Tag: entrepreneur

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10 Reasons Why Every Entrepreneur and Small Business Owner Needs to be at the 1st Annual Delaware Entrepreneurial Summit

Written by Erica Crell, Program Support Coordinator, Emerging Enterprise Center

 

If you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner in the tri-state area, you should attend the 1st Annual Delaware Entrepreneurial Summit presented by the Emerging Enterprise Center and Small Business Development Center on July 12.

This full day event is packed with quality content, information and resources for those looking to build, connect, and grow as entrepreneurs and business owners.

Whether you are thinking of starting a business, a start-up, or an established small business that is looking to grow, the Entrepreneurial Summit has got you covered. But if that’s not enough, here are 10 more reasons why you should be there:

  1. Workshops and Panel Discussions – Whether you’re looking to articulate your value proposition, understand cash flow, or get funding, the Summit has you covered with workshops in two tracks. The technical/science track is geared specifically for those start-ups or small businesses that are in high tech fields while the alternative track is geared towards the more traditional entrepreneur.
  2. Networking – Network with over 100 entrepreneurs, small business owners, resources and professionals in the tri-state area about developing your business.
  3. Mentorship – What better place to find a business mentor to help grow your business than at the Entrepreneurial Summit. The Summit is being presented by the Emerging Enterprise Center and the Small Business Development Center and a number of additional business mentoring and advisory organizations will be available for you to talk to, including SCORE Delaware, the SBA and many more….
  4. Sources of Funding Panel Discussion – If you want to learn the ins and outs of raising capital, you’ll want to hear it from our panel of experts.
  5. Awards Luncheon – The New Castle County Chamber of Commerce and the Emerging Enterprise Center are always looking to recognize those achievers and at this event we look forward to announcing the Entrepreneur of the Year, the Entrepreneurial Advocate of the Year and the winner of the NCC Innovates Entrepreneurial Sponsorship Award.
  6. Keynote Speaker – Come and hear from Chuck Nunan, owner of Harvest Ridge Winery, and learn about his route to entrepreneurial success.
  7. Entrepreneurial Showcase – Check out over 15 up-and-coming entrepreneurs and innovators that that the Emerging Enterprise Center and the Small Business Development Center have identified as up and coming entrepreneurs in Delaware. Find out about what they’re doing to get their businesses off the ground and be inspired!
  8. Delaware Resources Tabletop Expo – Meet and have one-on-one conversations with Delaware resources that are available to entrepreneurs to help them start and grow their businesses.
  9. Happy Hour – Join your fellow entrepreneurs for a happy hour to engage in personal conversations and build future relationships.
  10. You can’t beat the price! All of the above for under $100.

Register today.

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Calling all Nominations and Applications!

The New Castle County Chamber of Commerce and the Emerging Enterprise Center are looking for nominations for the David J. Freschman Entrepreneur of the Year Award. This award along with the Entrepreneurial Advocate of the Year Award and the NCC Innovates Sponsorship Award will be presented at the 1st Annual Delaware Entrepreneurial Summit on July 12, 2018. Please refer to the website for eligibility criteria and nominate a winner.
David J. Freschman
ENTREPRENEUR 
OF THE YEAR
The newly launched New Castle County Innovates Sponsorship Award is developed by the New Castle County Department of Economic Development. NCC Innovates is a program that identifies opportunities to specifically support economic development through entrepreneurship.
Through NCC Innovates, New Castle County will sponsor a 1 year membership to the Resident Incubator a the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce Emerging Enterprise Center.

Supporting local entrepreneurship and attracting new companies to New Castle County are key elements in the development of a strong innovation ecosystem. The Emerging Enterprise Center provides direct mentoring and
support for local startup companies.

The application review process and selection of a winner will be managed by the Emerging Enterprise Center Advisory Board. 

Specifically, the award covers, Office space (single office) at the Emerging
Enterprise Center, Wi-fi & telephone service (one VoIP per
employee-unlimited minutes), Mail service, Fax/photocopier, Beverage station/kitchen access, 24/7 access to facilities, Access to meeting and conference rooms, Business idea execution guidance & coaching with
one-on-one mentoring via the Growth Wheel®, Platform, Business Growth Workshops and Training, Business networking and connectivity, and a one year membership in the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce

 

The last award, the Entrepreneurial Advocate of the Year, will be chosen by an appointed New Castle County Chamber of Commerce Committee and the Emerging Enterprise Center Advisory Board. The New Castle County Chamber of Commerce would like to recognize a member of the Chamber that have exemplified the entrepreneurial spirit and supported the efforts of the NCC Chamber. This award is presented to someone that has participated in programs and activities that support early stage business, been active in supporting entrepreneurial activity for at least three years, demonstrated an active level of participation in the local  community, and is an active supporter/participant of the NCC Chamber.

The purpose of these awards is to not only recognize businesses and advocates successes right here in New Castle County but to pause for a moment and celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit.

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Details Released for the 2018 Delaware Entrepreneurial Summit

The Emerging Enterprise Center and the DE Small Business Development Center announced that Chuck Nunan, serial entrepreneur and CEO and Founder of Harvest Ridge Winery will be the keynote speaker at the 1st Annual Delaware Entrepreneurial Summit to be held on July 12, 2018 at the DoubleTree by Hilton on Concord Pike.

“As someone who knows what it is to be an entrepreneur and start a business from scratch, Chuck is an ideal keynote for this event,” says Dora Cheatham, Director of the Emerging Enterprise Center.  Harvest Ridge Winery started with its first grape varieties planted in 2011.  These included

Chardonnay, Viognier, Malbec and Merlot.  Today there are 20 acres under cultivation.

Above: Chuck Nunan, Founder & CEO of Harvest Ridge Winery will be the keynote speaker at the 1st Annual Delaware Entrepreneurial Summit.

The Delaware Entrepreneurial Summit is a full day, high impact event that is aimed at bringing together entrepreneurs, resource providers and mentors with a goal to supporting entrepreneurs and accelerating business growth.  The day will include workshops geared towards both general entrepreneurs and tech/science-based entrepreneurs, a tabletop expo of resource providers to the entrepreneurial community, numerous networking opportunities, and an awards luncheon.  Among the awards will be the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce David J. Freschman Entrepreneur of the Year of Award and Entrepreneurial Advocate of the Year Award and the NCC Innovates Sponsorship Award which is offered through the newly launched NCC Innovates program developed by the New Castle County Department of Economic Development.

The event will also showcase a number of Delaware entrepreneurs that are in various stages of business growth.  Ms. Cheatham says, “Delaware has some terrific entrepreneurs and innovators.  We also have a huge amount of resources and intellectual capital available to entrepreneurs and innovators. The goal of this event is to bring everyone to the table to make things happen quicker and encourage business growth within the state.”

For more information on the event, and how to nominate or apply for awards visit www.EECincubator.com or contact Dora Cheatham or Erica Crell at the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce Emerging Enterprise Center.

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Emerging Enterprise Center by the Numbers

 

The EEC is a business incubator that helps startups and small businesses learn essential entrepreneurial and business skills, grow their business, and develop a long-term sustainable model. The key elements of the incubator program include: one-on-one mentoring, coupled with business growth workshops. These are used to provide guidance and context to entrepreneurs and small businesses alike.

Since its inception in 2008, the Emerging Enterprise Center has worked with 38 companies generating over $61 Million in revenue and created 179 full time jobs in the County while they were in the incubator.

The EEC has 20 workshops/seminars scheduled for 2018.

The EEC uses the Growth Wheel to help mentor its participants. It is a toolbox built by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. It is designed around the four challenge areas of business (Business Concept, Business Organization, Client Relations, and Business Operations).  It is a systematic approach to help entrepreneurs build their business through an action –oriented process that stays true to the way most entrepreneurs think and work. The EEC has a certified Growth Wheel mentor on staff. Click here to see the program guide for the workshops.

Contact us at 302-737-4343 or [email protected] for more information on how you can get involved in the Emerging Enterprise Center.

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How does Your Business Grow?

Written by Dora Cheatham, Program Manager, Emerging Enterprise Center

 

INNOVATE OR DIE has become a 21st century mantra, and rightly so. Today’s globe is smaller than ever, communications are instantaneous, competition is fierce and market expectations are high and ever-changing. Innovation is therefore a prerequisite for survival.

But what is this seeming “answer to all ills” that we call innovation? How do we make it succeed? And how do we do so while simultaneously meeting various business and ROI criteria that may be imposed upon us and are often at odds with a long term innovation strategy?

When we speak of innovation, many people immediately think of breakthrough developments that changed the course of the marketplace, industry or even history: the automobile, the telephone, the microchip, iTunes. However, innovation can be as simple as changing packaging, repositioning a product, or moving into an adjacent business space. Just yesterday, we saw the release of the 6th version of the iPhone together with the Apple watch: earth shattering? Maybe not, but people were standing in line for the new version of the phone and analysts are expecting a bullish next few months for Apple.

Some may think that this dilutes the concept of innovation, but a successful – and cost-effective – innovation strategy should incorporate a range of development projects that not only works towards breakthrough products and technologies, but also allocates resources to the improvement of existing products, the expansion of existing products into new markets, and the development of existing technologies into new products.

One of the best illustrations of this concept is Bansi Nagji and Geoff Tuff’s “Innovation Ambition Matrix”. Following a review of a number of high performing firms, Nagji and Tuff noted that on average, these firms allocated investments in similar ratios: 70% on the improvement of existing products or core, 20% on the expansion or existing products into new areas, 10% on breakthrough innovation. Their findings also showed that the return ratios were the direct inverse to the investment percentages. While breakthrough innovations yielded a greater return, core innovations required less time and money to develop, and as a rule were more readily accepted by the end user.

By understanding and defining innovation in terms of all of these elements – and not just breakthrough products – creating a growth strategy and implementing a new product development process that fits in with a firm’s core competences makes the entire concept of innovation, while no less daunting, certainly far more manageable and sustainable.

This also makes the concept of innovation far easier to disseminate throughout the organization so that it becomes a part of the organizational culture. When employees understand that innovation need not necessarily be limited to R&D or Engineering, they are more likely to contribute ideas that – while they may not lead to breakthrough products – could certainly lead to product improvements or cost reductions.

Redefining Profit Drivers

Additional routes to growth and innovation should also involve taking an objective view of your business model to clearly understand your profit drivers as they relate to your customers’ needs. This can prove a valuable tool and may lead to a reassessment of your market metrics and a redefinition of how you position your product and/or services and better align your offering to customer needs. We are seeing this more and more as businesses strive to offer insights and solutions rather than individual products.

 Free up Resources by Controlling Hidden Costs

While all of this is going on, there is one more important element that should be incorporated in the innovation process – and that is the regular and consistent review and maintenance of the existing product portfolio. Are the products still relevant and in demand? Are there any weak or inefficient products that could or should be repositioned, improved, or even removed to make way for newer products? Maintenance of inefficient products is a hidden cost and resource drain in many organizations. To allow innovation to function at its most effective, these resources should be freed up in order to be allocated to efforts that add greater long term value.

Strategy x Execution = Success

 

Of course – as with all strategies and my own personal mantra – it’s not just about the strategy but about the implementation and execution of that strategy. Often strategies fail – be they innovation, business, market or product strategies – not necessarily because the strategy itself is flawed but because the implementation and execution is flawed. As the entrepreneur Naveen Jain once said

“Success doesn’t necessarily come from breakthrough innovation but from flawless execution. A great strategy alone won’t win a game or battle; the win comes from basic blocking and tackling.”

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Why Do Passionate Entrepreneurs Fail?

Written by Frank DeSantis, Certified Growth Wheel Trainer, Former Emerging Enterprise Center Program Director

The link below is to a great article in HBR on Passion vs. Preparedness, and reflects what I believe is the approach the Emerging Enterprise Center tries to take with their Incubator companies.

An entrepreneur has to have passion. It’s entirely too hard to start and run a business if you don’t absolutely love what you are doing! Apparently, according to this research, passion is a key ingredient to attracting attention of investors, especially novice investors, those typically found on crowdfunding sites.

Long term success, however, depends upon your ability to be prepared to scale the business. For that you need to have a vision (what do you want to be when you grow up), a game plan (strategy or business plan), and the processes and procedures to replicate what you do and how you sell. For more experienced investors, the passion and the concept may attract them initially, but they move quickly to determining how prepared they are for success; what is the experience of the management team; have they started a business before; is there a market; have they proved the concept?

At the Emerging Enterprise Center, they try to help you focus first on DRIVING YOUR BUSINESS (sales), while in parallel, developing the business skills and the policies/procedures to enable you to take advantage of opportunities that help you achieve your vision.

I believe you can have and, in fact, need both: PASSION AND PREPAREDNESS!

https://hbr.org/2015/07/for-founders-preparation-trumps-passion

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Boost Your Spirit!

Nonprofit organizations are all around you. Each nonprofit has a specific cause that they are working to better. Today, there is a nonprofit for almost any possible cause you can imagine. These nonprofits function on your donations. Without your donations of money or time, some of these causes will never be confronted. Although it is hard to part with our hard, earned money, there are a number of benefits of donating to a nonprofit organization. There is nothing wrong with rewarding yourself with that money you earned but it might feel more satisfying to reward someone else with it. It’s about that proud feeling you get knowing that you have done something that may help others and support a cause you care abouboostt it.

A recent study by Harvard Business School faculty and graduate students titled “Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-Interested Charitable Behavior,” explores the ways in which charity donations can benefit your psychological, spiritual and emotional well-being. So do yourself a favor, boost your spirits, help a cause, give yourself a tax deduction, and donate.

Did you know that the Emerging Enterprise Center (EEC) is a nonprofit? We are looking for donors like you to help us support our local entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs in New Castle County will help our local economy grow and bring more business and jobs to the area.
The EEC is designed to provide business support services to entrepreneurs and associated companies in New Castle County, Delaware. The incubator is not merely about a physical building offering lower rental rates, but rather is a profishbowlmoneygram intended to help new businesses succeed to the point of “graduating” from the program within a defined time period. The EEC provides mentoring, educational opportunities, networking events, shared office equipment, receptionist services, and other amenities that are vital to the success of a new business.

Participants have access to customized business and technical assistance geared toward the specialized needs of individual companies. The EEC provides an environment in which like-minded businesses accelerate their potential through interaction, partnerships, joint ventures, and other mutually beneficial collaborations.

Don’t you want to be a part of something that helps New Castle County and Delaware grow?
Donate to the EEC to keep the doors open, lights on, and programs going. Boost your spirit now by donating today.

BUTTON-DONATE-NOW-sm

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Entrepreneurs! A Mentor can help you fast track your learning curve

Starting a business can be a daunting task! Ask any successful entrepreneur and they’ll tell you that they may have had a great idea, great enthusiasm and some great customers, but soon the reality hits…. There is more to running a business. It helps to have a support network, to help keep you focused on the things that will make your business successful.

The Emerging Enterprise Center at the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce offers assistance to early stage, start-up businesses in New Castle County and the greater Wilmington region. The incubator program helps nurture the entrepreneurial spirit while promoting economic development in New Castle County by providing affordable office space and business support services, as well as, training, mentoring and a network of professional advisors.

A key component of nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit is through the Mentor Program at the EEC. It is designed to provide participating companies in the EEC Small Business Incubator Program with job-specific guidance to fast track their learning curve.  The Mentors help the EEC Company Teams by keeping them focused on the important priorities, clearly articulating their business vision, challenging their benchmarks/milestones, developing and executing on action plans, and assisting them, where appropriate, with developing a network of contacts. Mentors are drawn from diverse business fields, and are experienced, well-qualified professionals, who can relate to the challenges facing early-stage companies. The Mentors have networks in the region and have volunteered to share their knowledge and expertise with Company Teams at the EEC.

Contact us today at 302-737-4343 or [email protected] to find out more about how we can help you and your business.

 

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Either Ride the Wave, or Watch as it Passes by

There’s a storm brewing in the business community. It’s building around technology, and Delaware just may be in the forefront. Delaware Innovation Week held last week, encompassed 20+ events across Wilmington and New Castle County. It brought together entrepreneurs, technologists, civic leaders and investors.

Two years ago, at the Economic Development Council Luncheon, presented by the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce, the keynote speaker was Steven Rosenbaum, Entrepreneur-at-Large for New York City. What resonated with me was him saying that it was “no longer just around biotech or medtech.

Traditional industries were being disrupted by technology. It was becoming “Industrytech”, like financetech and manufacturingtech. We’re already familiar with disruptive technologies. Companies like Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, LinkedIn, eTrade, Turbo Tax, and Expedia have revolutionized entire industries. These are frictionless business models, where technologies are used to identify and resolve inefficient processes in every industry. DeliveryCircle® , a Delaware start-up has done this for small package delivery; matching drivers, consumers and merchants in a fast, easy, seamless transaction. Soon, every company will be a software company.

Fast forward to today in Delaware. Established incubators, the Emerging Enterprise Center and Delaware Technology Park have been joined by the CoinLoft and 1313 Innovation, giving start-ups and entrepreneurs, different types of work spaces.

Zipcode, an intense 12 week program that trains people how to code was launched with the support of private companies like JP Morgan Chase, Capitol One and Chatham Financial. Techies have been getting together at Tech Mashups, and Global StartUp Weekends, to exchange ideas and build a community. Technically Media came to Delaware. Technical.ly grows local technology communities by connecting organizations and people through news, events and services.

Delaware Innovation Week ran November 13th -20th. There were events built around major tracks: Business, Civic, Creative, Dev (Development) and Media, plus events that companies and organizations staged that were incorporated into those tracks. Two specific events demonstrated why Delaware has become a Storm Chaser in this technology tsunami. At Technical.ly Delaware’s Stakeholder Luncheon, 40 people gathered to discuss the state of the tech community in Delaware. Someone commented, “it was a long way from the days when the same tech people sat around telling each other over and over again that something needed to be done”. You had Jeff Flynn from the City of Wilmington, the NCC Chamber of Commerce, along with graphic designers, developers, bankers, coders, and entrepreneurs sharing ideas, accomplishments, challenges and goals. It was a picture of diversity not typically seen in either a techie group, or in the boardroom. The 2015 Innovation Awards was another example. There were typical “tech-type” companies recognized,  but two were not typical; #HugACop, a viral campaign by the Newark Police Department and Delaware Libraries, for extending STEM & 3D Printing literacy to its branches.

Delawareans, coming together, can do amazing things. What I saw at Delaware Innovation Week makes me believe that our community can harness the storm’s energy and be the model for the new technology age that’s coming. Come join us!

 

By Frank DeSantis.

Frank J. DeSants, Program Director for the Emerging Enterprise Center, a business incubator that helps start-ups focus their efforts on driving business growth, developing business skills, and creating a scalable and sustainable business model, by providing support, access to resources and advice, in a nurturing environment.