Page 63 - 914INC - Q1 - 2013

Susan Corcoran
Partner
Jackson Lewis LLP
Jeanne Goulet
Senior Consultant
Marks Paneth & Shron LLP
Carolyn Mandelker
Founder and President
Harrison Edwards Public Relations & Marketing
Joseph McCoy
Commercial Lending Team Leader SVP
People’s United Bank
Michael Rao
President
New York Commercial Realty Group
Louis Scamardella
Assistant Director
NYS Small Business Development Center
Robert Wyker
Mentor
SCORE Westchester
Robert Schork: We
have a premise we are
going to kick off with:
Harry is a Westchester
resident. He’s a successful pro-
fessional in his career, but he has always dreamed of owning his own widget factory in Tarrytown. How do we get Harry from concept to opening day?
Louis Scamardella: I would say it all starts with the business plan. I find that [often] people with ideas have not thought out the product and how to deliver it to a customer in an efficient way at a reasonable price that you could make money on.
Joseph McCoy: I agree. I think the business plan provides a good road map to help guide you through the process. It outlines, obviously, a vast array of aspects of starting out the business—your competition, what your goal is, where you see yourself in the future, your projections.
RS: So how detailed of a business plan should Harry have? How long should it be, and what are its essential components?
LS: I would say it’s a rational story of
how you would deliver this product to a customer and make a profit on it. Seven to ten pages, I think, is sufficient. I like to see [prospective entrepreneurs] differentiate themselves. I think that many startup busi- nesses think of themselves as defeating the competition. But they should ask, ‘What is
my niche in this competition?’ And also, ‘How is the competition at delivering those goods and services? What can we learn from that?’
Jeanne Goulet: I think what he needs to
do is determine if he has a good product- market fit. So if he wants to develop a widget, he would need to see if there are customers who are interested in that wid- get. Frequently, an entrepreneur starts out wanting to do a particular product, and then finds that customers are interested
not in this product, but maybe in a twist on it. Then they can do their business plan, which, for an entrepreneur who’s just start- ing out, is basically not a profit-and-loss statement or a balance sheet, but more a ‘cash burn’: How much cash does he need to develop a product, get it out there, and start to generate revenue? How long will it take before he can generate revenue?
Carolyn Mandelker: I think entrepreneurs get into trouble when they try to do every- thing themselves. Whether it is to negotiate a lease or create a marketing campaign or advertise or throw a launch party, they do
Carolyn Mandelker
There is one very important thing to remember in all marketing, and that is this: It is not about you, even though it is about you.
And what I am really saying is: You must use each of these tools to reach out to people and bring them in, and in order to bring them
in, they need to understand the value-proposition, because what they are thinking is, ‘What is in it for me?’
We like to see, obviously, a business plan in place, having the right type of advisors helping you along the
way, having work experience in the past within the business you are trying to create, looking at a lot of different
Joseph McCoy
avenues of trying to get financing other than just banking.
need professional help. It will save them money and grief in the long term.
Robert Wyker: One of the reasons we [at SCORE Westchester] are in existence is
to provide that kind of help. But what I believe is the very first thing that anybody needs to do is research, to figure out where they might fit in the market. This is really a marketing study.
Michael Rao: I am a big fan, before busi- ness planning, of life planning. I see so many people who have bad habits start businesses: going through divorces, finan- cial issues, drugs, alcohol. These are things that prohibit people from starting their business or taking it to that next step. I think that before you even start a business, you need to look at yourself in the mirror and say, ‘Am I really a person who could be an entrepreneur?’
Susan Corcoran: And really, what we are talking about is how to protect your assets before jumping in. It is not only what busi- ness assets you are looking to develop, but also taking a step back and looking at your personal assets before you create your business. There may be certain agreements
61
westchestermagazine.com