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Case Study: A Social Entrepreneur’s Quandary: Nonprofit or For-Profit?

July 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment

By 2004, his vision had broadened and he started an organization, Student Movement for Real Change, to encourage entrepreneurship in third world communities. Through this organization, he sent students to live with local families, hunt for water sources, farm alongside villagers and absorb the day-to-day nuances of life in a developing country with the goal of building social businesses along with the local residents.

Over the last two years, Mr. Garlick and his team have produced some 50 such “microenterprises” — including one that finances water projects in Kenya, one that sells charcoal and stoves in Rwanda and a cocoa nursery in Ghana.

THE CHALLENGE By 2009, Mr. Garlick’s social enterprise, renamed ThinkImpact, was raising about $400,000 a year to support the cause. But along with running the enterprise, it had to raise funds, monitor and evaluate programs, and provide transparency. Its employees were paid below-market wages, the hours seemed endless and the organization would soon be missing payrolls.

“Nothing about that scenario was sustainable,” Mr. Garlick said. “And scale depended solely on fund-raising ability.” He was convinced there had to be a better way.

THE BACKGROUND In 2007, Mr. Garlick started taking a salary. He was 23, out of school and working full time for his organization — mostly to find supporters for the cause. The workload grew and he hired another recent graduate to run daily operations.

“I thought that was going to make everything easier, but it didn’t,” said Mr. Garlick, expressing a common frustration for nonprofits: the endless pressure to raise funds takes away from time spent doing the organization’s work. “Many of the aspirational young nonprofit employees become beggars. They are seeking a way out of a tortuous financial reality where they are building the plane while flying it.”

Adding to the pressure was the way Mr. Garlick and his team were encouraged to raise funds. They were advised not to “place all their eggs in one basket,” by relying on a sole funder or a single government agency. Instead, ThinkImpact diversified its reach and sought donations in smaller amounts.

Eventually, Mr. Garlick realized that trying to please hundreds of stakeholders was a rather chaotic way to raise money and run a business. “In actual fact, unless you’re running for president, or have a team that exists to raise small dollars, you can’t meet payroll that way,” he said. “People give $20 and think they own your decision-making.”

On the ground, ThinkImpact broadened its reach. More than 100 young people worked with the organization in Africa, primarily in South Africa and Kenya, where they established a strong presence. In addition to developing a curriculum for social enterprise educational experiences, they were adapting to local needs, providing health workshops that reached hundreds of villages in Kenya, and building more than 50 homegrown development projects with the participation of the local community.

But in 2010, after attending a weeklong workshop where he met fellow social entrepreneurs and investors, Mr. Garlick started asking serious questions about his own business model. The questions included: What is our specialty? What value do we produce in people’s lives? How big can we get? How do we arrange for sufficient financing to let us focus on our real work?

THE OPTIONS After missing a couple of payrolls in 2010, Mr. Garlick concluded he had three options.

Option 1: Remain a nonprofit. With contracts from two universities for about $50,000 and funds from donations, grants and foundations expected to bring in $25,000 to $100,000, Mr. Garlick felt constricted. To really grow, he estimated that he would need $200,000 to $250,000 more. But raising that money would be exceedingly difficult using traditional methods and would keep the company almost endlessly locked into fund-raising mode.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/business/smallbusiness/a-social-entrepreneurs-dilemma-nonprofit-or-for-profit.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

You’re the Boss Blog: A ‘Not-to-Do’ List for Recent College Graduates

July 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment

College graduation: lofty commencement speeches are given, bright futures anticipated and, for some lucky college graduates, new jobs await. While commencement addresses may be inspiring, I wish someone would take the opportunity to deliver a more practical message to new college graduates who are about to enter the work force. It would go something like this:

“Congratulations. You’ve just earned your college degree. I’m glad to be here as the first person to speak to you as college graduates. I have good news and bad news. First, the bad news: Despite your newly obtained degree, you don’t know anything. You have no skills. If you are really lucky, you will soon land your first job. You are not entitled to that job. Quite the contrary, there are many people just like you who would love to have that job. If you get it, you should be grateful for your good fortune and make the most of it. It will be hard work, sometimes backbreaking work, and you may feel that the work is beneath you. But the reality is that nothing is beneath you, because you don’t know anything — yet.

Now, the good news: You live in the United States of America, the greatest country in the world. If you work really, really hard, if you are happy to start at the bottom and work your way up, if you are ready to grind and scratch and claw, and if you catch a bit of luck, anything is possible. Anybody can be anything in America. You just have to be willing to learn fast from those around you and work really hard.”

Unfortunately, I was not invited to deliver any commencement speeches this year. So I’m doing the next best thing and reflecting in this post on my first job. I hope that it can provide a bit of help and guidance.

I’ll start with a summary: I totally whiffed on my first job experience. When I graduated from college, I knew nothing, had no skills and was not owed anything. But that’s not how I felt at the time.

I had just graduated from the Wharton School, the country’s oldest undergraduate business school and one that consistently lands the top slot in college rankings. I studied entrepreneurial management and tried to drop out of school to start a business during the winter break of my junior year. (Thankfully, my parents forced me to stay in school.) I finished my studies early in my senior year and spent the remaining weeks waking up early to read The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and then using the rest of the day to consume voluminous amounts of coffee while devouring Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” I was biding my time until I left academia to do what I thought I was meant to do: run a business.

Like all Wharton undergraduates, I interviewed with companies that came calling on campus: investment banks, strategy consulting firms and technology companies. At the time (I graduated in 1997), there was a company called Trilogy, based in Austin, Tex., that was getting a lot of press. Trilogy had been started by Joe Liemandt, who dropped out of Stanford to start an enterprise software company that was selling multimillion dollar software applications to big companies like Boeing, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard. While the software seemed esoteric — who understands what product configuration software does and why another company would spend millions of dollars for it? — Joe’s success was tangible. He was on the covers of business magazines and was ranked as one of Fortune’s 40 richest under 40 in 2001. He was the type of entrepreneur from whom I could have learned a tremendous amount.

But I didn’t think there was anything I needed to learn.

I was recruited to Trilogy by Ajay Agarwal. Before joining Trilogy, Ajay had graduated from Stanford, then Harvard Business School and worked in strategy consulting at McKinsey Company. Today, Ajay is a managing director at the venture capital firm Bain Capital Ventures. Ajay’s recruiting pitch was particularly compelling: come to Trilogy to work in an entrepreneurial environment with extremely smart people. The problem was that I believed I was ready to be the entrepreneur immediately.

Still, I accepted the job, and after a summer schedule meant to shed a wanderlust that I assume most college seniors have, I moved to Austin. I was paired with Jason Wesbecher, another Wharton undergraduate who had been working at Trilogy for about six months. (Today, Jason is the founder and chief executive of Handshakez in Austin.) Jason was the epitome of inherent intelligence, hard work and focus. He was driven to acquire customers for Trilogy, understanding that revenue was the lifeblood of a fast-growing start-up. At the time, I could not have been less impressed with that role.

I was ready to start a company. I felt it was my destiny to do so. It was what I had dreamed about since I was a child. In retrospect, I was terribly, utterly, naïve. Now, 16 years later, here are my reflections:

1. I knew nothing. Yes, it is true I studied business in college, and the college I went to is a good one (if you were to ask Donald Trump, it is without question the best). But there is a vast difference between studying business and doing business. Until I had actually done it, I knew nothing at all.

2. I didn’t know that I didn’t know anything. This is actually worse than not knowing anything. I thought that I had something to contribute. In fact, I thought that my presence at Trilogy was a real gift to the company. I was wrong.

3. I missed the opportunity to learn. Because I believed that I already knew everything, I missed the chance to learn from the incredibly smart people who did know something. Trilogy was an exceptionally good company at recruiting. It produced a Trilogy Mafia well before anyone talked about the Paypal Mafia. Former Trilogians have gone on to accomplish absolutely amazing things. And the people I had the chance to work with directly — Joe, Ajay, Jason and many others — were all truly extraordinary businessmen.

4. I thought I was entitled to something. Somehow, I arrived at Trilogy thinking that it was to their great benefit to have me as an employee. As a result, I thought I was entitled to the opportunity of doing something “strategic.” What I came to understand afterward was that many college graduates would have loved to have that job, and that it was my opportunity, but not my right, and certainly not something to take for granted.

5. I was confused about the meaning of hard work. I thought I should spend my time thinking big thoughts. I assumed that if I were in the office a lot, I must have been working hard. I didn’t know that I should have been doing what Jason was doing — the hard work of calling potential customers, learning about their problems and presenting our solutions. That was hard work and meaningful work. I didn’t realize it until after I had left.

My time at Trilogy was a missed opportunity. I realized it at the annual Trilogy Prom, where the entire company gathered at a luxurious location to celebrate the year’s success and to recognize extraordinary individual performance. Jason (deservedly) won a Trilogy Star Award based on his exceptional contribution to the company. As I watched him walk to the front of the room to accept his prize, I was of mixed emotion: proud of him but disappointed with myself. The experience proved to be a turning point.

After just over a year at the company, I decided to leave. Thankfully, I started to figure out what it took to achieve success. It was Jason’s focus and do-whatever-it-takes attitude that caused me to re-evaluate my own disposition. Once I did, I realized that I needed to start afresh. I looked for a small start-up where I could join on the ground floor. If I proved my mettle and the company grew, I might be able to take on more and more responsibility, learning essential skills to start my own company someday.

Next week, I’ll talk about my second job experience — what I did when I joined Callidus Software.

Bryan Burkhart is a founder of H.Bloom. You can follow him on Twitter.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/a-not-to-do-list-for-recent-college-graduates/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

Building the Team: A ‘Not-to-Do’ List for Recent College Graduates

July 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Building the Team

Hiring, firing, and training in a new era.

College graduation: lofty commencement speeches are given, bright futures anticipated and, for some lucky college graduates, new jobs await. While commencement addresses may be inspiring, I wish someone would take the opportunity to deliver a more practical message to new college graduates who are about to enter the work force. It would go something like this:

“Congratulations. You’ve just earned your college degree. I’m glad to be here as the first person to speak to you as college graduates. I have good news and bad news. First, the bad news: Despite your newly obtained degree, you don’t know anything. You have no skills. If you are really lucky, you will soon land your first job. You are not entitled to that job. Quite the contrary, there are many people just like you who would love to have that job. If you get it, you should be grateful for your good fortune and make the most of it. It will be hard work, sometimes backbreaking work, and you may feel that the work is beneath you. But the reality is that nothing is beneath you, because you don’t know anything — yet.

Now, the good news: You live in the United States of America, the greatest country in the world. If you work really, really hard, if you are happy to start at the bottom and work your way up, if you are ready to grind and scratch and claw, and if you catch a bit of luck, anything is possible. Anybody can be anything in America. You just have to be willing to learn fast from those around you and work really hard.”

Unfortunately, I was not invited to deliver any commencement speeches this year. So I’m doing the next best thing and reflecting in this post on my first job. I hope that it can provide a bit of help and guidance.

I’ll start with a summary: I totally whiffed on my first job experience. When I graduated from college, I knew nothing, had no skills and was not owed anything. But that’s not how I felt at the time.

I had just graduated from the Wharton School, the country’s oldest undergraduate business school and one that consistently lands the top slot in college rankings. I studied entrepreneurial management and tried to drop out of school to start a business during the winter break of my junior year. (Thankfully, my parents forced me to stay in school.) I finished my studies early in my senior year and spent the remaining weeks waking up early to read The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and then using the rest of the day to consume voluminous amounts of coffee while devouring Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” I was biding my time until I left academia to do what I thought I was meant to do: run a business.

Like all Wharton undergraduates, I interviewed with companies that came calling on campus: investment banks, strategy consulting firms and technology companies. At the time (I graduated in 1997), there was a company called Trilogy, based in Austin, Tex., that was getting a lot of press. Trilogy had been started by Joe Liemandt, who dropped out of Stanford to start an enterprise software company that was selling multimillion dollar software applications to big companies like Boeing, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard. While the software seemed esoteric — who understands what product configuration software does and why another company would spend millions of dollars for it? — Joe’s success was tangible. He was on the covers of business magazines and was ranked as one of Fortune’s 40 richest under 40 in 2001. He was the type of entrepreneur from whom I could have learned a tremendous amount.

But I didn’t think there was anything I needed to learn.

I was recruited to Trilogy by Ajay Agarwal. Before joining Trilogy, Ajay had graduated from Stanford, then Harvard Business School and worked in strategy consulting at McKinsey Company. Today, Ajay is a managing director at the venture capital firm Bain Capital Ventures. Ajay’s recruiting pitch was particularly compelling: come to Trilogy to work in an entrepreneurial environment with extremely smart people. The problem was that I believed I was ready to be the entrepreneur immediately.

Still, I accepted the job, and after a summer schedule meant to shed a wanderlust that I assume most college seniors have, I moved to Austin. I was paired with Jason Wesbecher, another Wharton undergraduate who had been working at Trilogy for about six months. (Today, Jason is the founder and chief executive of Handshakez in Austin.) Jason was the epitome of inherent intelligence, hard work and focus. He was driven to acquire customers for Trilogy, understanding that revenue was the lifeblood of a fast-growing start-up. At the time, I could not have been less impressed with that role.

I was ready to start a company. I felt it was my destiny to do so. It was what I had dreamed about since I was a child. In retrospect, I was terribly, utterly, naïve. Now, 16 years later, here are my reflections:

1. I knew nothing. Yes, it is true I studied business in college, and the college I went to is a good one (if you were to ask Donald Trump, it is without question the best). But there is a vast difference between studying business and doing business. Until I had actually done it, I knew nothing at all.

2. I didn’t know that I didn’t know anything. This is actually worse than not knowing anything. I thought that I had something to contribute. In fact, I thought that my presence at Trilogy was a real gift to the company. I was wrong.

3. I missed the opportunity to learn. Because I believed that I already knew everything, I missed the chance to learn from the incredibly smart people who did know something. Trilogy was an exceptionally good company at recruiting. It produced a Trilogy Mafia well before anyone talked about the Paypal Mafia. Former Trilogians have gone on to accomplish absolutely amazing things. And the people I had the chance to work with directly — Joe, Ajay, Jason and many others — were all truly extraordinary businessmen.

4. I thought I was entitled to something. Somehow, I arrived at Trilogy thinking that it was to their great benefit to have me as an employee. As a result, I thought I was entitled to the opportunity of doing something “strategic.” What I came to understand afterward was that many college graduates would have loved to have that job, and that it was my opportunity, but not my right, and certainly not something to take for granted.

5. I was confused about the meaning of hard work. I thought I should spend my time thinking big thoughts. I assumed that if I were in the office a lot, I must have been working hard. I didn’t know that I should have been doing what Jason was doing — the hard work of calling potential customers, learning about their problems and presenting our solutions. That was hard work and meaningful work. I didn’t realize it until after I had left.

My time at Trilogy was a missed opportunity. I realized it at the annual Trilogy Prom, where the entire company gathered at a luxurious location to celebrate the year’s success and to recognize extraordinary individual performance. Jason (deservedly) won a Trilogy Star Award based on his exceptional contribution to the company. As I watched him walk to the front of the room to accept his prize, I was of mixed emotion: proud of him but disappointed with myself. The experience proved to be a turning point.

After just over a year at the company, I decided to leave. Thankfully, I started to figure out what it took to achieve success. It was Jason’s focus and do-whatever-it-takes attitude that caused me to re-evaluate my own disposition. Once I did, I realized that I needed to start afresh. I looked for a small start-up where I could join on the ground floor. If I proved my mettle and the company grew, I might be able to take on more and more responsibility, learning essential skills to start my own company someday.

Next week, I’ll talk about my second job experience — what I did when I joined Callidus Software.

Bryan Burkhart is a founder of H.Bloom. You can follow him on Twitter.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/a-not-to-do-list-for-recent-college-graduates/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

You’re the Boss Blog: Could Employers Use Immigrants to Avoid the Health Mandate?

July 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Agenda

How small-business issues are shaping politics and policy.

In a bid to win conservatives over to the cause of immigration reform, the authors of the Senate bill included a provision that would deny health benefits to illegal immigrants seeking to become legal. Now there is an argument making the rounds that this provision will encourage companies to replace American workers with those newly legalized immigrants.

The immigration reform bill that passed the Senate denies illegal immigrants who embark on the pathway to citizenship — the bill calls them registered provisional immigrants — access to the subsidies for purchasing health insurance available under the Affordable Care Act. Because the new law ties the penalties for employers who offer inadequate health insurance, or none at all, to the subsidies their workers receive, companies whose workers are ineligible for subsidies could avoid those penalties.

“Some employers would face no penalty for failing to provide such workers affordable health coverage,” Jed Graham, a reporter for Investor’s Business Daily, wrote in April. Mr. Graham called this “an incentive of up to $3,000 per year to hire a newly legalized immigrant over a U.S. citizen.” Under the bill, these immigrants would not be entitled to subsidies until they received a green card, which would take 10 years.

Investor’s Business Daily has been opposed to the health insurance overhaul, and ironically enough, this claim seems to have first been embraced by conservatives. But the argument has since made its way across the political spectrum: by June it cropped up in both the New Republic and Mother Jones. You’re The Boss readers repeated the claim in comments to a recent post about small businesses and immigration.

Here’s how it would work — and because the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, like everything else about the health care bill, is mind-numbingly complex, so, too, would be such a scheme to circumvent it by hiring newly legal immigrants. The recently postponed mandate, which applies to businesses with at least 50 employees, basically works two ways. (Feel free to consult this handy chart published by the Kaiser Family Foundation.) First, if a company offers no insurance at all, and at least one employee buys individual insurance with a government subsidy, the company must pay a penalty. The penalty equals the total number of employees minus 30 multiplied by $2,000. A company with 50 employees, for example, would pay $40,000. But if this company managed to make sure that all of its lower-paid employees — the subsidies are available to anybody making less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level — were registered provisional immigrants, it would avoid the penalty altogether, because none of them could buy subsidized insurance.

If, on the other hand, the company offers insurance but it does not meet the health law’s minimum standards, or some employees find it unaffordable, then employees are free to buy their own insurance. And for each employee who buys insurance with a taxpayer subsidy, the company must pay a $3,000 penalty — if 10 employees require subsidies, for example, the total penalty is $30,000. (This penalty is not as draconian as it might seem, because it is limited to the amount the company would pay if it offered no insurance at all.) So for every legal immigrant or citizen that a company offering sub-par health benefits replaced with a registered provisional immigrant, the company could save $3,000.

But how realistic is this? To skirt this law, the companies would have to out-and-out violate another: it is illegal to ask applicants about their immigration status — an employer can ask job candidates only if they are authorized to work in the United States.

And, frankly, it is a lot of effort. “Most employers want to focus on their business and not build these complicated schemes,” said Alan Cohen, the chief strategy officer and co-founder of Liazon, which offers employers group health insurance through what it calls a private benefits exchange. But companies that did try this scheme, he added, would enter “a house of cards that can come down on you at any time. And it’s not just the law itself. One little change in guidance and all of a sudden all that work you did, out the window.

“At the end of the day, offering employee benefits is all about attracting good employees. I think every business tries to attract and retain employees at some level. What’s going to happen is people are just not going to work for people who scheme to harm their employees.”

In any event, the prospect of employers ever having the opportunity to take advantage of these provisions seems increasingly remote. For one thing, not only has the administration delayed the effective date of the mandate for a year, but both conservatives and liberals have called for its repeal. And until House Republicans decide to take up the Senate bill, any discussion of registered provisional immigrants on a pathway to citizenship is going to remain academic.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/could-employers-use-immigrants-to-avoid-the-health-mandate/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

The Agenda: Could Employers Use Immigrants to Avoid the Health Mandate?

July 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Agenda

How small-business issues are shaping politics and policy.

In a bid to win conservatives over to the cause of immigration reform, the authors of the Senate bill included a provision that would deny health benefits to illegal immigrants seeking to become legal. Now there is an argument making the rounds that this provision will encourage companies to replace American workers with those newly legalized immigrants.

The immigration reform bill that passed the Senate denies illegal immigrants who embark on the pathway to citizenship — the bill calls them registered provisional immigrants — access to the subsidies for purchasing health insurance available under the Affordable Care Act. Because the new law ties the penalties for employers who offer inadequate health insurance, or none at all, to the subsidies their workers receive, companies whose workers are ineligible for subsidies could avoid those penalties.

“Some employers would face no penalty for failing to provide such workers affordable health coverage,” Jed Graham, a reporter for Investor’s Business Daily, wrote in April. Mr. Graham called this “an incentive of up to $3,000 per year to hire a newly legalized immigrant over a U.S. citizen.” Under the bill, these immigrants would not be entitled to subsidies until they received a green card, which would take 10 years.

Investor’s Business Daily has been opposed to the health insurance overhaul, and ironically enough, this claim seems to have first been embraced by conservatives. But the argument has since made its way across the political spectrum: by June it cropped up in both the New Republic and Mother Jones. You’re The Boss readers repeated the claim in comments to a recent post about small businesses and immigration.

Here’s how it would work — and because the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, like everything else about the health care bill, is mind-numbingly complex, so, too, would be such a scheme to circumvent it by hiring newly legal immigrants. The recently postponed mandate, which applies to businesses with at least 50 employees, basically works two ways. (Feel free to consult this handy chart published by the Kaiser Family Foundation.) First, if a company offers no insurance at all, and at least one employee buys individual insurance with a government subsidy, the company must pay a penalty. The penalty equals the total number of employees minus 30 multiplied by $2,000. A company with 50 employees, for example, would pay $40,000. But if this company managed to make sure that all of its lower-paid employees — the subsidies are available to anybody making less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level — were registered provisional immigrants, it would avoid the penalty altogether, because none of them could buy subsidized insurance.

If, on the other hand, the company offers insurance but it does not meet the health law’s minimum standards, or some employees find it unaffordable, then employees are free to buy their own insurance. And for each employee who buys insurance with a taxpayer subsidy, the company must pay a $3,000 penalty — if 10 employees require subsidies, for example, the total penalty is $30,000. (This penalty is not as draconian as it might seem, because it is limited to the amount the company would pay if it offered no insurance at all.) So for every legal immigrant or citizen that a company offering sub-par health benefits replaced with a registered provisional immigrant, the company could save $3,000.

But how realistic is this? To skirt this law, the companies would have to out-and-out violate another: it is illegal to ask applicants about their immigration status — an employer can ask job candidates only if they are authorized to work in the United States.

And, frankly, it is a lot of effort. “Most employers want to focus on their business and not build these complicated schemes,” said Alan Cohen, the chief strategy officer and co-founder of Liazon, which offers employers group health insurance through what it calls a private benefits exchange. But companies that did try this scheme, he added, would enter “a house of cards that can come down on you at any time. And it’s not just the law itself. One little change in guidance and all of a sudden all that work you did, out the window.

“At the end of the day, offering employee benefits is all about attracting good employees. I think every business tries to attract and retain employees at some level. What’s going to happen is people are just not going to work for people who scheme to harm their employees.”

In any event, the prospect of employers ever having the opportunity to take advantage of these provisions seems increasingly remote. For one thing, not only has the administration delayed the effective date of the mandate for a year, but both conservatives and liberals have called for its repeal. And until House Republicans decide to take up the Senate bill, any discussion of registered provisional immigrants on a pathway to citizenship is going to remain academic.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/could-employers-use-immigrants-to-avoid-the-health-mandate/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

You’re the Boss Blog: Remembering Why I Got Into Business

July 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Paul Downs: Would I consider starting up my residential business again?Courtesy of Paul Downs Cabinetmakers. Paul Downs: Would I consider starting up my residential business again?

Staying Alive

The struggles of a business trying to survive.

Here’s some business advice that I have heard many times: “Follow your passion!” I suppose, to some, that I might be considered a poster boy for this line of thought, considering that I started my furniture-making business on a whim 27 years ago, just to try to make a go of something I enjoyed doing, and I’m still here after all those years.

A lot has changed in that time, though. In particular, my daily task list has taken twists and turns as I reacted to the challenges of building my business. But recently I had an opportunity to dial back the clock and spend a couple of weeks at the bench, building a set of chairs and a dining table. Making furniture was my original job, but 21 years have passed since I last made a project for a client with my own hands. That’s a long, long time. So what was it like to go back and revisit my passion?

I should explain why I even considered doing this. Today, as regular readers of this blog know, my company specializes in building custom conference and boardroom tables, but before the Internet pushed us into that market we spent many years making dining furniture. In 2001, a client ordered a nice table-and-chairs set for a shore house in Longport, N.J. Last fall, Hurricane Sandy washed the contents of the ground floor into the bay, and the client called and begged me to replace the set. I agreed to do so, which was a problem, because the tables and chairs we made back then are no longer in regular production.

We stopped promoting our residential line in 2006, because conference tables are much more profitable products. You would be surprised how important it is, in a factory setting, to do something regularly in order to do it well — it’s like physical fitness, in that constant repetition of a particular process makes it go much faster and better. While we have built up our expertise in conference tables, our other skill sets have atrophied. The special chair-making tools we used back then have been mothballed, and none of my current production guys are masters of the sequence of processes required to build these pieces.

As I explained in a recent series of posts, we have been extremely busy since I hired a sales consultant. And that is another reason I wasn’t wild about the idea of shifting a productive worker to a problem project. At the same time, since hiring the sales consultant, I have been able to offload many of my sales duties onto my staff, and I have found myself with a significant amount of free time every day. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to try to get the company to operate without my constant intervention, which required that I spend more time setting up systems for my people and less time putting out fires. This has been going quite well.

Rather than twiddle my thumbs all day, I decided that I would build this job myself. Our shop is enormous, and there was a spare workbench available, so I would not be in anyone’s way. I could take my time to complete the project, and I could prevent an unfamiliar product from distracting any of my workers. Also, I was looking forward to getting my hands dusty after all of those years in the office. Making things is fun. But I did wonder if I would be able to handle the physical aspect of the work and match our current level of craftsmanship and speed.

At the end of April I got started, and I completed the project in June: 14 chairs and a large custom table. I  put 130 hours into these pieces over two months. More than half the time we spend on any project involves sanding, and that is a task that keeps the hands busy and leaves the mind free to wander. During all of those hours, I thought about a wide variety of things. Here, in no particular order, are some of my thoughts:

• Doing this job reminded me of why I got into the business in the first place. The nature of woodworking is pleasurable. It’s a nice mix of challenging thought and physical labor. The results of each minute of work are clearly visible as you transform raw materials into finished product, step by step. I think this explains why many of my workers have stayed with me for so long. Considering the alternatives, making furniture is a great way to spend your day. If a reasonable wage accompanies the job, there is little incentive to jump ship.

• Surprisingly, considering I was at the bench for six years (1986 to 1992), I had never built a set of 14 chairs. The model I was making is one of 16 different chairs I have designed, but I personally built only the early prototypes. In subsequent years, I had overseen production of thousands of them, even though I was not doing the work myself. I still remembered the sequence of tasks, and the tool set-ups for chairs are not particularly complicated, so I did not have any trouble performing the steps. While I completed the job in a reasonable number of hours, I was significantly slower than our old production times. When we were cranking them out, my best worker could build a chair in four hours. It took me six and a half hours. And since you probably are curious, here is what I charged: a dozen with an arc cutout at the top were priced at $835 each and two with inlaid sapele squares cost $907.

• Working in production mode is very different from working in boss mode. Once the task at hand was started, I was able to work without distractions. This is the opposite of my usual day, in which I do a large number of different tasks for a few minutes at a time — and I am constantly interrupted. Also, the job had strict definitions. I knew what I had to do, how to do it, and what success looked like. Again, this contrasts with my role as boss, much of which involves trying to figure out what a jumble of conflicting data might mean and what we should (or should not) do next.

• I’m happy to report that I am, at age 51, still able to put in a day of physical work. The shop floor is noisy and dusty, but that doesn’t bother me. Most of the days in May, I worked four to six hours on the chairs, after completing my boss tasks. But a couple of days I went for a full eight hours. I was working on my feet all day and doing a lot of lifting and work with my hands and arms. A persistent pain I have had in my shoulder for the last 15 years, exacerbated by hours of using a computer mouse, went away. My hands started to become rougher from holding sandpaper. I went home tired, and I slept well.

• In 1992, when I ceased working at the bench, it was because I could see that someone was going to have to concentrate on design, sales, marketing and administration. And that person would need to be me. I knew it would be much easier to hire someone to do the production end of things, working from my plans, than to find someone who could guide the business while I indulged my passion for my craft. That decision set me on the path I have followed since — to be a business owner as well as a maker. It has been a long, twisting journey since then. In the last 10 years, I’ve spent far more time reacting to changes in the economy than following my original dream. And the arrival of the Internet changed my business into something I never could have imagined when I started it. But following the path of new possibilities has led to more wealth for me and good jobs for 17 people. I’m glad I was flexible.

Would I consider starting up my residential business again? I discussed this with my shop manager and lead salesman at one of our weekly wrap-up meetings, and they asked me why we weren’t putting our extensive catalog of designs to work and building up that business. It don’t think it would be difficult — I have a very good idea of how I would market a residential line. To some extent, the answer is my own bad attitude. I just don’t want to — not for good reasons but because I cannot see myself leading that charge. Been there, done that.

When customers are buying for their own homes, the sales process is very different from when they are buying on behalf of a corporation, and the logistical aspects of shipping furniture to residential addresses are challenging. I would want to be able to sell to clients all over the country, which makes delivery a very important part of our responsibility. We have been able to design our conference tables so that they can be disassembled for shipping, but that is much harder to do with dining tables and chairs that are built using traditional joinery methods.

But I am probably overestimating the difficulties. My every thought regarding those products is tainted with the memory of dealing with the problems I experienced in the early years. I am very comfortable with the way my business is operating now, and I just don’t feel like gambling on a new product line. If I ever do decide to get back into residential, I will need to find someone young and energetic to come in and develop that as a separate business. I don’t want any of my current people to be distracted by a new line. They already have enough to do.

So revisiting my passion was fun. I was able to treat the project as if I were a hobbyist, without concern for profit, and simply enjoy the experience. I’m curious whether others who have been in business for a while have had to step away from their passion to succeed. If that is true in your case, what do you think about that now?

Paul Downs founded Paul Downs Cabinetmakers in 1986. It is based outside Philadelphia.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/stepping-back-to-remember-why-i-got-into-business/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

Staying Alive: Remembering Why I Got Into Business

July 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Paul Downs: Would I consider starting up my residential business again?Courtesy of Paul Downs Cabinetmakers. Paul Downs: Would I consider starting up my residential business again?

Staying Alive

The struggles of a business trying to survive.

Here’s some business advice that I have heard many times: “Follow your passion!” I suppose, to some, that I might be considered a poster boy for this line of thought, considering that I started my furniture-making business on a whim 27 years ago, just to try to make a go of something I enjoyed doing, and I’m still here after all those years.

A lot has changed in that time, though. In particular, my daily task list has taken twists and turns as I reacted to the challenges of building my business. But recently I had an opportunity to dial back the clock and spend a couple of weeks at the bench, building a set of chairs and a dining table. Making furniture was my original job, but 21 years have passed since I last made a project for a client with my own hands. That’s a long, long time. So what was it like to go back and revisit my passion?

I should explain why I even considered doing this. Today, as regular readers of this blog know, my company specializes in building custom conference and boardroom tables, but before the Internet pushed us into that market we spent many years making dining furniture. In 2001, a client ordered a nice table-and-chairs set for a shore house in Longport, N.J. Last fall, Hurricane Sandy washed the contents of the ground floor into the bay, and the client called and begged me to replace the set. I agreed to do so, which was a problem, because the tables and chairs we made back then are no longer in regular production.

We stopped promoting our residential line in 2006, because conference tables are much more profitable products. You would be surprised how important it is, in a factory setting, to do something regularly in order to do it well — it’s like physical fitness, in that constant repetition of a particular process makes it go much faster and better. While we have built up our expertise in conference tables, our other skill sets have atrophied. The special chair-making tools we used back then have been mothballed, and none of my current production guys are masters of the sequence of processes required to build these pieces.

As I explained in a recent series of posts, we have been extremely busy since I hired a sales consultant. And that is another reason I wasn’t wild about the idea of shifting a productive worker to a problem project. At the same time, since hiring the sales consultant, I have been able to offload many of my sales duties onto my staff, and I have found myself with a significant amount of free time every day. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to try to get the company to operate without my constant intervention, which required that I spend more time setting up systems for my people and less time putting out fires. This has been going quite well.

Rather than twiddle my thumbs all day, I decided that I would build this job myself. Our shop is enormous, and there was a spare workbench available, so I would not be in anyone’s way. I could take my time to complete the project, and I could prevent an unfamiliar product from distracting any of my workers. Also, I was looking forward to getting my hands dusty after all of those years in the office. Making things is fun. But I did wonder if I would be able to handle the physical aspect of the work and match our current level of craftsmanship and speed.

At the end of April I got started, and I completed the project in June: 14 chairs and a large custom table. I  put 130 hours into these pieces over two months. More than half the time we spend on any project involves sanding, and that is a task that keeps the hands busy and leaves the mind free to wander. During all of those hours, I thought about a wide variety of things. Here, in no particular order, are some of my thoughts:

• Doing this job reminded me of why I got into the business in the first place. The nature of woodworking is pleasurable. It’s a nice mix of challenging thought and physical labor. The results of each minute of work are clearly visible as you transform raw materials into finished product, step by step. I think this explains why many of my workers have stayed with me for so long. Considering the alternatives, making furniture is a great way to spend your day. If a reasonable wage accompanies the job, there is little incentive to jump ship.

• Surprisingly, considering I was at the bench for six years (1986 to 1992), I had never built a set of 14 chairs. The model I was making is one of 16 different chairs I have designed, but I personally built only the early prototypes. In subsequent years, I had overseen production of thousands of them, even though I was not doing the work myself. I still remembered the sequence of tasks, and the tool set-ups for chairs are not particularly complicated, so I did not have any trouble performing the steps. While I completed the job in a reasonable number of hours, I was significantly slower than our old production times. When we were cranking them out, my best worker could build a chair in four hours. It took me six and a half hours. And since you probably are curious, here is what I charged: a dozen with an arc cutout at the top were priced at $835 each and two with inlaid sapele squares cost $907.

• Working in production mode is very different from working in boss mode. Once the task at hand was started, I was able to work without distractions. This is the opposite of my usual day, in which I do a large number of different tasks for a few minutes at a time — and I am constantly interrupted. Also, the job had strict definitions. I knew what I had to do, how to do it, and what success looked like. Again, this contrasts with my role as boss, much of which involves trying to figure out what a jumble of conflicting data might mean and what we should (or should not) do next.

• I’m happy to report that I am, at age 51, still able to put in a day of physical work. The shop floor is noisy and dusty, but that doesn’t bother me. Most of the days in May, I worked four to six hours on the chairs, after completing my boss tasks. But a couple of days I went for a full eight hours. I was working on my feet all day and doing a lot of lifting and work with my hands and arms. A persistent pain I have had in my shoulder for the last 15 years, exacerbated by hours of using a computer mouse, went away. My hands started to become rougher from holding sandpaper. I went home tired, and I slept well.

• In 1992, when I ceased working at the bench, it was because I could see that someone was going to have to concentrate on design, sales, marketing and administration. And that person would need to be me. I knew it would be much easier to hire someone to do the production end of things, working from my plans, than to find someone who could guide the business while I indulged my passion for my craft. That decision set me on the path I have followed since — to be a business owner as well as a maker. It has been a long, twisting journey since then. In the last 10 years, I’ve spent far more time reacting to changes in the economy than following my original dream. And the arrival of the Internet changed my business into something I never could have imagined when I started it. But following the path of new possibilities has led to more wealth for me and good jobs for 17 people. I’m glad I was flexible.

Would I consider starting up my residential business again? I discussed this with my shop manager and lead salesman at one of our weekly wrap-up meetings, and they asked me why we weren’t putting our extensive catalog of designs to work and building up that business. It don’t think it would be difficult — I have a very good idea of how I would market a residential line. To some extent, the answer is my own bad attitude. I just don’t want to — not for good reasons but because I cannot see myself leading that charge. Been there, done that.

When customers are buying for their own homes, the sales process is very different from when they are buying on behalf of a corporation, and the logistical aspects of shipping furniture to residential addresses are challenging. I would want to be able to sell to clients all over the country, which makes delivery a very important part of our responsibility. We have been able to design our conference tables so that they can be disassembled for shipping, but that is much harder to do with dining tables and chairs that are built using traditional joinery methods.

But I am probably overestimating the difficulties. My every thought regarding those products is tainted with the memory of dealing with the problems I experienced in the early years. I am very comfortable with the way my business is operating now, and I just don’t feel like gambling on a new product line. If I ever do decide to get back into residential, I will need to find someone young and energetic to come in and develop that as a separate business. I don’t want any of my current people to be distracted by a new line. They already have enough to do.

So revisiting my passion was fun. I was able to treat the project as if I were a hobbyist, without concern for profit, and simply enjoy the experience. I’m curious whether others who have been in business for a while have had to step away from their passion to succeed. If that is true in your case, what do you think about that now?

Paul Downs founded Paul Downs Cabinetmakers in 1986. It is based outside Philadelphia.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/stepping-back-to-remember-why-i-got-into-business/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

You’re the Boss Blog: Stepping Back to Remember Why I Got Into Business

July 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Paul Downs: Would I consider starting up my residential business again?Courtesy of Paul Downs Cabinetmakers. Paul Downs: Would I consider starting up my residential business again?

Staying Alive

The struggles of a business trying to survive.

Here’s some business advice that I have heard many times: “Follow your passion!” I suppose, to some, that I might be considered a poster boy for this line of thought, considering that I started my furniture-making business on a whim 27 years ago, just to try to make a go of something I enjoyed doing, and I’m still here after all those years.

A lot has changed in that time, though. In particular, my daily task list has taken twists and turns as I reacted to the challenges of building my business. But recently I had an opportunity to dial back the clock and spend a couple of weeks at the bench, building a set of chairs and a dining table. Making furniture was my original job, but 21 years have passed since I last made a project for a client with my own hands. That’s a long, long time. So what was it like to go back and revisit my passion?

I should explain why I even considered doing this. Today, as regular readers of this blog know, my company specializes in building custom conference and boardroom tables, but before the Internet pushed us into that market we spent many years making dining furniture. In 2001, a client ordered a nice table-and-chairs set for a shore house in Longport, N.J. Last fall, Hurricane Sandy washed the contents of the ground floor into the bay, and the client called and begged me to replace the set. I agreed to do so, which was a problem, because the tables and chairs we made back then are no longer in regular production.

We stopped promoting our residential line in 2006, because conference tables are much more profitable products. You would be surprised how important it is, in a factory setting, to do something regularly in order to do it well — it’s like physical fitness, in that constant repetition of a particular process makes it go much faster and better. While we have built up our expertise in conference tables, our other skill sets have atrophied. The special chair-making tools we used back then have been mothballed, and none of my current production guys are masters of the sequence of processes required to build these pieces.

As I explained in a recent series of posts, we have been extremely busy since I hired a sales consultant. And that is another reason I wasn’t wild about the idea of shifting a productive worker to a problem project. At the same time, since hiring the sales consultant, I have been able to offload many of my sales duties onto my staff, and I have found myself with a significant amount of free time every day. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to try to get the company to operate without my constant intervention, which required that I spend more time setting up systems for my people and less time putting out fires. This has been going quite well.

Rather than twiddle my thumbs all day, I decided that I would build this job myself. Our shop is enormous, and there was a spare workbench available, so I would not be in anyone’s way. I could take my time to complete the project, and I could prevent an unfamiliar product from distracting any of my workers. Also, I was looking forward to getting my hands dusty after all of those years in the office. Making things is fun. But I did wonder if I would be able to handle the physical aspect of the work and match our current level of craftsmanship and speed.

At the end of April I got started, and I completed the project in June: 14 chairs and a large custom table. I  put 130 hours into these pieces over two months. More than half the time we spend on any project involves sanding, and that is a task that keeps the hands busy and leaves the mind free to wander. During all of those hours, I thought about a wide variety of things. Here, in no particular order, are some of my thoughts:

• Doing this job reminded me of why I got into the business in the first place. The nature of woodworking is pleasurable. It’s a nice mix of challenging thought and physical labor. The results of each minute of work are clearly visible as you transform raw materials into finished product, step by step. I think this explains why many of my workers have stayed with me for so long. Considering the alternatives, making furniture is a great way to spend your day. If a reasonable wage accompanies the job, there is little incentive to jump ship.

• Surprisingly, considering I was at the bench for six years (1986 to 1992), I had never built a set of 14 chairs. The model I was making is one of 16 different chairs I have designed, but I personally built only the early prototypes. In subsequent years, I had overseen production of thousands of them, even though I was not doing the work myself. I still remembered the sequence of tasks, and the tool set-ups for chairs are not particularly complicated, so I did not have any trouble performing the steps. While I completed the job in a reasonable number of hours, I was significantly slower than our old production times. When we were cranking them out, my best worker could build a chair in four hours. It took me six and a half hours. And since you probably are curious, here is what I charged: a dozen with an arc cutout at the top were priced at $835 each and two with inlaid sapele squares cost $907.

• Working in production mode is very different from working in boss mode. Once the task at hand was started, I was able to work without distractions. This is the opposite of my usual day, in which I do a large number of different tasks for a few minutes at a time — and I am constantly interrupted. Also, the job had strict definitions. I knew what I had to do, how to do it, and what success looked like. Again, this contrasts with my role as boss, much of which involves trying to figure out what a jumble of conflicting data might mean and what we should (or should not) do next.

• I’m happy to report that I am, at age 51, still able to put in a day of physical work. The shop floor is noisy and dusty, but that doesn’t bother me. Most of the days in May, I worked four to six hours on the chairs, after completing my boss tasks. But a couple of days I went for a full eight hours. I was working on my feet all day and doing a lot of lifting and work with my hands and arms. A persistent pain I have had in my shoulder for the last 15 years, exacerbated by hours of using a computer mouse, went away. My hands started to become rougher from holding sandpaper. I went home tired, and I slept well.

• In 1992, when I ceased working at the bench, it was because I could see that someone was going to have to concentrate on design, sales, marketing and administration. And that person would need to be me. I knew it would be much easier to hire someone to do the production end of things, working from my plans, than to find someone who could guide the business while I indulged my passion for my craft. That decision set me on the path I have followed since — to be a business owner as well as a maker. It has been a long, twisting journey since then. In the last 10 years, I’ve spent far more time reacting to changes in the economy than following my original dream. And the arrival of the Internet changed my business into something I never could have imagined when I started it. But following the path of new possibilities has led to more wealth for me and good jobs for 17 people. I’m glad I was flexible.

Would I consider starting up my residential business again? I discussed this with my shop manager and lead salesman at one of our weekly wrap-up meetings, and they asked me why we weren’t putting our extensive catalog of designs to work and building up that business. It don’t think it would be difficult — I have a very good idea of how I would market a residential line. To some extent, the answer is my own bad attitude. I just don’t want to — not for good reasons but because I cannot see myself leading that charge. Been there, done that.

When customers are buying for their own homes, the sales process is very different from when they are buying on behalf of a corporation, and the logistical aspects of shipping furniture to residential addresses are challenging. I would want to be able to sell to clients all over the country, which makes delivery a very important part of our responsibility. We have been able to design our conference tables so that they can be disassembled for shipping, but that is much harder to do with dining tables and chairs that are built using traditional joinery methods.

But I am probably overestimating the difficulties. My every thought regarding those products is tainted with the memory of dealing with the problems I experienced in the early years. I am very comfortable with the way my business is operating now, and I just don’t feel like gambling on a new product line. If I ever do decide to get back into residential, I will need to find someone young and energetic to come in and develop that as a separate business. I don’t want any of my current people to be distracted by a new line. They already have enough to do.

So revisiting my passion was fun. I was able to treat the project as if I were a hobbyist, without concern for profit, and simply enjoy the experience. I’m curious whether others who have been in business for a while have had to step away from their passion to succeed. If that is true in your case, what do you think about that now?

Paul Downs founded Paul Downs Cabinetmakers in 1986. It is based outside Philadelphia.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/stepping-back-to-remember-why-i-got-into-business/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

You’re the Boss Blog: Deciding How Important It Is for a Business to Grow

July 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
She Owns It

Portraits of women entrepreneurs.

Alexandra Mayzler: The company is growing -- but slowly.Earl Wilson/The New York Times Alexandra Mayzler: The company is growing — but slowly.

At the most recent meeting of the She Owns It business group, we talked about the challenges of growing a business.

Alexandra Mayzler, who owns Thinking Caps Group, said her growth concerns are different than they were three years ago. Back then, she said she feared growth because she wasn’t sure she could find the right infrastructure and employees. Now, she said, she feels confident about the company’s infrastructure. The Thinking Caps playbook, which she recently updated, covers everything from how to draft an e-mail to the principles that underlie what the company does.

She said she believes that, with the resources she’s created, she can now communicate her vision to new employees. “I’m not saying I’m perfect and I don’t have a lot to learn,” she said, “but there’s enough infrastructure and training and leadership in place that you should be able to succeed unless it’s just not a good fit.” Now, she said, she needs to work on making the right long-term hires — and putting more focus on growth.

In the last few years, Thinking Caps has branched into Princeton, N.J., and Texas, with locations in Austin, Dallas, and Houston. It has also added a service called Prepare for Launch, a program for college students. “The company has been growing every year, but not a significant amount,” Ms. Mayzler said. The growth she has achieved, she said, has been primarily organic.

“At a certain point that sort of slows to a crawl, and then you need to put both oars in the water,” said Beth Shaw, who owns YogaFit.

“That’s exactly where I am,” Ms. Mayzler said. “In the beginning, you have to go out there pounding the pavement, and then it got to a place where we got our sort of low-hanging fruit.” The company is still growing — but slowly. Ms. Mayzler acknowledged she hadn’t made a concerted effort: “The conversation that I had with myself yesterday was, Is that good enough?”

“If you’re a true entrepreneur, it’s rarely good enough,” Ms. Shaw said.

Ms. Mayzler agreed. She conceded that she thought briefly about taking it easy. “I was like, Oh, this is fun, I can just take the summer off, this will be great,” she said. But when she woke up the next day, she said she realized she wanted to see the company “grow to the next level.”

And she said she thinks she finally knows what needs to be done. Much of her uncertainty, she said, was the result of her lack of infrastructure and her struggles to hire the right employees. “Maybe I have to deal with the fact that that perfect person doesn’t exist,” she said. She added that she had also realized that she may have to get better at making her expectations known to her staff and then following through when they fail to live up to them.

Looking back on the last two years, she said she now realizes she vacillated between micromanaging and stepping back too much. “I need to be consistent,” she said. “And I need to not be afraid of telling people what I think should be done. And when I’m evaluating things and when I think they’re not going well, I need to not be like, ‘Okay, let’s hope for the best next month.’”

With the infrastructure in place and some management lessons learned, Ms. Mayzler said she plans to “go after the middle-hanging fruit” in a strategic way. “We need to stop resting on our laurels and we need to get out there, and get out there in an organized way,” she said. In considering each location, she said she realized she had merely “gone through the motions” of expanding the business in New York. She added that she now sees she wasn’t truly committed to the idea because she was letting management issues distract her.

“I can say to myself, Oh, we didn’t get major results this year, but I tried,” she said of her efforts in New York. “But if I’m honest with myself, I don’t really think I really tried.” So, while she continued to work 12-hour days and cross items off her to-do list — for example, by sending a certain number of e-mails seeking partnerships with organizations like the Y.M.C.A. or the Jewish Community Center — her heart wasn’t in it.

But this summer, she is making plans. “I’m going to start September actually having very concrete goals because this year I was very flexible with myself,” she said. “I can’t wait for the school year to begin so we can actually do it.”

“That’s a big shift for you, because you haven’t been sure for a very long time,” Ms. Shaw said.

You can follow Adriana Gardella on Twitter.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/growing-your-business-how-do-you-define-good-enough/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

You’re the Boss Blog: This Week In Small Business: The Employer Mandate

July 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Dashboard

A weekly roundup of small-business developments.

What’s affecting me, my clients and other small-business owners this week.

Must-Reads

Clate Mask shares some ugly truths about owning a small business, and Nouriel Roubini says that a new period of uncertainty and volatility has begun.

The Economy: Seven Charts

Manufacturing activity increased, but the service sector slowed. Construction spending rose in May. Small-business borrowing rose, and SurePayroll’s Small Business Scorecard reports increased optimism. Nissan expands production in the United States, and the Restaurant Performance Index hits a 14-month high. The Agriculture Department expects food prices to climb. Apparently sequestration wasn’t as bad as feared, and these seven charts show where the economy is headed.

Jobs: Hiring Up

The economy added more jobs than expected in June, and ADP reports that small-business hiring beat forecasts, too. Another survey found that nearly a third of manufacturers and distributors plan to increase the size of their work force in 2013, and 10 of 36 states saw employment growth in June. But the National Federation of Independent Business said that small-business employment edged down for a second straight month. Minneapolis has the lowest unemployment rate for a major city.

Health Care: Mandate Delayed

The health care law employer mandate has been delayed until 2015, and Ed Rogers believes that the decision could hurt small businesses. Ezra Klein says the employee mandate should not be delayed — “it should be repealed.” The Wall Street Journal apologizes for not being “critical enough” about the Affordable Care Act. Connecticut struggles to get ready to introduce coverage. More than 40 percent of uninsured Americans aren’t aware that they could be required to buy coverage next year, according to a Gallup survey.

Online Payments: Bitcoin Mania

Many small businesses are embracing Bitcoin, and some wonder if it will drive more sales (and for those still wondering what it is, here’s a definition). A Google-backed distributed currency exchange is trying to make it easier for people to pay others with the alternative currency. Michel Bauwens explains how the “Bitcoin 1 percent” manipulate the currency, deceive its user community, and make its future uncertain. Kate Craig-Wood explains how she made a fortune with bitcoin. This ATM will turn bank notes into bitcoins, and the Winklevoss Twins want to sell you a bitcoin fund. Here are eight ways investing in bitcoins could go terribly wrong, and a seminar that will explore the currency’s future.

Employees: Amy’s Baking

Amy’s Baking Company makes news again by requiring employees to sign a contract. Amanda MacArthur explains how restaurant tipping is evolving. A Staples survey finds workers want naps, better technology, and the ability to work from home. Former MSNBC and “Saturday Night Live” interns target NBCUniversal in a lawsuit, while thousands of other emboldened and disgruntled former interns are potentially eligible to sue media companies. A teacher has worn the same outfit in his yearbook photo for 40 years. A grumpy cat becomes a “cat-alyst” for social good.

Entrepreneurs: The Walking Dead

An entrepreneur explains how he went from a village boy to chief executive of India’s largest bus-ticketing service. Kim Kaupe says there are four ways entrepreneurs can avoid becoming the walking dead. This is how tech entrepreneurs in three different countries get on their bikes. A new live radio show will let Americans vote on contestants’ ideas for business ventures. A Detroit entrepreneur transforms personal tragedy into lifesaving inventions. A 10-week training program from the Kauffman Foundation that promises to build skills in entrepreneurship is accepting applications from military veterans.

Cash Flow: This American Business

Jules Olbermann tells the story of how separate accounts helped keep her and her husband together. PayPal Galactic can help you pay for that Mars vacation you always wanted. Ira Glass explains why “This American Life” is thriving as a business. An online marketplace and a crowdfunding platform team up. Chris Peden shares a small-business owner’s guide to applying for a mortgage.

Start-Up: 30 Days To Live

Jacob Goldstein says that his start-up has only 30 days to live, and Andrew Montalenti explains why start-ups fail. Ariel Diaz thinks start-up schools are incredible places to recruit outside of Silicon Valley. This five-time entrepreneur shares five crucial ways to know when you should start up, and here’s how to try out your business idea before you dive in. New York barely breaks the top 20 in start-up investment per capita (and a prank brings out the best and worst in its citizens).

Around The Country: Boating is Back

Jon Xavier explains how the Defense of Marriage Act ruling complicates business, but California’s wedding industry loves the Prop 8 ruling and studies show that the L.G.B.T. market is affluent and influential. The boating industry makes a comeback. In a new contest, Wal-Mart offers entrepreneurs a chance to compete for shelf space. These are the top 10 states for new manufacturing jobs. Oregon gets closer to a plan to provide free college education.

Around the World: Your Flight Number

In Colombia, Coke tests a bottle made of ice. Israel’s start-up culture is luring more M.B.A.’s. A film banned as pornography in China was accidentally shown on a large screen in a public square. And in case you were wondering, here’s what your flight number means.

Management: Relocating

Laurie McCabe explains eight ways to grow your small business, while a family business owner learns a few hard lessons about succession. Larry Kudlow interviews successful manufacturers about how they can afford to make things in America, and Jim Smith lists six important small-business tasks for the second half of 2013. Joe Taylor Jr. says there are five ways that relocating a small business can cut costs. A few tech giants offer advice to small-business owners, and here are five business lessons from the “Fresh Prince of Bel Air.”

Marketing: Why It Isn’t Working

Craig Newmark reminds us of the glorious future of shopping. Jim Connolly explains why your marketing isn’t working, and Andrew Gothelf suggests three ways to motivate your sales team (and they are not about money). Jay Baer shares three modern marketing mistakes. Barbara Austin wonders if you really need to do in-person marketing. These are 15 e-mail subject line formulas that work, and here are three Web site add-ons that are worth buying.

Social Media: Must-Use Sites and Apps

Jeff Bullas looks into the facts, figures and statistics of social media. Here is how social media is driving huge online video growth. This infographic explains the five essential elements of viral content, and here are seven “must-use” sites and apps to boost social media. Megan Conley explains how to increase your Google+ engagement, and Lynn White shares advice on how to use Facebook to promote events. The federal government spent $630,000 to “buy” Facebook fans when it could have used these techniques.

Red Tape: Regulatory Issues

Paychex identifies the top five regulatory issues of the summer, and Rick Harrison slams anti-business regulations. Many small-business owners back taking action on climate change. The General Services Administration continues to exceed its small-business goals, and the Small Business Administration and Native American Contractors Association agree to a strategic alliance. Hundreds of new laws went live on July 1.

Mobile: The 99 Percent

Here are seven mobile marketing stats that will amaze you, and this is how to avoid mobile-app overload. Felix Salmon explains why mobile payments will never take off. A major app vulnerability could affect 99 percent of Android devices.

Technology: Mind-Blowing Products

A couple of ZDNet editors delve into the challenges and opportunities that small businesses face in making decisions about technology. This new printing method works on any surface. Gartner predicts that tech spending will reach $3.7 trillion in 2013. Yahoo kills a dozen more products to sharpen its focus, while Google continues to work on these “mind-blowing products.” Here are 10 traditional industries that have been transformed by tablets, and these are the worst cloud outages of 2013 (so far).

Tweet Of The Week

@CherylHeppard: If your own market is small right now, pair up with another, stronger marketer and release your product together.

The Week’s Best Quote

Ryan Derousseau says you can change your luck: “There are tons of ways to fix the problem you’re having, especially if it’s not life-and-death. All you need to do first is change your perspective of the problem. Once that’s accomplished, then that first small step can take place.”

This Week’s Question: Have you tried accepting bitcoins for payment? Can you explain what a bitcoin is?

Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa., consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. You can follow him on Twitter.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/this-week-in-small-business-the-employer-mandate/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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