By Paul Butler, Managing Partner, Azrael Partners and former Chief Operating Officer of Lumidigm, Inc.
Building a startup or creating a new line of business is hard work, and statistics show the odds of success are long ones. Beating the numbers comes down to a combination of experience, expertise, and commitment.
The last of these three traits is important, but experience and expertise can make or break your venture in three critical areas. Continue reading
By Finance New Mexico
Peter Anselmo thinks New Mexico needs more ideas. Anselmo, executive director of the Office of Innovation Commercialization at New Mexico Tech, expressed that viewpoint while leading a panel discussion at the Innovators and Entrepreneurs Workshop in April at the college campus in Socorro before more than 100 students, entrepreneurs and investors. The annual event aims to nurture students — and their ideas — by connecting them with advice and experience. Continue reading
The New Mexico Municipal League is a nonprofit, nonpartisan association representing and serving Continue reading
By Matt Loehman, Director of Development and Special Projects, The Loan Fund
Since the financial meltdown of 2008, bankers have endeavored to serve the borrowing needs of their entrepreneurial customers. But laws such as Dodd-Frank — meant to regulate large banks and curb excessive risk-taking — put an overall squeeze on access to capital, especially for those with business startup dreams and little credit history.
Banks now have money to lend, but many entrepreneurs don’t fit a typical bank’s customer profile. Startups often lack a track record of business success and the collateral necessary to secure a traditional bank loan.
But savvy community bankers don’t turn away business customers whose borrowing needs can’t be met internally. Continue reading
By 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
By the commercial lending team (led by Alan Overton) at 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. Continue reading
By Finance New Mexico
As budget-conscious consumers increasingly opt for the convenience and economy of online shopping, states like New Mexico are ramping up pressure on internet-based retailers to collect and remit the taxes states need to provide essential services.
While Amazon.com recently agreed to charge New Mexico consumers the state portion of the gross receipts tax (GRT), more change is needed to erase what states see as an unfair advantage for online retailers over local merchants who are required to collect and remit the entire combination of state and local taxes. Continue reading
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
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
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