So, You Want To Launch Your Own Business

By Bill Zeeble, KERA News

Dallas, TX – As more and more Texans find themselves out of work in this recession, some decide now's the time to launch their own business. What's it take to succeed on your own? With this down economy, is now even a good time to try? KERA's Bill Zeeble reports, in our Economy Project segment.

Mark Gessner is a 47 year-old engineer who earned $150,000 a year selling electronic test equipment. But last year, he got laid off from his job in San Diego. So he moved his wife and child to more affordable Flower Mound, near relatives, and pondered his next move. He says the best advice he received came from his brother, who told him he can sell anything.

Mark Gessner: Go find something and sell the heck out of it. Yes, I knew that, but it was kind of a mind change. Instead of trying to find a job where you're working for somebody else, go and do your own thing. Now you have the excuse to do it. You don't have a job, you don't have much money, but you've got time and you've got ideas and you're a great salesman, so go sell.

Gessner also had an MBA, so knew the lessons that business pros offer for start ups. Create a business plan, a finance, and a marketing plan. Jerry White, who teaches entrepreneurship at SMU'S Cox School of Business, says such plans help map your course, keep you on track, and assure investors you're a good risk. White says you also need business experience.

Jerry White, Cox School of Business, SMU: The number one thing I would say is learn some business. It is not important you start at a high level. You have to learn a business. And if you don't you're going to learn the lessons, it's just you're going to pay for all of them.

White suggests you also methodically track your money. He quotes 15th century Italian Luca Pacioli, who wrote the world's first accounting book.

White: He who enters a business without knowing all about it watches his money go like flies.

Mark Gessner once ran a successful online business and learned to keep profits from flying away. He also had a product idea, a way to make it, and a ready market - Californians who own AR15 rifles.

Gessner; It's the rifle you see soldiers carrying in Afghanistan, Iraq. Vietnam was the first time that they carried this type of rifle. The civilians have the civilian version, which is not a fully automatic rifle.

While Gessner lived in California, he discovered the AR15's pistol grip is illegal if you want to remove the bullet magazine by pushing a button. So he designed a solution to replace that grip, and called it a hammerhead. It's on the table, with other AR15 parts.

Gessner: It would attach to the same place on the rifle. This is considered the rifle. So instead of the pistol grip there, which is illegal in California, in certain configurations, we now have something that lets you hold it more like a wooden rifle, and it meets California law.

Gessner confirmed the need for his product through a California gun chat site. But he needed money to make it. Jerry White says nearly every start-up does.

White: And guerilla warfare, you know, you raise a little money from credit cards, a little money from the bank, a little money from investors, a little money from friends and relatives, you piece it together and you bootstrap your way up.

Gessner needed $15,000 to $20,000 for the machine that makes his precision part. Mother-in-law Marian Pearn became one of his investors.

Marian Pearn: I've known this guy awhile, I think he's really smart. He's innovative, creative and he's cautious. If I'm investing my money, I want it to be with someone cautious, smart, creative and innovative.

Gessner launched Exile Machine last summer, and sold the first 100 hammerheads online. His $36 product is also in a few California gun shops, and figures he'll break even before the year's out. After that, he says, its gravy. He's not earning what he used to, but he's paying the bills. And he's got other ideas. He'll soon make the part in a sand color. This gun sports many possible attachments, and he's heard female shooters might prefer pink.

Gessner: Pink is something we're looking at, and that's a
possibility. I'm not going to say we will do it, but we're looking at it.

If he does, it'll result after the same kind of research he did for his basic, black item. Gessner says the AR15, with its choice of accessories, is "like a Barbie for guys." Pink could grow the market. Bill Zeeble KERA news.

City of Dallas Office of Economic Development
http://www.dallas-ecodev.org/business/

Dallas Public Library - Starting a Small Business in Dallas
http://dallaslibrary.org/government/smallbiz.php

U.S. Small Business Administration - Dallas
http://www.sba.gov/localresources/district/tx/dallas/index.html

Official Portal of Texas - Business Resources
http://www.texasonline.com/portal/tol/en/bus/home

Official Business Link to the U.S. Government
http://www.business.gov/financing/loans/