One of North America's largest Ys traded a geographic name for a directional one - and kept doing the unglamorous work of raising kids, teaching swimming, and holding neighborhoods together.
The company that quietly cuts millions of heads of hair a year runs almost no salons of its own. Here is how a 100-year-old chain rebuilt itself around franchisees, royalties and the corner-strip haircut.
Minnesota's NFL franchise has spent six decades turning purple, ritual and recurring heartbreak into a durable consumer business. Its real product is bigger than football: a weekly reason for millions of people to belong.
A research repository built by two UX veterans in a Minneapolis basement, Aurelius helps product teams turn piles of interview notes into searchable, shareable insights - without losing a single finding to a forgotten spreadsheet.

River Health is a Minneapolis digital health company building the first health plan designed specifically for hourly and mixed workforces - the roughly 75 million American workers who earn too much for Medicaid but can't afford traditional insurance. For a flat monthly fee with no copays, deductibles, or hidden charges, members get virtual and in-person primary care, behavioral health, labs, and prescriptions delivered to their door. River sells directly to employers like Taco Bell and Raising Cane's who want to offer real benefits to workers the insurance industry has long ignored.