My column in today’s Tennessean offers two examples of businesses doing well during the recession by offering value to the market:

Not all small businesses are facing declining sales in these difficult times. Businesses that offer a product or service that provides a better value to the customer are finding they’re actually able to grow during a recession.

Two very different businesses in Middle Tennessee serve as prime examples.

Ken Harmon, his wife and two friends founded The Music Library. The service lets churches and schools resell used choral music and music products to one another through a Web site, www.themusiclibrary.com.

Harmon, an alumnus of the Belmont University MBA program, found this niche from his own experience as a music minister leading a small church choir that was operating on a limited budget.

In the current economic downturn, The Music Library has been able to capture many new customers in a relatively short period of time due to the tightening budgets of many churches and schools.

Another example of a business finding success in the recession is Cell Journalist, a Nashville startup venture founded by Colin and Parker Polidor. Cell Journalist provides a platform to local TV stations and newspapers, allowing audience members to easily send in images and videos of breaking news and community events.

“Even as layoffs are accelerating and budgets are being slashed, media outlets realize that now more than ever they must invest in new innovative digital platforms to make them more efficient and successful,” explains Colin Polidor a graduate of the Massey MBA program at Belmont University.

In a short time Cell Journalist has signed up about 40 clients, including some of the largest media groups in the country such as Scripps and Raycom. But, their platform also offers value to many smaller local television stations and other media.

Owners look ahead

Once the economy strengthens, retaining customers will be the next objective.

“When ‘normal’ economic times return, it will be much easier to retain these customers than to capture new ones,” suggests Harmon of the Music Library. They have a simple, cost-effective plan to attract and keep these new customers.

First, they ask customers how they found out about The Music Library. This helps Harmon focus a limited marketing budget on those efforts that are bringing in new business. They also actively encourage customers to pass the word about their services.

They motivate this word of mouth by always trying to wow customers with excellent customer service beginning with the first order.

Both businesses have found a formula for success by offering value to budget-conscious customers constrained by the current economic hardships.

We are pleased to announce FastPitch Nashville.  It is a value-packed, three-phase event designed to help you get your business idea out of your head and into the market.

 

FastPitch is a competition to showcase great entrepreneurial ideas. Entrepreneurs compete with 60-second pitches in front of three judges and a live audience for cash awards.

Phase 1: PitchCamp

All applicants are invited to PitchCamp, a half-day intensive and interactive workshop focusing on idea creation and effective communication. The day will begin with world-renowned think-tank innovator, Jeff Stamp, who will present a captivating seminar on idea generation helping you take your good idea and make it STELLAR! Jeff was recently awarded the George Land World-Class Innovator Award from the Innovation Network and Fast Company Magazine. The second part of the day will be lead by Scott Schwertly. Scott owns and operates Ethos3 Communications, an internationally renowned and award-winning presentation design and training company located in Nashville, TN.

Details

• When: Friday, February 6, 2009, 1-5pm
• Who: Anybody that has, or wants to dream up, an idea
• Where: Gordon Inman Center, Belmont University
• Cost: $35 per person

Phase 2:  OPENPitch

Participants will then move on to OPENPitch, where they will each be allowed to present their refined 60-second pitch. Finalists will then be selected to move on to the FASTPITCH MAIN EVENT and compete for cash prizes and more.

Details

• When: Friday, February 27, 2009, 8am-12pm and Saturday, March 7, 2009, 1-4pm
• Who: Entrepreneurs wanting to pitch their idea at FastPitch
• How: Details will be emailed once registered.
• Where: Friday at Belmont, Saturday at Cummins Station Board Room
• Cost: $35 or FREE for PitchCamp alumni

Phase 3:  FastPitch

The selected finalists will present their well-crafted 60-second pitches to a live audience and a panel of select judges from the academic, investor and entrepreneurial community of Nashville for the chance to win cash prizes and the opportunity to present to the Angel Capital Group for funding. This event is also open to the public in which attendees will participate by voting at the event to choose the winning ideas.  This is your chance, Nashville, to pick your winner.

Details

• When: Tuesday, March 31, 2009
• Who: Open to the public
• Where: Curb Event Center, Belmont University
• Cost: Free

Register online at www.fastpitchnashville.com

 

I had the pleasure of having dinner with the ideablob.com people last night.  They are driving down to San Diego for another Blob Live event.  It will be held tonight at Henry’s Pub from 6:00-9:00 p.m. PST.

The ideablob folks have toured Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Nashville bringing business idea sharing live to the masses.  We had a great time when we hosted the Nashville event at Belmont.

If you can’t make it live to San Diego you can watch a live streaming video starting at 7:00 p.m. PST via Twitter stream #bloblive.  http://www.bloblive.com 

I have had a lot of questions about the future of entrepreneurship education in light of the current economic hard times.  After all, aren’t people going to be nervous about launching a new business right now? 

My experience has been that we will continue to see a brisk business as young people see few prospects in the traditional corporate career path. 

In fact, even experienced business professionals are also seeing entrepreneurship as the best option for them in a bleak job market.

From MarketWatch:

Business ownership is an ideal way to parlay proven business skills into a road of self-sufficiency. With economic indicators pointing to a lengthy recession, continued corporate downsizing, and growing unemployment, the New Career Economy is today’s reality. In good economic times and bad, the small business owner has been and will continue to be the backbone of our economy. And historically, when there is trouble in the corporate sector, it tends to serve as a launching pad for would-be entrepreneurs.

So to all of you new entrepreneurs out there — welcome to the club!  I know many “accidental” entrepreneurs who started their ventures due to losing their jobs during previous recessions who have never thought of going back to a corporate career. You may not have intended to become one of us, but we are delighted to have you with us.  We are here to help! 

Bloblive Nashville!!

It’s time to grab the mic and bounce your fun, wild, money making, world changing idea off your fellow big thinkers.  Come share your idea and help develop someone else’s.  Join us for a bloblive session where inspiration is guaranteed.  We’ll supply the food, you just bring that big brain of yours.

This event is open to everyone — all you need to do is register for this event here

December 3, 2008 (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM)
Belmont University
Beaman Student Center, Rooms A&B (free parking is available in the Curb Center parking garage).
Nashville, Tennessee
Doors open at 7:00 PM – Idea sharing and collaboration begins at 7:30 PM

There are more great ideas in the running for the ,000 prize at ideablob.  Make sure to check out the November finalists and cast your vote!

By the way, we will be hosting a “Blob Live” event in Nashville.

Here are the details:

Bloblive Nashville
December 3, 2008 (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM)
Belmont University
Beaman Student Center, Rooms A&B
Nashville, Tennessee
Doors open at 7:00 PM – Idea sharing and collaboration begins at 7:30 PM

You can register for this event here.

One of our favorite entrepreneurs at Belmont is Cordia Harrington, a.k.a. “The Bun Lady.”

She has had a successful entrepreneurial career first in real estate, then as a McDonald’s franchisee, and now with her commercial bakeries that are suppliers of buns and other breads to companies such as McDonald’s and O’Charley’s.

She gave a talk in York, PA and touched on the current real estate market.  From Today’s Financial News:

When Harrington started her real estate business when mortgage rates were 17%, they called her crazy. When she bought her first McDonald’s restaurant, a dilapidated low-volume franchise, they called her crazy. When she sold those businesses to build a state-of-the-art bakery from the ground up, they called her crazy.

But Harrington took advantage of fear in the markets to create a small fortune. Now she sees the current financial calamity as another fantastic growth opportunity. And she is urging entrepreneurs to follow in her footsteps.

With the real estate industry in the worst shape we have witnessed in decades, this is an opportunity to make investments that have the potential to pay of for years to come. Just as Harrington’s bread takes time to rise, so will the real estate market.

With the right ingredients, this market has the potential to rise into a fantastic wealth-generating opportunity.

Belmont alumnus Colin Polidor and his brother Parker Polidor run a business a called Cell Journalist, which connects media outlets with their audience by providing a platform for sharing citizen journalism.  The Cell Journalist platform is an integrated turnkey solution that allows users to submit images and videos directly from mobile phones or upload from the media outlet’s website.  Features like rate, tag, share, and the contest engine continually drive traffic back to the media outlet’s website.  

 

Recently, Cell Journalist released an iPhone app that will allow each of its clients to have their own branded iPhone app for users to submit images quickly and easily from their iPhones.  Clients include E.W. Scripps Company, Raycom Media, Young Broadcasting, GateHouse Media, and several more independent print publications.

 

Cell Journalist’s technology helped KPLC-TV win the big story during hurricane Ike.   

An interesting observation from bootstrapper.com:

Now, most entrepreneurs usually start with a single idea and can think of nothing but that during their first company. However, somewhere along the lines, after about 2 years of running a company, just about every entrepreneur I know starts coming up with dozens of ideas for new companies. It is like there is some hidden tipping point where every hard driven entrepreneur becomes an idea junkie.

We need idea junkies more than ever right now!  Even in the toughest economic times there are real opportunities in the market. 

There is a phenomenon I like to call Entrepreneurial Attention Deficit Disorder (EADD).

EADD afflicts many entrepreneurs, but is a particular problem for primarily first-timers.

What happens is this — once the entrepreneur starts to understand all of the opportunities that are exist in the marketplace, they become easily distracted from the purpose of their intended start-up venture.

I tell entrepreneurs that EADD is the main reason I have them write and memorize a mission statement.  It is not for outsiders, such as investors and bankers.  The mission statement is for them to keep their focus!

I have often suffered from this condition.  It becomes a compulsive reaction to perceived needs in the market.

I learned over the years (usually the hard way) to control my impulses.  But I am not always successful.

Case in point.  While Mike Naughton and I were working away on our book Bringing Your Business to Life I was approached by the editors of a new series of entrepreneurship texts being developed by Prentice-Hall to write a textbook on Bootstrapping.   How could I say “no” to that??!!  After all, I write and teach about bootstrapping all of the time.  I rationalized to myself that all would go smoothly with the book with Mike and then I could dive into the new book.

Well, as they say in the world of entrepreneurship “stuff happens.”  Mike and I got delayed a bit in our new book due to the decision to make one more major revision (a good decision).  I forgot that entrepreneurs always underestimate the time and cost to get things launched.

And then we got the opportunity to do a second edition of our book Entrepreneurial Financial Management.  How could I resist that opportunity??

And then my good friend Dr. George Solomon at George Washington University approached me about writing another new textbook.  I have never had the chance to write with George, so again, I could not control my impulses and said “yes.”

And so it goes….

I guess I have a chronic and incurable case of EADD….