Affordable help for your startup Air Jordan Spizike The Service Corps of Retired Executives. SCORE provides free, confidential counseling to entrepreneurs who either want to start or have already started their businesses. The Nevada Microenterprise Initiative. This nonprofit provides assistance to small business owners looking to overcome barriers to starting or expanding their business. The group offers training, loans and networking. The Nevada Small Business Development Center. An outreach program of the University of Nevada, this initiative provides technical assistance through consulting and free workshops to Silver State companies. Small Business Administration. This federal agency guarantees loans and programs to aid, counsel and assist smaller operations. Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology. A nonprofit clearinghouse for public and private sector programs targeted at small business startups. The group also holds entrepreneur trade shows, venture capital conferences and business plan competitions. Your accountant or attorney. Check with your own legal and finance consultants. Many local firms offer seminars for business owners. Accounting firm Piercy Bowler Taylor Kern, law firm Bullivant Houser Bailey and Nevada State Bank recently held “Smart Business: Keys to Financial Success” at South Point. The event, which the Business Press sponsored, included information on business loans, financial statements and hiring.Beckman was working on the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas when foreclosure halted the project’s construction in March 2009. With replacement jobs scarce as building in the market virtually stopped, Beckman figured he’d need to upgrade his skills to have a shot at a new job. He turned to solar panel installation, but found that local classes were full. So Beckman tracked down and attended a course Air Jordan 2 Retro in San Jose, Calif.While studying, he had a brainstorm: If people were willing to fly to San Jose for training, surely they’d be willing to visit Las Vegas to upgrade their skills.”It put a bug in my ear as far as a possible need, and a niche for me,” Beckman said.Thus was born the idea for Beckman’s new business, Solar Institute of Nevada. His school’s first class is scheduled to begin May 17.Beckman’s path to entrepreneurship is a common one today. With nearly 14 percent unemployment in Southern Nevada and no job growth in Air Jordan 9s sight, legions of locals have decided that opening their own business is the only way they’ll get back to work.In 2008, the Clark County Business Licensing division issued 6,804 new licenses. That figure jumped to 10,064 new licenses in 2009. So far in 2010, the division has granted more than 1,000 new licenses a month.Experts credit the recession for the spike in fledgling businesses.”People are frustrated with the unemployment rate and their prospects for becoming employed, and they look at starting a business as an alternative,” said Gregory Twedt, chairman of the Southern Nevada chapter of the Service Corps of Retired Executives, a volunteer business counseling group. “Historically, that’s happened in almost every recessionary period people become entrepreneurs.”Dave Archer, chief executive officer of Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, said he also sees surging interest in business startups at his group’s annual Entrepreneur Expo, held in Reno and Las Vegas each fall. The trade show, which brings together services for business owners, has seen a 20 percent jump in attendance each year since it launched in 2007. Almost all of that attendance growth has come from people who want to start companies, rather than from people who already own businesses, Archer said.”At some point, people run out of employment options, and they think starting a business might be the remaining option for them,” Archer said. “If job hunting’s not working, they might say, ‘I always had an idea to start a business, and now might be the time to do it.'”But launching a company brings perils aplenty.Most new businesses don’t post profits or even earn revenue, and many of them will fail in their first year, said Raj Tumber, a business counselor with SCORE. And that’s before you consider the costs of just getting started. You’ll pay approximately $600 just for a state and a local business license, and if you’re operating in more than one town, you’ll need multiple licenses. It all can total more than $1,000, and that’s if you don’t use an attorney. If you’re not landing sales, you could lose money on your business licenses alone.”When most people first start looking at opening a business, 100 percent of them think they’re doing the right thing and their idea will fly,” Tumber said. “That’s until they get into the process and see the costs involved. As they keep going further and further, they realize there’s a lot more for them to learn.”That’s where groups such as SCORE come in. Small Business Administration, with which SCORE is affiliated. From October to February, the group’s local chapter held about 1,100 individual counseling sessions, 400 e mail consultations and 33 workshops and seminars.SCORE also just implemented a training program designed to help people vet their business idea for its viability before they invest in a launch. SCORE’s mission? To fill in the gaps for entrepreneurs who lack basic Air Jordan 17s training in business areas, such as finance and marketing. They don’t want to discourage hopeful entrepreneurs, but they do want aspiring business owners to understand their prospects, recession or not.”If you have a good business idea and you have the educational training and wherewithal to make it happen, now’s as good a time as any to open a business,” said Twedt, a former software executive who started a successful company in the middle of a recession. “If you’re just very desperate and you don’t have a good business idea or a well thought out plan, then it’s never a good time to start a company.”For Beckman, who worked with SCORE as he prepared to open his first business in 22 years as an electrician, “waiting on other people” has been the toughest part of opening his company. “Because it is a step by step procedure, you can be stuck dead in the water waiting for that next approval.”For example, before Beckman could get a county business license to open his vocational technical school, he needed approval from the Nevada Commission on Postsecondary Education. To obtain that, he had to develop a curriculum, document his knowledge and ability to serve as an instructor and complete loads of paperwork. And the commission meets only four times a year, so he couldn’t appear before the agency until February.Once he earned the commission’s approval, Beckman had to wait on building inspectors and municipal licensing agencies. And they’re busy these days, too.”They were Air Jordan 16s telling me, with the way the economy is, a lot of people are going into business for themselves. They’re (the agencies) pretty overloaded,” he said.Nor did Beckman anticipate all the smaller expenses, such as fire extinguishers, that come with launching a company.”It’s all been brand new to me,” he said. “Sometimes it’s been frustrating, but it’s always been exciting.”After all his hard work and patience, no one has signed up for Beckman’s first class. But SCORE advisers prepared Beckman for that possibility, and he plans to goose attendance with a marketing plan that includes a promotional packet he’ll distribute to the area’s electric general contractors in coming days and weeks. He’ll also visit with the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation to see if they could use his school’s services.Despite the ups and downs, opening the Solar Institute of Nevada has been worth the effort, Beckman said, and he thinks other well prepared entrepreneurs will enjoy the startup process as well.”It’ll be the most fun they’ve ever had in their lives,” he said. “I wake up every morning and hop out of bed because I’m just so anxious to get going. I’m working for myself now. If you believe in your idea and you do your homework, then you’ll have a great time.”
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