When I first arrived in New York City back in 2000, I would have never thought of becoming an entrepreneur. Sometimes, life gives you unexpected opportunities that are very hard to refuse. I opened a business in 2004 (Beauty Salon) that was, for New York standard, successful. However there were many misshapes and errors along the way that I wish now to have taken a different direction. But I was inexperienced and my mind was full of preconceived ideas that prevented me to observe and find a solution to problems.
During the end of my ventures, I finally started observing and looking back at what could have been done better. Little by little I found out that they are many tools out there to help small businesses owner but they are not easy to find or it is not easy to put them all together. A “Mom and Pop” type of business do not have time or money to spend researching and putting together this help. I started crafting this idea about a company that will put its focus on helping “Mom and Pop” business opening shop in New York City.
Throughout my time in New York, I was able to build a network of professionals that can help me with my idea’s goals. those professionals are corporate lawyers, labor lawyers, injury lawyers, General contractors, PR agencies, architects, CPAs, commercial real estate agents, angel investors. My managerial experience will help me put all the dots together and help “Mom and Pop” businesses open in New York City. With many locations closing due to the effect of the current global pandemic, there are going to be many opportunities to open businesses in New York City. It could be the right time to bring back “Mom and Pop” businesses” as a leading economic factors in the city .
The SBDC is one such free resource and I agree, this is an issue. The problem should target Baruch UGs as your eventual customer population so you may need to refine this a little bit to fit that demographic but that can be done. Maybe even partner with the SBDC which is on campus to have some student-focused consulting?
Thank you for the advice. I will do so. Colleges can be a great source of customer for my ideas. Especially in Baruch beacuse of the Entrepreneurship major.
This idea will really benefit many people especially immigrant who are planning to won their own business. I know it is like to open one and to realize that you missed out a lot of things because I work with a lady from my country who bought a hair braiding salon from someone else and later was about to loose everything because she did not have all the resources and tools to legalized her shop.
This is definitely a great problem to solve! There are a lot of small business owners that struggle with keeping their business open due to the pandemic, especially business owners in Chinatown. A lot of businesses in Chinatown have closed down because of the pandemic, and not a lot of them know how to use social media to promote their businesses to their advantage either. Most business owners there are from China and are of the older generation, so they do not know the current trends of promoting business. Your idea will definitely serve useful for a lot of the small business owners struggling to keep their business afloat.
it is really cool how you took an unexpected opportunity and made the most out of it. growing up in new york is not easy, to say the least, especially when coming here from another country but if you are able to identify the opportunities that can be hidden from your eyes at times, the potential here is endless. mom & pop consulting also sounds like a great idea initially, and I would love to see how you go about this moving forward.