University of La Verne SBDC Small Biz Blog

by Joshua Botello Dr. Shawn Smith and Dr. Brian Nyamwange are the Co-founders of Symba Center, a non-profit free clinic that provides care for people who do not have insurance. As a graduate of Loma Linda University, Shawn saw firsthand the disparities of Loma Linda and neighboring San Bernardino. “Dr. ‘Bowtie’ Brian and I were healthcare professional students asking ourselves, 'how can we address the health needs in this community?” When Shawn started working at Western University of Health Sciences he found some resources that may be able to help get his idea off the ground. “I immediately went to our Innovation Center at WesternU and they were pretty excited about it,” Shawn recounted. The innovation center focused on technology and commercial applications instead of philanthropic ventures. The staff said “There is a small business development center locally at the University of La Verne. We’ve heard a lot about the great work they are doing and I can put you into contact with

by Joshua Botello Scaling your small business is less about the “right time” or the “stars aligning” and more about building your business systems and growing. How do you know when you should scale your business or if you can? In this article, I’ll cover 5 aspects of your business that you as an owner should evaluate to know when or how to scale your business.  GOALS If you are looking to grow or even scale your business you need to have a plan. If you created a plan when you started your business, there are some basic milestones you probably set for yourself. If you are an existing business, these might be your goals for the next 1-5 years. This strategic plan should be referred to and updated often and must have the appropriate goals and milestones to reach for growth. As a business owner if you don’t meet those milestones you are not ready to scale your business. Financials Your business’ financials are a strong indicator to measure growth and when to scale. While this is true, h

By Joshua Botello Is your business ready to compete in the market? In this video, you’ll learn how to conduct your competitive research. If you are just starting your business plan or you've been at this game for a while, you need to know who your competition is. Many business owners fail to do this research and then wonder why they aren’t winning new customers or growing. In this video, I'll give you a 3 step process to competitive research where you’ll: Identify your competitors Gather intelligence Finally, put it into a form you will be able to use to grow your business. So let's get started. Step 1: Identify Competitors As you start on your journey of competitive research you first need to identify your competitors. What? You don't have any competitors? Wrong. You do have competitors whether you know them or not. Now it’s time to find them. Use Google If you never thought about your competitors before now it is time to find them, but how? When doing this research yo

JigsawTek www.JigsawTek.com   Richard Hanson is the owner of JigsawTek in La Verne, California. JigsawTek is an IT management and services company for small businesses with a background in IT services for corporate players like Northrop Grumman. Richard’s background was software development working on projects between New York and Orange County California. In 2013, JigsawTek Needed to change it’s focus towards managed services targeting small businesses. “We recognized we needed to do a business plan and started putting it together. There were certain areas that we just didn't know how to deal with,” Richard explained.  At a business planning seminar, Richard was informed by the speaker that SBDC’s have mentors and you really should pick up a mentor to help “define and move forward with your business..The University of La Verne has an SBDC right on campus. You should talk to them and get a mentor and that's when we met Malcolm Geffen.” JigsawTek’s chief challenge was that Richa

By Sophia Nyborg-Andersen Why Email Marketing? Email marketing has been around for many years and while it seems so outdated, in reality, it is a successful method for business. When digital marketing comes to mind we tend to think of social media, but with algorithms and mixed up timelines, your post promoting your business may not be seen by your most probable consumer. When you have someone’s email or in this case an email list, you as a business owner can come directly in contact with potential buyers. When sending out emails you can engage with your subscribers by viewing what they are clicking on, what calls to action they make, and with a click of a button, you can reach innumerable subscribers. Utilizing an email marketing platform enables you to track your engagement, open rates, and track the progress of your campaigns. Another great reason is to measure your return on investment (ROI) because, as a business owner, your time and money is valuable and it is important to know

by Joshua Botello So you are looking to start your own business but aren't sure how big the market is, then look no further. There is a deceptively easy way to validate that business concept.  The Total Addressable Market or TAM is a helpful figure to evaluate your business idea. TAM is actually really easy to calculate: Total Addressable Market Value in $ = # of Customers x Price of your Product.  Like said, it's really easy to calculate but there are different ways to approach it. There are two main ways to arrive at this number: Top-down or bottom-up approach .  Top-down Approach Let's start with the top-down approach. Many businesses opt for this approach because it's really easy. In certain cases, this calculation does work and is used for business plans. Let’s show you an example. Say you want to start up your own specialty soap e-commerce business. This chart came from one of our research tools that the University of La Verne SBDC uses called IBISWorld . We mai

Riverside Game Lab www.riversidegamelab.com Alexander Teran is the Co-Owner of Riverside Game Lab, is an arcade, bar, restaurant, and virtual reality entertainment location that offers 100 arcade games and 6 virtual reality stations. Alexander had entrepreneurial aspirations at an early age and has always wanted his own business. The idea came when spending time with friends playing video games, “one of my friends was like ‘you know we could turn this into a business.’ I said ‘that’s crazy, I wonder if anyone else has.’ I looked it up and lo and behold people have been doing it with Dave and Busters setting the standard in the 80’s,” said Alexander. “We’re an experience where video games and arcade nostalgia meets food and alcohol,” Alexander explained the concept of business.  Top Left: August and Alex; Top Right: Arcade Machine; Bottom Right: Riverside Game Lab Interior; Bottom Right: Virtual Reality Station As most first time business owners Alexander quickly discovered three challe

By Joshua Botello  Starting an e-commerce business seems like a simple proposition because it’s so easy to start selling in a simple online store. However, many new prospective business owners are unaware of the principles of business. In this video, I'll cover what you need to know to start an e-commerce business. We continue our business start-up series with one of the most common businesses clients approach us for help with. Starting an online business that sells products seems pretty straightforward but quickly gets complicated when clients need to make it legitimate with licensing, taxes, and accounting. So let's take a look at 5 areas you need to know about before starting an e-commerce site. Business Concept The first area we need to look into before you start is the concept of the business, specifically, what you are planning to sell. Is it going to be a product you will make? Then you will probably need some equipment or supplies. Or is it a product you are going to b

by Joshua Botello  Transcript: Say goodbye to never-ending workweeks and burnout for your business. Coming up next… I'm Josh from the University of La Verne Small Business Development Center. Here at the SBDC, we provide small business owners free one on one consulting and business tip videos just like this one. So consider subscribing to the channel.  Running a business hard and finding the time to make sure your business runs smoothly is frankly exhausting.  Many small business owners work so long and hard in their business they can never have time to work on growing their business. Which leads to 80 hour work weeks and zero vacations.  In this video, I’ll show you an effective time management technique called time blocking and how to use it for small business success.  What is Time Blocking? So what is time blocking? Time blocking is the time management tool of creating blocks during the day or week where you can focus on a singular task or type of task.  This encourages the con

Unspoken Language Services, Inc. https://www.unspokenasl.com Amanda Martin is the President and CEO of Unspoken Language Services, an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreting service agency that provides onsite and virtual ASL interpretation for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. Amanda started the business as a sole proprietor, solely interpreting for as many deaf individuals as possible. After working full-time as an ASL interpreter, she thought, “how can I help more deaf people on a greater scale?” With what seemed impossible, she soon transitioned her sole prop to a corporation. Amanda described her business journey, “I took the unbelievable leap of faith and took a risk. I quit my full-time job, started Unspoken, and I haven’t looked back since. I began sharing our mission with more and more interpreters, who wanted to join a company with the same values and passion as them within the industry. Our primary focus at Unspoken is supplying effective communication to an under