Christine Lagorio Chafkin

3 weeks ago | inc.com | Christine Lagorio Chafkin

The email would lead to the $1 million acquisition of her company. But when it landed in her in-box in September 2016, Ashley Murphy thought it was spam. The co-founder of Neat Method, a home-organization franchise she’d launched in San Francisco, had never considered an acquisition. The company, founded by Murphy, Molly Graves, and Marissa Hagmeyer, was still relatively young. It had 17 franchise licensees across the United States, but they still considered it a lifestyle business.

1 month ago | inc.com | Christine Lagorio Chafkin

It set out to make a T-shirt. On the one hand, it’s just a T-shirt that comes in seven sizes and two colors. On the other hand, this particular T-shirt can be seen as a symbol for many larger national conversations: about economic revival, sustainability, and supply-chain traceability, about small farmers and fair wages, about revitalizing American factories.

1 month ago | inc.com | Christine Lagorio Chafkin

Kevin O’Leary isn’t exactly known for his sunny disposition on Shark Tank. But when he really adores a business, he beams. In an exclusive interview for Inc.’s Small Business Week Series in partnership with Shark Tank, I asked the Canadian businessman, investor, and reality-show star best known as Mr. Wonderful to specify some of the top examples he’s seen of finding and nurturing a customer base.

1 month ago | inc.com | Christine Lagorio Chafkin

The effects of President Trump’s trade war are being felt in ports, on roadways, and on the open seas—not to mention inside the companies whose supply chains are in tumult. Ocean container bookings from China to the U.S. have dropped precipitously this week; companies that have brought goods to shore from China since Monday are scrambling to store them in bonded warehouses or foreign-trade zones. Others are grappling for tax adjustments, or are rebalancing their sourcing.

2 months ago | inc.com | Christine Lagorio Chafkin

When companies are getting squeezed, sustainability and social benefits tend to be the first things to go. That’s a problem for the planet and sets back the conscious capital ecosystem. BY CHRISTINE LAGORIO-CHAFKIN @LAGORIOAPR 7, 2025Paul Rice. Photography by Nathan BajarListen to this ArticleMore infoPaul Rice founded Fair Trade USA in a one-room warehouse in Oakland, California, in 1998.