There is always time to teach an old dog a new trick.
Recently, Jamestown Community College dedicated a portion of the Carnahan Building for use during National Encore Entrepreneur Mentor Day.
NEEMD is an event which is targeted at entrepreneurs over the age of 50 to match those encore entrepreneurs with successful business owners and community leaders for advice and assistance.
At the event at JCC, three mentors were available for questions about starting a new business. Those mentors were Pamela Andolina of the U.S. Small Business Administration, Dick Golas of SCORE and Scott Miller of the NYS Small Business Development Center at JCC. SCORE is a nonprofit association dedicated to helping small businesses get off the ground, grow and achieve their goals through education and mentorship.
"Our main goal is to help people start businesses, help them move on and try to help them if they get in trouble," said Golas.
"That's really what we're trying to get across with (NEEMD). Everything we do is free, because we are funded by the Small Business Administration of the federal government. I find it rewarding to help people get started in fact, I was lucky enough to have one of my clients this year be named client of the year for Western New York."
Fact Box
"Our main goal is to help people start businesses, help them move on and try to help them if they get in trouble."
Dick Golas
SCORE representative
Golas continued that the overall goal for NEEMD is to mentor over 100 total people in Western New York on successful practices and ideas for starting up a new business.
At the beginning of the event at JCC, there were three budding entrepreneurs who were looking for assistance in branching out with a new business. However, NEEMD has shown a great amount of success at a national level.
Events across the country for NEEMD included speed mentoring which allowed mentors and entrepreneurs to share information for five minute sessions, as well as mentor lunches for entrepreneurs to learn from successful business owners.
"The goal is to find out what type of businesses people would like to start," said Golas. "A lot of times people want to start a business but they have no idea what they want to do. So then they struggle. Another problem people run into is that they don't realize how much money it takes to start a business. I say that people should have enough money to run a business for two years, because that's how much time it might take to turn a profit. A lot of people struggle with taxes. These problems are all something that we want to help people overcome."
To learn more about NEEMD or to see how the SBA can help you start a new business, visit www.sba.gov/mentorday.