Start-ups

Ever since leaving Westinghouse at age 50 with an early retirement, I have been interested in starting businesses. Westinghouse provided the opportunity with the Placement Center.

Strategic Direction, Inc.. a consulting business in two parts, operated from 1986 – 1996:

Career Strategic Direction, an outplacement and personal marketing service.

  • Purchased the assets of the Westinghouse Placement Center and after fulfilling a contract with the company, moved to a more professional location, upgraded the equipment and opened for business.
  • Marketed using yellow page ad for resumes that was successful in obtaining individual business along with networking and referrals. Resume writing, letter campaigns and career counseling was provided by me for individuals in corporate careers and by my wife for teachers, medical and people in services careers.
  • Corporate outplacement contracts resulting from downsizing and relocating were obtained by direct sales. The largest customer was Occidental Chemical in their move from Niagara Falls to Houston. In addition to individual services, provided work spaces with telephone service. Other contracts included a partnership with an organization in Rochester NY, another Westinghouse facility and several local firms.

Strategic Direction Analysis, a marketing and systems consulting practice.

  • Obtained contracts through former Westinghouse collegues and personal networks. Large contracts included consulting on the installation of a new Material Requirement Planning system, an order management system and a product pricing system for Siemens Energy and Automation in Little Rock AR, Norwood, OH and Atlanta GA. Also provided marketing studies for new customer development and for a potential new product line to Siemens.
  • Provided management oversight services to Spaulding Fibre on their closed plant with environmental issues in Tonawanda, NY.
  • Provided marketing and strategic planning consulting through the University of Buffalo Center for Industrial Effectiveness to a software company and a metal fabrication business.

Lessons Learned

Although the business as a whole was financially successful, I was ready for new challenges. The individual resume business was evolving with more people being able to utilize their own personal computers although most had difficulty with the content. The outplacement business moved toward organizations with a national presence. To continue in a consulting practice, new clients must be developed as the needs of existing clients are fulfilled and I grew too comfortable with the actual consulting.
Attempts to sell the business failed as potential purchasers with interest in all aspects of the business did not materialize and none of the businesses were sustainable on their own. We closed the office and offered computer files of their materials to all clients.

In Strategic Direction, perhaps focus and a big scalable vision was lacking but the business provided a transition from big company security to learning to doing some of everything in sales, marketing, operations, cash planning, accounting, taxes, legal and real estate from a tactical and strategic point of view.

Westminster Economic Development Initiative (WEDI) and the West Side Bazaar, a non profit 501(c)3 entity founded in 2006 and is operating successfully at this time although I left in 2013.

Background

  • Westminster Presbyterian Church in Buffalo, NY was interested in a capital building program with a mission component. After much discussion of alternatives with members of the congregation it was agreed that the mission component would focus on completing the conversion of a street to 100% homeownership through continuing partnership with Habitat for Humanity and work to develop economic activity in the proximity of the street so that jobs be available to residents.  The capital campaign of the church was successful so that funds were available for both efforts.

Startup

  • A non profit corporation Westminster Economic Development Initiative (WEDI) was chartered, the 501(c)3 completed, and a board of directors established. I was elected the founding board president.
  • Work on the homeownership goal was advanced with the building of 4 new Habitat homes on properties previously housing 8 living units.
  • Work toward the economic goal was started by establishing a committee of community stakeholders including business owners, homeowners, local governments and non-profits as well as community activists. The committee agreed that the best way forward was to establish the West Side Bazaar.
  • The WEDI board agreed to lead this effort on behalf of the community and the Economic Development Director was hired by WEDI to spearhead the effort. In addition to the startup of the Bazaar the Director also implemented business development loans for new business within the area but not in the Bazaar.
  • The startup of the Bazaar involved recruiting potential vendors and providing training, finding and securing retail space, hiring a manager and securing additional funding.

Initial location and expansion grant

  • Initially, the West Side Bazaar had space for six entrepreneurs. Marketing efforts and the entrepreneurs were successful so it was decided to apply for a $100,000 competitive grant to move to a larger location and install a commercial kitchen so that food could be offered. Over twenty organizations applied for the grant. The winner was decided by the members of the foundation. After several elimination rounds, the Bazaar won the grant.

New Location

  • After the grant was received, a partner who was to rent space to the Bazaar was unable to obtain funds for the necessary renovation to prepare the space. A new location was secured and permits obtained from the city. A kitchen planner and a general contractor was hired. The work was completed on-time and within budget and the new Bazaar opened in stages, first with 17 craft vendors and then, when the kitchen was complete with five food vendors. The Bazaar continues to operate successfully under the WEDI board.

Strengthening of WEDI

  • After successfully implementing the Bazaar expansion as well as success with the loan program for new businesses in the area, grants were obtained from the leading foundations to further develop the business loan program as well as new business training and mentoring. An Executive Director was hired and a business office established.

Lessons Learned

A vision is critical to getting something this big done. Our initial vision was not as large as things turned out – but it was big enough to get the job done.

The importance of self sustainability in design can not be over emphasized. The Bazaar and loan business, though not highly profitable is sufficiently profitable to be self sustaining.

Having financial projections to back up ideas is critical in moving concepts such as WEDI and the Bazaar forward, not only with funders but with all interested stakeholders.

From a people standpoint, the big payback of this venture was people from greatly different backgrounds and cultures working together on something of significance and learning from and getting to know each other.

ESO Hub, an on-llne hub for Entrepreneur Support Organizations to manage connections, knowledge and results within their communities has its roots in the Four Hour Society.

Background

My experience with WEDI as well as SCORE piqued my interest in entrepreneurship. After moving to Chicago in 2013 I reconnected with the Booth School of Business to build a network that could potentially lead to areas where I could contribute. I joined the Polsky Center for Innovation and attended Technori, a monthly showcase of startup companies.  Most businesses presented involved a web or smartphone app that aided the development of an ecosystem. I became interested in doing this.

At a Technori meeting I met Sam Valenti who was interested in developing a volunteer engagement app and ecosystem. I could see the value in what he was proposing to do.

Four Hour Society

We founded the Four Hour Society, Inc. as a Delaware C corporation in 2015. We interviewed charities and volunteers, reviewed system options, put up a website, built a clickable prototype, developed a business plan and interviewed investors.   www.fourhoursociety.com

However, since neither the charities or the volunteers expected to pay for the service the revenue model for Four Hour Society needed to be sponsoring organizations such as corporations or universities. We were unable develop any such business.

Fivenomics

Utilizing the two sided model within a community we moved from volunteer-charity to entrepreneur-mentor within an Entrepreneur Support Organization. We proposed such a system to WEDI and received very positive feedback.

Utilizing available time at a system development company, we developed the Fivenomics product utilizing VueJS which we could test with WEDI.  The product provided quick and easy meetings between entrepreneurs and advisors chosen for their skills.  After testing by WEDI, we added the capability to host educational resources and utilize them in meeting preparation.  https://fivenomics.com/

The system development company that built the Fivenomics app changed it’s focus and became unavailable to us.  A second organization we contracted with did the same so we looked for alternatives to the VueJS system.  In addition, WEDI asked us to make courses available to entrepreneurs on the platform.

ESO Hub

A low code solution of WordPress, and available plug-ins was used to to rebuild the platform with all of the features of Fivenomics plus a learning management system.  Because of the increased capabilities, we rebranded the platform as the ESO Hub.

A second Entrepreneur Support Organization began utilizing the ESO Hub to increase their ability to support additional client entrepreneurs.

ESO Hub is available for organizations interested in providing higher levels of support to their clients as well as building their entrepreneur – mentor community and achieving efficiencies that come from providing localized resources that entrepreneurs can use 24/7 to solve their problems.  The result: Empowered Entrepreneurs.