hurting the very restaurants it was meant to help. New product launches came so fast that service slowed down and satisfaction dropped, the company admitted at its investor day this week. Now the company is spending $8.5 billion over a ten-year period to fix this issue and more, according to Bloomberg. The investment builds on McDonald’s “Next” growth plan, the company’s broader growth and productivity strategy focused on restaurant modernization, technology deployment, operational simplification and stronger restaurant economics. McDonald’s says the plan should make restaurants run more efficiently enough to…
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways AI’s next bottleneck may be electricity, not computing power. The real startup opportunity is in the messy infrastructure behind nuclear power. Founders who understand physical supply chains early could build the next essential AI businesses. For the past several years, building an AI company has largely meant competing for computing power. Founders raced for GPU access. Investors poured capital into data centers. The bottleneck everyone talked about was chips — who had them, who could get more, who was building the next generation.The International Energy Agency estimates global data-center electricity…
Key Takeaways Rent stress is impacting middle-income households, which saw the sharpest increase in financial hardship compared to other groups. Nearly 22% of middle-income renters said they could not pay their full rent on time at least once in 2025, up from about 14% the year before. Despite some middle-income earners making six-figure salaries, they are increasingly unable to afford rent. When you think of a middle-income household, you might presume that its members can comfortably afford to pay rent each month. After all, a new report from the Urban Institute defined middle-income as adults making between $31,300 and $62,600…
Robert Herjavec returns as an investor on ABC’s new season of “Shark Tank” this month. But long before he was a millionaire tech entrepreneur, he was an 8-year-old refugee who couldn’t speak English, according to the Wall Street Journal. Herjavec’s father, Vladimir, was arrested by Yugoslav authorities 22 times for refusing to join the Communist Party and criticizing the government. His mother, Katica, took a job to support the family while young Robert was sent to live with his grandmother in a small village. By 1970, his father had had enough. Late one night, the family piled into their car…
A new app lets you know when AI smart glasses are in the room with you. As anxiety grows over smart eyewear that can record people without their knowledge, the ZuckOff app works by logging nearby Bluetooth signals and flagging those it believes come from smart glasses. The app has limitations—still, it represents a clever bit of countersurveillance. Made by Polish developer Paweł Szydłowski, ZuckOff recognizes the manufacturer signatures of Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta, and Snap Spectacles with high certainty, but can also spot Bluetooth-enabled devices like HeyCyan, Apple Vision Pro, and VistaView at a lower confidence level. Szydłowski is…