Hi, everyone. Im j. J. Ramberg, and welcome to your business. The show dedicated to helping your Small Business grow. Small business saturday is coming up. So we decided to take a look at the next generation of entrepreneurs and how some of them are focused on starting their businesses in cities that need revitalization. With some help from the organization venture for america, recent College Grads are given a house, an office to work in, a little mad money so these young entrepreneurs can concentrate 100 on getting their companies off the ground, boosting local economies, creating jobs, and rejuvenating communities. Its got the look of a reality show. 12 20somethings hanging out in a house, eating pizza and letting our cameras watch their every move. But this isnt made for tv. These young men and women are venture for america fellows, trying to launch businesses in cities that desperately need entrepreneurs. Like detroit, baltimore, cleveland, and right here in philadelphia. Statistics show that were at a 30year low for young people under 30 starting companies. With less millennials starting companies, theyre trying to encourage a new generation of entrepreneurs by removing the typical barriers to entry. Venture for america looks to help revitalize American Cities through entrepreneurship. The way we do that is we try to select the best and brightest in the country. Recent graduates typically, and provide them anac accessible pa. That path beginwise a twoyear apprenticeship at one of their 17 target cities. The objective is to educate and Seed Companies in places where there is a need for entrepreneurs to boost the local economy and create jobs. They can actually spend time working directly with a founder, for a founder at a startup in one of these cities. Brendan rice and russell met as fellows in the program while in detroit. They were so eager to start their own business, they cofounded doze as a side project. This idea was born when we were room mates living in detroit with venture for america, and kind of surrounded by startups and had this entrepreneurial itch and one of the best places to start is where you have personally experienced problems or seen inefficiencies in the world. Boat of us had experienced that kind of pain in Mattress Shopping and saw this huge opportunity. Brandon and russells company was then selected to be part of venture for americas threemonth Business Accelerator program in philadelphia. The whole point of the accelerator, what we want to provide for them is essentially remove all the barriers to working on your company fulltime. A typical accelerator experience might include office space, a mentor, and a little financing. At vfa, they have taken it a step further, by giving their firsttime founders a roof over their heads. Almost like a fraternity or Sorority House but just with people who are starting businesses and a little more serious about, like, work and getting stuff done. This Ambitious Group of entrepreneurs let us eavesdrop on their real life philadelphia animal house. Minus the crazy partying. So we could get a glimpse of their last few days living together before going their separate ways. Emily, im charlie. Im jim. Im dylan meyers, worthing on potluck. Ill definitely miss the people. I think not too many of us will miss the physical house. But yeah, its all been part of the kind of whole experience and coming home to, you know, sit on a couch with five other people who are all typing away on their computers at 10 00 p. M. On a friday night is an awesome experience. But yeah. Its going to be nice to have a bathroom that isnt shared with five poeople or to have a kitchn thats a little cleaner. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, this group has been eating, sleeping, and working together. Side by side as they build their businesses. Theres something about when you see other founders executing, when you see other founders that are working well into the night, past midnight, waking up early. Something about that that gives you the energy to do it yourself, right . And kind of pushes all of us to be better. So we all try to be models for each other. And i think thats part of the really big value of all being in the same place, in the same house. Vfa has taken away the headache of food, housing, and spending money so these firsttime founders can focus on one thing their businesses. The accelerator not only provided us with office space but provided us with time essentially, to not worry about financials, not worry about rent payment said and stuff like that, but to just be heads down in our company. Many mornings, youll find this woman head down in her business, mixing matches of her all natural avocado hair care product. Her Company Started as a youtube channel. Easier to separate hair into sections. Her experience with making homemade products had enough of a following that its now a subscription business with customers and its gaining traction. The most valuable thing vfa has given me is time. Time to work on this without any fear that im not making a paycheck so i cant eat. Thats allowed us to flourish and grow the company more. Her fellowship started in cleveland. Although shes not sure where shell end up when the accelerator is finished, she plans to run her business in a vfa city. I want to create jobs and be an impact in a city that really needs it. With the clock ticking and the accelerator almost finished, these newly minted entrepreneurs are laser focused on pushing their businesses as far as they can before they have to go back to the real world. We know theres a limited amount of time where if we dont hit goals, well run out of business and not be in business. In order for us to continue doing this, we have to hit the goals. Its time for us to prove we can succeed and really push forward. Thats our goal now. We dont want to start a company that just exists. We want to start a company that is really successful. Entrepreneurs are known for their persevere rns, even when things are at their worst, the most successful Small Business owners say theyre not giving up. We met two founders in upstate new york who are truly survivors. They chose to fight the good fight after their business went bankrupt. Rather than turning off the light and throwing away the keys like they could have, they chose to reorganize, a long and hard road, but they had a hunch and a strategy, and they went with it. Thats how a brandnew brand was born out of bankruptcy. We really launched the tabletop brand on a wing and a prayer. That was the future of the company. We had no idea what we were doing. Matt and greg know what its like to be Small Business owners on the brink. How are we going to survive . How are we going to hold this together . What are we going to do . Matt and greg found themselves in a place no Business Owner wants to be, filing for chapter 11. That certainly was want the plan when they bought the company from industry giant oneida five years earlier. We manufactured foroni oneid and other flatware marketers. When the recession hit in 2008, orders for forks, knives, and spoons simply dried up. They stopped buying from us, or in some cases they would buy things they didnt have a lot of. It was dribs and drabs, not leerily what we needed. With bearically any cash coming in, the pair took a drastic action. They closed the factory, let 100 employees go, and shifted production for the remaining clients to mexico. We were left with a severely reduced revenue stream, and really a revenue stream that couldnt support the amount of debt we had. We were slowpaying people and behind on our bills. We received a letter in the mail from one of our creditors basically suing us. So that forced our hand. Once the bulk of their business was gone, bankruptcy became the only option. But these two refused to just walk away. Matt and greg started hatching a plan b. Before we turned out the light, we had several coils of steel, many, lying around the factory, and instead of letting them sit there, we decided to turn it into flatware. Thats the inventory we started with, about 23,000 worth of flatware, as i recall. That 23,000 worth of flatware marked the beginning of liberty tabletop, but going through bankruptcy while starting a new brand was incredibly complicated. We actually created liberty tabletop and our wives owned it. The Bankruptcy Court knew about it. We told them this is how were going to survive, so let us do this. Working with creditors who backed their plans, greg and matt mapped out their exit from sheryl manufacturers bankruptcy by launching their new consumer line in three steps. The plan was to sell the land and the buildings and become a tenant. Sell any asset that we didnt need to become liberty tabletop, and then the third part was to find someone to invest in us. It was an incredibly emotional time. On the one hand, they were entrepreneurs creating something new. On the other hand, they felt like they had failed. I would always go to the store with my wife and i would look at the flatware. During the bankruptcy, i avoided the flatware departments because i just felt bad. They had to compartmentalize and focus on the future. We were very good at survival. I dont know, looking back, i cant believe that we survived. Im not going to say there werent days that both matt and i looked at each other and said, you know, is today the last day . But somehow, we managed to make it through it. As excess equipment and steel was sold for cash to deal with the bankruptcy, liberty came to life. Unlike during the oneida days, now, the factory was only open as needed. I believe we ran six campaigns. Each one larger than the one before, when we would bring back people temporarily, turn on all the machines, fill up the shelves, turn them back off and sell through it until we had to do it the next time. These were hard times for the company and the owners. The problem was cash flow. He would say we arent going to make pay roll. What i would do is go down in the factory and start scrapping. Their strategy of being an online only business that sells directly to consumers started paying off directly. Our first sale was halloween of 2010. We literally started our business right after we filed bankruptcy. Sort of crazy. The liberty brand in and of itself was selfsustaining and quite profitable from its genesis. Were bypassing all those other middle men, and its the most efficient way to get products to the consumer. Sort of like farm to table, this is factory to table. The Business Owners got a break when the property the factory sits on was sold and leased back to them. They paid off their secured creditors and restructured their unsecured debt in 2014. But matt and greg want to do even more. Our goal is to become so successful that were able to pay every dime that we ever owed back to everyone. With sheryl manufacturing out of the woods and liberty tabletop showing signs of success, new investors have provided the capital necessary to expand the brand. Bl we went from eight patterns to about 24 right now. In four different price points. The good, better, best, lux model. And remember the production they had to move to mexico . They have been able to bring that back to the United States. Which has strengthened the companys story. If you were just launching a generic brand with no particular story or no nothing special about it, i think it would be next to near impossible. But since we had a unique situation, we were the only ones in the United States that were making flatware, we had a special story to tell. A story to tell consumers and a story to tell themselves. While bankruptcy was nothing they would have wished for, both matt and greg feel they have come out stronger on the other side. We would rather be small and profitable than big and clumsy. You dont learn things through successes. You learn when you fail. And we failed a lot over the past seven, eight, nine years, but you dust yourself off and keep going. It is fall, and that means its time to put away the rose and break out the cider. Over the last few years, cider sales have been booming. We met the owners of two Small Companies who are competing with big brands. And they have discovered that their size is actually an asset. These look great. Johns, macs, we have the goldens. Greg hall of fenville, michigan, is very picky about which apples go into his cider. This morning, he and peter, owner of nearby seedling orchard, are testing. You can see how they cluster, which is an unusual feature. And tasting. As a cider maker, were looking for aroma and flavor, acid and tannin from the apple. As an independent brewer, greg is part of a small but rapidly growing beverage category, hard cider, where his label has been thriving. Now its all over the tv, all over the supermarkets. No surprise, all of this rapid growth has not gone unnoticed by big players in the beer category. Greg is now getting stiff competition from big beer brands who have recently acquired cider brands to market along with their other products. Sam adams with their angry orchard. You have miller coors with a couple brands, and then you have anheuserbusch with a couple brands. They have the stella and the johnny appleseed. These behemoths have vast production facilities, markets and distribution channels. This puts all the smaller producers in a bind. How can an independent like greg compete against all of that . Hes not competing with the big brewers for the mass market. Well never be able to compete with those guys on price or efficiency or marketing or distribution execution. So we dont do sixpacks. Good bright apple. Instead, hes concentrating on the highend or premium market. His strategy starts with featured placement at upscale restaurants like nearby salt of the urtearth. And partnerships with Celebrity Chefs like jason frank. The acidity is right there, its ausm. Greg has found that creating exclusive blends like this one for influential chefs like jason has a ripple effect. It gives him access to many other key entry points to the premium market. Places not interested in featuring ciders from the big brewers. That opens doors to the retail trade. Bars, restaurants, even the liquor stores. They know him. They know his restaurant. And if its good enough for him, its certainly good enough for them. He also says he puts very little money into advertising and instead relies on others to build the buzz around his product. He says receiving awards and reviews, appearing in influential media like this one, had much more impact. When we get a magazine like savouir say virtue ciders unfold like fine wines, thats fantastic. We could never Say Something that good about ourselves that anyone would believe. But when one of the best food magazines in the country says that, were golden. This kind of press not only reaches the consumers but also registers with retailers and distributors. We started getting calls from distributors all over the country saying, hey, when are you coming to california, texas, washington, pennsylvania . Because we want to have your cider. Greg says his brands survival depends on staying out of the mass market. What were doing now they cant do. Theyll never do this. So we have a Sustainable Production advantage that theyll never be able to recreate. Things are going to change. The market changes. So we look at those market changes and we adapt as quickly as possible. Cheers. As baby boomers are retiring and younger generations are joining the work force, the race is on to attract and retain the best talent from their ranks. Entrepreneur. Com has five things you should consider offering to bring in and keep millennials at your Small Business. One, offer student loan dent relief. Young talent burdened by the stress of paying back their financial obligations will appreciate the help. Two, let them work remotely. They like the flexibility of choosing when and where to complete their projects. Three, give them gadgets. Devices help them stay connected to coworkers and supervisors and are now considered necessities to this generation. Four, restore the 40hour work week. Many young people arent prepared to show loyalty if they find theres no work life balance. Find ways to build a culture where quality is emphasized over quantity. And five, let them be social. These days, people dont see anything wrong with taking a break to post on social media. You can either accept this or possibly lose your talent to a company that will. When we come back, what else can you do when listings on google and yelp arent generating enough business . And how new technology is helping the hearing empaired ofa pizza business communicate effectively with their customers. Will your business be ready en growth presents itself . An express ocards can help you take on a new j, orand ur oic an on whever com next. Find o howmerin exprescards and services can help prepare you r growth aopen. Com. Deborah writes us, we prepare legal documents. We ared aveer tiesing through yelp and google but are not going enough business. What can we do to generate more business . Deborah, i wish i had a little more information on whether youre preparing legal documents for other legal firms, or for the consumer. But either way, i dont know where your advertising is where your potential customers are looking for the information that relates to your business. Youre doing something that is legal, and that means that it has to engender a lot of trust. So if im trying to get trust, im not looking to yelp the same way i might be looking to them for finding a restaurant suggestion. Im looking to my trusted network. So if youre working on a b to b basis, i would talk to other businesses that are happy with your service and asking for referrals, or using them in your advertising, joint chamber of commerce, things like that. If youre going direct to consumer, you also want to be talking to trusted advisers of the customers youre going after. So maybe youre partnering with accounting firms, where youre not directly competing with them, but youre serving the same customer, and that way you can create the cross referrals. But it is always about what youre doing in terms of a business, which is creating that trust, as well as where your customers are. So good luck. There is a pizzeria in San Francisco where you can order without saying a word. All thanks to a new Technology Company called convo. The owners are deaf and using this to communicate with customers. As jolene kent tells us reporter it is the sound of oven baked authenticity, with the r