Updated Blog : After feedback from my classmates, I have chnaged my company name to : Borg Consulting Enterprise. I also made some changes to my MVP. From the feedback received my old page was not communicating my Business Value Proposition.

In this week assignment we needed to create a MVP for our company and place an ad in a social media platform. You can visit my MVP here :

Borg  Enterprise Consulting

As a social platform I have used Facebook :

My ad can be seen here :

This week, as per our assignment, I interviewed two expert. The first expert is from the Baruch Small Business Development Center. His name is Leo Zhang. He is a BSBDC consultant. The second expert is the founder of Elicit consulting Company. her name is Nalini Saxena.

Let’s first talk about Leo Zhang. The interview went very well and very professional. However I felt that Leo didn’t really understood why I was calling. he had me confirmed two times that I am a current student and that I was attending class with Professor Romi Kher. I had a feeling that he thought I was spying on him or something similar. Leo also couldn’t answer a few technical questions, he did referred me to talk to his director regarding those two questions. The questions he did answer were of great information for my assignment. He did confirm assumptions I had with the BSBDC. The questions I have asked are the following :

• What is the main strategy to attract students/non students to come through the BSBDC Doors?
  Leo referred me to talk to his director as he didn’t know or maybe thought I was a spy or something similar.
• Do you partner with outside consulting company?
  The SBDC does partner with outside company but they are not consulting company. They are banks, and different federals bureau. Depending on the need of the client. An exhausted list can be find here:
  Web Resources for Small Businesses – New York SBDC (nyssbdc.org)
• Your services are free so why do you think  some businesses are seeking paid consulting  services and not yours?
  This question, in my opinion, helped me get a better idea of the SBDC. Leo answer was very direct, the reason is because for the free service they are are not specialized Consultants. The BSBDC ( and the SBDC overall) is here to give a general guidance+ to their clients. They push them to the right direction but it is up to the client to make it happen. The BSBDC  has limited amount of staff and cannot dedicated a staff fully to one client. After this question I felt that it was time to end the interview.

Now to the second interview with Nalini Saxena. For full disclosure, we have had Nalini as a guest speaker in another class this semester. When I emailed her regarding an interview, she answered positively right away. Because of the existing connection , it made it easier to conduct the interview. I explained very clearly the goal of this interview, she was fully on board. Here is a summary of the questions I asked:

• What is the main strategy to attract students/non students to come through your doors?
  Elicit strategy is based on referral from former and current customers, workshops where the founder can meet future customers as well as being guest speakers at colleges. Elicit doesn’t have a marketing strategy as the company didn’t need to. Because of the Pandemic, Nalini mentioned that she will eventually start advertising in social media such as LinkedIn and Instagram.
• Do you partner with outside consulting company?
  Elicit will only partner with a consulting company if the client needs expertise in an area Elicit is not  familiar with. i.e. Video Marketing Campaign.
• The SBDC services are free so why do you think  some businesses are seeking paid consulting  services?
  Nalini was not very familiar with the SBDC, She told me people come to her because she custom tailors every client to their needs, she works intensively with every single one of them. She has yet to meet anyone with the same level of work and dedication her company offers.
• How do you see  the future of small business in NYC once the pandemic is over and the city fully reopens?
  This was a complex questions to answer. It is in two part, the first part is the trends before the pandemic hit and the second part is what in her opinion will happen once the city reopens fully. Before the pandemic, in New York City and overall the economy as a whole, the trend for small businesses was in the order of a gig economy. More and more companies opened with intangible services that are mostly online. Those companies also made co-working spaces flourished as commercial rental spaces were becoming more expensive throughout the years and many companies were unable to afford those pricing. Now for the future, it is a big unknown , it will depends on many factors such as : How many people will come back to live in the city, How many tourists will be back, How many workers/businessmen-women  will flock back to Manhattan. As for commercial real estate store front and offices, If we go with the simple rule of supply and demand, We may see an increase of small mom and pop shops reopening in force in New York City. This will be due because of the amount of inventory available after the city reopens fully, many big company ( besides Google and Facebook) are cutting down on office and retail spaces.

During my interviews, I was very please to see that my assumptions on this industry is correct. There is no competitive advantage, the entry barriers are very low. it will be quite easy to open a consulting company. The hardest part will be, for my opinion, getting customers through the door. But the fact that one can work from home and rent a co-working space for meeting makes it easier to start. By having interviewing two expert in the same industry i was able to get a feel from different views of the industry. The SBDC is a state and federal office. The passion may not be there and the consultant may not be as excited as the customer. which works as an advantage for other private consulting company that are more passionate and will walk their clients through every single steps to help realize their dream of business ownerships.

I am please to say that after those interviews, my ideas has been fortified. I am a very passionate person and my personality will  fit in this industry. What I may do is maybe instead of opening a company as soon as I am done with school, I would intern ii=n different consulting companies to really understand the in and out. And who knows I may be able to partner with an existing small consulting company and create a new, bigger one.

Part of the class project is to talk directly with an expert from a direct competitor.

My first approach was to email directly the director of Baruch Small Business Development Center, Ulas Neftci. I haven’t heard from this person yet. So instead of waiting I went ahead and schedule an interview with Nalini Saxena,  the founder of a small business consulting company called Elicit. This is a perfect example to show future business entrepreneurs to not give up if a first choice is not happening or will take more time.  Just pivot and dig somewhere else. Eventually someone will answer.

Please tune in next week for a follow up blogs with my interview(s??)

Affaire a suivre…

Mom & Pop Consulting direct competitor for this project is the Baruch SBDC. I am trying to get in touch with  Ulas Neftci, Director of the Baruch Small Business Development Center. I would like for my questions to be as followed:

• What is the main strategy to attract students/non students to come through the BSBDC Doors?
  • This question is to get marketing information on how they attract customers. That can be great information to get when my company will decide on a marketing route.
• Do you partner with outside consulting company?
  • If they do I will ask follow up question to see how my company could eventually partnered with the SBDC
• Your services are free so why do you think  some businesses are seeking paid consulting  services and not yours?
  • to get some expert insight and understanding on why customers would choose to pay me instead of free services at the SBDC.
• How do you see  the future of small business in NYC once the pandemic is over and the city fully reopens?
  • Insider future trend opinion can be valuable when coming from an expert in the field.
• What are some metrics used by the SBDC to measure the success of their clients?
• Do you experienced delay in working with clients? What is your average completion time for a project?
  • This will help me understanding if there is an issue of delays, which is usually the case for any governmental offices.
• What are the pains that could be work on better within the SBDC office ?
  • Again here, I am trying to see if there are any pain point within the company that will help me with a competitive advantage

The main competitor for Mom & Pop Consulting is the New York Small Business Development Center. While working on the competitive analysis, I discovered that the NYSBDC offers an array of diverse key activities. I will duplicate most likely the entirety of the key activities as it will be necessary in order to attract our main customer segment. Some of the factor Where Mom & Pop Consulting will deviate from NYSBDC is the practicality and human approach.

For the practicality, I realized, after a throughout look at the NYSBD website that it can make the potential customer become quickly overwhelmed with information. Time is of essence for everyone, but it is particularly true for aspiring and current small business owner. The avalanche of information in the NYSBDC website can discouraged many to even book a consultation with an expert.

For the human approach, Mom & Pop Consulting will want our future customer to know who they are going to work with. Before coming for a consultation, future customer will have the possibility to learn and engage directly with the owner of the company and, eventually, with former customers that can be used as an example of success. By sharing my own experience, It would help create a sense of trust from the customers.

NYSBDC has a competitive advantage in the way of locations ( They have 22 campus based offices throughout state) and cost ( free services), I am positive that we will be able to compete for the following reasons :
– By being a small company we can control better our customer needs. If needed We can bring our office to the customer. With the advance of technology an office can fit inside a laptop. Our main location will be central and close to the Baruch Campus to facilitate our customer visit.
– By offering free services, the NYSBDC gets thousands of new customer a year. It sounds great on paper, but one may run the risk to feel like a number and not a person. Which may cause many to not pursue their dreams. At Mom & Pop Consulting, we will be very selective with our customer choice as we will want our customer to be as passionate as we are and ready to work for their dreams.

Our value proposition will be similar to the NYSBDC : “Realize Entrepreneurs dream of business ownership” and we will add ” By having your dedicated and passionate consultant, you can go back to what you love most and leave the boring and red tape part to us.

You can look at my NYSBDC Business Canvas here :

Mom & Pop Consulting Lean Canvas

Problem

When I opened my business, I was younger and inexperienced. I stumbled through many hurdles. once my business was up and running, I realized that if I had help putting all the logistic together, it would have made my business became successful faster. Before my next adventure, I decided to enroll in a bachelor degree program. During my student experience I came across future entrepreneurs. They all have the same problems : we have the business idea but we don’t know where and how  to start. They are right. Consulting companies charges hefty fee therefor this service is reserved for big pocket entrepreneur. Help exists but to put it all together will require immense effort and time that a small company doesn’t have.

Unique value proposition :

For our future customers our unique value proposition will be to open a business in NYC hassle free and ready to be successful from day one. Throughout the all project we want to make sure that our client will be listened and offered the best human and professional experience possible. We want to take the stress away from our customers so they can focus on performing the best in their shop. Leave it to us to deal with the unglamorous aspect of opening a small business.

Solution

I want to develop a strategy that will enables and help people opening small business in New York City. My strategy will consist of creating packages that are tailored to the business need. Each package will consist of a network of professional that will be hired depending on the field the client is. The network of professional will include corporate lawyer, real estate lawyer, litigation lawyer, commercial real estate agent, accountant, bookkeepers, social media handlers, hiring firm, angel investors, consulting managers. We will regularly doing performance review the first year of the opening to make sure the strategy chosen works and/or pivot the strategy as needed.

Key metrics

The key metric we will use is to compare the first year failure rate of our clients compare to the city average. We will also track performance month to month for the duration of our client contract.

Channels

For our channels we will be approaching Baruch SBDC in order to create an alliance . Eventually other NYC SBDC colleges will be approach. We will advertised in social media platforms that have the same target market we wish to reach, i.e. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. We will also rely on word of mouth (which will be more of a focus once our company is getting older).

Unfair advantage

Mom & Pop Consulting founder experience will be one of the unfair advantage. By going through the hoops and loops of opening a business , the founder is able to have a better conceptual vision and better understanding of the general market  in NYC. By keeping cost to a minimum, we will be able to cut pricing and become affordable for small business that cannot afford the big consulting company. In Mom & Pop Consulting, our customer will have a face and not a number. We will be taking care of our customers as parents take care of their children.

Customer segment

our main customer will be a or  soon to be graduated student that is most likely a foreigner . This person will be very motivated with a good business concept, focus and with a determined mind. We will first reach out to Baruch Students and eventually we will include students form other NYC colleges.

Three Assumptions that must be true 

• Help is not easy to get and put together for small entrepreneurs
• There is a demand for opening small business in NYC
• Founder experience and languages skills  are helpful

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 .