Category Archives: Starting or Growing a Business

WESST Workshop Teaches Essentials of Marketing Success

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Your brandBy Taura Costidis, Finance New Mexico

Employing tactics without a strategy is like hiking into the wilderness without a map, provisions or a plan. Yet many novice and veteran business owners take this cart-before-the-horse approach when marketing their product or services, often with underwhelming results.

As a marketing consultant for the nonprofit economic development organization WESST, Mark Gilboard helps entrepreneurs reach and attract customers by first identifying why their business exists in the first place. Continue reading →

Entrepreneurial Orbit: Businesses at Heart of Resource Expo

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Jack's Plastic Welding

Jack’s Plastic Welding, a NMSBA program participant, manufactures a wide range of products, from whitewater rafts, to simulated lung cavities for patient simulators, to collars for space capsules. Photos courtesy Jack’s Plastic Welding.

By Finance New Mexico

Once a business gets its foot inside the door with an economic development organization like the New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), its opportunities for growth expand dramatically.

Jack Kloepfer discovered this while navigating his Aztec, New Mexico, business beyond the line of outdoor recreation products he built from thermoplastic-coated fabrics and into products for energy and aerospace industries.

The company’s relationship with New Mexico MEP has led to others, including the New Mexico Small Business Assistance Program (NMSBA), the Small Business Development Center at San Juan College in Farmington and the New Mexico Economic Development Department, where Jack’s Plastic Welding CEO Errol Baade hopes to find capital to expand production space. Continue reading →

Summit Aims To Support, Catalyze Native Businesswomen

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Native Women's Business Summit

Courtesy @NativeWomenLead on Twitter

By Damon Scott, Finance New Mexico

New Mexico is home to a large Native American population, but business opportunities for Native women can be elusive. The Native Women’s Business Summit — scheduled for April 13-14 at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, 2401 12th Street NW in Albuquerque — aims to change that.

Summit co-founders Vanessa Roanhorse and Stephine Poston want to increase the number of businesses owned by Native women. Continue reading →

NMSBIC Sets Sights on Young Entrepreneurs

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By Russ Cummins, Executive Director and Investment Advisor, New Mexico Small Business Investment Corporation

Once limited to hallway discussions at Ivy League colleges, entrepreneurship is now taught at New Mexico’s public and private universities. Discoveries made in classrooms and university labs are being commercialized through licensing agreements and “technology transfer” departments created to connect student and faculty entrepreneurs with management expertise and capital.

Board members of the New Mexico Small Business Investment Corporation (NMSBIC) support this trend among college-age adults who have the knowledge, moxie and support systems to turn their ideas into viable commercial businesses.

That’s why NMSBIC is hosting a networking session at the Inventors and Entrepreneurs Workshop sponsored by the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech) Center for Technology Commercialization (CTC) in Socorro. Continue reading →

Business Incubation: A Model That Works

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Santa Fe Business IncubatorBy Sandy Nelson, Finance New Mexico

The Santa Fe Business Incubator (SFBI) has plenty to show for its 20 years of existence: More than 145 companies have taken flight from the ever-expanding facility at 3900 Paseo del Sol in Santa Fe, and 1,000 new jobs have been created, 49 of them in the last fiscal year.

Paying attention to the business climate and adapting to opportunities explain SFBI’s longevity, according to president and CEO Marie Longserre. Continue reading →

Workshop Points Small Businesses Toward Government Contracts

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F-35A Lightning II aircraft receive fuel from a KC-10 Extender from Travis Air Force Base, Calif., July 13, 2015, during a flight from England to the U.S. Courtesy U.S. Air Force /Staff Sgt. Madelyn Brown

By Finance New Mexico

The federal government is the world’s biggest customer and a major driver in New Mexico’s economy.

While only a fraction of the $8.2 billion that Uncle Sam spent in New Mexico in fiscal year 2017 benefitted local companies, advisers at the state’s four Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (PTACs) work to increase the flow of federal dollars to small businesses that offer products or services the government wants. Continue reading →

Rio Rancho Leverages Its Library To Grow Small Businesses

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Loma Colorado Library Rio Rancho NMBy Finance New Mexico

Aspiring entrepreneurs won’t be shushed at the Loma Colorado Library in Rio Rancho on Watercooler Wednesdays. The City of Rio Rancho aims to create dialogue at its main library and bridge the gap between entrepreneurs and the resources that can help them.

Watercooler Wednesdays are part of the GrowIt!@RRPL initiative launched in January by the city as part of its economic development efforts to create a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem. Continue reading →

NM MEP Offers Crash Course in ISO Certification

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By Denise Williams, Innovation Director, Northwest Region, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership

New Mexico companies seeking higher-margin work often seek ISO certification, and the New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NM MEP) can help them prepare to get it.

Certification with the most recent iteration of the best-known ISO quality management standard, ISO 9001:2015, is increasingly required by top-tier companies and government agencies that hire private contractors for supplies or services. Continue reading →

VAF Info Sessions Prepare Companies to Apply for Funding

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Venture Acceleration FundBy Damon Scott for Finance New Mexico

Early-stage businesses, or even those that are more established, often find it hard to land the right cash infusion, especially when traditional bank financing can be elusive. Under this common scenario, funding through the Venture Acceleration Fund (VAF) could be the needed boost.

Information sessions to help businesses apply for VAF are taking place in Northern New Mexico until Feb. 9, when the application process officially opens. Applications for funding will be accepted until March 12. Continue reading →

Keeping Commitments Key To Building Government Contract Résumé

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Build government contracting resume

By Sandy Nelson for Finance New Mexico
Reviewed by Adolfo Vasquez, deputy director, SBA New Mexico district

Winning a government contract requires diligence and deliberate focus. Fulfilling it and building a résumé on outstanding performance are even more demanding.

Failure to perform as promised — depriving a government agency of the expected product or service — will sour future opportunities for underperforming or defaulting businesses. And it might result in serious financial and legal problems for the business that breaches a contract. Continue reading →