Facts we can change
Big week for fans of online shopping (we’re not trying to call you out, it’s us, too). High-end fashion retailer Moda Operandi is opening up a Chicago tech hub and planning to hire 30 developers, designers and product managers before the end of the year. Given all the e-commerce startups based here — Trunk Club, Luxury Garage Sale, Shoprunner — it shouldn’t be that hard to find the right talent.
On the … other end of the e-commerce spectrum, Etsy is buying instrument and vinyl seller Reverb for $275 million. Etsy’s famously gentle company culture is already a thing of the past, so maybe it really is a great fit for Reverb’s infamously bro-y vibe. So glad all these extremely cool guys are so rich!
While we’re partial to the fancy shit of Moda Operandi and the crafty shit of Etsy, it was also a good week for actual shit. AMP Americas raised $75 million to turn more cow dung into renewable natural gas for trucks. It plans to use the money to double its capacity with two new factories. The company won’t say where the new plants are going, just that they’ll be in the Midwest generally.
Inventables raised $11.5 million for its far more sanitized mission of bringing 3D carving and printing to enthusiasts and small manufacturers. It’ll use the money to expand Easel, its software for designing and printing 3D parts, hopefully making it compatible with many machines, not just the ones Inventables makes.
In the world of real manufacturing, jobs are coming and jobs are going. Boatmaker Brunswick is cutting 300 jobs outside of Chicago, while carmaker Ford is adding 450 within city limits. At Ford, the jobs will mostly go toward staffing a new assembly line primarily for hybrid cars.
That tracks with the overall numbers, which show Chicago adding more jobs in the first half of the year than San Francisco, L.A. and the country as a whole.
It’s too early to say whether those numbers mean anything great long-term. But one thing will do long-term good: The city’s new fair workweek ordinance. The bill entitles certain employees (i.e., only those working in eight specific industries and only those making less than $26 an hour) to get their schedules two weeks in advance. Banning last-minute shift changes and unpredictable schedules goes a huge way to making jobs more equitable and accessible. Now if we could just make that true for everyone, we could all thrive.
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Job with badass potential
Job: Chief Operations Officer at the Movement Collective
Work: Set the Movement Collective up to better support nonprofits around the country with collectively purchased tools and technology. Lead the startup’s planning, budgeting and forecasting, making sure everyone understands where the money’s coming from and where it’s going. Streamline operations and communications throughout the org and help it grow with diversity, equity and inclusion in mind.
Downsides: Wow, a nonprofit and a startup? Bet the pay is generous.
Perks: This model appeals to our overly practical brains — basically banding a bunch of nonprofits together so they can use collective bargaining power to get technology at a better price. How boring! How wonderful.
A few other jobs we’re curious about …
Marketing Manager for Ronald McDonald House Charities
All the perks of working for a giant company like McDonald’s while enjoying the personal satisfaction that comes from promoting an objectively good thing? Yeah, OK.
Director of Content Strategy at the Museum of Contemporary Art
Truly, help them. The marketing strategies over there need to catch up with all the great programming and design. Also we def get to meet Virgil Abloh in this role, correct?
Internal Communications and Content Strategist at Guaranteed Rate
Given the high amount of churn, GRate could use the help building an internal culture. The question is whether you’ll burn out first.
Senior Manager of Digital Creative at Ulta Beauty
We have done the research.
Manager of Digital Content for the Chicago Bulls
Much as we saw the job above and nearly fainted, someone’s going to see this job and get a little lightheaded.
Event with badass potential
Nonprofit Draft Day, August 15 at 5:00. One last reminder to join this event if you want a chance to get paired up with great nonprofits looking for board members.
Inspiration of the week
“We can't turn off the fact that we're going through trauma, but we can hopefully change the fact that we're doing it in uncomfortable shoes.”
—Writer Rachel Wilkerson Miller on The Nod podcast, talking about the importance of showing up for yourself. We can't change everything, but please: Any little thing you can make better for yourself, do it.
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