ABC Canvas Finds Growth Through Expert Advice

When Cody Waldroup purchased ABC Canvas in 2016 from the company’s founders Jim and Renee Childress, the serial entrepreneur thought the business would fit nicely into his portfolio of revenue-producing investments. After all, the 35-year-old business was well known in Farmington for quality custom canvas, including marine products, commercial and industrial covers, and shade products. What Waldroup did not know is that the founders had other immediate plans and would only be available to ease the ownership transition for one month.

Waldroup, who had no background in manufacturing or textiles, had to quickly learn the company’s products, fabrics, vendors, employees, and operations. “I pretty much had a month of learning,” he said. “I’m still learning today.”

Thanks to his entrepreneurial background, Waldroup knew that he needed to become an unpaid working owner and obtain knowledge and assistance to fill in the gaps of his own experience. That revelation became more acute when some long-time employees retired soon after the ownership transition and employee retention became challenging.

Six years later and still a working owner, Waldroup has expanded the company to serve customers as far away as Texas, streamlined operations, and moved the company into a larger space he recently purchased. ABC Canvas, which had 3 employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, now employs 6, and Waldroup now takes a paycheck.

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New Mexico Startup Gets Help with Pitch to Potential Clients

Working with New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership (New Mexico MEP) shaved at least a year off the time RingIR president Dr. Charles Harb expected to spend getting his company’s portable gas-detecting product ready for market.

And given the disruption and delay caused by the state’s protracted coronavirus-related shutdown, the value of that time is hard to calculate.

“We were working with (New Mexico MEP) on a business plan just before COVID hit, and everything got shut down,” said Harb, who runs the company with his wife and co-founder, Anna.

The couple launched the business in California in 2013 to commercialize the wideband optical spectrometer Harb had developed at the University of New South Wales in Australia to detect airborne chemicals.

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WESST Helps Hobbyists Become Business Owners

Photo by @courtneymcook

According to Brad Crowson, a former regional program coordinator at WESST, more than 70 percent of business registrations in Rio Rancho are for home-based businesses. Crowson, who worked one-on-one with new and aspiring small-business owners as a consultant for the nonprofit business development organization, believes the home-based business trend is supported by the widespread availability of high-speed internet, among other factors.

“It’s also, in most cases, fairly low-risk financially and offers significant upside potential for both personal fulfillment and income generation — not to mention terrific tax benefits if structured properly,” Crowson said in a recent WESST blog post.

Many people engage in home-based hobby activities that turn into a source of income; however, to claim tax benefits referred to by Crowson, individuals must demonstrate to the Internal Revenue Service that their activities are intended to make a profit.

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What is an Entrepreneur?

According to Lorena Schott, entrepreneurs pop up in all types of industries and can have widely different backgrounds. “Really anyone can be an entrepreneur, given the idea and the right tools to develop it into a functional business,” she said.

Schott should know. The director of marketing communications at WESST has met thousands of entrepreneurs since joining the business development organization in 2009. WESST is a nonprofit organization that offers business consulting, workshops, financial resources, business incubation, and support to help entrepreneurs start and grow a business.

“An entrepreneur is someone who sees a need and takes on the financial risk to start a business to fill that need,” she said in a WESST blog post. “It may sound vague, but that’s the point; there is no cookie-cutter entrepreneur…”

Schott contrasts the ‘classic’ entrepreneur — someone who creates a business like a new restaurant or a tech start-up — with today’s entrepreneurs. “There has been a shift in the global job market that has opened the door for entrepreneurship to become more mainstream,” she said.

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MEP Helps Doctor Meet Demand for Healing Products

To deal with the pain of postpartum mastitis, Janine Mahon drew on her knowledge of Chinese medicine to create a soothing topical salve for herself from herbs and oils. In the 20 years since she successfully treated her own breast pain, Mahon, a licensed and certified Doctor of Oriental Medicine, refined the product and shared it with clients at her Albuquerque clinic.

When one satisfied patient asked for a dozen bottles of the healing oil to share with friends, Mahon wondered if there might be a larger market beyond her regular clients. Mahon launched Dr. Janine Mahon’s Rejuvenating Breast Oil exclusively through Violet Grey, a high-end retailer with extensive online reach and sales through its Melrose Place store in Los Angeles.

“I went from no product to a dream store launching it,” she said. “Being in Violet Grey led to other places wanting to carry it.”

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SBA 504 Loans Offer Low Interest Rates

Popular pies from L’il Willie’s Shenanigans, the Red River ice cream and sweets shop owned by Kelley and Steve Cherry.

Kelley and Steve Cherry were so pleased with the experience of securing a loan to buy one commercial building in Red River that they want to buy another building the same way.

The couple worked with Century Bank to obtain a U.S. Small Business Administration 504 loan to purchase the building they previously leased for their 3-year-old ice cream and sweets shop, L’il Willie’s Shenanigans. They hope to use the same strategy to buy the building from which they’ve operated Shotgun Willie’s Café for the past decade.

The appeal of 504 loans is that interest rates are fixed at a significantly lower rate than traditional banks offer for commercial real estate loans, and borrowers get lots of help from lenders and the certified development companies that evaluate 504 loan packages for the SBA. The nonprofit Enchantment Land Certified Development Company played that role for the Cherrys.

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Business Support for Veterans

The Veterans Suite at the WESST Enterprise Center in Albuquerque

New Mexico is home to more than 135,000 veterans, and almost half of them are under the age of 65. For those former service members interested in operating businesses, nonprofit organizations and state and federal agencies can help with business formation, certification, and contract acquisition that levels the playing field for vets that have spent their careers out of the private sector.

Veterans come to the private-sector workforce with a lot to offer, including advanced training in specialized fields such as logistics, security, information technology, personnel management and administration. They understand the complexities of doing business with the U.S. government and the importance of following instructions and protocol. They appreciate the need for teamwork and leadership, and they work well under pressure. In other words, veterans have the skills needed to start and manage a business.

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Libraries Poised to Become Post-Pandemic Entrepreneurial Hubs

Loma Colorado Library Rio Rancho NM
Rio Rancho’s Loma Colorado Public Library created a business hub where WESST offers workshops.

When New Mexico libraries finally return to pre-pandemic hours and services, many will offer even more resources than they did in the past, especially to entrepreneurs.

Public libraries are ideal places to nurture people who want to start their own businesses: They are community hubs with deep roots, and local librarians are portals to knowledge, tools, and ideas that can create jobs, build the local work force, and drive development. Libraries are trusted, safe and welcoming spaces that offer culturally and economically diverse patrons free access to computers with internet access, meeting rooms, and other spaces where entrepreneurs can meet and brainstorm.

Libraries can be entrepreneurial centers in some of the same ways business incubators are, because they provide networking opportunities, vast resources and a platform for information sharing. And they can support the next generation of entrepreneurs without the expense of building, maintaining and managing a separate, limited-use facility.

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Resources Target Veterans in Business

The Loan Fund enabled Santa Fe Exclusive Auto Repair to move into a more spacious location to help grow the business.

Jose Ocampo moved to the United States from Nicaragua as a child in 1980 after his family was granted political asylum.

After a tour of duty in the U.S. Marine Corps and a few years at the University of New Mexico, he set his sights on being an auto mechanic and eventually opening his own shop. He graduated from the Universal Technical Institute in Phoenix and moved to Santa Fe to work in a friend’s auto repair shop until he was ready to go solo.

Having his own business “was just something I wanted to do,” Ocampo said. After reaching that milestone at the age of 24, his next goal was to buy his own building, which would increase the value of his business and give him a tangible asset he could sell in the future.

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WESST: Trailblazers in the WBC Movement

Diane Barrett, longtime owner of Diane’s Restaurant in Silver City.

There are currently over 100 Women’s Business Centers across the United States, but in the late 1980s, there was a scarcity of female entrepreneurs and role models. Spurred by the growing interest among women to chart their own business and financial path and seeking to provide appropriate the resources, WESST was established in 1989 and became a leading pioneer in the movement across the country.

WESST is currently among a handful of economic development organizations across the country that hosts a network of Women’s Business Centers. Each of the six regional Enterprise Centers located throughout New Mexico offers special training and consulting programs geared to aspiring or established women business owners. Continue reading