• Call-service provider Moneypenny recently released their analysis of the industries hiring for the most jobs in major US cities.
• The healthcare and hospital industry had the most open positions in metropolitan cities, followed by retail and information technology.
• Here are the industries with the most job openings in 25 major US cities.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Major US cities have plenty of jobs for nurses and doctors.

Call-service provider Moneypenny analyzed thousands of LinkedIn job openings to determine which industries are hiring the most workers in 25 major cities.

Various cities had the most vacancies for jobs in the hospital and healthcare sector. The trend follows previous reports of increased need for healthcare workers across the country: nurses, doctors, and physician assistants will see some of the highest job growth by 2028, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Read more:25 recession-proof jobs for anyone worried about the next economic downturn

Retail also had plenty of job openings in major cities, as sellers like Walmart continue to employ millions of Americans.

Here are the industries with the most job openings in 25 major cities: 

SEE ALSO: The 25 major US companies with the happiest employees

25. Tampa, Florida, has the most open positions for healthcare and retail jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 18,235

Retail job openings: 11,619

24. Cleveland, Ohio, has the most open positions for healthcare and retail jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 16,494

Retail job openings: 14,299

23. Portland, Oregon, has the most open positions for healthcare and retail jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 19,539

Retail job openings: 12,813

22. Nashville, Tennessee, has the most open positions for healthcare and construction jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 19,229

Construction job openings: 13,977

21. Raleigh, North Carolina, has the most open positions for healthcare and IT jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 21,701

Information technology job openings: 11,885

20. Miami, Florida, has the most open positions for healthcare and retail jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 19,151

Retail job openings: 14,580

19. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has the most open positions for healthcare and retail jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 21,921

Retail job openings: 17,186

18. St. Louis, Missouri, has the most open positions for healthcare and wellness jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 25,334

Wellness job openings: 17,083

17. Phoenix, Arizona, has the most open positions for healthcare and retail jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 25,598

Retail job openings: 21,628

16. Detroit, Michigan, has the most open positions for healthcare and retail jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 28,812

Retail job openings: 18,819

15. Denver, Colorado, has the most open positions for healthcare and construction jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 26,494

Constructions job openings: 21,593

14. Baltimore, Maryland, has the most open positions for IT and healthcare jobs.

Information technology job openings: 27,892

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 22,641

13. Minneapolis, Minnesota, has the most open positions for healthcare and retail jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 27,251

Retail job openings: 23,961

12. Houston, Texas, has the most open positions for healthcare and construction jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 31,726

Construction job openings: 25,119

11. Atlanta, Georgia, has the most open positions for healthcare and IT jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 34,547

Information technology job openings: 26,785

10. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has the most open positions for healthcare and IT jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 40,945

Information technology job openings: 29,969

9. San Jose, California, has the most open positions for IT and computer software jobs.

Information technology job openings: 37,988

Computer software job openings: 34,341

8. Seattle, Washington, has the most open positions for healthcare and IT jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 40,196

Information technology job openings: 34,298

7. Dallas, Texas, has the most open positions for healthcare and construction jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 39,032

Construction job openings: 37,942

6. Chicago, Illinois, has the most open positions for healthcare and retail jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 55,032

Retail job openings: 42,563

5. Los Angeles, California, has the most open positions for healthcare and retail jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 58,225

Retail job openings: 43,421

4. Boston, Massachusetts, has the most open positions for healthcare and IT jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 76,666

Information technology job openings: 46,441

3. San Francisco, California, has the most open positions for IT and construction jobs.

Information technology job openings: 72,276

Construction job openings: 67,413

2. Washington, DC, has the most open positions for IT and computer software jobs.

Information technology job openings: 103,661

Computer software job openings: 63,802

1. New York City has the most open positions for healthcare and IT jobs.

Hospital and healthcare job openings: 131,175

Information technology job openings: 87,231

• Virtual reality has become part of onboarding for select employees at Fidelity and Hilton, where the tech is used for empathy training.
• At Fidelity, this means contact-center associates can better respond to customer needs.
• Hilton uses VR for internal empathy, specifically in helping corporate workers understand the experiences of employees involved in more hands-on work at the hotel.
• Read Business Insider's list of power players using VR to shape the future of the workplace here.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Top companies across industries are turning to virtual worlds to help their employees understand and better interact with people in the real one.

Fidelity and Hilton are key examples: Both include virtual-reality programs as key parts of their onboarding, with the mission of providing empathy training to new recruits.

Fidelity built a VR empathy-training course to help call center associates understand their customers. 

Adam Schouela, who leads the emerging-technology group within the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, told Business Insider that call center workers tend to be younger and may not have experience working with others.

"The idea was, 'Can we create a VR experience for our associates to better help them understand the perspective of our customers?'" Schouela said. "What is going on from our customer's perspective?"

Fidelity joins the ranks of companies like Hilton in trying to improve existing empathy training by incorporating VR. For both Fidelity and Hilton, adding simulated scenarios provided a step-up to help employees better understand each other, as well as the customers they serve. 

Emotional intelligence, the umbrella term that encompasses empathy, is actually high in 90% of top performers. Using VR in empathy training resulted in better overall outcomes for both companies, they told Business Insider.

VR lets workers see the impact of the service they provide

Fidelity's VR training virtually transports workers from call center to the homes of the customer in the mock interaction. The workers address the problem while seeing it play out, so they're connected to a real-life experience they may not have felt personally. 

They then virtually see the impact of the service they provide, whether positive or negative. This all underscores the bottom line of helping associates understand what the customer is going through, and why they're acting a certain way, to better serve them.

The VR training replaced more formal instruction within a classroom. Previously, select staff would enact a role-playing exercise while other new employees watched. With VR, everyone gets to go through every experience as many times as they want.

"It changes the dynamics of learning," Schouela said. "It changes from one person being active and everybody else being passive to almost the whole process being an active learning process."

Schouela tracked the customer-satisfaction scores of associates who went through the VR pilot training versus those who didn't. The team found enough of a difference to expand the pilot and think about scaling the program. 

"We've probably built 30, 40 different virtual-reality experiences in order to understand all of this stuff and really, truly see where we can apply these technologies internally within Fidelity and have it make a difference," Schouela said. 

Corporate hires at Hilton 'virtually sweat'

VR made a difference within Hilton by exposing corporate hires to an indispensable part of Hilton's business: hotel operations. Most of Hilton's corporate hires (80%) don't have direct hospitality experience, but they are tasked with supporting operations. The company looked for something that would build empathy but not take corporate employees out of their roles for too long (or cause operational difficulties).

That's where the VR Business Immersion program came in. 

"The experience allows team members to move through different hotel departments, including housekeeping, engineering, kitchens, and front desk," Gretchen Stroud, the vice president of talent development and team-member engagement at Hilton, told Business Insider. "They complete modules and 'virtually sweat' as they work through tasks like setting up a room-service tray or cleaning a room."

Nearly everyone who completed the pilot program last year said they had more empathy and appreciation for operations workers. The pilot was so successful that the VR-based program is now part of Hilton's six global corporate offices and required for all team members within their first year, Stroud said.

Since the program officially launched, more than 1,200 people have participated in the training, 87% of whom said the experience gave them more empathy and appreciation for the experiences of direct hotel staff. 

Instead of further detaching people from the real world, VR appears to help people better understand it.  

SEE ALSO: POWER PLAYERS: These 11 companies are leading the way workers use VR — and shaping the office of the future

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Business Insider attended an event in New York kicking off National Women's Small Business Month to hear from female entrepreneurs about their experiences and strategies for growing their businesses.
• Bank of America hosted the event and released its fourth annual report on the most pressing issues facing women small business owners.
• The report, which was conducted with Ipsos Public Affairs, found that 58% of women say they don't have the same access to capital as men. Only 42% of men share that opinion.
• Women entrepreneurs were more bullish than their male counterparts on some indicators like revenues and hiring, but remain frustrated by limited access to capital.
• The fourth annual Owner Spotlight asked a national sample of women-owned small businesses about their business outlook, financing options, societal issues, and other keys to success.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

When entrepreneur Camille Newman went in search of financing to run her business, she says she was met with a barrage of questions she felt were both invasive and insulting. She had an award-winning business plan and an underserved customer base, but could not raise the operating cash to keep going.

Newman, an African-American woman and the granddaughter of a tailor, started her high-fashion business, Pop Up Plus, as a series of private shopping parties for size 14 and up women like herself. Over the past nine years, Pop Up Plus transformed into an e-commerce site that's hosted pop-up retail experiences around New York.

This summer, Newman ran into cash flow challenges and could not secure the credit to continue growing her business — so she began to wind the company down. And she's not alone.

Through her involvement as a counselor with Brooklyn Women's Business Center at the Local Development Corporation East New York, Newman has worked with others grappling with the emotional experience of closing up shop.

"Access to capital is the number one issue," she said. "You could have good credit and a good balance sheet, and still have problems getting funding. I see it with my clients and in my own business."

Optimism in the face of persistent challenges

Newman and about 50 other women and men gathered at the Luminary collaboration space in New York on Tuesday evening to kick off National Women's Small Business Month, where a panel of women discussed their experiences in entrepreneurship and the challenges of building a business in a male-dominated marketplace.

Anchoring the discussion was the release of the fourth annual Women Business Owner Spotlight report from Bank of America and Ipsos Public Affairs. The study's top-line — that women entrepreneurs are overwhelmingly optimistic about near-term opportunities — was well-received by the attendees, who represented a diverse cross-section of businesses and backgrounds.

Behind the optimism is a more sobering fact: more than 30 years after Congress outlawed gender discrimination by lenders, 58% of women surveyed say they still have unequal access to capital. In addition, nearly a quarter of women surveyed said they believe female entrepreneurs will never achieve the same capital access as men.

"It's disappointing — I don't want that," said Sharon Miller, Bank of America's Head of Small Business, in an interview. "I want everyone to understand that there is equal access to capital. Bank of America's response is 'come in, and let's help you grow your business.'"

Miller said that women are actually over-represented among Bank of America small business clients, compared with the general population, and pointed to increasing representation of women in upper management and local branches at the company as evidence of the company's attitude toward equal opportunity.

"Whether you're a man or a women, it's a business," she said.

The fact remains that the decision-makers in the business world are mostly men, and leaders of either gender tend to be white. The majority of male business owners in the survey, by the way, said they believe women already have equal access to funding.

Drawing strength and support from diversity

At the Spotlight event, women of color described feeling either invisible or shunned as they navigated the business world. Panelist Deepti Sharma spoke candidly about the obstacles she faced as she built her food-service company.

"Venture funders were asking me when I was going to have kids," Sharma said. "Even my friends and relatives don't ask that!"

After watching men she felt had weaker proposals successfully build their funding base, she realized she needed to take a bolder, riskier approach to networking.

"Now I pitch myself for everything," she said. "I get a lot of No's, but I also get some great Yes's."

Also of note: For the first time in the survey's four-year history, women reported stronger intentions than men on expanding operations, raising revenue, and hiring workers.

Sharon Miller expressed hope that the outlook will translate into more women approaching her bank earlier in their development. "Women in general think they have to have it all right before they come in," she said.

"Come in sooner, rather than later when you need the money, so that you can work with someone that's going you understand what you need to do to get a loan," Miller said.

Speaking on the panel, Miller added she wants women entrepreneurs to know the bank is there for more than just financing. It can also be a source of advice and insights about how to refine an idea.

"It does no one — not you, not the bank, not your community — any good if your business fails," she said.

According to the survey, more than half of women believe their local business conditions were improving, but looking ahead to the coming year, they reported a heightened concern over consumer spending and trade issues than they were six months ago.

As important as all of these factors are, the crowd murmured in agreement when Sharma said women entrepreneurs want one thing most of all.

"Don't tell me I have a nice business," she said. "Buy from me."

If you or someone you know runs a women's small business with a story to share, please email Dominick at dreuter@businessinsider.com

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Paul Constant is a writer at Civic Ventures, a cofounder of the Seattle Review of Books, and a frequent co-host of the Pitchfork Economics podcast with Nick Hanauer.
• In this opinion piece, he argues that the philanthropic system in America is "broken," with billionaires providing the funding for systems that have been defunded by elites.
• The most egregious type of philanthropy is when companies "reputation-wash," or wash away their sins by donating a fraction of their revenue.
• To that end, Constant says it's time to discuss ending tax loopholes that allow companies to profit from corporate giving.
• For more on this topic, listen to the latest episode of Pitchfork Economics. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

It feels socially unacceptable for me to admit that our philanthropic system is broken. Bill and Melinda Gates, after all, are eradicating polio worldwide through the good work of their foundation. Around the country on any given day, corporations and the super-rich are donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to charities that house the homeless, help educate children, and generally improve the quality of life for the poorest Americans. How can any of this possibly be perceived as a bad thing?

Most of the social benefits that billionaires deliver now — space programs and vaccinations, scientific research, and educational investments — used to be funded with tax dollars and distributed through the federal government. But an ongoing campaign started in the Reagan Administration by proponents of trickle-down economics convinced pretty much everyone that anything government can do with taxpayer dollars, private enterprise can do better, faster, and more efficiently. (Which, by the way, isn't true — a growing body of evidence suggests that the public sector is more efficient than the private sector.) To a grateful nation that's been addled by four decades straight of runaway income inequality, the good works provided by wealthy people far outweigh the decades of punishment that those same magnanimous elites have delivered to the tax-funded safety net.

Journalistic firebrand Anand Giridharadas literally wrote the book on the charade of philanthropic giving. Subtitled "The Elite Charade of Changing the World," Giridharadas's new-in-paperback book "Winners Take All" explains the practice of philanthropy as a kind of shell game disguising the sins of the top one percent behind an ostentatious facade of do-gooding. Through philanthropy, Giridharadas warns in the latest episode of Pitchfork Economics, the wealthiest people and corporations on the planet "can do bad things in the billions and do good things in the millions."

Perhaps the clearest — and, to my mind, the most egregious — form of corporate philanthropy comes in "reputation-washing." Corporations do this all the time: they contribute some small (but very visible) amount of money toward the solution for a problem that they themselves have created in the hunt for outsize profits. The glow of philanthropic giving obscures the exponential wealth that the corporation draws from the situation they're ostensibly trying to solve. It is, literally, throwing good money after bad. 

You can't get much more stereotypically American than Coca-Cola. The sugary beverage-maker has for decades worked to hide its clear connection to obesity, while at the same time supporting youth sports initiatives and building playing fields for young women in underserved communities. This giving serves as a smokescreen on two fronts: in addition to creating a general air of concern about public health, it also advertises Coca-Cola products to children — a practice that Coke has sworn not to do. 

Coca-Cola also donates thousands of dollars to "support citizen science efforts to study the prevalence of micro-plastics ... a serious and growing concern, both for the environment and for human health." (Coca-Cola uses three million tons of plastics in its packaging per year.)  And the millions of dollars that Coke puts toward clean-water initiatives is a drop in the bucket compared to the company's extractive water use. 

Reputation-washing isn't just for the soft drink business. Exxon earlier this year was proud to issue a press release announcing it has donated $350,000 "to United Way and the American Red Cross to support local flooding relief assistance associated with tropical storm Imelda in the Beaumont and greater Houston areas in Texas"— a terrible storm that was worsened by climate change caused by fossil fuels. Other oil and gas manufacturers like BP similarly donate to disaster relief funds.

Perhaps the most craven form of reputation-washing can be found in the firearm industry. The website for the National Rifle Association trumpets the fact that"Smith & Wesson supports children's charities with its annual Night of Laughter event featuring live comedy acts," without acknowledging that their AR-15-style rifles were used in countless mass shootings, including the Parkland massacre. It's entirely possible — maybe even likely — that Smith & Wesson has donated some small sum to a hospital that has treated victims of a massacre committed with weapons made by Smith & Wesson.

Read more: How American culture and a sense of 'aggrieved entitlement' in males can lead to mass shooters

In the end, philanthropy serves as a kind of respectable Dr. Jekyll to a corporation's profiteering Mr. Hyde personality. For less than a tenth of one percent of its total revenue, a corporation can wash all its sins away. In fact, if you want to find out what a corporation's worst transgressions are, you don't have to be an investigative journalist: just look at where it donates its charitable giving. Those blandly named funds and foundations and grants and prizes all gesture directly to the source of the corporation's unimaginable wealth — a problem's cause and its effect, all wrapped up in a package of good vibes and glossy marketing.

The value that these corporations enjoy from philanthropy doesn't just end at good press and positive consumer feelings. Even though reputation-washing is the equivalent of putting a Band-Aid on top of a broken bone, corporations profit from the tax deductions they earn in exchange for their charitable giving. It's time to begin a public discussion about ending or capping the tax-deductible loopholes that corporations ruthlessly exploit for profit and public relations. The system is broken, and no amount of feel-good donations can fix it.

Paul Constant is a writer at Civic Ventures, a public policy incubator based out of Seattle, and a cofounder of the Seattle Review of Books. His writing has been published in the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed News, the New York Observer, and the Seattle Times.

Listen to the Podcast: In 2014, venture capitalist Nick Hanauer warned his fellow plutocrats that our growing crisis of economic inequality would lead to an uprising or a dictatorship. Two years later, angry voters elected Donald Trump. In Pitchfork Economics, Nick explores why the pitchforks are coming, who they're coming for, and how the stories we tell about the economy can change the economy itself.

SEE ALSO: Female CEOs are 45% more likely to get fired than males. Here are 6 high-achieving women who bounced back after a major firing

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Girlboss Radio is a podcast by Sophia Amoruso.
• Here, she interviews Huda Kattan, the founder and CEO of Huda Beauty, who discusses her journey from working at Dunkin' Donuts to being named one of Forbes's richest women.
• When Huda first set out to sell lashes, nobody would bite. When she finally sold what was meant to be a year's stock to a Sephora in Dubai, it sold out in a week.
• Huda also described getting up at 5 a.m. every day, working with a life coach, becoming a parent, and her proudest moments so far.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Sophia Amoruso: Girlboss Radio is the show for and about ambitious women exploring the wins, losses and insights learned on the winding road to success. I'm so happy you're joining me today.

If you're a makeup lover, our next guest needs no introduction. She's known all over YouTube and Instagram for her quirky, fun and super helpful videos filled with all sorts of beauty tips. She's also a massive entrepreneur. Her name is Huda Kattan. She's the founder and CEO of Huda Beauty. Huda went from being a makeup artist and YouTuber to a fully fledged entrepreneur who is at the top of her game and has been for a while. In a few short years since Huda launched Huda Beauty with her two sisters, the company has now grown into a billion dollar business. And it all started with some eyelashes, and a willingness to stick to her vision.

Huda Kattan, founder and CEO of Huda Beauty

Sophia Amoruso: We have a lot in store for you in this episode, so stay tuned to hear how Huda got started, how she organizes her workdays and how she manages to stay balanced while growing her beauty empire.

Hopefully, it's helpful. It was certainly helpful to me. Here's our conversation.

So Huda, wow. You have about 45 million followers across your social channels.

Huda Kattan: Yeah.

Sophia Amoruso: Your company is worth over a billion dollars.

Huda Kattan: Yeah.

Sophia Amoruso: Your net worth is over $550 million and you have an incredible chart topping beauty collection, a Facebook watch series. I want to talk about your incredible trajectory, but first I want to start at the beginning because we all have a first job and usually those aren't as glamorous as the kind of things we're going to talk about today. Huda, what was your first job?

Huda Kattan: So I had a couple of jobs I did at the same time when I first started. I was working at a clothing store and then I was also at Dunkin' Donuts, which, I was really good at making coffee, I have to tell you. I was like a barista.

Huda worked at Dunkin' — and it still influences her career

Sophia Amoruso: What did you learn from Dunkin' Donuts that you think you might be applying to your career today?

Huda Kattan: Do you know, what's so funny is I feel like very early on, I really liked serving people and I still feel it now, it's really weird, but I feel I love the idea of being of service to people. It's really funny but I feel like we don't think about it a lot of times, but a lot of us actually do like to do that. With your mission Girlboss, that's clearly a huge service to all women. So I think a lot of times we don't think about it but we are serving people and I actually genuinely love it. There's just something about it that just feels very gratifying. Maybe it sounds selfless but it's actually kind of selfish as well. We feel good when we do that , so I love it.

Sophia Amoruso: Does Dunkin' know like you worked at Dunkin'?

Huda Kattan: I don't think so.

Sophia Amoruso: You should totally do something with Dunkin' and teach us all how to reapply lipstick after we drink our coffee.

Huda Kattan: Maybe, maybe. I wore a lot of makeup when I was at Dunkin' Donuts.

Sophia Amoruso: And you worked in finance at some point?

Huda Kattan: Yeah, I graduated. I did my undergrad in finance and I didn't really work in finance because I didn't want to be an investment banker or any of that stuff. I hated it. Very quickly when I like was about to finish my degree, I was like, "I made a mistake. This was not what I should've done. I should've done marketing," but it was too late and it would have taken too long to graduate. So I ended up going in as an investment ... As a recruiter for finance.

Sophia Amoruso: Oh wow.

Huda Kattan: So I didn't like that either.

Sophia Amoruso: There's so many of our guests who start in finance in some way and then just describe how much they hated it.

Huda Kattan: Oh, it's bad.

Sophia Amoruso: But I think maybe, I would recommend to our listeners, get into finance and hate it because you end up being a really successful person.

Huda Kattan: It's funny because I think it can be quite ... It can be quite challenging to work in finance. The industry itself, the people who are there are not as friendly. So I think that can be really, really hard for some people.

Sophia Amoruso: It doesn't sound very ... Maybe not very funny.

Huda Kattan: Yeah.

Sophia Amoruso: And you're probably making more ... You're definitely making more money now than you would have in finance.

Huda Kattan: Yeah, I know. Well, depending on like what I was doing.

Sophia Amoruso: Yeah. So prior to your beauty empire, you were a makeup artist. How did you get your break into that? Because you worked with a lot of celebrities, which I think even that alone is really challenging. How did you get into that?

Huda Kattan: So I was really confused about what I wanted to do as far as what was going to be my next step because obviously I spent my whole entire life building my resume and believing that that was the role I needed to take it. Then we had the financial crash in 2008 that was literally the year I graduated. And I was like, "Well, this is obviously what I thought was going to be so solid and it's not." I'm driving up the road, I'm broke, I have no money but I need to feel good so I'm going to buy lipstick to make myself feel good.

It was crazy because I really didn't realize what was happening in the world and what was going on. But there was a change and it was an interesting time I think. I'm so glad I studied finance then and I graduated then because had I maybe worked a longer, I would have probably been more patient. If I didn't go through what I went through and if I didn't get fired, I'd still be working there.

Sophia Amoruso: So you got fired. What'd you get fired for?

Huda Kattan: My boss said I didn't belong there. He was right. He was right.

Sophia Amoruso: That is a really weird reason to get fired.

Huda Kattan: Yeah. He said to me —

Sophia Amoruso: "You don't belong"?

Huda Kattan: Yeah. He said, "Why aren't you studying makeup or fashion?" And I was like, "I'm going to prove you wrong and work even harder." He's like, "No, you're not."

Sophia Amoruso: That's a great push in the right direction.

Huda Kattan: It was.

Sophia Amoruso: Sometimes things that seem really, really bad and really hard for us ... We're pushed out of things that seem to be our pat and send us in the right direction.

Huda Kattan: Totally, yeah.

Sophia Amoruso: You were a very early YouTuber and you mentioned someone who can get into vlogging now. Do you think ... How much harder and more crowded is it now? Are there people that you're seeing breakout right now in the vlogging space?

Huda Kattan: It's definitely happening. There's some people who've come in quite late and they're blowing up really fast and I really think it depends on if what they're offering is something new and something interesting. I think people are looking for people who have a different perspective, a different point of view and they want to hear it. People who aren't afraid to speak their mind. I love following that. So I think there is definitely space. It just depends on what do you think is your point of differentiation?

Sophia Amoruso: Are there any up and comers that you would shout out or be like, "Damn,"—

Huda Kattan: There's a lot.

Sophia Amoruso: I think they're really interesting. Is there a few that we could go follow?

Huda Kattan: There is a lot. Gosh, where do I even start? I obviously know the ones on Instagram a lot. Oh man, there's so many. There is this one girl that I'm obsessed with who just recently got pregnant. Her name is Jesus Gang. She's so dope. She's Nigerian. She's in New York. She's just so beautiful. All her pictures are stunning. She's kind of a natural beauty. She's just so beautiful. I also met this really cute girl the other day. Her name is XOXO Charlie MUA. So adorable. Does a lot of colorful eyes. She's beautiful. Her makeup beat is like lawless. Yeah, I would give the two of them shout outs. They're really sweet.

Huda started her YouTube channel in 2007, and watched the platform surpass blogs

Sophia Amoruso: So you started your YouTube channel back in 2007?

Huda Kattan: So I was actually ... I opened my account and I think I was watching videos.

Sophia Amoruso: Okay.

Huda Kattan: I wasn't actually making videos yet.

Sophia Amoruso: Because we went all the way back to the beginning. It was 2010 when you started making things?

Huda Kattan: To be honest, for YouTube I started but I feel like I didn't really properly do videos until recently. I was popping a video out and people were like, "Oh my God, your YouTube tutorials are the best." And I wasn't doing them regularly. I was really focusing on a blog. Huda Beauty was my blog at the time and that's all I was doing. So it's kind of crazy because now I feel like YouTube is definitely bigger. Blogging has kind of died.

Sophia Amoruso: Yeah. How did you build your ... Because people don't go to websites in the same way that they used to.

Huda Kattan: We still get a lot of unique users.

Sophia Amoruso: Yeah. Yeah. How did you go about building that audience on your blog?

Huda Kattan: We were using so many ... We were, at the time, it's so funny because I feel like now you do 360 social marketing. You promote yourself on Twitter, you promote yourself on Facebook, you promote yourself everywhere. We were doing that at the time. We were trying to grow ourselves on Facebook. We were just starting on Instagram and we were literally like pushing everything, all the posts, 360 at the time. And that was really good. Facebook was probably the first thing that we used and that was really helpful because we were able to go global really, really well. We were so popular in the Middle East, but getting to other parts of the world, like New York and California or Australia, Asia, we really had to use social media for that.

Sophia Amoruso: So you are one of the most followed people on Instagram. You have 37 million followers. Just tell me how. I'm sure it's a really long story, but what are the things that you think primarily contributed to what you've achieved, at least with your Instagram following?

Huda Kattan: Yeah, I think we are not shy or nervous when it comes to beauty, so we definitely pushed the envelope.

  ... Are nervous when it comes to beauty, so we definitely push the envelope a lot. And I think people like it. Sometimes when I run into people ... Like I was doing a video once with Bella Hadid, and she was like, "I see the weirdest shit on your Instagram, and I can't stop watching it. I get lost in this vortex on your Instagram page." And I feel like that's one thing ... I will put almost anything on my face. I'll almost try any procedure or anything, just because I, first of all, I'm so curious about how it works. And then, secondly, I just think it's fun. And so I think people are like usually interested that we're going to show them something new, most probably.

Sophia Amoruso: And you are ... You have a Facebook Watch show called Huda Boss?

Huda Kattan: Huda Boss.

Sophia Amoruso: All right.

Huda Kattan: Who is the boss?

Sophia Amoruso: You're the boss, just by the way. And you create so much social content. What does your team look like? How do you create that much content across multiple accounts? You've @Huda, you have @HudaBeauty, you have @HudaShop?

Huda Kattan: Yeah, that's right.

Sophia Amoruso: Shop?

Huda Kattan: Yeah. HudaBeautyShop.

Sophia Amoruso: I followed all three.

Huda Kattan: Oh, I love you.

Sophia Amoruso: I already followed you. But what is creating that amount of content like? I mean, you wake up ... How early in the morning does that start?

Huda Kattan: Oh my God. Do you really ... I'm a nerd. I'm not cool. I pretend to be cool on social media, but I'm not.

Sophia Amoruso: We're all nerds here.

Huda Kattan: I wake up at, usually on the latest, 6 a.m., but I try to wake up at 5 a.m., pretty diligently every day. And then I start my day really early, and then by 10 a.m. I'm done with my day and I'm ready to start meetings. And I'm very firm on that. That's non-negotiable. If I don't do that, I'm really bitchy.

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Sophia Amoruso: And be done with your day by 10 a.m. What does that mean?

Huda Kattan: I've done everything I need to do. I've shot my tutorials, I've done my personal content, I've spent time with my daughter, I've journaled, all that shit that I need to do, like from ... I will do yoga, or whatever it is from 5 a.m.  til a.m.. So those five hours for me are everything.

Sophia Amoruso: How many hours a night do you sleep?

Huda Kattan: I sleep eight to nine hours a day.

Sophia Amoruso: So you go to bed at like, 9:00.

Huda Kattan: Yeah, 8:30, 9:00.

Sophia Amoruso: That's amazing.

Huda Kattan: If I wake up at 5:00, I have to go to bed kind of early, so I usually do try to wake up at 6:00 if I can.

Sophia Amoruso: So you started Huda Beauty in 2013 with your sisters?

Huda Kattan: Yeah. So complicated.

Sophia Amoruso: Yeah, what led you to start your own line? I know you had ... There was a debacle with eyelashes that that started everything.

Huda Kattan: So true. There was no good eyelashes out there. And I have no eyelashes. Literally, when I remove these, if I were to move them up, I have no eyelashes. It's so weird. I am such a hairy person, and for whatever reason I have more hairs on my lip than I do on my eyelashes. It's so weird. So I became very obsessed with them at a very young age. I was like, "Oh my God, I want lashes. My sisters have beautiful lashes. I feel like a boy." And so I didn't know ... I did not want to start a brand. Personally, I did not think I was capable of starting a brand. I always told myself," I'm not a business woman. I am not capable of that. That's just, I'm staying in my lane. Content creator, that's who I am." And I genuinely love to create content. But then my sisters kind of forced me to start our brand.

And I'll be honest, I've gone through a lot of positions and also emotions, and I've transformed a lot as a person. Like having to be in a place where ... I always say this: We don't know what we're capable of. And you get put into position, and you don't even know, all of a sudden you become somebody you never thought you would become. I didn't want to become CEO of our company. My husband was like, "You have to be." And it really taught me so much about myself. It's really crazy. You don't know what you're capable of until you're forced into that position. And so I can't say that enough.

Sophia Amoruso: I think people underestimate, they say, "Work, work, you're working all the time," but when you are on a trajectory and you're able to go down rabbit holes and learn things, it's ... Business can be such an opportunity for personal growth, because you're just pushed into things you have absolutely no control over, and you're buried under it and you have to find your way out.

Huda Kattan: If you don't have the personal growth, you won't be able to deal with what's to come. And I feel like we've ... I've always, I do a lot of personal development, and I feel like I do the inside work so I can deal with the outside. If I don't, I literally, I can't talk to people. I can't, I'm almost debilitated. So I think it's really important. I've been forcing my team to do that, too.

Sophia Amoruso: And you work with a coach?

Huda Kattan: I do. I've had a life coach for three years.

Sophia Amoruso: How is that ... What does your life coach do?

Huda Kattan: She's almost like my therapist.

Sophia Amoruso: Do you go to therapy, too?

Huda Kattan: No, I don't. She's kind of both, if I'm honest. She's amazing. She's a psychologist, but she's also genuinely an amazing life coach. And I feel like a lot of times just saying things out loud puts things in perspective, and you're almost like, "Okay, so I feel this way. I feel frustrated because I want to do this, and I feel like there's so much more that I want to happen," but you have all those feelings inside. And then when you start putting them outside, all of a sudden you're like, "Oh my God, this is actually how I fix this, and this is why this is happening. And maybe I need to be a little patient here." But it's just, it puts a lot of clarity. The only thing I will tell you is I know there's a lot of life coaches out there, and I think that you really need to find the right one for you. That's really what changed my life a lot. She's amazing.

Sophia Amoruso: So I want to get back to Huda Beauty.

Huda Kattan: Yes.

Sophia Amoruso: How did you initially fund it?

Huda Kattan: So I borrowed $6,000 from my sister, and I promised her if I didn't sell the lashes, I was going to wear them all and then pay her back one lash at a time. And she agreed. She's really nice. I actually calculated, I was like, "Wow, that would have taken me my entire lifetime to pay her back." It would have been crazy. And then, so we funded it ourselves, and then it wasn't enough, honestly, so I had to do a couple of makeup gigs. But we were struggling. We were struggling so badly for the first couple of years, and actually, the distributor we had at the time was like, "Hey, we'll help fund you guys." And it was really challenging, because then they ended up not ordering that many products, because I think they wanted to keep our value down, and it was really challenging.

Sophia Amoruso: How did you figure out how to make eyelashes?

Huda Kattan: Oh, God. My sister Mona forced me into it, because I was like, "I'm not going to do this. We're not starting a brand. We're not going to do it." She's like, "No, we are." And she actually found manufacturers that we could work with, and I was cutting them up and making them, and she was taking those and sending them over. She forced me to start this. She literally forced me.

Sophia Amoruso: Are you so grateful?

Huda Kattan: I am, but I don't know if she's grateful, because I feel like I drive her crazy now.

Sophia Amoruso: Well, hopefully she has equity in the company.

Huda Kattan: She has a lot.

Sophia Amoruso: She can be grateful for that.

At first, nobody was interested in Huda's lashes — then they sold out a year's supply in a week at a Sephora in Dubai

Sophia Amoruso: You had some early issues, obviously, it sounds like with your distributor.

Huda Kattan: Yeah.

Sophia Amoruso: But when you tried to get your lashes into Sephora, they didn't bite.

Huda Kattan: No. Nobody bit.

Sophia Amoruso: How did you transform that no into a yes?

Huda Kattan: It took a lot of time. I know it's really weird, but I'm a firm believer in energy and all these things. And I always, I know this sounds so weird, and I can't say this enough, I trust my intuition before I trust a logical decision. And I've used it 99% of the time, and the 1% of the time that I haven't, it's always been something I've regretted. So the company knows sometimes I'm going to make a decision that's going to be completely based on gut, and they need to trust it. And I feel like I'm very connected with it.

So when we were picking out who we needed to go with as a distributor, basically everyone told us they didn't think we had a chance. Finally, somebody, these two girls, they were amazing, they believed in what we were doing. They put us in front of Sephora, and we pitched the hell out of it. Sephora US was not interested in us at the time. Nobody really was, except for this Sephora Dubai Mall. They were willing to try us out and see how we did, and we closed up shop. We sold everything. Everything they had, they had thought they were going to have for a year, we closed out in like, a week.

Read more: I'm a mom who quit my job, sold my house, and invested every dollar I had into launching a company that's grown 2,000% in 5 years

Sophia Amoruso: And Dubai's an amazing market for the beauty business.

Huda Kattan: It is, yeah.

Sophia Amoruso: Why do you think?

Huda Kattan: I mean, people there love beauty. They're not afraid to experiment with beauty. It's part of the culture from a very young age. I feel like in the States, people don't wear as much makeup. They don't necessarily need to. We have features that can take a lot of makeup. Like my eyelids, if I don't wear a ton of eyeliner, they just look different. I look so much better with liner. So I do feel like it's ... You know, it's so weird. I grew up in Tennessee and I was like, "Why am I wearing so much eyeliner? I don't understand." But it's genuinely our features can take it. I wear crazy lashes.

Sophia Amoruso: They're beautiful. I've been looking.

Huda Kattan: Thank you. Thank you.

The value of having a great product

Sophia Amoruso: You've really cut through a lot of noise, and that doesn't come from having a huge audience. You have to have a great product.

Huda Kattan: Thank you.

Sophia Amoruso: What would you say the unique value proposition is about Huda Beauty? Because it's, yes, of course it's you, but the product stands for itself.

Huda Kattan: I think a couple of things. I really think we're very innovative when it comes to products, and I feel like it kind of reflects back onto our content. We always push the boundaries when it comes to content, we always push the boundaries with product. We are one of the brands ... Quite frankly, we were the first to do many things, whether it was asking people ... We created these amazing pigments back in 2016 when we first launched makeup, and it was like, you had to use your finger in order to use them, and everybody was so mad at us. But then it became a thing, because your finger was better. And so many other brands started doing it, and we're talking luxury brands, who were telling us very directly, "We loved it. We were inspired by it." Who ... I won't name names, but it was really, it was amazing to see happen. And then we had a lot of things like that happen. And I feel like now there's an expectation on us to deliver high quality but also innovative products.

Sophia Amoruso: How do you stay on top of things? Because the beauty industry changes really quickly. There's trends that emerge, what you described with applying makeup with your fingers, and then now we're on to something else. Do you do trend research? Do you just stay close to the content creators that are making things today? We can be really successful, and then be like, "Oh, that worked," and keep doing the same thing.

Huda Kattan: I'm not data-driven though. I refuse to read data.

Sophia Amoruso: Okay. So is it all gut? Like, "This is what's next?"

Huda Kattan: 100%. Actually, I create trend moodboards for my team to come see. Because they're always like, "The Pantone color — " and I'm like, "It's wrong this year. I guarantee you guys, it's wrong this year. I promise you, I feel like it's something else." And I feel also like everybody else is doing something, and why are we going to do the same thing? So a lot of people will be absorbing the same data. I'm like, "If I'm getting this data, that means all the other companies are getting this data as well. So maybe we need to do something different."

Yeah, we have the most amazing team we have. We're a little bit under 200 people right now. So we're not small, but we're also not big for a beauty brand. We're actually quite small for a beauty brand. But we have a very interesting team. I feel like they are very intuitive. They understand the importance of feeling and emotion, and putting those things into products, and I think it's really powerful.

Sophia Amoruso: How has your role in the company changed? Because you're obviously not someone who just slaps their name on things. This product —

Huda Kattan: Yeah, I feel like I drive everyone crazy because of that.

Sophia Amoruso: Wouldn't be as great as it is if you weren't doing that. And I know you're probably very much in the weeds, as all founders are in the very beginning. You have 200 people now, it sounds like you finish the content part of your day at 10:00 AM, and you're very involved with your business. How has your role changed, your contribution to the company, and the team, and the way you're spending your time changed from day one, to year two, to now?

Huda Kattan: It's really weird, because in the beginning, you're doing ... I mean I remember the first lip product that we did. I literally had ... I mean, we had an office, but nobody was in it. I took a plate, like a plate for food, and I was mixing paint to make the shades. And I did everything wrong then. Like we did the packaging, but we didn't finish all the compliance at the time. It was really bad. And so we were such a small team, but we were so gritty and so scrappy. And I feel like now, we're bigger and we're doing things more correctly, but I still feel like we're still so small. So I don't know, maybe in my head I still want to do the small stupid ... Like yesterday, I edited my video for Instagram, and then I created a lot of content for Snapchat. And then I sent it to my team, and was like, "Oh, can we create this kind of stuff?" I probably should be less involved. I just can't help myself.

Sophia Amoruso: So you got private equity from TSG.

Huda Kattan: Yeah, 2017.

Sophia Amoruso: Which is primo money.

Huda Kattan: Yeah.

Sophia Amoruso: I can't remember who they've invested in, but —

Huda Kattan: NYX cosmetics.

Sophia Amoruso: The best.

Huda Kattan: Yeah. Smashbox. They're great. They do, there's a lot of consumer goods for them.

Sophia Amoruso: At what point did you know it was time to take that kind of institutional capital and catapult your business and your valuation to over a billion dollars?

Huda Kattan: Yeah. I felt like there was a point where we needed help, and I just felt like in order to really compete in the beauty industry, we needed more people. And really, really, we have the most amazing team who built the company, but they need better mentors. Because at that point, I was kind of a lot of people's mentor, and I was not the best person, at all. They needed a real product development strategy, real PR strategy, real distribution strategy, and all of my stuff is gut. So I'm always like, "I feel like we should be there, because that's where I shop." And, "That's where I feel like we need to be because of this." And don't get me wrong, we still use a lot of that, but now there is a lot of ... We were just talking about that, there's healthy debate, because I'm like, "I feel like this." And then they give me a reason, and then we kind of, we're all reasonable people. We hire really amazing, kind, genius, reasonable people. And I feel like because of that, we use intuition, but there's also data there, too.

Sophia Amoruso: What do you look for when you hire those team members?

What it takes to be "Huda Beauty material"

Huda Kattan: Oh, we have a type, we call it Huda Beauty material. It's a type, you'll feel it. And if you're in our UK office, our US office, oh man, the Dubai office, there's a type. They're a little quirky. They're not boring. They're really smart. They give so many fucks. I feel like that's a prerequisite. They have to care so much, so much. That's probably the most important thing and then I like nice people. I don't work with assholes.

When Huda made it onto Forbes's richest women list

Sophia Amoruso: I think the way people work when they take their work personally and they take accountability for their work and they own their work and they also feel like they can go run with their work to a certain extent. It sounds like you're letting people do that more and more —

Huda Kattan: Trying to.

Sophia Amoruso: ... and you're listening to smart people's feedback and sometimes getting proven wrong, which can be also really thrilling.

Huda Kattan: It's great because it's like a different perspective.

Sophia Amoruso: So you're number 37 on the Forbes richest women list. That's a big deal. How did that feel that moment that Forbes called you and said, "Listen, you're one of the richest women in the country?"

Huda Kattan: So I'm very private. So when that number came out, to be honest, I was a little taken back. I felt I had not submitted ... My team had actually shared some data and we didn't realize that that was then going to go into that list and I'm honored to be on the list. I love Forbes. I think it's an amazing publication. I just didn't know I was going to go onto that self-made list. So at the time I was shy, I guess. If that makes sense. I just didn't know. Like we've been very private with everything. Our company had been so successful but been very private about that. And so that was something that I kind of thought we would keep. And then at that point we were like, let's just, for the most part, everything's out there.

Sophia Amoruso: Did you celebrate?

Huda Kattan: No.

Sophia Amoruso: That's amazing. That's who the boss? You the boss. Just keep moving.

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Huda Kattan: Yeah. Because the reality is too, I don't think where you are really determines what you're doing. I think where you're going determines who you are. So for me it's like, I always say to my team, "We may not be where we want to be yet, but it doesn't matter. It's like, where are we going?"

Sophia Amoruso: Where are you going?

Huda Kattan: Where are we going? We're going, ah, you know, I think to put it best, TSG said this to me and I really, I fell in love with them for a few reasons, but one, I feel like they saw the vision and they said to me "Like Estee Lauder was the 20th century. Huda Beauty is the 21st century." So they really understood that Estee Lauder is something that I aspire to be like. I love the idea of becoming a conglomerate and the idea of being something that can change the beauty industry. That's something we talk about a lot.

We really want to change the face of beauty. I feel like it's time. Beauty has been a certain message for a long time and people want something different. And if there's any brand to do it, we have to be the brand to do it. We do it, we're doing it. But I really want to make sure that people know that it's our commitment. It's our mission.

Sophia Amoruso: What is your definition of beauty?

Huda Kattan: When I was young it was something I feel like people either had or they were had nots about it. And you really felt it. Like if you didn't feel beautiful, it felt terrible. And for me it was more of an image at the time. And now I feel like it's completely an emotion. It's completely a feeling. And that's why I feel like it's so empowering. I felt like it was probably not represented correctly and I feel like there is an opportunity to show people how powerful it can be. When people feel beautiful, they feel powerful, like straight up. They feel powerful, they feel empowered, they feel just more strong. They feel strength, feel good.

Sophia Amoruso: It's transformative.

Huda Kattan: It is.

Sophia Amoruso: You know, Nasty Gal, it was like, it wasn't a leather jacket. It was a leather jacket that a girl bought and basically, it was like —

Huda Kattan: She bought it —

Sophia Amoruso: I'm more confident. I'm wearing this and I'm going to go out in the world and this is an alchemical experience. I've been transformed. It was like a prayer to her future, more than it was a purchase.

Huda Kattan: 100%.

Sophia Amoruso: That feeling is really important. It's really, really rare that someone can build a brand that gives people that kind of feeling.

Huda Kattan: I mean it's, it's work. We do it all the time. The team is really vested in that, so we do it all the time, but it's something you have to constantly talk about. You have to constantly tell people that that's your mission. Because sometimes they'll forget. They'll take their makeup off and then they'll feel like they're not beautiful anymore. I'm like, well no, you're the same. They're the same person. So it's something that we constantly have to kind of communicate to people and let them know what is facts.

Sophia Amoruso: So you're into fragrance now.

Huda Kattan: Yes.

Sophia Amoruso: You've launched fragrance recently. Tell me about, is it Kayali?

Huda Kattan: Kayali, yeah. Kayali, which is Arabic, which means my imagination and the concept really is derived around creating these mixes of fragrances. It's my sister's project and I want to support her in it. But it's beautiful. It's beautiful to say the least. She's very talented.

Sophia Amoruso: I wish we could all smell it over the podcast. 

Huda Kattan: Well make sure you guys get some.

Sophia Amoruso: There's so many huge accomplishments over the course of your career. What would you say your proudest moment is? Or what are you proudest of?

Huda Kattan: That's a tough one. I have a lot of personal things that I'm more proud of. I think I'm growing as a human being. My daughter, being a mom to her has been really rewarding. I didn't want to be a parent in the beginning and then I got pregnant accidentally and it's been a beautiful thing. It's taught me a lot of patience. I feel like that's like the thing I've learned most from being a mom is that you need to respect the time and everything and it's been beautiful. She makes me more creative too, which I love. She makes me feel good.

Read more: I prioritized my career over my personal life, and I have (almost) no regrets

Sophia Amoruso: So there's this question I ask everybody who comes on Girlboss Radio. There's actually two questions I ask everyone who comes on Girlboss Radio, and one of the things that we talk a lot about is this concept of success. Because you just talked about your daughter and that's not financial, that's not about your career. It's something you're proud of that doesn't have do with what the typical definition of success is, which is being on the Forbes list. Which is having Instagram followers. Everyone wants Instagram followers. What would you say your concept of success is? What does success mean to you?

Huda Kattan: I feel like I have a very clear concept.

Sophia Amoruso: All right.

Huda Kattan: It's just happiness. It's pure happiness, feeling really good. Because the reality is last year I hit a point where I realized that when we finally got our investors in and it's something you would assume would make somebody feel really good, I felt really bad. Because I just started thinking about my purpose and how I'm supposed to pay my dues forward. And I realized I wasn't happy with a lot of things. I didn't feel good enough in many ways. And I know that's a whole nother conversation, and it's time to wrap. But it made me understand that happiness. People who are truly, utterly happy were the most successful in my opinion. And that's not something that's easy to come by. And that's why I think it's really important. I wrote down the most important things in my life and I'm a spiritual person, so spirituality is really important, family's really important, health is really important. And then work is the last, but I was doing things the other way around. And I was like, "Shit." That doesn't make me happy. Realizing that my priorities are not in the right place.

The importance of filling your cup

Sophia Amoruso: Another thing that we ask everybody that comes on Girlboss Radio is, what is your most recent girl boss moment?

Huda Kattan: So it wasn't something I did for myself, but it was something that really changed my perspective. My husband took me to Iceland and I let him spoil me. I don't ever do that, like ever. I don't spoil myself. I don't let anybody spoil me. I mean I spoil myself with material things. I don't think that's right, but you know what I mean? This was like a a point where I was like, I'm going to let somebody take care of me and it filled my cup so well. Like it was amazing. I came back into the office and shit was going down. I was like, "It's okay, we're going to figure it out." And people were like, "What happened to Huda?" And it was one of the most amazing things. I realized the importance of filling your cup, the most important ways to do that. And I now really put an effort into it, like so much. And I think it's really important to have that balance. I don't do it all the time, but I think it's very important. It just changes your life.

Sophia Amoruso: Huda, thank you so much for joining me on Girlboss Radio.

Want to meet more women like Huda Kattan? You can — by joining the Girlboss professional network! Girlboss is a free platform for ambitious women to connect, ask questions, and level-up, together. We're calling it "professional networking 2.0," where connecting is about quality, not quantity. No sliding into DMs, no spam, no mass-connecting. Join fellow founding members and get access to our weekly Digital Fireside chats where you can get advice from entrepreneurs, marketers, creatives and side hustlers from all trades. Head to girlboss.com to sign up and create your profile today.

SEE ALSO: I built a multimillion-dollar business in two years. Here are 3 templates I used to make my first $10,000 in 3 months.

Join the conversation about this story »

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• The New York Times details a hiring change the Fed used to increase its hiring of women and minority research assistants.
• Instead of prioritizing resumes from Ivy League grads, recruiters began taking work experience and soft skills into greater consideration.
• Making hiring changes similar to the Fed's can boost diversity numbers, HR experts say.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Fed, much like other elite institutions, has a diversity problem. 

Of the 776 PhD economists in the Federal Reserve System, just 194 identified as a racial minority (Asian, black, Hispanic, and Native American), according to a new report from the Brookings think tank.

Women, too, made up roughly a quarter of Fed economists, a number that hasn't budged since 2013.

Yet a few years ago, the country's central bank made one key change to its hiring process — which resulted in a significant increase in diversity that could be a model for other institutions.

Here's what they did

The Fed — like many top companies— would prioritize resumes of Ivy League graduates and those who took high-level math courses. This hiring criteria would favor white men from privileged backgrounds and wouldn't necessarily pick the best-performing candidate, David Wilcox, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, told The New York Times.

So the Fed made a change: it began prioritizing soft skills like collaboration and teamwork; it considered work experience and extracurricular activities; and it standardized interview questions for each applicant.

Read more:A Twitter cofounder says a more diverse team would have addressed abuse earlier. Science says he's probably right.

The aim was to consider a more diverse range of applicants, without explicitly selecting based on race or gender. 

The new hiring process resulted in 5% more women and 6% more men in research assistant positions between 2014 and 2017, according to Brookings. 

What other companies can learn from the Fed

Many hiring experts have adopted similar strategies as the Fed to increase their diversity numbers.

Joanna Coles, chief content officer of Hearst Magazines, broadened her applicant pool by tapping into new, diverse professional networks. Google encourages the use of standardized, quantitative measurements to hire candidates, rather than it just "feeling right."

Patty McCord of Netflix said her best hires had been people that gave awful interviews but had great technical understanding, or had a creative interest that demonstrates they could "toggle between their left and right brains."

"Making great hires is about recognizing great matches—and often they're not what you'd expect," McCord wrote in the Harvard Business Review. 

In the long run, having a diverse team only helps an organization: research suggests diverse teams come up with more ideas, and make fewer errors. 

"Beyond fairness, the lack of diversity harms the field because it wastes talent," former Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen said at a recent Brookings Institution, according to The New York Times. "It also skews the field's viewpoint and diminishes its breadth."

SEE ALSO: The share of women and minority economists working for the Fed has barely grown in five years — and elite economists say that's a big problem

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Amazon charges third-party sellers as much as $5,000 per month to gain access to a dedicated customer-service person under its management growth program.
• A Washington Post report detailed how sellers who don't pay into this system could be left without access to immediate help when relying on Amazon's automated customer-service channels to deal with issues like fraud.
• Sellers and former employees told The Post that Amazon is focused on increasing profits at the expense of sellers.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Amazon charges third parties who sell goods through its online marketplace as much as $5,000 per month to access its optional management-growth service, Jay Greene at The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. The service guarantees quick help from a real person, according to The Post, and deciding not to pay can have devastating effects on sellers' businesses, especially in instances where quick customer support is required.

The article talked about Jeff Peterson, an Amazon seller in California who did not opt to pay for the service. Peterson's account was hacked, and he said he called Amazon's support line, its customer service number, and emailed Jeff Bezos himself, but nothing worked, and he was left helpless as fraudulent orders and negative reviews poured in. It was over three weeks before Peterson was able to access his account again, according to The Post.

Amazon asks its 2.5 million sellers to pay into an expensive monthly service to guarantee fast help from a customer-service rep, which Peterson had not done. Amazon promotes this option as strategic account services, where it says you will be assigned an account manager and "receive personalized coaching and mentoring to help you stay competitive and leverage our team to assist with time-consuming tasks so you can concentrate on growing your business."

Without paying into this program, Amazon still offers customer service to sellers, but without the dedicated account manager who could solve problems that appear before they blow up. An Amazon seller of seven years, Sanjay Chandiram, told The Washington Post that it could be almost impossible to get support help from the mostly automated Amazon systems, so he pays for the service. According to Amazon, 90% of phone calls are answered by the support team within 90 seconds.

Some sellers said that Amazon's role as both a marketplace operator and retailer creates a system that hurts them, where only a few can succeed by paying a premium to the company. The Washington Post reported that for products from third-party sellers, up to 35 cents of every dollar goes back to Amazon.

In a statement to Business Insider, an Amazon spokesperson said, "Sellers have full control of their business and make the decisions that are best from them, including the products they choose to sell, pricing, and how they choose to fulfill orders."

The spokesperson also clarified that sellers were required to pay only the monthly fee and referral fee, and other fees for additional services are optional.

Amazon's treatment of third-party sellers has drawn interest from government entities as a potential conflict of interest. The Washington Post reported that the Federal Trade Commission, which oversees Amazon, has been reaching out to sellers to learn more about the practice. Amazon's role as both a product platform and seller of its own products has also prompted a European Union investigation.

The company has disputed accusations of hurting third-party sellers. In his annual letter to shareholders, Bezos wrote, "Third-party sellers are kicking our first party butt. Badly." In 2018, third-parties sold 58% of all merchandise on the website, according to The Washington Post.

SEE ALSO: Amazon just announced Echo Loop, a $130 smart ring that lets you 'discreetly' get alerts from Alexa

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Job-listing site Comparably just released its annual ranking of the 25 large companies where employees have the best work-life balance.
• Major retailers like Starbucks and Target boasted good work-life balances.
• Tech companies like Zoom, Intuit, and Dynatrace also ranked in the top 10 companies.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Goodbye office ping-pong and other outlandish perks: these days, workers are increasingly looking for companies that offer flexible work hours.

In fact, millennials and Gen Z candidates list work-life balance as one of their top company perks.

Read more:The 25 major US companies with the happiest employees

Job-listing site Comparably analyzed anonymous employee feedback on their website to measure fair pay, perks, benefits, and work environment to find out what companies are the best at offering employees flexible schedules.

Retailers like Starbucks and Target topped the list, while computer software and other tech companies like Intuit also gave employees work-life balance.

Here are the 25 major companies where employees have the best work-life balance, plus worker quotes provided by Comparably from user posts. You can find a longer list with 25 small to midsize companies (as well as Comparably's methodology) here.

SEE ALSO: The 25 small US companies with the happiest employees

25. Ultimate Software (computer software)

Location: Weston, Florida

Employee quote:"We have unlimited paid time off so we can spend time doing the things that we love outside of work, like travel, hobbies and family time." 

24. Genesis10 (information technology and services)

Location: New York City, New York

Employee quote:"Forward thinking when it comes to work life balance — flexible timings for employees."

23. Anritsu (electrical manufacturing)

Location: Morgan Hill, California

Employee quote:"Good work-life balance and good friendly people." 

22. Stryker (medical device)

Location: Kalamazoo, Michigan

Employee quote:"I like being able to work virtually. It is wonderful for my lifestyle/family." 

21. Fuze (computer software)

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Employee quote:"Freedom and flexibility! It not only increases productive, but boosts life quality." 

20. ADP (human resources)

Location: Roseland, New Jersey

Employee quote:"ADP provides an environment that is challenging with an understanding that work-life balance is important as well." 

19. Golden Hippo (marketing and advertising)

Location: Woodland Hills, California

Employee quote:"They give me the flexibility I need to be a mother but also push me to be better and learn more skills."

18. KeepTruckin (computer software)

Location: San Francisco, California

Employee quote:"We are collaborative, everyone is so supportive, helpful, always there for each other in every aspect, work or even outside of work with your personal life." 

17. Pipedrive (computer software)

Location: New York City, New York

Employee quote:"Love that there are no fixed timetables and the possibility to work from home. The office itself is quiet and your team is always there for you."

16. Kohl's (retail)

Location: Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin

Employee quote:"I really appreciate the flexibility of hours and days worked."

15. Vector Marketing (consumer goods)

Location: Olean, New York

Employee quote:"Their priority is their people as human beings with real lives in and out of the business." 

14. Workfront (computer software)

Location: Lehi, Utah

Employee quote:"Family comes first, so they understand work-life balance." 

13. HubSpot (internet)

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Employee quote:"I love the unlimited vacation and autonomy to work remotely as needed." 

12. Cherwell Software (computer software)

Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado

Employee quote:"Flexible working from home is the best part of my compensation package." 

11. LogMeIn (computer software)

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Employee quote:"Great team, focused on the goals but limiting themselves with boundaries." 

10. Costco (retail)

Location: Issaquah, Washington

Employee quote:"Outstanding network for outside resources such as counseling, finding daycare, legal, in home care to name just a few."

9. DoorDash (internet)

Location: San Francisco, California

Employee quote:"They understand that people have lives so they aren't able to work everyday of the week." 

8. Globant (information technology & services)

Location: San Francisco, California

Employee quote:"Flexible hours and chill out spaces allow me to grow both as a professional and personally."

7. Northside Hospital (hospital and healthcare)

Location: Atlanta, Georgia

Employee quote:"They are very compassionate to self-care needs of the employees and do not overwork them."

6. Zoom Video Communications (information technology and services)

Location: San Jose, California

Employee quote:"The leadership team is intelligent, empathetic and caring. They understand the importance of excelling professionally but care just as much about our personal life happiness."

5. Trimble (electronic manufacturing)

Location: Sunnyvale, California

Employee quote:"The flexibility is perfect and shows that the company cares about personal lives just as much as professional lives."

4. Target (retail)

Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Employee quote:"I really appreciate the chance they have given me. When my mother was sick they let me turn my schedule around to fit her needs." 

3. Dynatrace (computer software)

Location: Waltham, Massachusetts

Employee quote:"I love the flexibility to work in a virtual environment. It allows me to get up and be productive quickly and longer throughout the day because I do not have to deal with commute time."

2. Intuit (computer software)

Location: Mountain View, California

Employee quote:"It's a collaborative, respectful work environment that has great work-life balance, recognizing that we can run a marathon together, but with no expectations that people can sprint a marathon."

1. Starbucks (retail)

Location: Seattle, Washington

Employee quote:"Leadership is flexible and understanding." 

• Global anti-poverty nonprofit Oxfam released its 2019 index for the worst states to work in.
• The organization ranked states based on their minimum wage, policies that protect workers from discrimination, and how much they allow for unionization.
• Virginia ranked last. Mississippi, the second worst state to work in, does not mandate equal pay across gender and race.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Some states protect workers more than others.

Oxfam, a global nonprofit group that aims to reduce poverty, recently released its 2019 index on the best and worst states to work in.

The organization ranked states based on three main criteria:

1. Wage policies: how close state minimum wages are close to the livable wage
2. Worker protection policies: how much the state protects employees from discrimination
3. "Right to organize" policies: whether workers have the right to organize and sustain a trade union

Read more:The 15 worst US states to be a teacher

Southern states — like Alabama, Virginia, and Mississippi — ranked poorly, as the minimum wage cannot fully cover the cost of living and because state policies prohibit unionization, Oxfam reports.

Georgia, for instance, does not provide employees some sort of paid sick leave or paid family leave. Mississippi does not mandate equal pay across gender and race.

Here are the 15 worst states for workers:

SEE ALSO: 7 mind-blowing facts that show why employment in the US is the worst in the developed world

15. Florida does not offer protections for workplace breastfeeding.

Minimum wage: $8.46

Living wage for a family of four: $26.13

Worker Protection ranking: 37th

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 31st

14. Oklahoma does not provide some form of paid family or sick leave.

Minimum wage: $7.25

Living wage for a family of four: $24.37

Worker Protection ranking: 25th

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 31st

13. Wisconsin does not mandate companies provide workers advanced notice of shift scheduling.

Minimum wage: $7.25

Living wage for a family of four: $24.54

Worker Protection ranking: 34th

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 31st

12. Iowa does not provide flexible scheduling of worker shifts.

Minimum wage: $7.25

Living wage for a family of four: $24.30

Worker Protection ranking: 35th

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 31st

11. Kansas does not provide accommodations for pregnant workers.

Minimum wage: $7.25

Living wage for a family of four: $24.47

Worker Protection ranking: 37th

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 31st

10. Louisiana localities do not have the capacity to raise the local minimum wage if they choose.

Minimum wage: $7.25

Living wage for a family of four: $24.94

Worker Protection ranking: 18th

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 43rd

9. Tennessee does not ensure a fair wage to workers on contract.

Minimum wage: $7.25

Living wage for a family of four: $23.28

Worker Protection ranking: 24th

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 45th 

8. North Dakota does not fully legalize project labor agreements to ensure a fair wage to workers on contract.

Minimum wage: $7.25

Living wage for a family of four: $24.12

Worker Protection ranking: 25th

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 43rd

7. Idaho does not restrict access to salary history to reduce gender and racial bias.

Minimum wage: $7.25

Living wage for a family of four: $25.48

Worker Protection ranking: 37th

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 40th

6. South Carolina has a “Right-to-Work” law that suppresses unions.

Minimum wage: $7.25

Living wage for a family of four: $24.93

Worker Protection ranking: 25th 

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 48th

5. North Carolina does not provide both collective bargaining and wage negotiations to teachers, police officers, or firefighters.

Minimum wage: $7.25

Living wage for a family of four: $24.80

Worker Protection ranking: 37th

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 48th

4. Georgia does not provide employees some sort of paid sick leave or paid family leave.

Minimum wage: $7.25

Living wage for a family of four: $25.60

Worker Protection ranking: 48th

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 45th 

3. Alabama does not prohibit pay secrecy practices in the workplace.

Minimum wage: $7.25

Living wage for a family of four: $23.92

Worker Protection ranking: 49th

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 48th

2. Mississippi does not mandate equal pay across gender and race.

Minimum wage: $7.25

Living wage for a family of four: $24.25

Worker Protection ranking: 51st

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 47th 

1. Virginia has the worst wage policies, as the minimum wage makes up just 26.1% of the livable family wage.

Minimum wage: $7.25

Living wage for a family of four: $27.83

Worker Protection ranking: 49th

Right to Organize Policies ranking: 48th

• To get a job at Amazon, it's important to avoid a common résumé mistake.
• Celeste Joy Diaz, a recruiting manager at Amazon, said not explaining your job accomplishments clearly is one key way to alienate recruiters from the outset.
• Instead, use hard numbers to demonstrate how you succeeded in previous roles. 
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Celeste Joy Diaz, the recruiting manager for university programs at Amazon, said her team doesn't like to talk about "red flags."

But there is one big thing that can irk recruiters like Diaz during the application process: namedropping your place of employment, without explaining what you did there.

"Titles are great, but we want to understand what was the project you owned, what was the scope of a project, and what did you accomplish," Diaz told Business Insider.

Simply stating in your résumé that you worked at Google, The New York Times, or some other name-brand company is impressive, but it doesn't really communicate what you did with that opportunity. 

That doesn't just apply to recruiters at Amazon, either. Career experts across the board have named lack of explanation as one of the biggest mistakes that applicants make in their résumés.

"Lack of measurements and results in the file is my biggest résumé pet peeve,"executive résumé writer and career strategist Adrienne Tom previously told Business Insider. "Without any measurements of success, the file is lacking proof of skill."

So, expand upon what you did in that job that brought value — whether that's an amount of revenue you produced, projects you led, or how you excelled in your monthly goals. Including the numbers that back up your success is key, Tina Nicolai, executive career coach and founder of Résumé Writers' Ink, previously told Business Insider.

Be as specific as possible. Write, "Helped grow revenue by 500% to $1 million in 12 month period by doing X" instead of "Helped grow revenue," Nicolai said.

"Employers need numbers to be able to fully evaluate the scope of your bandwidth," Nicolai said. "No position is exempt from measuring results. And metrics help employers determine if a person is capable of leading a team, managing clients, or growing the business."

This extends to job interviews as well, Diaz said. She recommended discussing your previous roles with other people, so you can practice giving concrete examples of your achievements and explaining what your job meant beyond the title and the company. 

"People might not take the time to think about the impact of the work they've done," Diaz said. "I want to understand scope of impact more than just job titles."

SEE ALSO: How to make a drastic career change, from an executive coach who's helped countless people unhappy at work

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Ray Dalio shares what he's learned from his succession plan at the world's largest hedge fund

• Adeo Ressi has founded nine companies in sectors like media and technology over his 25-year career.  
• In 2009, Ressi launched The Founder Institute, a business incubator and training program that has helped hundreds of startups raise angel and seed funds. 
• Ressi told Business Insider that founders need to reevaluate how much time they expect the fundraising process to take, saying entrepreneurs meet with 200 investors on average. 
• He also suggested that founders think about these three pillars of their business when distributing funds: hiring, product, and traction. 
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Adeo Ressi has been starting and leading companies since the dotcom craze began. His first venture, Total New York, was bought for an undisclosed amount by AOL in 1997 while his second company, methodfive, a web development firm, was purchased by Xceed in 2000 for $85 million.  

Since then, he has been advising entrepreneurs on how to succeed as a business owner. He sat down with Business Insider to talk fundraising, and his advice for startup founders figuring out their next moves after raising a round of funding.

Ressi explained that a lot of founders underestimate just how long the fundraising process can be. From preparing materials to actually securing and setting up the meetings, the process can take anywhere from 50% to even 100% of an entrepreneur's time. 

But he warned leaders not to get too swept away in the process. 

"The worst thing that can possibly happen, and I've seen it happen a lot, is your fundraising starts going really well — so you're spending more and more time fundraising — but because you're spending more time fundraising you spend less and less time on the business, so the business starts suffering. And if your business is suffering in the middle of fundraisers, the investors can lose interest," he explained.  

When it comes to actually going to investor meetings, Ressi cautioned that "you're going to kiss a lot of frogs to get to the prince." While some business teams meet with as few as 100 or as many as 300 investors to get a deal, he said the average falls around 200.

"Do the process right, it pays dividends," Ressi insisted. "When you try to shorten the process, it's almost guaranteed to fail."

To be as effective as possible, Ressi said entrepreneurs have to look at the whole experience, from setting up a board of governance to establishing a use of proceeds, as one prolonged action.

"Don't compromise, don't take the first offer you get," he said. "Go through a thorough process all the way to conclusion and you'll get the results you want."   

In his opinion, there are three primary spending areas that people should think about after fundraising: team, product, and traction. He broke these three categories down for Business Insider.

How to consider team, product, and traction when allocating funding — while keeping your investors happy

On the team side, it's important to think ahead (in other words, before fundraising) about who you want to hire and what area of the business they should be involved in. If a company is still relatively small, with some employees working part time, Ressi advised that founders keep certain people in mind that they already know they want to give additional responsibility to after raising funds. Not only does this reward hard-working individuals, it reduces uncertainty around new employees and the potential stress and cost involved in acquiring new people.  

"I'm a remote partner right now in a company builder that's getting started and we're doing exactly this," Ressi said. "We're raising a seed round, and as soon as that seed round is pulled together some of those members are going to join full time."

In the same way that promoting part-time workers diminishes potential surprises, Ressi advised against utilizing funds on untested vendors when thinking about product innovation or increased order sizes. Rather than reaching out to new, outsourced developers, stick to vendors you already have valuable relationships with. Different vendors can have varying manufacturing schedules, shipping policies, and labor requirements — key variables that can impact your own business' timeline in major ways.   

Ultimately, he said, instead of worrying about how untested queries will turn out, focus on making the things that are already working "go better, smoother, [and] faster," because that's what investors are supporting in the first place. 

Ressi also said that he looks at generating traction in the same way. In other words, keep financing what you're already doing well.

For example, social media ads are a powerful tool to bring more eyes to a company, but they can also be an expensive distraction. It's not that Ressi expects companies he's investing in to have everything completely figured out, but he wants people to already be aware of how tools work to their advantage before investing significant funds in them. 

"If someone says 'Hey, I don't really know what's going to happen with Facebook ads, but I'm going to do some experimenting,' I certainly wouldn't want to see a use of proceeds from my money that has 50% allocated to speculative investments like that."

More than anything else, he strongly suggested entrepreneurs avoid expenses that feel like a shortcut.

"As a general rule of thumb, something that I always regret is if I spend money to accelerate growth using classic shortcut techniques," Ressi explained. "I'm not saying that recruiters are bad, and I'm not saying consultants are bad, but if you're doing things for shortcuts right after fundraising, that can be pretty bad."

Reflecting on his own experiences, he counseled people to "take things a little slower when scaling right after you do a capital raise." It's okay to go out and hire new employees or immediately pour funds into a new feature, he explained, but it should be part of a larger, pre-existing plan that reflects the company's central vision. No matter how important the areas of team, product, and traction are, they're only worth spending on insofar as they help a business achieve a goal.   

"Of course you're going to hire people, of course you're going to work on product and work on traction, that's obvious, but you're doing all of that in service of a business objective," he said.

The simplest advice? Think in units

No matter how convoluted or complex a business may seem, Ressi believes most enterprises — whether they produce hardware, software, or services — can be boiled down to unit economics. 

Using the unit economic model, business leaders can break down their company and all of its processes into a series of simple assumptions and comprehensible units. Doing this enables entrepreneurs to have a better understanding of complex information like per-customer costs and the break-even point. While companies in different sectors have various factors to consider while assessing their business, the goal is to understand exactly what area of a business needs improvement.   

With simple questions in mind like, "How much does it cost to acquire a customer, and what is their lifetime value?" entrepreneurs can determine what processes are working and which need fine tuning. Comparing it to pouring gasoline into a thriving engine, Ressi said the best thing entrepreneurs can do is "take money to fund a well-known unit economic model."

"Demystifying that unit economic model is the difference between a smart use of proceeds and a bad use of proceeds," Ressi told Business Insider. "The job of a founder is to remove as much uncertainty from that unit economic model for whatever the business is."

Nick Kazden is a freelance reporter who covers everything from pop culture to politics. A graduate from UC Santa Cruz, he studied politics and history with a focus on American political institutions and 20th century authoritarianism. His writing can be seen in High Times, MTV, Wired, Vibe, and more.

SEE ALSO: You've raised funding for your startup — now what? 8 founders reveal the must-take financial steps

READ MORE: The no-nonsense guide to bootstrapping your startup to success, according to founders who did it

Join the conversation about this story »

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• YouTube personality Shane Dawson has acquired more than 22 million subscribers in his over 10 years on the platform.
• Dawson, 31, is known for his documentary-length YouTube series exploring conspiracy theories and the lives of other famous YouTubers. He's also been involved in controversies stemming from past remarks he's made and since apologized for as well as offensive characters he's performed.
• Here's everything you need to know about Shane Dawson, whose worth an estimated $12 million and just released a new documentary about makeup YouTuber Jeffree Star.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Restaurant chain Chuck E. Cheese was forced to deny allegations earlier this year that it recycles uneaten pizza slices to serve to other customers, thanks to a YouTuber by the name of Shane Dawson.

The 31-year-old Dawson is essentially a YouTube veteran who has garnered more than 22 million subscribers in his decade of creating videos. His early comedic skits and parodies brought in a massive audience base who have stuck around to see Dawson evolve into creating hour-long documentaries about conspiracy theories and other YouTubers.

Dawson's fame has earned him an estimated net worth of around $12 million, as well as a book, a podcast, and numerous TV and film appearances. And then there were the multiple controversies (more on those later).

His latest piece of work is a documentary about makeup YouTuber Jeffree Star, and it dropped on Tuesday, October 1.

Here's everything you need to know about 31-year-old YouTuber Shane Dawson:

SEE ALSO: A fitness influencer will serve nearly 5 years in jail for using 369 Instagram accounts to harass bodybuilding colleagues and allegedly faking her daughter's kidnapping

The YouTuber was born as Shane Yaw on July 19, 1988 in Long Beach, California.

Source: Famous Birthdays

As a kid, Dawson grew up with an alcoholic father and was bullied for being overweight in high school. At 18, he signed up for the once-popular weight-loss program Jenny Craig, through which he succeeded in losing weight. He soon after got a job working at a local Jenny Craig storefront, and was later promoted to manager.

Source: Tubefilter

At the same time, Dawson was going out on auditions for acting gigs, but he wasn't having much luck. In 2008, Dawson decided to launch a YouTube channel called "Shane Dawson TV." However, his YouTube content got him into trouble early on: After recording himself pole dancing while at work, Dawson and six other people (including his mother and brothers) were fired from their jobs.

Source: Tubefilter, Forbes

The early days of Dawson's channel consisted of comedy sketches, video blogs and diaries, and impersonations of characters liked "Barb the Lesbian" and "Shanaynay"— who calls herself a "ghetto girl"— that are pretty problematic and draw on offensive stereotypes.

Source: The Startup on Medium, Bustle

Dawson's first video to go truly viral was "Fred is Dead," a sketch comedy video from September 2008 in which Dawson kills the beloved 2000s-era YouTuber Fred (aka Lucas Cruikshank). The video has more than 25 million views today.

Source: Know Your Meme

To pay the bills, Dawson picked up odd jobs — including working as a security guard at an aquarium — all while continuing to upload videos to his YouTube channel.

Source: Forbes

YouTube took notice of Dawson's growing popularity and invited him to join its partner program, which allowed him to make being a YouTuber a full-time, money-making job. By September 2011, Dawson's channel was the fifth most-subscribed to YouTube channel behind Ray William Johnson, Nigahiga, Smosh, and Machinima.

Source: Know Your Meme

Dawson started dating fellow YouTuber Lisa Schwartz in 2011. The two dated for a few years and even lived together before splitting in 2014. "That period of time was quite dark," Dawson later said in a video with Schwartz about their relationship. "It was nice to have someone who knows what it felt like to have problems."

Source: We the Unicorns

As Dawson continued to produce viral video hits, he harnessed his newfound fame to pursue other ventures. In 2013, Dawson launched the "Shane and Friends" podcast where he interviewed various YouTubers. However, the podcast stopped recording new content in 2017, and all episodes were deleted from the web after controversial comments Dawson had made on the show were dug up (more on that later).

Dawson also expanded into producing films and shows based off his real-life experiences. Dawson told Forbes in 2017 that "writing and directing is my thing," and it's something he's been pursuing ever since he was a kid.

Sources: Forbes

Dawson's first foray into producing was a show called "Losin' It" about Dawson's life as a formerly overweight person. Although NBC bought the rights to the show in 2013, it was never produced.

Sources: Hollywood Reporter, Forbes

The following year, Dawson produced the rom-com "Not Cool" as part of a Starz reality show called "The Chair" that pitted the YouTuber against another aspiring filmmaker to each use an $800,000 budget to make competing movies based on the same script. Dawson's "Not Cool" was declared the winner, despite a New York Times critic saying the movie was "so poorly executed and so unfunny that no one involved with it should ever be allowed to work in the movies again."

Source: Variety, LA Times

Dawson was forced to make his first public apology video in September 2014 after some older videos were dug up showing him using blackface to portray characters in his comedy sketches. Dawson admitted his actions were "ignorant," but said that "everyone knows I'm not a racist." He likely didn't know this would only be the first in a line of apology videos he would have to make throughout his controversial YouTube career.

Source: Bustle

Dawson has published two memoirs about his life in 2015 and 2016: "I Hate Myselfie: A Collection of Essays," followed by, "It Gets Worse: A Collection of Essays." Dawson told Variety he hoped to reach the older demographic "even if they find my YouTube videos annoying."

Source: Variety

The YouTuber has also used the platform to share and discuss deeply personal matters with fans. Dawson opened up in 2014 about having body dysmorphia, a disorder in which you can't stop obsessing over perceived flaws in your appearance. "I’m talking about this because I know a lot of you guys out there might be dealing with the same type of thing and I want you to know that you’re not alone," Dawson said in his video.

Source: Distractify

Dawson also released a video on YouTube to publicly come out as bisexual in 2015. Dawson said that while he was "scared" to come out, there's no reason to "be afraid of who you are." Reactions from fans and the YouTube community were overwhelmingly supportive.

Source: IB Times

A little more than a year after coming out, Dawson announced he was dating fellow YouTuber Ryland Adams. In his first Instagram about Adams in October 2016, Dawson said Adams is "sweet, caring, and makes me so incredibly happy."

By 2018, Dawson's YouTube channel had switched gears dramatically. Dawson switched to multi-part series investigating conspiracy theories and documenting the lives of scandalous YouTubers, including Tana Mongeau, Jake Paul, and Eugenia Cooney.

Dawson's controversial comments from the past caught up to him in early 2018 when a clip from an old "Shane and Friends" podcast episode resurfaced. "Having sex with children, touching children or anything of that nature is terrible and you should not do it," Dawson says on the 2013 episode. "But ... here’s my thing. People have foot fetishes, people have fetishes of everything." After his comments went viral, Dawson was forced to make another apology video on his channel.

Source: Washington Post

Criticism was again heaped on Dawson amidst his docuseries on YouTuber Jake Paul. One of the episodes heavily features conversation between Dawson and a therapist where they discuss sociopaths, and speculate whether Paul is one himself. People reamed Dawson for his facetious treatment of mental health, and Dawson later apologized to anyone who was offended.

Source: Polygon

Among the conspiracy theories that Dawson has investigated is a claim that kid's chain Chuck E. Cheese saves uneaten slices of pizza, and recycles these leftovers into pies served to new customers. After Dawson went to a Chuck E. Cheese himself and declared that the conspiracy theory is legit, the restaurant chain was forced to respond and call his viral claims "unequivocally false."

Source: Insider

Dawson's rapt attention to conspiracy theories has started discussion about the role that YouTubers play in spreading disinformation on the platform. Additionally, YouTube has revised its policies this year to recommend fewer conspiracy theories, which could potentially have an adverse effect on content like Dawson's.

Source: WaPo, Business Insider

Dawson also caught heat for remarks he made on his podcast — yet again — in March. Dawson backtracked on the story of his "first sexual experience," which he said during a 2015 podcast involved activities with his cat. Dawson has insisted that the story was fabricated, and tweeted out: "It's embarrassing and I f---ing hate myself for it."

Source: Insider

Just two days after apologizing for these cat remarks, Dawson proposed to Adams just as the couple celebrated their three-year anniversary. Some speculated that Dawson proposed in an attempt to draw attention away from the controversy regarding his cat comments.

Source: Insider

On Tuesday, Dawson dropped the first episode of his latest docuseries, "The Beautiful World of Jeffree Star." The episode offers a glimpse into the life of beauty YouTuber Jeffree Star, which includes armed security guards, private jets, and shrieking fans.

Source: Insider

• Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz is a Certified Financial Planner and president of Charles Schwab Foundation.
• She writes that girls and young women still fall behind their male counterparts when it comes to a firm financial start in life.
• Young women are actually more practical when it comes to everyday financial issues — like budgeting — but fall short on bigger financial goals.
• This gap can come from home — parents are more likely to talk to boys about more sophisticated financial matters.
• Have honest conversations with children, and educate them equally about financial matters at home.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

When it comes to getting a firm financial start on life, girls and young women still lag behind their male counterparts. But the biggest surprise is that the financial gender gap often starts at home. 

According to Schwab's Financial Literacy Survey, young women express positive financial attitudes and are even ahead of young men in some areas. For instance, 67% of females versus 58% of males don't want to be financially dependent on others, and more females (51%) than males (40%) want to live independently from their families. Young women also show a greater understanding of day-to-day financial concepts such as budgeting and spending. 

SEE ALSO: My partner comes from a privileged background. I don't. Is that a dealbreaker?

Females lag behind males in saving and investing

Yet while young women are saying and doing a lot of the right things, they still tend to face more financial hurdles. 

• Despite a strong desire for financial independence, 50% of young women versus 35% of young men have had to ask their parents for money for necessities like food, rent and utilities.
• Young women generally spend about 30% less than young men on a weekly basis, but they have on average far less savings than males — $1,267 versus $2,000.

And most worrisome: Despite their financial aspirations, young women are less inclined to invest. The survey found almost twice as many males as females had investment accounts and would choose to invest any spare cash.  

While young women may be more practical when it comes to everyday things like spending, they're falling short on the bigger financial goals such as saving and investing. As a financial planner — and as a parent — I have to ask, "why?"

We treat boys and girls differently

Most of us say that we want to treat our girls and boys equally, but do we? Recently, the World Economic Forum explored how certain cultural factors that put girls at a disadvantage still creep into our behaviors. And a lot of it begins at home. For instance, we may espouse workplace equality, but research shows that even with something as basic as family responsibilities, girls are still expected to do more household chores than boys. 

Another study found that parents tend to talk to girls about everyday money matters such as spending, earning, and family finances and to boys about more sophisticated issues such as borrowing, saving, and investing, setting up different financial expectations from an early age.  

How you can even things out

If some of the problems begin at home, so do many of the solutions. First, as parents, we should have the same conversations about money with our daughters and our sons, emphasizing for each the importance of spending, saving, and investing for the long-term. 

We should also treat our children as individuals and be aware that even in the same household, different kids may need different guidance. One important way to do this is to help our daughters understand the unique challenges they may face as women.

For instance, even before your daughter enters the workforce, have an honest conversation about the wage gap and other potential inequalities. Encourage her to advocate for herself and feel confident negotiating terms and salary. Discuss the importance of women taking control of their finances, especially around retirement. 

Of course, young men have their challenges as well. The way to truly level the playing field is to do our best to guide all the young people in our lives to make smart money choices. Living below your means, getting started early on retirement savings, realizing the power of long-term investing to grow wealth — all of these concepts are the building blocks of a secure financial future for everyone.

The good news for parents

One encouraging finding from Schwab's survey is that young people want to be independent and are open to financial guidance — especially from their parents. And in a world where we all need to be increasingly self-reliant, it's more important than ever to be generous with our time, knowledge and experience to help our kids — both male and female — gain financial confidence. Our awareness and engagement now will not only help them, but future generations as well.

Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz is a Certified Financial Planner and president of Charles Schwab Foundation.

• Job-listing site Comparably just released its annual ranking of the 25 small businesses where employees have the best work-life balance.
• California-based businesses dominated the rankings, with companies in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Mountain View.
• Computer software and IT companies also ranked high.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Due to the tight labor market, more small companies are offering perks like flexible work schedules to hire top talent.

Some small companies do a better job with their perks than others: job-listing site Comparably released its annual ranking of the 25 companies where employees have the best-work life balance.

Comparably analyzed anonymous employee feedback on their website to measure fair pay, perks, benefits, and work environment to find out what companies are the best at offering employees flexible schedules.

Read more:The 25 major US companies with the best work-life balance

Many small and midsize companies in California dominated the ranking, as did computer software or information technology companies. Computer software company BambooHR, for instance, took the top spot, and seven of the top 10 small businesses were based in California.

Here are the 25 small to midsize companies where employees have the best work-life balance, plus worker quotes provided by Comparably from user posts. You can find a longer list with 25 major companies (as well as Comparably's methodology) here.

SEE ALSO: The worst 15 US states for workers

25. Hi-Rez Studios (computer games)

Location: Alpharetta, Georgia 

Employee quote:"The company has treated me well, they flexed and respected my wishes when I needed more family time (4 day work week for a while)."

24. AODocs (information technology and services)

Location: Atlanta, Georgia

Employee quote:"Management is there if we need it, but they also give us room to do our jobs. It's a nice balance."

23. LiquidPlanner (internet)

Location: Seattle, Washington

Employee quote:"Amazing PTO in which managers encourage their teams to take to recharge for self care." 

22. Infrrd (computer software)

Location: San Jose, California

Employee quote:"Good flexibility, I get to balance my work and personal life."

21. APS Payroll (human resources)

Location: Shreveport, Louisiana

Employee quote:"I have flexible work hours that allow me to find a great work/life balance."

20. Nylas (computer software)

Location: San Francisco, California

Employee quote:"Management is very supportive of employees. Worklife balance is a top-line value."

19. Eargo (medical device)

Location: San Jose, California

Employee quote:"The management/executive team understands the importance of work/life balance and provides a great work environment that allows their employees to thrive and to actually be happy and feel like part of a team."

18. Flowhub (computer software)

Location: Denver, Colorado

Employee quote:"The leadership team understands how to take care of engineers. Flexible scheduling policies and absence of micromanagement are 2 big pieces of that."

17. Motivosity (human resources)

Location: Lehi, Utah

Employee quote:"It's the first time in my life where the company trusts me to get my work done and allows me to create my own work/life balance!" 

16. BQE Software (computer software)

Location: Torrance, California

Employee quote:"They try to help us when our personal lives become complicated."

15. SmartBug Media (marketing and advertising)

Location: Newport Beach, California

Employee quote:"Even though we're remote we can find friendship and be there for each other."

14. HomeLight (real estate)

Location: San Francisco, California

Employee quote:"I have the ability to make this job what I want to make it. I am not micro-manage and in fact, I am encouraged to make my own decisions for success." 

13. SmartProcure/GovSpend (information services)

Location: Deerfield Beach, Florida

Employee quote:"Very laid back and relaxed atmosphere, dress down, no micromanagement, just do your job and enjoy."

12. Faithlife (computer software)

Location: Bellingham, Washington

Employee quote:"Employees are treated like adults. Candid, respectful conversations are encouraged." 

11. MomentFeed (internet)

Location: Santa Monica, California

Employee quote:"For me, it has this chill culture like other software companies. There is time to be serious and time to chill."

10. TranscribeMe (information technology and services)

Location: San Francisco, California

Employee quote:"I am primarily a SAHM, though I have a very part-time job somewhere else, and it's nice to be able to hop on when the kiddo is sleeping and do a job or two before he wakes up." 

9. InvestCloud (financial services)

Location: West Hollywood, California

Employee quote:"We have a culture of 'family' and 'work hard, play hard' that is driven from the CEO and permeates the company." 

8. Diverse Lynx (computer software)

Location: Princeton, New Jersey

Employee quote:"I love having the freedom to create my own schedule."

7. ForwardLine Financial (financial services)

Location: Woodland Hills, California

Employee quote:"They allow everyone to have their autonomy and trust them to accomplish the companies goals."

6. AdTheorent (marketing and advertising)

Location: New York City, New York

Employee quote:"They work hard and they care about others. They also understand balance."

5. Egnyte (computer software)

Location: Mountain View, California

Employee quote:"I appreciate that I am encouraged to continue my education. Multiple departments have supported my decision to receive additional training."

4. Theorem (information technology and services)

Location: Encino, California

Employee quote:"We're treated like adults and trusted to do our job. Being remote is a big part of this."

3. Archer Education (marketing and advertising)

Location: Los Angeles, California

Employee quote:"They obviously care about the employees and their ability to have personal lives outside of work."

2. Signal Sciences (information technology and services)

Location: Culver City, California

Employee quote:"Autonomy, autonomy, autonomy. I get to set my schedule and have the freedom to manage my work and priorities."

1. BambooHR (computer software)

Location: Lindon, Utah

Employee quote:"Work gets done in a timely manner because people are organized, but I never feel rushed to complete work before an unreasonable deadline." 

• My Purple Royal seat cushion ($79) has made sitting through the workday a much more pleasant exercise, and thanks to its effect on my posture, it's also improved my time spent standing up.
• The cushion's grid shape collapses into itself to help accommodate your pressure points, and makes sitting comfortable even if you've, say, left your phone in your back pocket.
• Purple makes a variety of seat cushions, from one that's specifically designed for lumbar support to one that's meant for portability. Prices start at $39 for the portable and lumbar-support cushions and go up to $129.

Sitting up straight can feel like an impossible feat. I'm constantly slouching while I work, and it seems like as soon as I correct my posture, I find myself nearing a 45-degree angle again. Constant posture vigilance is impractical when I'm focused on my job (or just scrolling through Twitter), so I continually let myself fall back into slouching. It's my default position — my resting pose. And it leaves me with a perennially sore back.

I've tried a few techniques to help snap me out of this bad habit. I go to yoga classes, I try to keep it so both of my shoulder blades are touching my chair back at all times, and I write reminders to sit up straight on Post-it notes on my desk. So far, none of those strategies have had a lasting effect (though I'm sure the yoga classes could if I went more consistently). Then, I got a Purple seat cushion, and it's never been easier to avoid hunching over my desk.

Perhaps better known for its mattresses, Purple makes a variety of seat cushions, from one that's specifically designed for lumbar support to one that's meant for portability. I opted for the Royal seat cushion. At $79, it falls somewhere in the middle of the Purple seat cushion price range (which starts at $39 for the portable and lumbar-support cushions and goes up to $129 for the "Ultimate" cushion). Besides improving my seating posture, my new cushion has made sitting down all day for my desk job significantly more comfortable.

But first, how does a seat cushion make you sit up straighter?

Purple cushions come in grid patterns — or they look like large, purple waffles, depending on how hungry you are. The grid shape collapses into itself to help accommodate your pressure points, and makes sitting comfortable even if you've, say, left your phone in your back pocket (guilty). This pattern helps distribute your weight evenly across your seat, and lets extraneous pocket items like cell phones sink into the cushion instead of poking into your behind.

I get antsy throughout the workday, especially because I spend so much time sitting down. The cushion also keeps me from constantly shifting around in my seat — instead of stiffly perching on top of it, like I do on my cushion-less chair, I'm relaxing into it. Not only does this accommodate for items left in my pants pockets, but it's also good news for my sit bones. They start to feel pain after balancing throughout the long workday atop a hard surface. The Purple cushion, made of hyper-elastic polymer, means I don't have to balance on those bones.

Plus, the edge of my seat no longer cuts off the circulation in my legs. Because the Purple cushion has give, it doesn't obstruct my blood flow. All of this helps keep my back and hips in line, making it much easier to maintain good posture.

Something to be wary of with this cushion is that it's not exactly light. While the Portable cushion weighs only 2.75 pounds, that's still adds up if you're carrying it around in a bag with your lunch and other work gear. My Royal cushion weighs 5.4 pounds, so the most I move it around is from one hardwood chair to the other in my kitchen (where I did the majority of my sitting when I worked at home for the past year). However, transporting a 2.75-pound cushion in your car is hardly an inconvenience.

I also wish I could mold my cushion to be the exact shape of my chair. As it is, my cushion hangs off the edge — more of an aesthetic issue than anything, but still something that would be nice to be able to tailor. That being said, different Purple cushions come in different dimensions, and the Royal is the third biggest of seven varieties. And admittedly, I didn't measure my chairs before buying.

Different jobs require different amounts of sitting. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' most recent data, people who worked in office jobs (like lawyers, human resource managers, accountants, and software developers) spent somewhere between 75 and 90% of their workdays seated. Professional drivers sat for over 82% of their time on the job.

If you fall into any of these job categories, I fully suggest giving a Purple seat cushion a try. Enduring pain in your sit bones, tail bone, and legs all day while hunching over your laptop (or steering wheel) isn't worth avoiding the relatively small cost of adding daily comfort to your routine. My seat cushion has made sitting through the workday a much more pleasant exercise, and thanks to its effect on my posture, it's also improved my time spent standing up.

Buy the Purple Royal Seat Cushion for $79 — and check out 6 other seat cushion varieties on the Purple website.

It's also available to buy on Amazon.

SEE ALSO: 20 game-changing products under $10 that we use in our daily lives

Join the conversation about this story »

• Christie Mims is the founder of Coach Pony, a company that helps new life coaches learn the business side of coaching.
• Seven years ago when she left her full-time job to start her first coaching company, she took some pretty common-place advice on how to market her business.
• But after not getting any clients, she realized that that approach was sinking her company. So instead, she did something counterintuitive — focusing on one marketing strategy rather than multiple — and it made her her first $100,000.
• Mims shared with Business Insider where she went wrong and what she did to fix it, along with her advice for any new freelancer, consultant, or coach looking to grow their business.

Seven years ago, I quit my lucrative consulting job to start my own business as a career coach.

Like many new business owners, I was worried about how to best market my business. There were so many options! Facebook, LinkedIn, public speaking, networking, writing. Honestly, the list felt pretty endless.

So, after talking to friends, family, and anyone with even a lick of business experience, I did what seemed logical: I started with everything.

I had heard that you need to throw a lot of spaghetti against the wall in order to figure out your marketing, and I took that to heart. The more places you are, the more chances you have to be discovered, right? 

I got my Facebook page up, my Linkedin page up, and my Twitter account active. I started writing on my blog, I pitched other blogs, and I offered to speak all over the place.

Not being overly familiar with any of these marketing channels, I gamely plugged away. I posted, I wrote, I tweeted, I pitched, and then I woke up the next day and did it all over again. My hope was that if I just randomly shared enough, people would come!

My hopes were wrong. After weeks of hustle, I had nothing to show for it.

My bank account was draining fast, I was exhausted, and I was worried that my new business was already on the verge of failure. So I faced a choice: Keep doing what I was doing and run out of money, or try something different.

I opted for something different.

I did something counterintuitive with my marketing: I did less

Here's the thing: At the time, I didn't actually enjoy Facebook, or Linkedin (shocking, as a career coach!), or even writing that much.

And because I didn't enjoy it, I wasn't very good at it.  

While sitting on my couch worriedly looking at my computer one night, I thought: "What if I only concentrate on one type of marketing that I actually like, and see how far I can get?"

So I stopped posting regularly on my social media accounts, I let go of the pressure to blog every week, and instead I decided to focus my time on public speaking. I chose public speaking because I was comfortable doing it, I liked being in front of a room, and I knew it would help me build trust with potential clients quickly.

I spoke for free at first locally in DC, to anyone who fit my demographic of professional women (and many who didn't), and it worked! I started to get real, paying clients. I found speaking engagements by checking out Eventbrite, asking friends and family, googling "events + women + DC," and watching hashtags on Twitter like  #DCwomen, #DCevents, and #DCmeetups and seeing what came up.

I'd try and attend events first as a participant to see if the group was a good fit for me and my style. If it was, I'd chat with the organizers to see if they were looking for speakers. If invited to speak, I'd ask the organizers if I could make an offer at the end of my speech, and if they said yes I'd give everyone in the room a one-time chance to sign up for my introductory career coaching package at a discount. Those that did would often then sign up to work with me over a longer period, and that's how my business became profitable. 

With more experience and more confidence, I doubled down. I started pitching myself beyond local events, and reached out to bigger conferences and online organizations that catered to my people. I focused on career websites primarily, places like Careerealism (now called Work It Daily) and The Muse, and if they didn't already offer webinars, I pitched them on the idea of my leading a webinar for the benefit of their audience.

I was always careful to research each organization or website up front, and make sure that I offered to speak on a topic that was both relevant and interesting for their audience, and also fit in well with my coaching work. If allowed, I'd make an offer to work with me at the end of the talk to the attendees. If that didn't fit with the organization's rules, I'd direct everyone to something free on my website to check out in order to draw them into my world and introduce them more deeply to my services. 

Because I was so focused, I became much better much more quickly, and it showed in my bottom line. Within a year of going all-in on public speaking engagements, I had made over $100,000 for my coaching business, and I still wasn't regularly using LinkedIn or Facebook or any of the rest of it. 

Long story short: Focusing my marketing saved my business.

Here's why this approach works, and how it can work for you

In his book "Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less," Greg McKeown shares the idea that you can spend a lot of energy on many different things and make a tiny bit of progress in each, or you can focus entirely on one thing and go so much farther, much faster.

While it initially seems logical to put yourself out there in many places, many solo-preneurs have my experience — they are spreading themselves too thin, and not doing any of it well. And therefore the results are not good.

But there's another problem: Many people overlook how different the major marketing platforms are from each other, and how much skill and time it takes to become good at even one of them.

For instance, to be great on Linkedin, you need to understand how their algorithm works, how groups work, how to write well in terms of posts and blogs, and how the platform is constantly changing. 

On the other hand, something like public speaking is a completely different skill set. It involves writing pitches, putting together a great talk, learning how to give a great talk, and learning how to use your talk as a marketing tool.

You get the idea. Most people aren't willing to put in the work to get really good at one thing in marketing, because they are still trying to be everywhere. But if you do spend the time to really learn your marketing channel well, you'll immediately stand out. And when you stand out, it's easier for clients to find you.

How to choose your marketing platform

Given that there are so many places to start, where should you begin?

To figure out how to focus your marketing, the easiest place to start is with what you yourself enjoy and are good at in terms of communication. Why? You're going to be spending a lot of time doing it. 

So, start with one of these big four communications areas, and choose your favorite:

1. Writing
2. Public Speaking
3. Networking
4. Social media 

Next up, using your chosen communication strength as a guide, brainstorm places where you might find your clients. 

So, for example, if social media is your favorite way to communicate, and you are in the health or beauty business, Instagram or Pinterest would be a great place to focus your marketing. Being visual platforms, they cater strongly to clients in those industries.

Let's say, on the other hand, that you are a health coach or nutritionist and you hate social media but love to write. Given that, you might market your business by writing articles for Mind Body Green or My Fitness Pal— in other words, big health or wellness blogs that draw in people interested in learning more about those specific topics.

The really cool thing is that the major organic marketing channels are so powerful, if used correctly you can support yourself as a new entrepreneur by choosing just one of them.

How do I know? Well, I stopped public speaking after about 18 months because I decided that putting on real pants and having to brush my hair was no longer my favorite thing to do. So I took up writing as my next marketing platform, and made my next six figures … in six months. And then after a couple years of big business growth, I stopped writing for awhile and — yep, you guessed it — I turned to social media. 

You see my point: By focusing and going all-in on each platform, I became really good at using them, so the revenue kept accumulating, and my business keeps growing.

Here's the bottom line: Focus on what you like. Let go of the rest. By doing so, you will become great at that type of marketing … which means more progress more quickly, and more clients for your business.

Christie Mims is the founder of Coach Pony, the best community for new life coaches who want to have a real business with paying clients, instead of a vanity business with two blogs and no clients. In addition to that, she's a Forbes Top 100 Career Coach and the founder of The Revolutionary Club, a career coaching business that serves smart people who want to find their passion. Need a business boost of your own? Grab this fancy-pants free guide on how to actually make money as a life coach and start helping people already! (You seem pretty awesome!)

SEE ALSO: I went from earning $65 an hour to building a multimillion dollar business on my own in two years. Here are the 4 most important steps I took.

READ MORE: There are 11 types of emails you'll send when you launch a business. Here's a template for each that will help you gain new clients and keep your old ones loyal.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Taylor Swift is dropping a new album. Here's how the world's highest-paid celebrity makes and spends her $360 million.

• In most cases, you want to make a positive, lasting impression on those you meet.
• That can seem like a challenge, but it doesn't have to be so hard.
• We turned to a Quora thread to find some simple ideas and techniques for making yourself memorable.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

We all strive to be memorable. But leaving a lasting impression on someone we've just met isn't always easy.

It also isn't impossible.

As it turns out, with the right words and actions almost anyone can create a captivating presence.

To help you figure out how to do this, we looked at the answers posted on Quora in response to the question, "How do I become more memorable when meeting someone for the first time?" 

Here were some of our favorite tips for making yourself memorable when you first meet someone new.

Natalie Walters and Catherine Rice contributed to previous versions of this article.

SEE ALSO: How to make someone like you in under 5 minutes, according to a relationship expert

DON'T MISS: The 25 small US companies with the happiest employees

Put on your talking hat.

It's easy to stand there and let other people carry on the conversation, but you will never stick out in people's minds if you just listen, writes Julian Reisinger, dating expert and founder of Lovelifesolved.com.

Don't let the fear of looking like a fool keep you from speaking up and asking questions, telling your own stories, and sharing your own opinions. Go for it, and make a lasting impression. 

Be blunt, slightly controversial, and completely honest.

Most people avoid saying anything controversial — especially when meeting someone for the first time — because they want to play it safe to ensure everyone likes them.

But if you really want to be memorable, you may want to make a statement ... without insulting anyone or saying something offensive, of course.

"People remember extremes, not mediocrity," writes Reisinger.

He recommends speaking up and stating your opinion firmly and clearly, even if it makes some people slightly uncomfortable or mad. This will make you more interesting — and thus more memorable.

Be a little bit unusual.

Breaking out of the cultural norm is an easy way to stick out, Reisinger writes, but try to stick out in a positive way. 

For example, he suggests coming up with humorous and unusual answers to the typical introductory questions such as, "How are you?" or "What do you do?"

While coming up with scripted answers may seem like a pain, he points out that you will have to answer these questions thousands of times throughout your life anyway, so it's well worth the effort.

Use confident body language.

Rob Riker says confident body language does more than make you look good— it makes you more memorable.

To do this, the founder of The Social Winner blog suggests having a firm handshake, standing up straight, and maintaining eye contact both while listening and speaking.

If you aren't talking with anyone for a few minutes, then he says you should look out in front of you, rather than at the ground. "You are engaging with the world, not hiding from it," he writes.

He also says you should "own the space around you." This means not sitting on the edge of a bench so other people have more room than you or acting embarrassed if your arm touches someone else's arm. "Take what's yours without being a jerk," he concludes.

Trigger emotions.

This piece of advice from Reisinger stems from author and poet Maya Angelou's famous quote: "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

In order to leave a deep impression on someone, you need to make them feel something ... preferably something good.

How do you do that in a casual conversation? Reisinger suggests showing vulnerability, making them laugh, making a mistake and apologizing for it, stroking someone's ego, telling stories, being helpful, or discussing a topic in a heated manner could all do the trick.

Be an engaged listener.

We mentioned earlier than you should talk, and not just sit back and listen the whole time. But when you are listening, be attentive and engaged.

"The most popular and memorable people in the world are those who give us their undivided and full attention,"says journalist Becky Blanton.

This is harder than it seems. Most people are constantly thinking of what to say next and looking for a break in the conversation for when they can jump in and say it.

Like Reisinger, Blanton says we remember how people make us feel and when you truly listen to someone, you will make them feel important — and they'll remember that.

Smile.

"When first meeting someone, you want to be smiling," writes Riker. "This shows that you are happy, in a good mood, enjoying life and happy to meet them. Smiling also triggers the other person's mirror neurons which produce the feeling that their own smile would provide — a happy feeling!

Use their name.

"A really effective way to be 'memorable' to the other person is to use their name in conversation," writes Kara Ronin, a social skills expert and Udemy instructor.

It tells them you were paying attention and that you care.

"Our name is intrinsically linked to us," she explains. "Whenever we hear somebody use our name we immediately think, 'Oh, he/she must really like me because they remember what my name is.' Of course, you don't want to use their name with a tone of voice that suggests you're reprimanding them."

• Google cofounder Sergey Brin has secretly been married to his girlfriend Nicole Shanahan since 2018, the Chronicle of Philanthropy recently reported.
• There are several other leaders in the tech industry who are dating, and married to, prominent venture capitalists, models, athletes, and powerful people.
• These are 15 of the most powerful couples in the tech world.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As the singer Grimes, Tesla CEO Elon Musk's maybe-paramour, might say, we appreciate power.

While some tech leaders, like Mark Zuckerberg, have been with their partners since college, notable figures in the tech sector have gravitated toward partners with just as much — or more! — power and pull in their industries.

It was recently reported that Google cofounder Sergey Brin has secretly been married since 2018 to his girlfriend, legal tech founder Nicole Shanahan. Shanahan, 34, and Brin, 46, have a baby girl together who was born late last year, according to Page Six.

But there have also been some high-profile splits in the past year that have hit some prominent tech leaders. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, announced in early January that they were getting a divorce. Elon Musk and the Canadian singer Grimes dated for a while, though it's unclear whether the on again, off again couple is still together.

Here are 15 of the top power couples in the tech industry:

• Employer branding expert Universum just released its annual rankings of the World's Most Attractive Employers, based on the responses of college students in the 12 biggest economies in the world.
• Among business students, traditional consulting, finance, and professional services firms rank highly on the list, but big tech brand names like Apple and Google also appear near the top.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Business students around the world want to work in traditional consulting, finance, and professional services firms, but also in some of the biggest tech brand names out there, according to a new survey.

Employer branding expert Universum just released its annual rankings of the World's Most Attractive Employers, based on the responses of college students in the 12 biggest economies in the world.

Universum runs an annual survey of hundreds of thousands of college students across the world, asking them what they're looking for in their future employers. One of the questions on the survey asks students in various areas of study to list up to five ideal employers. The top employer rankings are based on the share of students who list that company in their top five. Percent shares from each of the 12 countries are weighted by gross domestic product.

Here are the 40 most attractive employers for business students around the world, according to the new 2019 ranking:

40. Intel

Rank in 2018: 46

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 6

39. Credit Suisse

Rank in 2018: 37

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 2

38. Toyota

Rank in 2018: 47

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 9

37. Grant Thornton

Rank in 2018: 33

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 4

36. Daimler/Mercedes-Benz

Rank in 2018: 35

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 1

35. HSBC

Rank in 2018: 36

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 1

34. Nestlé

Rank in 2018: 31

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 3

33. Barclays

Rank in 2018: 34

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 1

32. Facebook

Rank in 2018: 32

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

31. PepsiCo

Rank in 2018: 38

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 7

30. Unilever

Rank in 2018: 27

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 3

29. LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton

Rank in 2018: 30

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 1

28. Accenture

Rank in 2018: 26

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 2

27. Citi

Rank in 2018: 29

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 2

26. Johnson & Johnson

Rank in 2018: 28

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 2

25. IKEA

Rank in 2018: 25

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

24. Deutsche Bank

Rank in 2018: 23

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 1

23. Bain & Company

Rank in 2018: 20

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 3

22. Sony

Rank in 2018: 24

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 2

21. IBM

Rank in 2018: 22

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 1

20. Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Rank in 2018: 21

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 1

19. The Coca-Cola Company

Rank in 2018: 19

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

18. Procter & Gamble

Rank in 2018: 16

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 2

17. BMW Group

Rank in 2018: 17

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

16. Nike

Rank in 2018: 18

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 2

15. Adidas

Rank in 2018: 15

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

14. Morgan Stanley

Rank in 2018: 14

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

13. Boston Consulting Group

Rank in 2018: 11

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 2

12. L'Oréal Group

Rank in 2018: 12

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

11. Amazon

Rank in 2018: 13

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 2

10. McKinsey & Company

Rank in 2018: 9

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 1

9. JPMorgan Chase

Rank in 2018: 8

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 1

8. Microsoft

Rank in 2018: 10

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 2

7. Goldman Sachs

Rank in 2018: 2

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 5

6. KPMG

Rank in 2018: 5

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 1

5. Apple

Rank in 2018: 7

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 2

4. Deloitte

Rank in 2018: 4

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

3. PwC

Rank in 2018: 6

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 3

2. Ernst & Young

Rank in 2018: 3

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 1

1. Google

Rank in 2018: 1

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

• Employer branding expert Universum just released its annual rankings of the World's Most Attractive Employers, based on the responses of college students in the 12 biggest economies in the world.
• Among engineering and IT students, big tech companies, storied industrial manufacturers, and name-brand automakers dominate the list.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Engineering and IT students around the world want to work for big tech companies, storied industrial manufacturers, and name-brand automakers, according to a new survey.

Employer branding expert Universum just released its annual rankings of the World's Most Attractive Employers, based on the responses of college students in the 12 biggest economies in the world.

Universum runs an annual survey of hundreds of thousands of college students across the world, asking them what they're looking for in their future employers. One of the questions on the survey asks students in various areas of study to list up to five ideal employers. The top employer rankings are based on the share of students who list that company in their top five. Percent shares from each of the 12 countries are weighted by gross domestic product.

Here are the 40 most attractive employers for engineering and IT students around the world, according to the new 2019 ranking:

40. 3M

Rank in 2018: 38

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 2

39. Pfizer

Rank in 2018: 39

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

38. Volvo

Rank in 2018: 34

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 4

37. Accenture

Rank in 2018: 32

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 5

36. Lenovo

Rank in 2018: 46

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 10

35. Huawei

Rank in 2018: 40

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 5

34. ExxonMobil

Rank in 2018: 33

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 1

33. IKEA

Rank in 2018: 30

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 3

32. Deloitte

Rank in 2018: 28

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 4

31. Nestlé

Rank in 2018: 29

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 2

30. Bosch

Rank in 2018: 42

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 12

29. Shell

Rank in 2018: 27

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 2

28. Boston Consulting Group

Rank in 2018: 22

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 6

27. Nissan

Rank in 2018: 36

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 9

26. Adidas

Rank in 2018: 26

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

25. Procter & Gamble

Rank in 2018: 15

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 10

24. JPMorgan Chase

Rank in 2018: 35

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 11

23. The Coca-Cola Company

Rank in 2018: 17

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 6

22. Facebook

Rank in 2018: 23

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 1

21. Goldman Sachs

Rank in 2018: 21

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

20. Volkswagen Group

Rank in 2018: 20

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

19. L'Oréal Group

Rank in 2018: 19

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

18. Dell

Rank in 2018: 25

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 7

17. General Motors

Rank in 2018: 18

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 1

16. McKinsey & Company

Rank in 2018: 13

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 3

15. Johnson & Johnson

Rank in 2018: 14

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 1

14. Daimler/Mercedes Benz

Rank in 2018: 16

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 2

13. Toyota

Rank in 2018: 24

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 11

12. Ford Motor Company

Rank in 2018: 12

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

11. Sony

Rank in 2018: 11

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

10. General Electric

Rank in 2018: 6

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 4

9. Amazon

Rank in 2018: 10

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 1

8. Samsung

Rank in 2018: 9

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 1

7. Intel

Rank in 2018: 5

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Down 2

6. Siemens

Rank in 2018: 8

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 2

5. IBM

Rank in 2018: 7

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Up 2

4. BMW Group

Rank in 2018: 4

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

3. Apple

Rank in 2018: 3

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

2. Microsoft

Rank in 2018: 2

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same

1. Google

Rank in 2018: 1

Change in rank, 2018-2019: Same