The first movie to include coronavirus was, appropriately enough, a horror film. Corona, a Canadian film, unfolds like the stuff of an oft-tweeted pandemic nightmare: Seven neighbors are trapped in an elevator — where it’s impossible to socially distance — and one of them has Covid-19.

Stephen Nichols hasn’t seen the film but he doesn’t need to. Nichols is the associate director of engineering for Farmington, Connecticut-based Otis, the 167-year-old elevator company that operates in more than 200 countries, maintaining some 2 million elevators. …

The after-school rush had just ended one weekday in the spring of 2015 when the phone rang at the Vanderbilt Avenue location of Ample Hills Creamery, the Brooklyn ice cream brand famous for its whimsical and elaborate flavors. Scooper Jason Smith answered the call, expecting to tell some customer what time they closed or that, yes, they still had Nonna D’s, a brown sugar cinnamon ice cream with oatmeal cookies. …

Nicole Gibbons knew she was in rare company when her direct-to-consumer paint startup Clare raised $2 million from the likes of First Round Capital in 2017. Black female entrepreneurs receive less than 1% of VC funding raised by startups.

In an industry that champions quick pivots and failing fast, Gibbons — who launched her New York City-based company in 2018 after working as an interior decorator and global head of PR for Victoria’s Secret — feels intense pressure to make no mistakes and faces microaggressions so often she says she’s learned to live with them. She spoke with Marker about…

In early March, Jeff Haynie, the CEO of Austin-based software company Pinpoint, was gearing up to find new office space. Pinpoint’s $25,000-per-month lease with WeWork for 1,800 square feet would be up in August, and it was time to move on. He was thinking he’d need maybe 10,000 square feet for his growing company, which makes software for programmers.

Then the pandemic hit, and along with it, the enforced work-from-home orders, and Haynie began questioning his figures. A survey he conducted a month in revealed that roughly half of the company’s 27 Austin employees would be perfectly happy to continue…

Coronavirus Diaries From the C-Suite

Coronavirus Diaries From the C-Suite is a new Marker series where leaders share how the pandemic is affecting their businesses.

In early February, Jo Schneier received a term sheet for $4 million in Series A funding for his New York City–based health startup, Trusty, which develops Medicare tools for health insurance brokers. Schneier, the company’s co-founder and CEO, turned it down. Funding deals have since dried up, and Schneier is desperately trying to cut costs so that Trusty — which had raised $3 million to date and has 14 full-time employees — can stay in business. …

Coronavirus Diaries From the C-Suite

Coronavirus Diaries From the C-Suite is a new Marker series where leaders share how the pandemic is impacting their businesses.

You can’t blow-dry hair remotely or build houses over Zoom. The pandemic has been particularly painful for businesses that require customers and employees to physically be on-site. Three executives in the construction, hair care, and coworking industries shared with Marker the pivots that have enabled them to keep their companies going.

The coworking industry

In early 2020, New York City-based coworking company Industrious was flying high, with $230 million in venture capitalist funding raised to date, 500 employees, and more than 100 locations…

Coronavirus Diaries From the C-Suite

Coronavirus Diaries From the C-Suite is a new Marker series where leaders share how the pandemic is impacting their businesses.

For Christina Stembel, the founder and CEO of Farmgirl Flowers, a 10-year-old bootstrapped company that offers rustic floral bouquets, the clock is ticking. On March 16, in the scramble to contain the spread of coronavirus, San Francisco gave nonessential businesses just 12 hours’ notice they’d need to shut down. That included Farmgirl’s warehouse in the city’s Patrol Hill neighborhood. Besides the logistical nightmare of a lightning-fast shutdown that forced her to toss $150,000 worth of fresh flowers and furlough 95%…

Coronavirus Diaries From the C-Suite

Coronavirus Diaries From the C-Suite is a new Marker series where leaders share how the pandemic is impacting their businesses.

On March 13, Joe De Sena, the founder and CEO of the 10-year-old extreme fitness company Spartan Race, found himself in Sparta, Greece. He was there to become an honorary citizen (along with the actors Gerard Butler and Billy Zane), a result of the tourism boost Spartan Race has brought to the town. When President Trump suddenly announced he would be closing the borders to Europe, De Sena caught the first flight out of Greece. It was on his flight…