Tag Archives: Culture

Minority Entrepreneurship & Mentoring Needs

Minority entrepreneurs like Rene Diaz are playing a bigger role in America’s growth story. Diaz was featured in a Forbes magazine article last year about the growing impact of minority entrepreneurship. In 2010 immigrants accounted for nearly 30% of new business owners in the United States, versus 13% in 1996, according to the Kauffman Foundation. Nationally, 40% of minority-owned businesses are owned by Hispanics, and about 28% each by Asian- and African-Americans.

Urban futurist Joel Kotkin provides unique insights into what drives the increased rate of entrepreneurship among minorities. Those who are immigrants, he argues, are far more likely to start businesses because they are risk-takers in general, as evidenced by their willingness to pick up and move. Kotkin and a couple of other researchers were asked by Forbes magazine to examine the immigrant entrepreneur phenomena across the top 52 metropolitan areas. Based on rates of self-employment, housing affordability, income growth and migration, immigrant entrepreneurs tend to prefer sprawling, heavily suburbanized regions, many of them clustered in the South and Southwest. Cities in these regions (Raleigh-Cary ranked 22nd on the list) are usually characterized by cheap rents, affordable space, job growth, strong immigration and general economic health. Traditional hotbeds of entrepreneurship have not fared as well among minority entrepreneurs (San Francisco was 35th, Minneapolis, New York #39, Boston#45, San Diego #48,  San Jose #46, and Chicago #50, all in the same strata as cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and Milwaukee), largely due to the affordability issue.

North Carolina is now 6th in the country in number of African-American residents and 11th in Hispanics. North Carolina has seen a boom in its Hispanic population, with the percentage of total residents growing by 111% over the past 10 years. Locally, we have seen many minorities move to our area due to a stronger economy than other parts of the country. As these newcomers begin to start businesses, we expect our market to look very different.  From 2007 to 2011, Hispanic-owned businesses in North Carolina grew from 9,000 to 21,301, according to the census and the Latino chamber. The Research Triangle Park is also home to a large and growing Asian population, with the two biggest subgroups being Indian and Chinese. There are now an estimated 200,000 minority-owned businesses in North Carolina, increasing at a rate of 50-60% every five years.

Minorities own 15% of all businesses, but 20% of franchises nationally.

Why are minorities attracted to franchise concepts?

Survival rates among minority-owned businesses ranked highest among Asians, and Asians were the only minority population whose rate surpassed the general population.

Why do non-Asian minorities struggle to attain similar survival rates?

We think the answers to these questions are actually one-and-the same. The franchise concept is attractive because it comes with a business plan, a blueprint as to how to make an idea profitable, complete with templates for each and every category of decisions to be made. When the business is not a franchise, it is imperative that the entrepreneur find a mentor and other key resources to guide the preparation and implementtation of a solid business plan as well as the other key decisions. Perhaps the Asian-Americans are doing a better job of this than others?

 

American Restaurants Struggle to Stay Alive

Back in the late 1980s, the Turnaround Management Association was birthed out of a research project conducted at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As the lead researcher, I had the opportunity to personally pull together a bibliography of articles about businesses whose travails were significant enough to hit the national headlines in various business publications. From the research, we published a monograph and wrote articles about best practices that appeared in 46 national business periodicals in our first 18 months of existence as a trade association. As I and other involved with the Association moved on to other pursuits, TMA moved off campus, starting gaining momentum in chapter development, and now enjoys international members as well as domestic. One of the publications of TMA is the Journal of Corporate Renewal. The Journal‘s lead article for May discusses the struggle of restaurants in the United States to remain profitable.

Some interesting facts from the National Restaurant Association are cited:

  • Restaurants account for 4% of GDP
  • 10% of the U.S. workforce is employed in the restaurant industry
  • 50% of adults have worked in a restaurant
  • one-third of all workers had their first job in a restaurant
  • 48% of the average household’s food budget goes to restaurants (vs. 25% fifty years ago)

The bankruptcy filings of a number of restaurant chains since the recession began in 2008 is but one indicator of a model that is teetering on the brink of survival. The photo above is taken from a Food Network show entitled Restaurant Impossible, wherein Robert Irvine turns a restaurant around in 48 hours. The menu is revised, customer service issues are addressed, $10,000 of strategic remodeling is performed, the revenue and costs are examined for opportunity, and the restaurant owner is challenged to run the business at a profit going forward.

Macro trends in the recent few years towards buying more groceries or becoming value-conscious have definitely affected the top and bottom lines of many restaurant owners. Franchises, which account for about half of the restaurant revenues produced nationwide, have really taken it on the chin. Franchisees who own one or only a few stores have inadequate access to capital these days. Another big factor is the conflict of interest in most franchise agreements that are based on sales volume. The franchisor can implement discounting programs to increase traffic and sales volume, but the franchisee has less and less profit as a result of the agreements.

What can be done? Turnaround experts recommend a process of performing store-level profitability analysis, followed by benchmarking against peer stores. These analyses can highlight purchasing/inventory issues, training issues that are evidenced by waste, and theft/shrinkage that depletes the operator’s assets needed to produce a return.

There are many good consultants who can help a restaurant owner sort through the challenges and create a plan for growth and renewal.

Too Young to Merge?

The folks over at Under30Ceo provide a great service to young entrepreneurs in discussion after discussion about the top issues faced. In one of today’s articles, The Daunting Task of Merging Companies as a Young Entrepreneur,” Jordan Guernsey (founder of Molding Box) discusses how youth can be both an asset and a liability in merger negotiations and assimilations. He also speaks candidly about how valuable a merger can be under the right circumstances. His point/counterpoint:

 

Why Age Can Be an Entrepreneur’s Problem

Obviously, with experience comes expertise. I’d pick a dentist with 30 years of experience to do my root canal over a recent college grad still clutching his diploma. The same philosophy applies to young entrepreneurs. They commonly lack the knowledge and experience necessary to developing a successful startup.

Another common age issue stems from what I like to call “The Good Old Boys Club.” This club is comprised of traditionally minded career entrepreneurs who have been in the business for years. It’s intimidating to think of discussing mergers with these types of individuals. This is because established entrepreneurs view upcoming young professionals as needing to prove themselves. It’s a rite of passage. Basically, young entrepreneurs are forced to break down this wall and build a sort of trust in the entrepreneurial community by showing what they can achieve.

Why Age Should Be an Entrepreneur’s Advantage

It can be frightening for young guns to approach an established company with merger opportunities. However, my experience has shown that young entrepreneurs can actually have the upper hand in these situations. For example, young professionals are still willing to take on huge risks for huge rewards! Their spirits have not yet been broken by failed ventures, and they are willing to take a gamble with mergers. Great ideas generally don’t come from cynical entrepreneurs.

Furthermore, those just entering the entrepreneurial world can offer fresh perspectives, and are not held down by The Good Old Boys’ way of thinking. This acts as their competitive advantage over entrepreneurs who have already been around the block. Utilize this fresh viewpoint to see potential merger opportunities that others may have skipped over. If a business strategy doesn’t work out, young entrepreneurs still have the energy and tenacity to bounce back quickly.

In order for a merger to work for you, you must have polished skills in forging alliances and making good decisions quickly. The pressure to grow and expand makes a merger look appealing. The “gut check” is whether you are willing to give up some control in order to meet your growth objectives.

Molding Box acquired another company in order to offer additional services desired by customers. With a legacy of 10 years of operations, the acquired company brought instant credibility.  Other young ‘treps should not underestimate the value of perception.

Make sure that your cultures and values are well-aligned, however, or you may end up worse off than pre-merger as the transaction has to be reversed.  A target with a strong leadership team and solid brand equity can be a tremendous asset in your own search to establish “street presence.”

“Let no man despise your youth.” It’s an old saying, but very relevant to the young entrepreneur.  You prove you belong when you make good strategic decisions-regardless the age!

 

Entrepreneur, Not CEO

Everybody (entrepreneur) calling himself or herself a CEO—listen up, this is for you: stop it. Calling yourself the CEO will label you as either an egoist or someone with confidence compensation issues. That will make people less willing to work with you or help you. Taking the top title in a company also suggests a limited vision of what your company can become. Ask yourself: would you still be CEO if it were a $100 billion business or would you require what’s euphemistically called “adult supervision?”

So stop pretending to have attained a title you didn’t earn and start doing what you need to do to get to where you want to be. Here’s how:

Attract Awesome People

Jobs had Wozniak and later, Markkula. Clark had Andreessen. McNeally had Bechtolsheim, Joy and Khosla. A remarkable CEO should be like the moon, illuminated by the reflected light of all the stars he or she has brought into orbit. Awesome people act as accelerants to whatever you’re doing. They push ideas forward, execute with aplomb and challenge you to new heights.

If you can hire, hire. If you can’t hire, bring them into your orbit as advisors, friends and fellow travelers. Get them to invest their creativity and energy. To get the true benefits of awesome people, focus on diversity. You want to have as many different perspectives on a problem as you possibly can, so bring on the best people from as wide array of backgrounds and from different generations. They’ll learn from each other and the confluence of their experiences will be the basis of company creativity for years to come.

Most importantly, attracting awesome people to your company precludes retreat. You carry too valuable a cargo of energy and confidence invested by others to turn back.

Build an Experience, Not a Product

Eric Ries has put the concept of the minimally viable product (MVP) front and center in the minds of Silicon Valley startups. But this focus is somewhat misguided. Products give you utility and then may be discarded. Products are the one-night stands of business. Experiences give you memories and good experiences will bring you back for more, it engenders a long-term relationship. The best CEOs know this instinctively and do all that they can to create and cultivate an attractive experience for their customers.

Once you’ve got a good experience, cement it with the bond of buying..That price tag is valuable to you too. It focuses the mind tremendously and forces you to deliver a unique and memorable experience of real value. When you offer a product for free, you aren’t forced to justify your existence to customers or show a useful benefit..

Learn Finance

If you wanted to be a rock star, you’d have to learn to read music and if you wanted to be an award-winning novelist, you’d have to learn basic grammar. It should not come as a surprise that if you want to be the CEO of a business you should learn finance. Yet we regularly see founders blowing off finance or outsourcing major financial decisions to hired guns..

For startups, there’s one important financial metric that matters more than any other: months left to live given your current burn rate. Real CEOs know this number and manage it religiously.

Define a Big Goal and Take Small Steps

Plenty of wannabe Silicon Valley CEOs have read Jim Collins and will tell you about their BHAG (That’s their Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal). They’ll tell you that they want to revolutionize the datacenter, or change the face of mobile payments, or create a new paradigm for social sharing, or something equally nebulous. That’s great. But it’s the ability to both set that goal and show how you’re going to achieve it that marks a real CEO.

Successful CEOs balance aspirations with operations. They focus on things that can be done today to secure customers and growth over time—not on the title they put on their business cards.

The quoted text above is from a post by Alexander Haislip that appeared on TechCrunch recently. Thanks to blogger Beverly J. Conquest for posting an excerpt on her blog, Accounting & Small Business|Beverly Shares.

Want to Check Out Posh Raleigh?

(Reblogged from http://www.rediiraleigh.org):

Raleigh is a hotbed of fashion activity. Did you know that North Carolina State University (NCSU) has one of the best textile colleges in the world? Not to be outdone, NCSU’s College of Design has programs that help students become fashion designers. Both of these institutions graduate dozens and dozens of innovative fashion design professionals every year. Wow, what a resource we have to create some of the most highly educated and creative fashion design entrepreneurs.

You can meet many of these creative people in all the fashion venues around town, from downtown Raleigh, to Cameron Village, Crabtree Valley Mall, Triangle Town Center, North Hills and many other shopping centers. Next time you are in one of these places, take a look around and you will see them dispersed throughout these retail centers.

It is possible that you don’t know of all the fashion events that occur in our area. NCSU is the most current with its international fashion event held at the University, where some of the most influential fashion professionals are meeting and showing the latest fashion trends. Watch the blogs and news outlets for events like FashionSpark, Triangle Fashion Week, and Redress Raleigh. Look for the advertising of fashion events occurring throughout downtown Raleigh at restaurants and other venues. Hmmm, seems to be a fashion happening place.

Have you ever visited Cotton, Inc, Spoonflower or TC2 where new innovations in fashion as well as wonderful supportive resources that support the fashion community exist? Some of these are new, but others have been in town for over 30 years. Did you know that?

These and many other fashion facts are what EntreDot® found when it did its research to justify putting a fashion innovation center in downtown Raleigh. We found that Raleigh indeed has a fashion district but it just doesn’t look like the one in New York or Los Angeles. Of course it is much smaller. However, it is substantial, innovative and enthusiastic, but spread out all over town. That’s the way it is and probably always will be. So, we need to do some special things to tie it all together as a community, make it obvious that we are a fashion destination and celebrate the fact.

This is where REDii comes in. REDii is the first fashion design innovation center, and part of Innovate Raleigh’s innovation center concept. This will be one of many innovation centers supporting many industries that will be emerging throughout Raleigh. REDii will start the buzz about the fashion community in Raleigh, with much more to come.

Would you like to explore what REDii will be about? Come out to Solas on May 23 for a big Launch Party event. You are now invited; here’s the link–http://rediilaunchpartyfashion.eventbrite.com/