like a month, tops. oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. good morning. everyone coming up on your business. boys who play lacrosse in school wear helmets. boys don't. there's a helmet company just for women and he's in the middle of an ongoing debate. tony hawk still going strong finding the balance between his sport and running his business empire. that, plus how changes on facebook are having a negative impact on small businesses. when it comes to running your business, we have your back. that's all up next on "your business."

>> announcer: msnbc "your business" sponsored by american express. don't do business without it. hi there. i'm j.j. ramberg and welcome to "your business" the show dedicated to helping your growing business. when there was a need for a woman's lacrosse helmet, they had no idea they were trailblazer. the first to make the game safer for women. they suddenly found themselves in the crosshairs of a heated debate about the future of the sport. we went down to florida, the first state to require women to wear helmets to talk to them about the challenges of starting a business that shining a light on not only safety but also, some say, sexism.

>> the statistics are staggering. it's the fastest growing sport in america. >> once kids kind of get exposed to it, they become hooked. >> and women's lacrosse is the number two sport behind only football for concussions. >> a concussion is like a snowflake. no two are alike. girls and boys' concussions are completely different. >> some say it's about safety. others about sexism. now at the epicenter of this debate is a company called hummingbird sports that was the first to market with a lacrosse helmet built from the ground up just for girls. >> the item is complicated. i was surprised at the negative energy about it's going to change the sport and they're going to have the gladiator complex and they're going to be rougher. it felt like we were doing the right thing. >> this is where you are. you're at front elbows out, your stick is straight up, moving your feet. >> it's an argument raging for

years. coaches, players and parent are all weighing in and feel very strongly about the topic. the question? whether wearing helmets will actually make the girls' game supposed to be a noncontact sport, more like the boys' game, rugged and aggressive. >> bring it in. full gear, helmets, gloves, the whole nine yards. >> diane and her daughter taylor had their first exposure to lacrosse when they moved to florida in 2012. as a parent it was hard to miss the fact that the girls were less protected on the field than the boys. the. >> the boys looked like football players. the girls had goggles. the boys were very protected and the girls weren't. >> rob was struck by the same thing when his young daughters who played several sports already got interested in lacrosse. >> i took them to the field for a practice. boys on one side wearing hard helmets. girls were there, nothing on their heads. i couldn't believe it in a sport

that's played with a rock "hardball" and the girls weren't wear helmets. >> as a coach and father of four athletic girls, when he searched for helmets online and found there wasn't one made for girls, he told his daughters, they wouldn't be playing lacrosse anymore. >> i came home, i tried to go online and buy something. there was no such thing out there. it was really that night that i made it my mission to do something about it. >> the next day he called his friends jared and suzie, explained the problem and both agreed on the spot to launch a company not only to make helmets but also to create a brand exclusively for underserved women athletes. >> it was a powerful story. as a woman and as a mom. >> with a background in fashion and earning her stripes at big companies like tommy hilfiger, ralph lauren and j. crew, suzie knew firsthand how to craft a brand that would appeal to women. >> i want today create a brand

for this high school girl, college-age girl. there's nothing specifically being made for her. it's pink it and shrink it. they're making sporting goods and apparel but not being designed with the girls, the female athlete in mind. >> when they started designing the helmets, they gained a new sense of purpose and momentum. when u.s. lacrosse, the governing body for men's and women's lacrosse instituted the first-ever standard for women's helmets. suddenly the tide was turning and their company was leading the way. >> they didn't want hard helmets in the game. so they put in a standard for a soft helmet to work like a hard helmet. that was a lot different than any other helmet that i know of that's been made. it called for the same like a football helmet has to withstand that kind of blow. but it had to be soft and be able to squeeze it. it was a third test, the most difficult test to pass, which was a cannon test. which was shooting that rock

hard lacrosse ball at very close range at 60 miles an hour. >> no stranger to the complexity of head injuries, they turned to former nfl football player shawn spring and wing pass for help in finding the right technology to make the hummingbird helmet compliant. >> we call this the crash cloud. it's a unique combination of air flow. what's unique about it, when you squeeze it, it medium impacts for those actions. it's soft. but if i put it in my hand, you see it tighten you. it's pretty exciting. this allows for us to have a wider range of impacts. >> taylor suffered two concussions. the first one was mild. but the second was life altering. >> i was knocked off for 15 minutes unconscious. when i woke up, i was being

strapped on to a backboard and x-rays. i'm like confused. i don't know what's going on. and then they told me helicopter is on the way. >> taylor tufrd a severe concussion, missed weeks of school and was told she could never play the game or any other physical sport again. >> it really affected my focus, i feel like. my grades before were like straight as and then after the concussion, i can't learn the way i used to anymore. and so my grades did go down a lot. just the pain. it was like a daily thing for me. >> stories like taylor's kept the team at hummingbird racing to get a helmet on the market. with unique features like a ponytail strap, use of goggles, multiple sizes and colors and team customization, they did have one competitor. the well established men's

helmet brand cascade that quickly put out a simple one size fits most models. the men's lacrosse coach at tampa catholic as well as the owner of red's team sports, the store that helped purchase the new headgear for the women's team. >> there's two helmets certified in florida, hummingbird being one and cascade the other. it's about the ability to assess product or sales. we like the product. we like that it gave them flexibility to wear their own face mask. hummingbird offered aggressive deals and got the girls in helmets. >> while umming bird's product has been a game changer, it's still a david fighting goliath. competing with a large established brand and those that oppose girls wearing helmets. >> hummingbird is a prime example of a company trying to change the industry. it's a challenge. it's like hockey 30 years ago. they didn't wear helmets but it's needed, right? there's a trailblazer in that

industry. all this stuff comes together to make playing sports safer. >> then there are those like taylor who believe if she was in a helmet that fateful day, her life would be different. >> i think if i wore a helmet that day, i wouldn't have gotten the concussion. i felt like we had no gear to protect us from the head injuries that we could get because even though girls is a noncontact sport, accidents happen. we see it all the time. there's nothing to protect us. we just want to play safe. we want to have fun. we just really want helmets to protect us. >> he is skateboarding's biggest star. at 50, he's still doing the tricks that earned him the nickname the bird man. today, tony hawk is referred to as entrepreneur about as much as he's called an athlete. we went to visit him in california to find out how he built his multimillion dollar

empire and become a business star. ♪ >> it's not just like i want to go make money. it's more like i want to do something that's passionate and i believe in. >> the california offices of tony hawk incorporated are pretty much what you might envision. skateboards on the walls, video games on display. everything centered around a world class skating ramp. >> this is ground zero for anything tony hawk-related. for the skateboarding world, this is an iconic place. >> anything is a lot. a skateboard brand, a production company, youtube channel. a company that puts his name on everything from t-shirt toss prescription glasses and the foundation focused on helping low-income areas. >> we helped to fund over 580 state parks and given away over $6 million. >> skating came naturally to tony from a young age and so did

entrepreneurship. he started his first company, birdhouse skateboards in 1992. >> skating took another downturn and we started a company. that was my way of trying to stay within the industry. i thought my career as a skater was fading. but i still wanted to be in skateboarding. >> what made you take the risk? >> i think the allure of having control over a brand was much more powerful than the worry of not making it work. >> tony was 100% focused on running the show from behind the scenes. creating the brand and managing the birdhouse team of skaters. >> it was a big gamble. i took a second mortgage out on my house. i had just had my first child. i was barely getting paid as a skateboarder. i just decided to take the plunge. >> it was a slow start. by the third year everyone was taking a pay cut. >> was it hard for you? you were so successful as a skateboarder.

then you started a company -- >> it was. at some point the other people that were involved with birdhouse said you're more effective as a skater than you are doing this other stuff. i hadn't stopped skating. i just promoting myself as a skater. i had to swallow my pride. that was the moment i said okay, i guess we should make a signature skateboard again. >> with the big campaign focused on tony hawk is back, tony was out in front once again. and things started turning around. but nothing had a bigger effect than this. the tony hawk video game. >> it was a crazy time. my name was and still is, was synonymous with the video game. >> does the success of the tony hawk video game give you leverage to do basically whatever you wanted. >> i was inundated with opportunities after that. that's when my drive to really keep control of the brand and likeness and licensing was met with some resistance. >> regardless of how big and how

established the company he was sticking to, he held his ground. he learned a hard lesson when he entered a first licensing deal. >> one of the companies i signed up with made cheesy products with my name on t i went to them and i said, this doesn't fit. you can't do this. it doesn't really -- it's not authentic. doesn't have the quality control. they said no, we can do that. because you signed your name away. >> from that moment on, he decided no paycheck was ever worth giving up control. >> i made a vow that if i ever got those opportunities again, that i would keep control of my brand and my license. my name. if we're going to show skateboarding to a bigger audience, i want it to be real. i had to fight for t it was hard to fight for that control. it was definitely worth it in the end. >> whether a frito-lay ad or a t-shirt design nothing hits the market without tony's personal

stamp of approval. >> does any product go out there, be it sunglasses, t-shirt that you haven't seen? >> only if they're in breach of contract and it happens. >> how often do you say no? >> a lot. i just said no to about 30 t-shirt drawings last week. >> to this day, you do it all yourself? >> yeah, absolutely. i don't giveaway my password. >> this year tony turns 50. his gift to his fans was 50 tricks. his gift to me was a quick lesson from one of the world's greats. >> get on your toes and back like this. >> final last try. >> toes. that's it. >> moving forward, he's continuing to be opportunistic about the business ideas coming his way and what should we expect in the decade from now. >> my pride always says

professional skateboarder, first and foremost. even at my age. entrepreneur. most importantly dad. >> will you be doing 60 tricks for the 60th year? >> they may not be as elaborate. lawmakers in washington are not the only ones concerned about what's happening with big tech and social media. facebook recently made a number of changes to help -- establish more ways to connect with friends. small businesses now say the changes are coming at a heavy price. nbc's jo ling kent reports. >> after two years under fire for false news and russian election meddling. >> what responsibility does facebook have for the content on its platform? >> the pressure for facebook to step up and protect its users and change things it on. earlier this year, facebook ceo mark zuckerberg altering news feeds with more posts from friends and family saying we'll show less public content, including videos and other posts

from businesses. his goal made facebook more social with less media. requiring everyone from big business toss mommy bloggers to only post content that they create, rather than share other products or recommendations. but some say it has had a massive downside. >> it decreases my income from facebook overnight, by 60%. no explanation. >> the brains behind quirky mama. her facebook page with 3 million followers was so popular, she hired five employees. her husband greg quit his job to work for her. but then in february, her page views suddenly plunged. she blames the change in facebook policy for the massive drop. >> there's a lot of bait and switch here. you know, we were encouraged by facebook to build these communities over there. >> she's not alone. several small companies telling nbc news there's a sudden turn for the worst, feel-good

facebook page little things, clips dropped by 75%. when we asked facebook what happened to them, a spokesperson said we've recently made changes to prioritize conversations among friends and family. although this means some public pages may see a decline in reach, the goal is to make sure that people can connect around authentic and engaging posts. >> this is real money for these influencers because it sudden i your traffic goes away, so does your income. >> what would you like to say to mark zuckerberg? >> i feel like we have spent our whole facebook lives curating what we want to see on our facebook. stop controlling it. let us see what we want to see. >> turning the once cozy relationship to, it's complicated. jo ling kent, flower mound, texas. i'm here at the internet retailer conference and

exhibition in chicago to talk about what does internet retail look like now? to talk about that, i have the ceo and founder of grunt style. tell me what grunt style does for the audience. >> we are the american brand. we make, produce sell, clothing, military inspired but patriotic online. >> you started this with how much monday sni. >> 1200 bucks. >> now you're doing a hundred more than $100 million in revenue. incredible. let's talk about getting face to face with your customers. you are an internet only brand. no brick and mortar stores. >> correct. we do sell to a few stores. but most of our revenue, 85% of our business is online. we wanted to come up with a way to get out and touch and talk to our customers outside of social media, outside of e-mail. we didn't want to have the liability of brick and mortar. scares me to death. you got to sign five, ten-year leases, manage staff and it just -- i don't know how to manage. what we decided to do instead is

throw parties. we throw parties in specific genres for the audience we're trying to get. some are beer pong, some of them are golf with celebrities. our biggest one is something we call grunt fest where we have a music act-out. it's like an adult carnival. there's everything from spear throwing to bull riding and we have nascar. it's a lot of fun. >> how many people come to the events? >> the last one was about 6500 people. >> just think. that's got to be expensive. >> it is. we did about a half a million in revenue. about 150 net. they're profitable ventures. >> got it. so people are -- these are not parties that you're throwing for free. you're holding events that people are paying for. >> absolutely. >> it is a brand extension more than just a, hey guys, i'm having cocktails with everyone in athens, georgia, come meet us. >> if we only do that with our fans, that's okay. we want to get out and touch and talk to them, hang out with

them, build that lifelong experience. we're inviting music acts and talents of audience that is should be our customers and aren't. they bring them as well. we have a big party and now we're exposed to each fans are . >> this is fascinating. now not only are you a retail company, you're an events company. and that is a whole different kind of company. >> definitely not easy. >> so instead of taking the burden of having brick and mortar stores, you have taken the burden on upholding these events. you know, the numbers are bigger in short periods of time, but we're leveraging whatwear really good at, which is digital marketing and applying that to an actual physical presence, without the long-term liability. >> how many people do you think you need to have as customers, social media followers, e-mail base, to have an event. at what point can you -- for people out there now who are seeing what you do, at what point can you start this and say, it's going to be successful. >> you can almost do it right away, depending on the size of the event.

if you're thinking aisle going to host a 10,000 person event and you've never ran one before and your e-mail list is a few grand, you're not going to do a great job. but you can host a small one where you're like, we're going to rent out half a restaurant or a bowling alley and i'm going to sell a few tickets, farther than with somebody with an e-mail list. who, again, you're out there trying to find people, not just with your crowd, you're trying to find an organization that has an audience, though should be yours, and partner with them and bring them all together. >> why not just sponsor events? why do have your own? >> we definitely do that. but the real purpose of doing it on your own, when you sponsor an event, it's tough. you slap your name, your logo on something, and you're a silver sponsor of whatever. and i'm going to tell you, most people don't know what it is person's wearing a lanyard around here. i can tell you, nobody knows what's written on it. you have to do stuff like that anyway if you're a large company. but if you host your own event, you have 100% control. you can get e-mail addresses from everyone that's coming in.

you can tell the story or give them a story that they walk away with. now you have that control. >> and do you think of this as a branding exercise or customer acquisition exercise? >> absolutely both. >> uh-huh. >> so it's customer acquisition from the new crowd. but also the people that already know you or maybe just got exposed to you, they're going to walk away, hopefully as a new brand ambassador for you, for free. >> well, you definitely are doing something right, because you've grown tremendously over the past few years. >> i've got a great team. >> well, thank you so much and congratulations, again. >> thank you so much. do you have an amazing product that you know people would love if they just knew about it? then pay attention. we are teaming up with leading ecommerce platform shopify to give you a chance to pitch for the opportunity for your product to be displayed for a month at one of their brand new shopify retail spaces. also, and this is great, you're going to get one-on-one mentorship with their team to help grow your business. so send us a video of your one-minute pitch. you can e-mail it to yo

yourbusiness@msnbc.com. the deadline is september 14th. be sure to include a short summary about your product and why you think you are a perfect fit for this. when we come back, how to build an authentic brand. why testing is so important. and has the subscription business model run its course? don't forget that the past can speak to the future. ♪ ♪ i'm going to be your substitute teacher. don't assume the substitute teacher has nothing to offer... same goes for a neighborhood. don't forget that friendships last longer than any broadway run. mr. president. (laughing) don't settle for your first draft. or your 10th draft. ♪ ♪ you get to create the room where it happens. ♪ ♪ just don't think you have to do it alone. ♪ ♪ the powerful backing of american express. don't live life without it.

we now have the top two tips you need to know to help you growth your business. let's introduce our panel and get their advice. tiffany pham is the founder and ceo of mogul, a worldwide information-sharing platform for women and she is also author of the new book, "you are a mogul: how to do the impossible, do it yourself, and do it now." and kyle taylor is the founder and ceo of the penny hoarder, a website dedicated to helping people with their finances. good to see you guys. >> good to see you. >> you've grown tremendously since i first found out about the penny hoarder, so congratulations on all your work. totally self-funded, which is very impressive. tell us one tip you've learned over the past eight years. >> listen, it's become more important than ever, especially after the financial crisis that brands are authentic. that they tell their readers or their customers exactly who they

are. and there's three ways you can do it. first way is to make sure you tell your readers what you're not good at or your customers what they're not good at. tell them embarrassing stories, tell them bad reviews, get them backstage access. second thing you can do is to make sure you connect them with yourselves and with each other. and this can be done digitally through things like user-generated content, but one of my favorite ways to do it is offline, having an event where you get to meet your customers face to face, so they can put -- they know that you're a real person. and last thing you can do is to talk like a person. and i think so often, especially as brands get bigger, we end up starting to talk like a robot. and one of my favorite trends is on social media, you see big brands using slang -- >> where you just know that it doesn't exactly fit. >> that's right, that's right. or picking fights with other competitors. if you're doing it in a way that doesn't reflect your values or who your company really is, it's going to come off as

unauthentic, very quickly. >> i suspect this was a little bit easier for you than some people, because you started out as a plblog, that became a compy of over a hundred people that you have that work for you. was it hard to maintain that authenticity as it went from you to a pig compabig company? >> i'm very much an accidental entrepreneur. so the beginning of the company was all about me. and as we've gotten bigger, we've made an effort to showcase who the people are who are writing all of this content and creating it. one of the things we're working on right now is what we call our trust plan. we want to tell people how we make money and how content gets mae made, so readers know this is a real journalist sharing this content. >> so how many people now read mogul? >> 28 million women each week. >> one tip from you and your book? >> absolutely. my top tip is to rapidly prototype and test and iterate

towards perfection over time. put pen to paper, write out the action steps to get started. don't get hung up it won't be perfect in the beginning. it won't be. it will be perfect as you start to incorporate their advice, and then listen to your users. >> so how do you, as a person who runs this company, deal with a bunch of employees who have great ideas and while they may be able to prototype and get it out there quickly, if you have 20 people coming at you with ideas, it does take resources. how do you choose? >> i think we're a very consensus-driven organization. so, ultimately, we have our mission. we're focused on it. we know exactly, therefore, what are the initiatives that we must focus on in order to accomplish that mission. if the idea is worth listening to, it will be aligned ultimately with that mission. and so we listen to it, we then start to timeline it, when it could be prototyped and absolutely push it out to market, start listening to our

users. >> and then kill it, if need be. >> absolutely. >> good to sea ye you both. >> thank you so much. this week's "your business" selfie comes from achillis thomas. i love the logo. he has an ecommerce site and a brick and mortar store and he sells and can install new, used, and rebuilt transmission kits. thank you so much for sending that in, achilles. send a selfie of your business to your business@msnbc.com. or tweet it to @msnbcyourbiz. before we go, i want to let you know about one really fun thing. this wednesday, september 12th, we are going to host a very special facebook live. and because it's new york fashion week, we're going to do a live segment with the fantastic designer and

entrepreneur, zac posen. he's going to show us some of his latest demands, how he grew his brand, the changing landscape of retail and he's going to take your questions. this will happen at 11:30. go to facebook.com/nbc news. go there, like that pabge, so gt the alert. until then, i'm jj ramberg. and remember, we make your business our business. don't forget that the past can speak to the future. ♪ ♪ i'm going to be your substitute teacher. don't assume the substitute teacher has nothing to offer... same goes for a neighborhood. don't forget that friendships last longer than any broadway run. mr. president.

(laughing) don't settle for your first draft. or your 10th draft. ♪ ♪ you get to create the room where it happens. ♪ ♪ just don't think you have to do it alone. ♪ ♪ the powerful backing of american express. don't live life without it. good morning and welcome to "politics nation." the witch hunt is on. this one, not against president trump, but led by him. this morning, a white house source says the search for the anonymous author of "the new york times" op-ed that shook the political world this week is now just a few people. the piece alleged an internal