STARTUPS CENTRAL

Jersey Mike’s, freshly public, told investors it wants each shop to average $2 million in annual sales and plans to expand to roughly 15,000 outlets worldwide. The 50-year-old sandwich brand began trading in July and used its first quarterly call as a public company to outline a growth blueprint. CEO Charlie Morrison said the chain’s current average unit revenue sits near $1.4 million — about seven-tenths of the new goal — and that leadership expects to close that gap by incr

Chains across the country are pushing cheese-heavy items this fall, from quick-service counters to family-style restaurants. New limited-time dishes range from skillet-drenched burgers to multi-cheese soups and dipping promotions, as operators aim to lure diners with familiar flavors that feel indulgent without large price tags. At several national brands, the cheesing trend shows up in different forms. One chain is serving a burger tucked inside a folded tortilla and finishe

Subheadline: After testing automated coding helpers across projects, a mid-size engineering team found real gains in chores and testing but added risk where human judgment was skipped We ran a controlled rollout of automated coding assistants across our engineering team to see whether they would actually improve delivery for enterprise clients. The short version: they made routine, repetitive work faster and reclaimed time for senior engineers, but they did not replace archit

Brian Bailey now oversees 160 Domino’s outlets spread across five states after a bold expansion in 2025 that added 45 locations in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma to his portfolio. His company, Team Bailey, is currently the largest Domino’s franchise operation in the nation, a dramatic rise from the modest beginnings that launched his career. Bailey’s climb started when he took a job delivering pizza to tackle student debt. Within about two months he was promoted to manage a sto

Mixue, a Chinese soft-serve chain that sells cones for as little as 45 cents, now operates roughly 47,000 outlets worldwide — more than McDonald’s — after growing by putting tiny, low-cost shops where major brands stayed away and keeping prices extremely low. The business began in 1997 when Zhang Hongchao set up a shaved-ice stall in Henan with about $950. He and his brother, Zhang Hongfu, deliberately chose locations that were overlooked by premium chains: workers’ dormitori

Subheadline: From simple scripted helpers to adaptive virtual assistants, these tools are reshaping how customers interact with businesses You’ve probably noticed a small chat window pop up on a website or app offering help. That’s a chatbot — a piece of software designed to mimic written conversation so it can answer questions or guide users without a person tapping keys on the other end. Some are simple and follow fixed scripts; others use advanced language-understanding sy

Silicon Valley giants and deep‑tech startups are racing to build autonomous AI assistants that do more than answer questions — they can carry out complicated, multi‑step work across apps and systems. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Microsoft are all investing heavily in these tools, which are shifting the debate from chatty interfaces to practical automation. For owners of new and growing companies, the question is no longer whether the technology will arrive but whether they’r

Treat growth less like a finish line and more like a shift in what you can handle. When people talk about "reaching your potential," they often mean some polished, future version of you who has achieved certain milestones. But that idea assumes you can name the end point of your development, and that assumption quietly shapes what you aim for — and what you accept. Reframing the question changes the pressure. Instead of wondering whether you’ve hit an imagined pinnacle, consi

Subheadline: Shift from title-focused identity to action-driven purpose, and let contribution, not applause, define your value. Many people anchor their self-esteem to a label — founder, author, or leader — and in doing so hand over control of their worth to other people’s judgments. That reliance makes ordinary setbacks feel like character flaws rather than temporary setbacks. The alternative is to prioritize what you do: build, write, teach or lead because the work matters,

A small policy that prevents one deadline from slipping can still leave a deeper conflict untouched — and that conflict will show up somewhere else unless leaders look for it. The company’s chief operating officer believed a thorny launch delay had been cured. A regional product debut had slipped by about six weeks after a last-minute change to packaging specs got tangled in a slow approval route. Marketing pushed to keep the date, and procurement insisted on adequate review

Write the 10 recurring tasks you expect, sort them into four work types, and use that map to decide whether to hire, automate or redesign. Start by listing the 10 things you expect the new person to do on a regular basis. Not the title, not the credentials — the actual, repeatable work. Then group those tasks into four categories: judgment, relationship, repetition and coordination. That simple exercise will often show whether you really need another hire or whether the team

A clear management system and disciplined routines often matter more to banks than last year’s profit figures. When business owners picture a loan review, they often imagine a spreadsheet showdown: revenue trends, margin swings and debt metrics. Those numbers matter, sure. But lenders frequently form a view about a company long before they start debating covenant levels — and that view is about how the business is run. Loan officers look for steady oversight, timely informati

Companies often cling to procedures that stopped a past disaster, but leaving those checks in place can create steady friction that drains time and momentum. Leaders must assess whether an earlier fix is still required, not just whether it once worked. A significant misstep on a product rollout once led an organization to add a high-level sign-off for similar moves. At first the extra review did exactly what it was meant to: the same failure didn’t recur. Over time, however,

Subheadline: Rapid overseas growth often breaks a company’s original strengths; executives who preserve core identity while granting market-level control avoid fragmentation Expanding beyond your home market can reward a business and quietly erode what made it valuable if leaders cling to old habits. I recently worked with a startup that had opened operations in four foreign markets in under two years. Revenues were rising, hiring was brisk and investors were pleased. But reg

United Airlines chief Scott Kirby has limited himself to no more than four hours of meetings a day and told employees to stop depending on long slide decks during sessions. The 59-year-old executive is pushing back against the norm of nonstop calendars, asking that gatherings be compact and focused on back-and-forth discussion rather than presenters reading material people could skim later. Kirby, speaking recently with Semafor, described a preference for brisk, conversationa