Category Archives: Articles

Grants Support Rural Business Development

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Terry Brunner

Terry Brunner, State Director, USDA Rural Development Agency

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development agency is encouraging nonprofit organizations in rural communities to apply for a Rural Business Enterprise Grant to help them finance projects designed to develop small and emerging private businesses. State and local governments, Indian tribes, nonprofits and public and private nonprofit higher education institutions in communities with 50,000 or fewer residents are eligible to apply.

During the last fiscal year, the program provided $283,000 to six New Mexico recipients. It helped the Southwest Regional Housing and Community Development Corporation establish a revolving loan fund to benefit micro businesses in four New Mexico counties. And it awarded $50,000 to the Ramah Navajo School Board Inc. to pay for a preliminary architectural feasibility report and schematic design for CedarBluffTravelCenter and the Cedar Bluff Restaurant and Business Complex in Ramah, New Mexico. Continue reading →

Seek Venture Capital When the Market is Hot

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Tom Stephenson

Tom Stephenson, Managing General Partner, Verge Fund

Raising equity capital for a business venture never happens in a vacuum. External forces inevitably affect when and how and where investors are found, just as they affect decisions about how much money is needed to support the company for a few years until it starts showing a profit.

External forces include the financing market — the universe of people and institutions that constitute funding sources for a company — as well as the larger business market in which it operates. Understanding these forces can help an entrepreneur develop a fundraising strategy.

Pure financial investors are in the game to make the most money they can from their investment in a company. But even they can make mistakes and act impulsively. Continue reading →

Meaningful Gestures: Corrales Company Puts VAF Grant to Work

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Belinda Snyder

Belinda Snyder, Program Manager, LANL Technology Transfer Division

Ideum, a Corrales-based company founded in 1999, needed help updating its successful gesture-based software and preparing it for international release. In 2011, it was awarded one of three $100,000 grants that Los Alamos National Security gives tech-based innovators every year through its Venture Acceleration Fund to develop commercial uses for innovative technology and get them to market as quickly as possible.

Ideum first released GestureWorks in the summer of 2009 as a free, unfinished (or “alpha”) version of its software, which analyzes and simulates human gestures for the kinds of touch-activated tables that are increasingly used in interactive educational exhibits. Later that year, Ideum issued an improved version as a commercial product that educators could use to design compelling “touch-table” demonstrations of scientific concepts. Continue reading →

Natural Selection: Evolution is Essential to Business Survival

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Renata Golden

Renata Golden, CEO, Golden Ink, Inc.

Businesses, like people, need to grow to stay relevant — even if the owner wonders where she’ll find the hours to devote to something that already consumes every hour she’s not sleeping.

Golden Ink reached that pivotal moment in 2012, when I had to decide whether to build it or to prune and risk killing it.  The 100-hour workweeks had become unsustainable, but I was loath to stifle the natural expansion of a business I’d worked so hard to build and hoped one day to sell.

Continue reading →

NM MEP Helps Entrepreneur Prepare Revolutionary Product

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Matt Moser

Matt Moser, Innovation Director, NM Manufacturing Extension Partnership

Most entrepreneurs who approach the New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership are well along in production of an invention or commodity. Some operate decades-old businesses but need help identifying and overcoming production bottlenecks and instituting lean processes that can increase their profitability and competitiveness.

Vince DiGregory tapped into the talent at MEP before he had even built a prototype for the folding flat-pack modules he hopes will revolutionize the temporary shelter industry for military and disaster relief operations.

DiGregory’s invention is an 8-by-8-foot folding structure that can interlock with other modules to create larger enclosures. The lightweight structure can be rapidly assembled and taken apart, making it ideal for small-scale, temporary operations. Continue reading →

State’s Investment Funds Help Baker Continue Mexican Traditions

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F. Leroy Pacheco

F. Leroy Pacheco, CEO, The Loan Fund

“GOOD! GOOD! and more GOOD!” exults an online review from a satisfied customer of Albuquerque’s El Dorado Bakery. “This little gem of a bakery is probably one of the finest things in Albuquerque’s South East ‘San Jose’ neighborhood. …  People are lined up out the door on a Saturday and Sunday morning.”

Many of those early birds are Mexican immigrants and neighborhood residents who hunger for the traditional Mexican breads and pastries that make El Dorado unlike any other bakery anywhere near the intersection of Broadway and Gibson boulevards Southeast. The bakery also serves breakfast and lunch all week and features menudo on weekends. Continue reading →

Deduction Lifts Gross Receipts Tax Burden For Businesses That Sell Out of State

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Carolyn A. Wolf

Carolyn A. Wolf, Attorney at Law, Montgomery & Andrews P.A.

New Mexico’s gross receipts tax might make many business owners grumble, but the tax code contains provisions to help entrepreneurs compete with out-of-state rivals who aren’t subject to the tax. Taxpayers that sell services to out-of-state buyers when the product of the service is initially used outside the state and the product is delivered to the buyer outside New Mexico may be eligible for a deduction.

For transactions to be deductible, certain guidelines must be met.

Continue reading →

NMSU Harnesses Intellectual Capital to Drive Economic Growth

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Kevin Boberg

By Kevin Boberg, director and CEO of New Mexico State University’s Arrowhead Center; photo by Darren Phillips

Entrepreneurs don’t have to live in or near Las Cruces to take advantage of the many services offered by Arrowhead Center – a business development hub launched in 2004 by New Mexico State University to stimulate economic development for the betterment of all New Mexicans.

The center’s resources are open to any state resident who needs help turning an idea into a commercial venture or taking an existing business to the next stage.

The Enterprise Research service draws on students, business mentors, entrepreneurs, faculty researchers and research partners to create and validate research studies for startups and existing businesses. And the Arrowhead Technology Incubator links technology-based firms with the resources they need.

Continue reading →

SBA Changes Intensify Business Lending Surge

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John Woosley

By John Woosley, District Director, SBA New Mexico District

Jerome Garcia completed 23 years of military service, multiple overseas tours and one combat deployment before retiring in Las Cruces just before the economy collapsed in late 2008. Garcia and his wife, Michele, proceeded with plans to start their own business and launched Southwest General Construction in February 2009.

SGC is a service disabled veteran-owned small contracting business that builds and maintains airfields, railroads, roads and buildings in New Mexico and the Southwest. It also builds fences, drills wells, maintains grounds and conducts environmental remediation. Continue reading →

Simple Ratios Offer Symptoms of Financial Health or Malaise

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Gary Lenzo

Gary Lenzo, Las Cruces Market President, Century Bank

Operating a successful business requires attention to numbers — especially to basic financial ratios derived from the business’s financial statements.

The current and quick ratios calculate a company’s liquidity, while the debt ratio evaluates its long-term solvency. The gross profit margin shows if sales revenue covers the expenses incurred in making those sales.

Lenders and investors use business health assessments like these to determine if a company qualifies for a loan or is a good candidate for venture capital. Business owners should use them to regularly evaluate their business’s financial standing.

Continue reading →