Entrepreneurship : In the News

The United States was founded by immigrants, who created prosperity. Now "immigrant" is a bad word. Well, if you look closely (or just read this report), you'll see that immigrants actually improve areas by diversifying the economy and opening up businesses.

Excerpt:

In the beginning of the last century, when Detroit was the Silicon Valley of its time, more than one-third of its population was foreign-born.

"What the Global Detroit report reveals," says Tobocman, "is that there is nothing more powerful to remaking Detroit as a center of innovation, entrepreneurship and population growth than embracing and increasing immigrant populations and the entrepreneurial culture and global connections that they bring and deliver."

The foreign-born share of Michigan's population rose from 3.8 percent in 1990 to 5.3 percent in 2000, to 6.1 percent in 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2007, Michigan was home to more than 600,000 immigrants. And roughly 47 percent of them are naturalized U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote, notes the Immigration Policy Center in its September 2009 report, "New Immigrants in the Great Lakes State."

Read the entire article here.

Who needs offices these days. All you really need to do business is a phone, an email address, and an Internet connection. Whether it's a tea house, a coffee shop, or your car, local entrepreneurs are doing business everywhere (except the office).

Excerpt:

Their first conference call with a client took place via a car phone.

They spend a good chunk of each week working on their laptops in a tearoom in Royal Oak.
And they decidedly do not regret leaving the larger corporate world for the below-the-radar world of entrepreneurs.

Susan Ferraro and Jennifer Marsik Friess could be any of the thousands of recently laid-off professionals in Michigan who are now happily — if still sometimes nervously — self-employed.

In their post-corporate life, they tap the goodwill of coffee shop and tearoom owners for free table space (often lingering for hours over a cup of tea while poring over laptops), and barter for necessities like a new business logo. Networking is second-nature for them.

"Just because you've been downsized doesn't mean you lose your talent or your skills or your abilities," Ferraro said last week. "It simply means that you have to apply those in a different way than you've done in the past."

Read the entire article here.

Entrepreneurs tend to think about things a little differently than the rest of us. So it's no surprise when these entrepreneurs start thinking about their own spaces a little differently. This Wall Street Journal piece examines a few who've done that and Leon & Lulu in Clawson is one of those entrepreneurs. They've turned their space into a roller rink. Now, that's thinking outside the box.

Excerpt:

Mary Liz Curtin and Stephen Scannell's furniture and gift shop, Leon & Lulu LLC, used to be a roller rink and Motown concert venue. They bought the place in 2005 for $750,000 and added $255,000 in renovations.

They kept the 69-year-old property's original flooring, benches, trophy cases, scoreboard and signage. On weekends and during special events, employees skate through the aisles to serve coffee and cookies to shoppers.

Last year the Clawson, Mich., company posted about $2 million in sales, a 20% increase from 2008, according to Ms. Curtin. "We get letters from people who thank us for keeping the history alive," she says.

Read the entire article here.

Stand up and be voted! OK, that's a little dramatic for this survey, but still important. LTU is putting together a survey to see what's up in the world of entrepreneurs and how to make that world a better place.

Excerpt:

Lawrence Technological University has launched the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Needs Assessment Survey, sponsored by the United States Department of Commerce through a grant from the Economic Development Administration.

The survey will help assess the availability of -- and gaps in -- resources needed by entrepreneurs, small business owners, venture capitalists, corporate research and development departments, displaced workers, and business support organizations to spur innovation, entrepreneurship and new business creation in Michigan and the Great Lakes region.

Lawrence Tech is partnering with several organizations to reach more than 25,000 people statewide with the survey. People interested in or involved with innovation and entrepreneurship across Michigan are encouraged to access and take the survey at www.iesurvey.ltu.edu.

Read the entire article here.

Different states are taking different approaches to promoting and assisting small businesses. In Michigan, through the Michigan Small Business and Technology Center and the Kauffman Foundation, the training and retraining of laid-off workers seems to be filling a void.

Excerpt:

Last June, the Michigan Small Business and Technology Center began to train laid-off workers to start new ventures.

So far, 527 people have taken the course, which the center offers in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. To date, 160 people in the Michigan program have introduced new business ventures, and more than 125 owners of existing businesses have enrolled in separate courses to bolster their chances of surviving. Another 1,000 would-be entrepreneurs are expected to complete the program this year.

The unemployed workers, many laid off from the auto industry, come to the program with an idea for a small business and must search for capital on their own. The program, said a spokeswoman, Jennifer Deamud, "preps the company for a loan and makes connections for the owner."

Read the entire article here.

Who needs a dry erase board when you can just write on the wall, or the table, or the chair? The catch is that it's still all dry erase! A couple of mad scientists - A.K.A. entrepreneurs - thought about a world where dry erase board paint existed. They sought out to create it and found an Ypsi company to help them realize their dream.

Excerpt:

For three years, former classmates Morgen Newman, John Goscha and Jeff Avallon sought help from specialty paint and chemical coating laboratories. Two labs claimed it was impossible. Whiteboards are made using high-intensity ovens. IdeaPaint needed something that could be applied with a roller in a single coat. That wasn't going to happen, the scientists said.

The young entrepreneurs refused to believe it. "Our joke was, if we could put a man on the moon, we can make dry-erase paint," says Newman, 25.

Then they found CAS-MI Laboratories in Ypsilanti, Mich., where the scientists were willing to give their plan a shot and even cover some of the development costs.

With the help of $1 million from family, friends and a few angel investors, the group spent the next four years fine-tuning their recipe.

Read the entire article here.

A local gal put her entrepreneurship into gear in a motorcycle mag for women. It's not the typical hot rods and hogs style magazine you'd see on a news stands where the lady is scantily clad, but an actual magazine about motorcycles for women. And they're wearing more than bikinis.

Excerpt:

When she was a student at Ferndale High School, Doni Langdon felt like an out-of-place tomboy who was too busy with welding class to worry about make-up or shopping.

But now, the 27-year-old entrepreneur has turned her love of cars and motorcycles into a nationally distributed women's magazine aptly called Throttle Gals.

Unlike traditional motorcycle and hot rod magazines, Throttle Gals features women as fully-dressed, competent mechanics showing off the tough and sporty machines they have built and repaired for themselves. "These are real women," she said. "Everyone you see is with her vehicle -- not a model and not someone in her husband's or her boyfriend's ride. It's her pride and joy."

Read the entire article here.

The Girlings went from automotive employees at Chrysler to entrepreneurial tea hounds, and all it took was a trip to Beijing. A story other Michiganders might take solace in. The Girlings made the transition to what Michigan was to what Michigan could be, maybe. No, not tea-slingers, small business owners.


Excerpt:

Chrysler has greatly affected life in the Detroit area over the decades, and now it has brought the Motor City a Chinese teashop—albeit indirectly.

Janice and Jim Girling, founders of Goldfish Tea, were both working for the automaker when they were offered the opportunity to go to China for two years to help build an assembly plant outside of Beijing.

"We were living in Beijing and on weekends we just liked to go out exploring," Janice says.

While on an exploration one day, a dragon-embossed tea set caught the couple's attention.

"We went to look at it inside what turned out to be a wholesale tea market," Janice says. "Two Chinese ladies motioned for us to sit down at the tea bar and we stayed for three hours sampling tea."

Read the entire article here.