So you want to start a business….NOW?
January 13th, 2010 by Julia TaylorA New Year begins with sense of new things possible in our lives. So suppose you’ve been thinking about that business you’ve always been wanting to start. Economic times are tough. What advice would our community of CEOs give you?
Here’s the responses from some of our region’s top and innovative CEOs.
What advice would you give someone starting a company or a spin-off now? Opportunities? Cautions?
Sheldon Lubar, Chairman, Lubar & Company:
“Do all of your homework before you start and be certain you have commitments for the necessary start up money.”
Paul Purcell, Chairman/President/CEO, Robert W. Baird & Company:
“This is a good time to start a business form an economic point of view but very challenging from a political point of view with regard to increased health care costs, taxes and increased regulation.”
Dan Steininger, President, Steininger & Associates & BizStarts Milwaukee:
“Since the launch of BizStarts Milwaukee we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of new potential high-growth companies getting started. The deal flow to our Angel investment network, the Successful Entrepreneur Investors, has been up dramatically in 2009. We see that trend line continuing even stronger in 2010.
This is important because the Wisconsin economy has lost so many jobs. The key to job growth is to start new companies. Major corporations will continue to be reluctant employers of new employees. The trend line of downsizing by major corporations is not simply result of this recent recession but it’s been going on for the last quarter of a century.”
Jill Morin, Executive Officer, Kahler Slater:
“My advice to anyone starting a business is to be clear about the kind of company you want to be and the kinds of experiences you want to provide to your clients, your employees — all of your stakeholders. Having a vision for your future success that authentically differentiates you in the marketplace is the key to success. Then, hold to that vision, even when the going gets rough, and make it manifest in everything you do.”
Austin Ramirez, CEO, INCOVA Technologies:
“If you can access sufficient capital, now is a great time to launch a new business due to high availability of talented employees and the many changes in government and private sectors that have been forced by the recession will generate new value creation opportunities.”
Tim Sullivan, President & CEO, Bucyrus International:
“This is a tough domestic business environment. If you’re going to do it, make sure it either is filling a void left by a departing business; creating a new niche where demand can be clearly defined; or has something to do with where the real growth is happening, i.e., the developing and emerging international economies.”
Steve Roell, CEO, Johnson Controls:
“Understand your markets and how susceptible they are to economic volatility. Make sure you are capitalized to withstand the unexpected and that you’ve considered various contingency plans.
In terms of opportunities, the long viability of a business is tied to innovation that truly provides a unique value to your customer. If you have that idea and a sound business plan, this isn’t a bad time to access capital at reasonable rates.
Finally, look for opportunities to partner with another firm that gives you better market access to distribution, a customer base, sales force etc.”
Mark Furlong, President/CEO, M&I Corporation:
“A level of investor interest that will offer an opportunity to obtain what seems at that moment like excess capital, a business plan that will attract some extent of financing, a portion which should be longer-term in nature, and the experience and wisdom to execute your plan as intended, calling upon the expertise of trusted advisors, when necessary.”
David Raysich, Partner, Plunkett Raysich Architects, LLP:
“Starting a business today is a distinct advantage over starting a business in an economic boom. Every existing business is operating with a new normal. Your new business will be operating with the new normal but without all the easy spending baggage.”
The High Price of Bad Policy–Esau’s Porridge
September 28th, 2009 by Julia TaylorToday I attended a TRE (Transforming Economic Regions) Roundtable organized by the Land Grant Universities. Neil Noyes, President of the Virginia Tobacco Commission, riveted all of us with his incredible vision which is now a reality of transforming the textile mills, tobacco fields and coal mines of Virginia by investment of the State’s Tobacco Settlement Fund of $35 million in capital into 5 R&D facilities in energy opportunity fields–nuclear, carbon, composites and renewable energies. $100 million in grant match to incentivize research partnered with Virgina Commonwealth Institutions just rolled out a month ago and they are making their first $20 million investment. This is happening in the poor, rural communities of Virginia. They invested in infrastructure–the typical industrial parks, roads and water but also invested in two major fiber optics networks that span two large regional areas. There is no research university in either region which led to the formation of the 5 R&D facilities. Neil described this as based on inclusive networks that value collaboration, are responsive to private sector needs and are not passive but activist networks for change.
Remember what happened to Wisconsin’s Tobacco Settlement money? We took the Esau approach and sold our birthright for a quick budget fix bowl of porridge.
A New Way of Seeing
June 2nd, 2009 by Julia Taylor
Like most human beings I tend to measure ideas out against my personal experience and some universal perspectives–generally gathered in my post college years. This pic goes right back to a childhood of cows, farm equipment and that rural mess of equipment (the junk heap lot). This is where my life view began.
When I was a wee one, my most poignant memories are of art classes–in the lines, out of the lines, construction paper and awkward scissors, oil paint., clay, and color circles. Then I got a camera early on and all was lost. I LOVED sketching and photography. Two years into a college Arts Major degree, life intervened and I decided during one of those infamous down economic cycles to go to a more marketable major. There was this implicit promise that one could provide for our family needs through commercial means and support our artistic desires on the sides. I did buy in and I still do. I love photography, fine arts and performing arts. I understand the talent, the discipline and the sacrifice that artists need and make to survive on the side today. I also understand the mix it takes in a community to create the economic engine that drives all the cultural economies. It it is a two way innovation economy. Fortunately, I enjoy all the dimensions of regional economy . You need a very robust metro area to sustain artists economically on the strength of their art and there are probably three market areas in this country that can provide that type of catch-net. Given our strength as a second tier market, we have remarkable resiliency including the largest and oldest performing art fund in the country. It’s quite remarkable and we can say it because we have so many regional and global companies who passed 50, 75, 100 and even 150 years of accomplishments and have always supported the arts.
Its been a great business plan but now we need to fast forward to how we grow our market for innovation and creativity. We know that exposure to creativity can throw the switch for a innovative talent to grow. How do we keep our big tent of the arts open to all those children and young people to learn a new way of seeing, how to create and bring this talent to our everyday world of work and play.
Somebody else paid the entry ticket for us. They didn’t know us. They just paid forward.
It’s time for us to pay forward for each of those 400,00 children in our region that don’t even have the experience of of creativity outside of a TV set yet. They need the chance to learn a new way of seeing.
Keep the arts giving forward and thank someone who believed in each one of us without ever meeting any one of us. Invest in your future and region’s well-being.
Pay it forward.
http://cli.gs/UPAF
Saturday Morning Walk and the La Quinta Art Fair
March 14th, 2009 by Julia TaylorHere’s a few pics from this morning’s walk with their own comments.
After a quick walk, we met our friend, Susan, and headed to La Quinta for the 8th largest juried art festival in the country. It is huge and very high quality.
The wrapped wire figurines were just gorgeous. The artist wraps the wire around wax figures and then melts the wax.
These contemperary type of totems were colorfully amazing and had the advantage of great height.
But a real living sculpture were these magical creatures spinning and dancing around us and occasionally leaning in close to say hello!
And what is an Art Festival without some Koi under the bridge.
An Idea on How to Save Your Hometown Paper
February 20th, 2009 by Julia Taylor
How to monetize a newspaper today?
buymke with mymke
Play to the consumer. Retail advertising is the lifeblood of print institutions. So when the retail market shifts to the variety and ease of an Amazon.com, how does local print media compete? Throw in a very nasty recession, over-leveraged companies and many newspapers are circling the drain fast. The daily edition of the New York Times now costs more than a share of NYT stock.
Consumers today are starting to get the connection between local jobs, local companies and local products for a number of reasons. Unemployment is escalating at an amazing pace. People want better customer service and there is a newfound loyalty to buying local. This recession is teaching all of us Economics 101 again in a very painful basic civic lesson.
Newspapers can be the link that provides the retail rally locally. They can provide the local personality behind the retail façade; easily help consumers find deals and products locally, help local retailers know what customers want and stimulate the local economy with a buy local approach.
So here’s my idea. If newspapers could take the Amazon and Pandora approach to local retailers and aggregate every single bit of local retail they could find into an easy to navigate website and app, I would buy more locally. This is partially, because I get Economics 101 and also because I like a little personality behind the storefront where I spend my money. I get better service. I keep local Milwaukeeans in jobs and I get more customized choices in the end run. The newspapers could be the digital catalogues for local retailers.
I like people. I like economically supporting someone who took the risk to start a store or a business and believes in this community. Some like Will Allen are a 20-year overnight success and others just do the right thing by their customers and their employees until the bitter end. And in Milwaukee, I’m not alone in this discussion about supporting our neighbors.
I think about all the books I bought at Amazon because it was easy and how it connects with the fact that Schwartz Bookstores is closing. I made some choices and so did Schwartz’s. It’s a sign of the times that CEO Reads is the surviving part of the Schwartz’s legacy.
There were too many times I physically went first to Schwartz’s for the book I wanted and they offered to have it here within a week. I would go home and order it online and get in 48 hours-and usually cheaper.
I remember last summer trying to find local places that had hammocks and patio heaters. I bought locally but only after running around with unhappy grandkids in the back seat!
(They loved the hammock but not the acquisition process.) This fall I tried to find a local hardware store with simple cheap containers for storing vegetable and stock products. I could find everything all over the world at Amazon in a few seconds but nothing easily locally.
What if newspapers could save the local retail market and themselves in the bargain?
Think about the long tail approach to marketing products-this how the idiosyncratic stores and products that define a community survive and you have consumers that testify about how special Milwaukee is with hobby shops, farmer’s markets and boutiques. This how you build a local economy.
I would love a website or an app that I could find items locally. It can’t be based on who advertises to aggregate the data. Advertising is completely at the mercy of the consumer’s viewpoint and comfort to survive. We need every single item available locally to show up on a relevant search. When that happens, the clicks will be worth their weight in gold.
The loyalty can easily be built and this is the time to do so but somehow we have to bridge the gap between ink and click.
I find that generally reporters are early adapters and they are blogging, twittering and fairly successful with social media. The marketing departments and old line marketing agencies have not made the shift and often respond that they have “one of those” social marketers but they are not leveraged or linking traditional marketing with social media effectively.
If the local advertising/ marketing media can’t figure it out, Amazon or Google will. Or maybe one of those social media young people hanging out at Bucketworks will. For Milwaukee’s sake, I hope it’s our local media in conjunction with the IP at Bucketworks. And if our local media decides to check it out, give me call. I know how you can invest in our local economy as well with young social media entrepreneurs who have the ideas and know how to build the apps and behavioral metrics that just might create that new business model. If we don’t hire them, Google and Amazon well. They are here because they love Milwaukee, they have young families and they grew up here.
Let’s return a little of the love.
-30-
Doyle Launches Office of Recovery
January 23rd, 2009 by Julia Taylor
Governor Doyle just launched the Office for Recovery to quickly implement federal stimulus dollars.
Also check out what local CEOs have to say about the economic stimulus plan. http://cli.gs/vpG621
http://www.scribd.com/share/upload/8143673/25s5006jawdavxzpqscs
My Wishes for Twitter in 2009 (MKE, too)
January 4th, 2009 by Julia TaylorThe entire Wisconsin Congressional delegation joins Twitter. You can make this happen http://cli.gs/XYDjh3
The elected officials and the business community uses Twitter and social media for policy input
Governor Doyle includes the RTA recommendations in the state budget and we pass the legislation. (I get shivers just writing it!)
Sweet Water and Milwaukee becomes synonymous.
Milwaukee establishes a serious Venture Fund for social media
Social media changes the Arts, putting people in seats, direct funding from Tweeters and new ideas into production.
Milwaukee is proud of being MKE
Tweeters discover MKE
The Brewers win the World Series
The Bucks win the finals in the play offs.
Life is good.
How Twitter Changed the World (& MKE) in 2008
January 4th, 2009 by Julia Taylor
- POLITICS For the first time, social media played a key role in a major election shake-up. This is a historic cultural shift comparable to the role of television influencing the outcome of the Kennedy and Nixon debates and ultimately the election. The engagement of young voters will change the way public policy and politics play out for many years to come.
- TRANSIT We moved the ball forward on transit in MKE with the RTA report to Governor Doyle and the Legislature and real possibility of dedicated funding in the Governor’s budget to be released in February. We couldn’t have done it without the social media/political impact of Twitter including Launch Milwaukee and Johnny, we do hear the train a coming .
- Discovering TWITTER and all my peeps!
Me on Twitter!
- TWEET MOMENTS Working with everyone from Spreenkler and UrbanMilwaukee.com. Thanks to Steve Glynn and Jeramey Jannine and Dave Reid. The fun of the tweeting community moment for me was a little tweetup on transit at my house and TeeCycle Tim stopping in with my free T-Shirt I won on Twitter. The power of Twitter was the all the tweets who called, showed up and debated the transit issues with elected officials and each other.
- WATER, water everywhere..We formed a Water Council to grow the region as the hub for freshwater sciences. Talent is what will get us there and Twitter can make this cluster a wellspring for talent (I know, I know, I just can’t help myself–the puns just flow!)
- THE ARTS Connecting social media with the arts and culture community. Our recent report showed the fragile balancing act of our cultural assets trying to reach new audiences with less and less marketing resources. The 2009 February Summit can help figure out a better dynamic connect to our everyday livest than putting up electronic calendars and facebook pages (though it is a start).
- LINK UPS Starting this blog to connect the business community leadership with the social media network. I’m still figuring it out as I go but new ideas come every day.
- CHINA Learning how Twitter, the Flip and iphone pics can take a once in a lifetime adventure and share it easily with the world. My trip to China with the Bucks was amazing and my first posts were from China. The twitter feed made it real time. I’m actually standing in the photo–those guys are just REALLY tall (and nice).
Jr. Bridgeman, Kareem, Bob Lanier and me!
- BE THE FIRST TO KNOW–this was a surprise Twitter plus for me. In my job, sometimes I get a heads-up call on key community changes and sometimes I learn about the issue when the press calls for comment. I hate not being prepped and have learned to buy some time to make the contact calls and do the research and then get back with my quote of the day. The reporter would prefer a detailed and educated comment than a dithering one so it works for everyone. I’m amazed at how fast news items hits twitter. So twitter helps me with fast info real time when I need it most!
- WHO, WHAT, WHEN WHERE and WHY Editorial and information commentary by tweets–the argument about the role of social media and blogging in the world of journalism went away a long time ago based on consumer choice. I will always love my newspaper and I’ve found very informed blogs and tweets as another key component of my daily information feed. I love connecting all the above to work in a new way and meeting a whole new circle of friends that just continues to grow. Despite all the economic troubles, our hope comes from the ability to form these new networks and find the common concerns, passion, ideas and actions to create the change.
What Went Wrong
December 7th, 2008 by Julia TaylorFirst a disclaimer, my academic background was in English and Philosophy so my basic understanding of financial markets is based on a few years on a bank board and reading a lot and talking with people who study or work in the financial arena in Milwaukee. Fortunately, Milwaukee’s financial markets are still strong though suffering the market downturn like every where else today.
I would recommend Michael Lewis’s Portfolio article After the Fall and Kevin Phillip’s book Bad Money
Some key points I learned-
- The rating agencies allowed a lot of bad paper to be sold. They made more money from opinions on these bundled mortgages than the larger corporations in a great market. The NY Times has a straight forward article on this today.
- The investment banks going public transferred the risk for this bad paper from the partners to the shareholders.
- The investment banks then over leveraged and resold and repackaged the bad paper and sold it again–some leveraged up to 35 times the worth of the firm. This is how 300 billion of sub-prime mortgages became a 700 billion problem (for starters).
- The smart investors who shorted the investment banks and often the actual bad paper transactions kept liquidity in the market.
- This liquidity actually kept the engine going for a while.
- This October the engine seized up but it had been running on bad gas for many, many years.
- As credit freezes up, companies retrench, most of us pull back on spending just due to uncertainty, companies retrench more, lay-offs occur and now the new economic concept is lay-away.
- The cycle just spirals more until there is enough confidence and credit to turn things around.