NMSBIC Sets Sights on Young Entrepreneurs | Resource Tool for Start-up and Small Businesses in New MexicoResource Tool for Start-up and Small Businesses in New Mexico

Russell Cummins | Resource Tool for Startup and Small Businesses in New Mexico — 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 hosted 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.

The Inventors and Entrepreneurs Workshop featured panel discussions and presentations by business leaders, serial entrepreneurs, investors and inventors on a variety of topics, such as how to know the difference between an original, promising idea and a derivative and how to turn an idea into a marketable product. NMSBIC and its lending partners introduced participants to sources of business funding.

Access to Capital

The NMSBIC was created in 2001 under the New Mexico Small Business Investment Act to help create new job opportunities throughout the state. The NMSBIC does this by providing funding for small-business loans through its Lending Program partners, which include the New Mexico Community Development Loan Fund (The Loan Fund), DreamSpring, WESST, and others found here.

Since 2006, NMSBIC has hosted community meetings in different New Mexico locations to introduce owners of new and expanding businesses to lenders and experts with the financing and knowledge to help businesses thrive. The meetings have offered business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs an opportunity to talk with lenders and get answers to questions about free and affordable business services and small-business loans.

For more about NMSBIC and its lending partners, visit nmsbic.org.