to make your business better.”
Photo credit: Mark Stehle
Oil prices are skyrocketing, the stock markets appear unstable and the mortgage mess just keeps getting worse.
But there remains one constant in the troubled American economy, says M. Thérèse Flaherty: The entrepreneurial spirit. “I am amazed,” says Flaherty, “at the number of people who are interested in starting their own business.”
As director of Wharton’s Small Business Development Center since 2002, Flahery has been helping local entrepreneurs and small business owners get their young companies off the ground. Each year, the Center—one of 18 such centers scattered throughout the state—offers valuable business consulting services to hundreds of young and growing businesses.
The center’s programs are open to anyone who is interested and the results have been impressive: Alumni of the Center’s various programs include the founders of companies ranging from CDNow.com to Metropolitan Bakery to the Union Packaging in Yeadon.
We sat down recently with Flaherty to discuss the current business climate, what kind of problems local entrepreneurs are facing and how the Wharton SBDC can help them overcome those challenges.
Q. What kinds of businesses and entrepreneurs does the SBDC work with?
A. We work with a whole range of businesses—basically any business that can be called a small business. We work with the kind of businesses that you think of as forming the entrepreneurial engine for growth. We work with companies that are funded by venture capital, we work with science and technology-based businesses.
We also work with about 600 businesses [each year] that are what you would think of as your smaller companies, like localized markets. We work with people who are starting day-care centers, people who are real estate developers, people who are building bicycles, everything.
Q. How long has the SBDC been around?
A. The Center is now about 25 years old. The Wharton Entrepreneurial Program was the first entrepreneurial program that anyone knows of, in the entire world, at a major business school. And very early in the history of the WEP, the SBDC was started. So it goes back. When I took over, I was asked to redevelop the program and try to increase the experiential education part of the program. I took it from something that was mainly focused on putting students together with businesses, and then seeing what kind of interesting things came out of it, and put in a lot more academic support for our consulting services. I brought in a number of outside entrepreneurs, many of whom are alums and some who are just leading entrepreneurs. We’ve probably doubled or tripled the number of clients that we work with, even though we have the same resources. And we have 70 students working for us.
Q. What do those students do?
A. The students are focused on various kinds of analytics and research. Any time a business owner or entrepreneur needs to make a decision supported by analytics, we put a student on it. And you might ask: How can a student make a difference? But what we do is offer very straightforward business analysis.
Q. Do you tell these entrepreneurs if their ideas are good, bad or otherwise?
A. It’s very temping for anyone, especially for a business student, to say whether a business is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Very often we have people come to us and ask, ‘Is this a good idea?’, but we tell them we can’t do that. We meet you where your vision is and try to make your business better. We can teach you how to make it better.
Q. What are some of the most common problems you see?
A. A lot of businesses come to us and they already have a half-million dollar business, but these people are often working 24/7, they’re really tired and their beginning to forget why they started the business in the first place. What we’re able to do is really help them understand their sales, and identify the areas where they’re most profitable. … And very often, they have a chance to get outside themselves and they get unstuck. They have to just use business basics—look at what their sales actually are, what sales they can put aside, which projects they can delay, how to focus on the projects that are truly profitable.
Q. Looking to the future, are there any new initiatives you are planning through the Center?
A. Yes, we are actually starting a new program with the Center for Technology Transfer, to work with faculty especially in the health sciences and life sciences, but also through all of the engineering disciplines and even the social sciences. We’re also increasing our focus on health care management. We have brought in some major consulting firms—McKenzie, for instance, came in last year and they’re increasing their participation this year—to help coach our consultants. And we’re also working with local private equity firms to help teach our students about how they view clients.
One thing I should say, we absolutely welcome anyone at Penn who is interested in starting a business to come visit us. They can come to our workshops whether they’re just exploring the idea of starting a business or if they already have an established business and are looking for analytic help.
For more information on the Wharton Small Business Development Program, visit http://whartonsbdc.wharton.upenn.edu.
Originally published Dec. 6, 2007.
