Author Archives: Taura Costidis

LANS’ Fund Gives Native American Businesses Traction for Growth

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By Kathy Keith, Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory Community Relations and Partnerships Office

By Kathy Keith, Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory Community Relations and Partnerships Office

After a successful trial run of its new arts and farmers market last October, Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Council Inc. (ENIPC) solidified plans to make the markets a weekly event each Saturday this year from July 9 through the Columbus Day weekend. To maximize the economic benefits to market vendors — Native and non-Native farmers and artists from Northern New Mexico ENIPC — knew it needed to expand marketing to reach potential customers during the busy tourist season.

So ENIPC applied for — and received — funding from the Native American Venture Acceleration Fund (NAVAF), a pool of money distributed by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, and the Regional Development Corporation to help Native enterprises create jobs, increase their revenue base and diversify the Northern New Mexico economy. Continue reading →

Accion Teams With National Craft Brewer to Coach Local Entrepreneurs

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By Justin Hyde, New Mexico Market Manager, Accion

By Justin Hyde, New Mexico Market Manager, Accion

Nico Ortiz needed money in 2001 after exhausting the startup capital that helped him launch Turtle Mountain Brewing Company in Rio Rancho two years earlier. But without a five-year track record, he said, “no lender would touch me.”

Loan officers suggested Accion New Mexico, and there Ortiz’s luck changed. “It wasn’t a big loan,” he said. “Maybe $20,000. But it enabled me to get over the hump” and sustain the business until its fifth birthday, when traditional lenders were willing to lend. Today the company employs nearly three times as many people as it did in 1999, and its gross revenue has quadrupled.

“Accion is critical, because the (business) failure rate for zero to five years — especially for restaurants — is ginormous,” Ortiz said. “They help fine companies survive.” Continue reading →

Old-School PR Can Raise Business Profile Without Stretching Its Budget

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By Sandy Nelson, Team Member, Finance New Mexico project

By Sandy Nelson, Team Member, Finance New Mexico project

Small businesses that lack the bloated advertising budgets of their larger competitors can raise their profile with some old-school public relations techniques. Before launching a PR campaign, however, they should understand that PR is different from advertising.

When a business advertises, it pays to place its message on a highly visible medium — a newspaper, magazine, Internet website or billboard — or it pays for airtime on radio or television. It has complete control over the message, as long as the content doesn’t violate industry standards.

By contrast, the public relations approach aims to generate positive news coverage about the business by presenting newsworthy material to a media outlet in hopes an editor will reprint the press release as written or assign a reporter to write an original piece. Continue reading →

Counterfeit Awareness Critical for New Mexico Manufacturers

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By Claudia Infante, Projects Coordinator, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership

By Claudia Infante, Projects Coordinator, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership

Counterfeit products — from pharmaceuticals to steel parts to electronics — proliferate in the global economy, posing enormous risks to businesses and consumers.

Manufacturers lose big when warrantied products fail because of phony components, especially if injuries and fatalities result. The Federal Bureau of Investigation estimates that counterfeit parts in consumer and industrial products cost U.S. businesses more than $250 billion annually.

When counterfeit parts infiltrate the government supply chain, the cost falls on taxpayers. Counterfeit electronic products alone cost contractors and the federal government billions of dollars every year. Continue reading →

Workshops Aim to Help “Creatives” Learn Career-Shaping Business Basics

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By Julianna Silva, Marketing Director and Managing Director, WESST Enterprise Center

By Julianna Silva, Marketing Director and Managing Director, WESST Enterprise Center

Artists, artisans, designers and other “creatives” don’t need an M.B.A. to make a living from their artistic talents, but attaining some fluency in the language of business and finance gives them more control over a creative career.

To that end, WESST and ArtSpark, two New Mexico organizations dedicated to business development and entrepreneurship, are co-sponsoring an immersive, interactive “Business Canvas Workshop for Creatives.” The training will help arts-oriented professionals fashion an uncomplicated and useful blueprint for their chosen vocation.

Continue reading →

New Mexico Shrimp Farmers Secure USDA Grant to Expand Market Reach

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By Finance New Mexico

By Finance New Mexico

Lemitar is pretty far from the Pacific, but Tim Ott and Abigail “Judy” Armendariz are growing shrimp native to that ocean in a climate-controlled aquaculture plant just north of Socorro.

Their company, Southwestern Seas LLC, has been selling New Mexico-farmed white Pacific shrimp at the Santa Fe Farmers Market for about a year.

The business partners in late November received a $49,500 value-added producer grant from USDA that they plan to use to market their unconventional “crop” to other farmers markets around the state and thus increase sales. Continue reading →

New Markets Tax Credit Program Benefits Low-Income Communities

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By Finance New Mexico

By Finance New Mexico

Editor’s Note: This article was updated March 21, 2018.

Business people who want to develop property in economically depressed New Mexico communities — or who want to purchase expensive commercial equipment or secure working capital  for use in those communities — often lack the funding they need for such ambitious and capital-intensive ventures.

That’s why the New Mexico Finance Authority created a community development entity, or CDE, in 2006 to raise capital and fill funding gaps for large projects expected to benefit low-income areas.

To be eligible for CDE funding, a project must be in a neighborhood or tract considered low-income in the most recent census. Continue reading →

Late Movers Reap Benefits in Select Markets

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By Finance New Mexico

By Finance New Mexico

Just because a company invents a popular product or introduces a novel service doesn’t mean it won’t face competition from late movers eager to share the action. New Mexico entrepreneurs can fight for a niche in new industries — or even challenge a pioneering company with significant improvements on the original — but they need a clear strategy, good timing and the right product category.

The developer of a new commodity or service has the initial advantage. It sets a standard by which all competitors are judged, and it dominates the market at first because it created the market.
It maintains that place until a rival offers something compelling enough to persuade people to try a fresh alternative. Continue reading →