MicroISV Tip #2: Your tax dollars at work
I had occasion yesterday to interview Teri Takahashi, Training Manager of the Florida Atlantic University Small Business Development Center (FAUSBDC, and you thought computer acronyms were bad!), and she had some advice for micro-ISVs worth passing on.
FAUSBDC offers 450 classes and clinics a year, the vast majority for free, for startup businesspeople in the areas of business planning, marketing, financing, accounting, bookkeeping, taxes, import/export disaster recovery and more. The classes – typically 2 to 4 hours, the most expensive of which is $100 – then get followed up with one-on-one mentoring between the startupee and SBDC staff, for free.
For example, FAUSBDC has a business plan clinic: “Its four hours, in which you get your template started, what is a business plan and why do I want one type of thing” Takahashi said. “We don’t do extensive training, our training is 2 to 4 hours and that it: A one shot deal, you come in and you’re done. Our training seminars are set up so you get good information in as short a time as possible, then we encourage you to follow that up with one-on-one consulting consulting forever, for as long as you want.
“Say you come in and come to the Introduction to Business Plans seminar. After you go there, you get a good, basic idea of what you need to do, then you come in and work with somebody one on one. Its always free, we’re the federal government.”
Your tax dollars at work? “Definitely. Your tax dollars at work.” She emphatically added.
FAUSBDC is part of a network of federally funded Small Business Development Centers (SBDC). They all offer classes for people who want to start their own business, and most offer one to one mentoring as well.
While the SBDC near you will be clueless regarding the ins and outs of programming, they know a lot about the business side of being in business, and also can give you some objective advice on whether you really are the type of person who can start a business or would be better off staying within the structure of an existing company.
To find the SBDC near you (and there is one, believe me) at the America’s Small Business Development Center Network site at http://asbdc-us.org/ and click on “Lead Centers” at the top. Definitely have a look at the FastTrac link, especially the FastTrac Tech info. Matter of fact, there are a lot of interesting to micro-ISV links there.
A P.S. for the suspicious: I am in no way (other than paying taxes) affiliated with the federal government.
If you found this post to be useful, please let me know
Just a quick comment for any UK readers of this post, the Enterprise Agencies (www.nfea.com) provide a similar service and also have a mentorship programme where you can get free one-on-one help when getting your business off the ground.
Posted by: Adrian | January 12, 2006 at 02:48 PM
Dear Bob, What a nice article you wrote based on our phone conversation. Can you do me a favor? Can you give me the estimated cost of advertising in your e-newsletter so I can create an in-kind (donation) document which helps the SBDC with matching funds? What I am looking for is advertising costs $XXX per inch. Please call me if you need further clarification at 561-297-1152
Thanks Teri Takahashi
Posted by: Teri Takahashi | June 24, 2005 at 11:02 AM