The Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development

Own It Ventures, a woman-owned, NJ based organization has collaborated with Rutgers University-Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development and investors from TechLaunch and Delaware Crossing for a "Get Your Business Pitch Ready for Prime Time" Entrepreneur Roadshow on October 26, 2012 at Rutgers Business School in Newark, NJ. The day is set to educate women entrepreneurs on the important elements of successful business pitches to Angel Investors, the Media and Retailers.      

"We have found that most entrepreneurs do not fully understand the process and mechanics of pitching their companies and/or products to investors, the media and retailers. The issue for women is compounded with the fact that if we do not feel confident or knowledgeable, we typically will not attempt to pitch," states Melissa Cloeter, President of Own It Ventures.

The agenda for the Entrepreneur Roadshow is to alleviate the angst and improve the areas where women lag; specifically access to capital, revenue growth, and access to influential business networks. According to the Survey of Business Owners Census in 2007, women own approximately one third of small businesses and employ 7.6 million people, yet only 4% of women owned firms secure bank loans to finance growth and less than 2% receive funds from VCs, family and friends.

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It's a nice premise: Buy stuff to help those in need. Companies using this model are profiting off people wanting to "do good." Is there anything wrong with that?

Watch Professor Jeffrey Robinson discuss this with the Huffington Post.

Ron Rusby
NNPA Columnist

I had the pleasure of serving on a panel at the recent White House Historically Black Colleges and University (HBCU) Entrepreneurship Conference.

Enlightening. Encouraging. Affirming. Each of these could describe the outcomes of the all-day session. It really had my Florida A&M “Rattler” and Clark Atlanta University “Panther” blood pumping.

A blue-ribbon panel of luminaries from academia and industry was on hand at the invitation of avid U.S. Black Chamber supporter Marie Johns, deputy administrator of the Small Business Administration.

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Sears Holdings Corp. plans to close as many as 120 Sears and Kmart stores because holiday sales for appliances and other big-ticket items failed to keep pace with last year, the company said Tuesday.

Rutgers Business School’s dt ogilvie, a professor of business strategy and urban entrepreneurship, said Sears has been slow to adapt to changes, whether it is accepting credit cards other than the Sears card or sprucing up its stores.

“Sears had a strong culture,” said ogilvie, who spells her name using lowercase letters. “It can be good, but also bad because it locks you in. You can’t see other ways of doing things. For a lot of its history, it was one of the top five retailers. And it’s hard to do things differently. That causes problems.”

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Management & Global Business Professor Brett Gilbert, also a Core Fellow for The Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development, recently spoke about a medical devices start-up named Energex Systems to NorthJersey.com. Read an excerpt from the article below.

While it's not unusual for a medical devices start-up to take years to develop a product, Fagan's vast network of small investors is uncommon, said Brett Anitra Gilbert, a professor of entrepreneurship at Rutgers University.

Typically, early stage companies scrape by, borrowing money from friends and family, tapping credit cards and home-equity loans, Gilbert said. Lucky entrepreneurs get funds from an angel investor or a venture capitalist, she said.

"It's very unusual for an entrepreneur to raise that kind of money from 784 people," she said. "Clearly, he has a very powerful network of individuals."

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The creation of a New Jersey Social Innovation Institute was announced Wednesday during the New Jersey Social Enterprise Summit at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, in Newark.

In a statement the institute said its goal is to foster social entrepreneurship, which integrates social goals and social or environmental problem-solving into its core business model. These social ventures may be affiliated with nonprofits, but are run as companies, or may be independent companies devoted to using business to affect positive changes.

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The New Jersey Social Innovation Institute has been launched during the New Jersey Social Enterprise Summit in Newark. The launch program was co-hosted by The Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development at Rutgers Business School (CUEED).

The goal of the New Jersey Social Innovation Institute is to promote social entrepreneurship, which integrates social and environmental problem solving and social goals into its core enterprise model. The social ventures to be promoted by the institute may have their affiliations with non-profit organizations, but will operate as social enterprises. They may also be independent companies dedicated to the business of achieving positive social change.

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Aiming to uplift urban communities through businesses that believe in economic empowerment as well as social responsibility, Rutgers University is hosting the first New Jersey Social Entrepreneurship Summit on October 19, 2011 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.

The event, sponsored by PSE&G and Rutgers and Hosted by the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and
 Economic Development at Rutgers Business School (CUEED), is an opportunity for businesses and entrepreneurs to share ways to create what they call a “double bottom line,” which measures a business’s fiscal performance as well as its social contributions.

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There's no denying the fact that the recession has and continues to impact the unemployment rate in the U.S.According to a recent report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the unemployment rate remained high last month at 9.1 percent. However, the average unemployment rate for African-Americans is even higher - near 16 percent, according to the BLS. One of the ways to combat the high unemployment rate among minorities as well as boost the economy in general is to increase the amount of small businesses in urban areas, according to the Obama administration.

"By building strong businesses in our American cities, people will spend money here, create jobs here, and revitalize economic development to help entrepreneurs compete in the global economy," said dt ogilvie, the Founding Director of the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development at Rutgers Business School.