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 of the organization venture from america, recent College Grads are given a house, an office to work in, and a little mad money so that 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. Twelve 20 somethings 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 of young people starting companies. With less millennials starting businesses, venture america is trying to encourage a new group of entrepreneurs by removing the typical barriers. Venture for america helps to revitalize cities. The way that we do that trying to select the best and brightest in the country, recent graduates typically, we try to provide them a successful path for entrepreneurship. That starts in one of americas 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 or founder as a start upin one of the cities. These two met as fellows in the program while in detroit. They were so eager to start their own business, they cofounded doze. This idea was born when we were living in detroit was venture for america and surrounded by startups. Had this entrepreneurial itch. One of the best places to start is where you see problems or see inefficiencies in the world. Bowe 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 excaccelerator prog in philadelphia. The whole point is to remove all the barriers to working on your company full time. A typical accelerator experience might include office space, a mentor and a little financing. But at vfa theyve taken it a step further by giving their firsttime founders a roof over their heads. Its almost like a fraternity or Sorority House but with people starting businesses and a little bit more serious about 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. Im cofounder of arthur. Im cofounder of emile. Im bill myers working on potluck. Ill definitely miss the people. I think its a typical house. Its been part of the whole experience and coming home to, you know, sit on the couch with five other people who are all, you know, 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 doesnt share with five people or to have a kitchen thats a little cleaner. 24 hours a day seven days a week this group has been eating, sleeping, and working together side by side as they build their businesses. Theres something about, you know, when you see other founders, 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, the same house. Vfas 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, provided us with time essentially to not worry about financials, not worry about renting. To be just heads down in our company. Many others, heads down in her business, mixing batches of her all natural avocado hair care products. Her Company Started as a youtube channel. Always easier to decondition in sections especially if you have enough hair. This is a subscription business now with customers and its quickly gaining traction. The most valuable thing that vsa has given me is time. Time to work on this free without any fear that, you know, im not getting a paycheck so i cant pay my rent, i cant eat. So that time has allowed us to really flourish and grow the company even more. Her fellowship started in cleveland, and although shes not sure where she will end up when the accelerator is finished, she plans to run her business in a vfa city. I want be to create jobs and be an impact in a city that needs it. With the clock ticking and the accelerator almost finished, theyre laser focused on pushing their business as hard as they can before they have to go back to the real worlds. We know theres a limited amount of time where we dont hit goals, run out of money, well be out of business. In order to continue doing this, we have to hit those goals. Its time to us to prove that we can succeed and push forward. Thats our goal now. We dont want be to start a company that just exists. We want to start a company that is really successful. Entrepreneurs are known for their perseverance. Even when things are at their very worst, the most successful Small Business owners say theyre not giving up. We met two in upstate new york who are truly survivors. They chose to fight the good fight after their business went bankrupt. 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 borne out of bankruptcy. We really launched the liberty tabletop brand on a wing and a prayer. We had no idea what we were doing so we had to sort of make it up as we went along. Matt roberts and greg owens 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 wasnt the plan when they bought the company, carol manufacturing, from industry giant oneida five years earlier. We manufactured for oneida 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 whole lot of. It was dribs and drabs of orders. It was a disaster, and with barely any cash coming in, the pair took drastic action. They closed the factory, let 100 employees go and shifted production for their remaining clients to mexico. We were left with a severely reduced revenue stream and really a revenue stleem couldnt support the amount of debt that we had. We were slow paying people and we were 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 lights we had several coils of steel, many coils of steel lying around the factory. Instead of letting them sit there, we decided to turn it into flatware and thats the inventory that we started with. It was about 23,000 worth of flatware that i recall. That 23,000 worth of flatware marked the beginning of liberty tabletop. Going through bankruptcy with a new brand was incredibly complicated. We actually created liberty tabletop and our wives own 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 the 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 look at the flatware. During the bankruptcy i avoided the flatware departments because i felt so i just felt bad. They had to compartmentalize and look on the future. We were very good at survival. Looking back i cant believe we survived. Im not going to say there werent days both matt and i looked at each other and said, you know, is today the last day . Somehow we managed to make it through it. As excess equipment and steel was sold for cash, 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. 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 biggest problem we had is capitol. Greg would come to me and say, matt, were not going to be able to make payroll. We need to come up with 12,500. We need to come up with 11,000. What id do is go down to the factory and start scrapping. Their strategy of being an online only business that sells directly to consumers started paying off immediately. Our first sale on our website was halloween of 2010. We literally started our business right after we filed bankruptcy. Sort of crazy. The liberty brand itself was selfsustaining and quite profitable from its genesis. Were bypassing all of the other middlemen and actually its the most efficient way to get products to the cone summer. Sort of like farm to table, this is factory to table. The Business Owners got a break when the property was sold and leased back to them. They paid up their secured creditors and exited bankruptcy 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 carol manufacturing out of the woods and liberty tabletop showing signs of success, new investors have provided the capital necessary to expand the brands. We went from eight patterns to about 24 now in four different price points. The good, better, best, lux model. Remember the production they had to move to mexico . Well, theyve been able to bring that back to the United States, which has strengthened the companys story. If you were just launching the generic brand with no particular story or no nothing special about it, i think it would be next or 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 theyve come out stronger on the other side. We would rather be strong 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 you just 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 theyve decided that their size is actually an asset. These look great. Youve got johns, macs, sort of the goldens. Greg hall of benville, michigan, is very picky about which apples go into his hard seider. This morning he and peter clyne, the owner of nearby seedling orchard of testing. You can see how they cluster. And tasting. As a seider 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 site ter, where his virtue cider label has been thriving. Three years ago nobody knew where it was. Now its all over tv, all over the supermarkets. No surprise, all this rapid growth has not gone unnoticed by big players in the beer category. Gregs now getting stiff competition from big beer brands who have recently acquired cider brands to market along with their other products. Sam adams with the angry orchard, miller coors with a couple of brands and anheuserbusch. They have the stella and johnny appleseed. They have vast production facilities, Marketing Budgets and distribution channels. This puts all of the smaller producers in a bind. How can an independent compete against that . Hes not competing with the big brewers for the mass market. Well never be able to compete with those guys on price, efficiency, or marketing so were going to have to do this. Great apple. Instead, hes concentrating on the high end or premium market. His strategy starts with feature placement at upscale restaurants at nearby salt of the earth and partnerships with celebrity shelves, jason french. The acidity is there. Its awesome. Like oyster shell. Greg has found that creating exclusive blends like this one 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, you know, even the liquor stores. They know him. They know his restaurant and if its good enough for him, its certainly going to be 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 said receiving awards and reviews like this one have much more impact. When we get a magazine like saveur says virtues 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. And 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 brand survival depends on staying out of the mass market. What were doing now, they cant do. Theyll never do there, so we have a Sustainable Production advantage that theyll never be able to recreate. And if the market changes dsh so we look at those market changes and we adapt as quickly as possible. Cheers. As baby boom joers aers areg and younger work force is doing the work for us, the race is on. Entrepreneur. Com has five tips of things you should consider offering to bring in and keep millennials at your Small Business. One, offer Student Loan Debt relief. Young talent burdened by the stress of paying back their financial obligations will appreciate the help. Two, let them work remotely. Millennials want the flexibility of choosing when and where they complete their projects. Three, give them gadgets. Devices help them stay connected to coworkers and 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 emphasize quantity over quality. Five, let them be social. These days people dont see anything wrong to take a break posting 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 impaired owners of a business communicate effectively with their business. Will your business be ready when growth presents itself . American express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. Find out how American Express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open. Com. Deborah writes us, we prepare legal documents. We are advertising through yelp and google but are not getting enough business. What can we do to generate more business . I wish i had a little bit more information on whether youre preparing legal documents for other legal firms or for the consumer, but either way, i dont know where youre advertising and 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 providing a restaurant suggestion, im looking to my trusted network. If youre working on a b2b basis, i would be working with other businesses that are happy with your referrals or using them in your advertising with the chamber of commerce or things like that. If youre going direct to consumer, you also want to be talking to trusted advisors 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. That way you can create the cross referral. But its always about what youre doing in terms of the business which is creating that trust as well as where your customers are so good luck. Theres a pits ser residential rea in San Francisco where you can order without saying a word all thanks to a new technology company. The owners are deaf and are using this to communicate with customers. As nbcs Joe Lynn Kent tells us, its a great example of one business helping another making both successful. Its the sound of oven baked authenticity with just the right amount of crispy, but what you wont hear at mozzeria is the phone ring. Melody stein and her husband russ are deaf. Making Neopolitan Pizza is their passion. Over the last two years theyve employed an all deaf staff. Our goal is to build bridges with the community and various cultures. To reach more custo