Category Archives: Uncategorized

DreamSpring Helps Salsa Manufacturer Meet Increased Demand During Pandemic

Posted on by

When the first wave of coronavirus hit the United States in early 2020, Arian Gonzales and her husband, Richard, didn’t know how the pandemic would affect their 20-year-old Albuquerque company and the employees who produce its award-winning salsas.

Fearful that Cervantes Food Products Inc. would be forced to halt production for two months and that they would lose their five employees, the couple contacted DreamSpring—a multi-state community development financial institution (CDFI) based in New Mexico—to apply for a Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loan.

The emergency loan allowed the Gonzaleses to keep paying their employees while the company spent available cash stocking up on jars, lids and other packaging that was expected to become scarce. And it’s a good thing they did, because the company was deemed “essential manufacturing” under Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s emergency order, and demand for its products quickly skyrocketed.

Continue reading →

Distributors Expand Market for New Mexico Companies

Posted on by

Owners of The Bitter End found that distributors could increase revenue. Article by Sandy Nelson.

Bill York started making his own bitters nine years ago while bartending at a Santa Fe cigar bar, where he learned the alchemy of sophisticated cocktails. His small company, The Bitter End, now manufactures its distinctive handcrafted bitters at a Santa Fe facility and reaches consumers through distributors in New York, California, Chicago and Europe.

“This wasn’t the beginning of the craft cocktail movement,” York said, “but there weren’t that many bitters makers on the market, and when I got the idea for spicy, concentrated bitters, it seemed like a good idea to give it a go.”

York developed his initial five recipes while learning how to navigate the bureaucracy of marketing a food product. New Mexico requires alcoholic beverages to be marketed through a distributor, but mixers — classified as alcohol flavorings — are treated as food products.

“I set up a website to accept sales and started sending out samples to prominent bartenders and influencers,” he said. “We visited a lot of bars and gave out a lot of samples; we tweeted like crazy. We went to Tales of the Cocktail [the world’s largest cocktail trade show, which happens every July in New Orleans] and set up a booth to meet people and sell bottles.” Continue reading →

Small Size No Deterrent for Nonprofit Lender DreamSpring

Posted on by

Charles Riley obtained a DreamSpring loan for his “solarlite” business. Article by Roger Makin.

Entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes, but they all share a love of what they do and the desire to further their endeavors.

For Charles Riley of Carrizozo, entrepreneurship began at an early age. He built his first house at age 21 on land donated by his parents. It was at that time he also started building and selling furniture as a hobby.

While serving as a firefighter in Stratford, Connecticut, Riley simultaneously worked a full-time construction job. As he put it, “I loved the job as a firefighter, but it also had very flexible hours.”

At one point he owned an art gallery in Sun Valley, Idaho. But Riley’s path eventually led him to Carrizozo, New Mexico, where he offered to build a house for his daughter. The construction project became his when his daughter decided to move back to Vermont. Riley finished the house, moved in and stayed. Continue reading →

I, CoBot — Automation Offers Opportunities for NM Businesses and Workers

Posted on by

Build With Robots participated in Mfg Day NM in 2018. Article by Claudia Infante, NM MEP; Photo by Jane Phillips

The way they see it at Albuquerque’s Build With Robots LLC (BWR), automation and human labor can exist side by side, even in small and medium-sized businesses, without the dystopian consequences imagined by many futurists and science fiction writers.

The New Mexico company works with manufacturers and other businesses to enhance their productivity and competitive advantage by incorporating “collaborative robots,” or CoBots, into the labor force to perform the more monotonous tasks so people can work where they are most valuable.

“Fill seasonal demand or vacancies,” BWR suggests on its website. “Off-load dangerous or dirty jobs. Free up your team to do more rewarding and higher-value work.” CoBots, the company stresses, augment rather than replace human resources. Continue reading →

The Taxman Cometh – For Gig Workers Too

Posted on by

The gig economy makes it possible for thousands of Americans to join the ranks of self-employed people, whether they’re driving for hire or doing short-term assignments as accountants or writers or using a 3-D printer to manufacture products for others.

Such jobs offer flexibility and independence, but they come with the same obligations as any other sole proprietorship, including the responsibility to file a Schedule C form and pay self-employment taxes in addition to income taxes they might owe if the business is profitable. Continue reading →

Startup Weekends Turbo-Charge Business Ideas

Posted on by

Startup Weekend Albuquerque is Feb. 22 – 24, 2019 at WESST Enterprise Center.

Launching a business can take years — or it can take 54 hours of intense teamwork with experts and entrepreneurs who share a hunger to develop ideas into profitable enterprises.

Startup Weekends are just the place for such collaboration, and the next one planned for New Mexico happens Feb. 22-24 in Albuquerque.

Organized by small business development organization WESST, CNM Ingenuity, ABQid and with support from New Mexico Mutual Insurance, this Startup Weekend is a global project of Google for Entrepreneurs and Techstars. The goal is to create a supportive environment where budding entrepreneurs can pitch and fast-track a business idea through realistic feedback from peers and experts. Continue reading →

Predictive Analytics Isn’t Just for the Big Guys

Posted on by

Image courtesy of Carlos Muza. Article by Sandy Nelson.

Predicting consumer behavior can be an obsession for businesses, no matter what their size. Big corporations dedicate entire departments to divining what people will want next so they can be first to offer it, and they invest massive amounts of money into predictive analytics—the mining of massive sets of data for patterns and trends in hopes of giving businesses a competitive edge by helping them predict the future.

Smaller businesses typically don’t have the means or need to invest in the sophisticated types of data crunching that their larger cousins do, but smaller-scale data analysis tools can help them track past and real-time trends and behaviors so they can make fact-based decisions about how to allocate resources. Continue reading →

Annual Review Yields Stronger JTIP Program

Posted on by

By Damon Scott for Finance New Mexico

JTIP recipient Insight Lighting

JTIP recipient Insight Lighting; photo Jane Phillips photography

The Job Training Incentive Program, the economic development tool better known as JTIP, is responsible for creating 10,000 New Mexico jobs since 2011, according to the New Mexico Economic Development Department (EDD).

Since 1972, JTIP has been providing incentives for qualifying employers who are expanding or relocating in the state. Incentives include money for on-the-job training for up to six months and reimbursement of up to 75 percent of an approved employee’s wages and training costs at an approved New Mexico public education institution. Continue reading →