UTICA, N.Y. — From working at home to meal delivery, there’s no denying the pandemic changed the way companies do business in America. Locally, it also helped spur some changes in how the Mohawk Valley Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and Mohawk Valley Community College’s (MVCC) thINCubator interact with those businesses. “COVID really impacted businesses, […]
UTICA, N.Y. — From working at home to meal delivery, there’s no denying the pandemic changed the way companies do business in America. Locally, it also helped spur some changes in how the Mohawk Valley Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and Mohawk Valley Community College’s (MVCC) thINCubator interact with those businesses.
“COVID really impacted businesses, but also impacted organizations that provide services to businesses,” SBDC Regional Director Zachary Steffen says. For the SBDC, the organization went from helping people start businesses and offering all sorts of training opportunities to helping businesses navigate COVID, whether it was requirements for staying open or how to apply for pandemic-related funding like the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans.
That business model consumed much of the organization’s activities in 2020 through 2021, before operations returned to a more normal state over the past two years.
“What we’re seeing is people want to start businesses again; people want to buy businesses again,” Steffen says. But the landscape has changed a little. Technology utilized during the pandemic when so many people had to work from home has changed how people do business. “In some cases, it has lowered barriers in the cost of starting a business.”
In some ways, it also changed the scope of who the SBDC works with and has strengthened the partnership the organization has formed with the thINCubator in Utica. In fact, the SBDC has operated from that space for just over four years, Steffen says.
“Being in the thINCubator has facilitated a connection to the business community,” he notes. “Now, we’re in the center of it all.”
Over the past year, the two organizations focused on developing synergies, Steffen says, and working collectively to serve as a one-stop shop for small-business needs. The partnership takes advantage of the strengths of each organization — and its employees — and eliminates redundancies.
The SBDC and thINCubator, headed up by Ryan Miller, now share a co-branded website (thincubator.co) and one common intake form, which can be completed online or over the phone, so businesses are paired with the person from either organization best able to help them, he says. That pairing can even change between organizations as the business or entrepreneur progresses and their needs change, Miller notes. Businesses can even consent to the two organizations sharing their information in order to best serve them.
The streamlining has already produced benefits, Miller says. Prior to these changes, in a typical year, he would work with about 85-90 entrepreneurs or businesses a year. So far this year, he’s already worked with 112.
The organizations also collaborate on training, events, and programs. “We worked with Ryan to build out a training schedule that is hopefully hitting all the needs of businesses at all different development levels,” Steffen adds.
The SBDC still offers all its core services, he says. “We work with business owners along every stage of the journey from start-up to exit planning.”
While the SBDC does not provide capital, it can connect people to sources of capital. Staff members have expertise in government contracting, minority- and woman-owned business certification, workforce development, food-related businesses, small and side businesses, and also have access to their fellow SBDC peers at offices around the state.
“Businesses can come to us and, even if we don’t have a solution in-house, we can connect them to a solution,” Steffen says. The SBDC also offers free business research through the New York Small Business Development Center Research Network.
All of that pairs with services offered by the thINCubator, which includes mentorship, training, and even incubator and co-working space for rent at its 326 Broad St. facility.
The Mohawk Valley SBDC has a staff of six, which includes three business advisors and one associate advisor. Administered by SUNY, the state has 22 campus-based regional SBDC centers and dozens of outreach offices.