News & Events

A Man with a Plan
Sunday, December 23, 2007

By Paul Giannamore - Business Editor, The Herald Star

WEIRTON — Valley Ventures Inc., which was established several years ago by small businesses in the region as a nonprofit organization aimed toward helping start more small businesses, has an executive director, a plan and a face to put with its name.

Lou Stein of Wheeling has been named as Valley Ventures first executive director. He brings decades of business and economic development assistance to the Valley Ventures office that is being established within the next month at 3224 Main St. in Weirton, adjacent to Newbrough Photo.

Stein started his new post about three weeks ago and he’s spending December in a variety of activities. He’s putting together a master plan looking two to three years down the road. He’s visiting businesses. He’s already working with 20 clients without a major public relations effort to let the area know he’s on the job.

Stein emphasized that Valley Ventures provides services that are free and strictly confidential to entrepreneurs seeking to start a new business or to current businesses looking to expand. He’s prepared to offer everything from direct assistance with writing business plans to helping businesses find funding to be established or expand, to marketing and helping find locations for businesses.

Valley Ventures is looking to establish a network of professional business service persons, such as accountants, attorneys, insurance agents and others, to help serve small businesses and startups. A revolving loan fund and a micro-loan fund are in the works.

It’s a ton of work for one man, but Stein talks excitedly about the possibilities, the opportunities and the abilities to tap into existing resources, including various economic development groups and agencies already working in the area, as well as the business programs from colleges and universities in the area.

Stein, who most recently served as economic developer for Monroe County, as well as being owner and operator of the Ohio Valley Greyhounds indoor football franchise in Wheeling, views economic development as a four-legged stool, with each leg having equal importance to the others.

“When most people hear the words ‘economic development’ they think of bringing a company in here with hundreds of jobs. That’s only 15 percent of what I consider as economic development,” he said.

Beyond business attraction, there is serving expansion of current businesses, helping entrepreneurial startups and community development work on quality of life projects that enhance a community’s viability to attract more business.

“Big business is not generally about creating jobs. Big business is about trying to figure out ways to cut jobs to become more efficient,” he said. “That’s why 85 percent of all job creation comes from small businesses, which are businesses with 60 or 70 employees or less.”

“I like to say that 40 years ago, Wal-Mart was one store in Bentonville, Ark. Twenty-five years ago, Hewlett-Packard was two guys in a garage. Ten years ago, Google was two kids in a college dorm room,” he said.

Stein said he knows there are about 2,000 businesses in Valley Ventures service area, which covers Hancock, Brooke and Ohio counties in West Virginia and Jefferson County in Ohio.

“If every one of those 2,000 businesses would add two workers, that’s easier than trying to land one new business with 4,000 employees,” he said. “It’s more realistic. Everybody wants it to happen. I do not hear any business owner say they’ve made all the money they want. Their goal is to expand their market share, to tap into new markets, to expand in new space, and that might mean they are able to add employees.”

When it comes to the entrepreneurial spirit, Stein said many people have good ideas, but they’re afraid to follow through, often because they grew up in a culture where their family was working for someone else or a big company.

“They think it’s impossible, or they don’t have enough money or they don’t know who to trust to give them help,” he said. “My goal is to take them from their idea for a product or service to being in business within 90 to 150 days.

“What’s exciting about that is that people in our area now know that they won’t work for a company for 30 or 40 years and retire from there. The only real job security is to be an owner and operator. You know who is the boss,” he said. “There’s always risk, but there is risk in every job. When you work for yourself, you have the ability to control your own destiny.”

He said having home-grown businesses in a region helps make it more attractive.

“Home-grown business establishes roots. It doesn’t leave, and if it develops and expands to other areas, the home office stays here,” he said.

“That’s why in the 1920s and ’30s and ’40s this valley was so vibrant. The entrepreneurs started all the businesses we remember,” he said. “That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing. It’s not being done in a lot of places. We’re going to make it happen.”

Stein’s experience includes attracting major employers, such as Westinghouse Air Brake, Atlantic Plastics and Safe Auto to Monroe County, as well as federal and state grant writing and small business assistance, community liaison work, and marketing the Monroe County industrial park. For 34 years, from 1970 to 2004, he ran his own company, Home Pro Enterprises in Wheeling and St. Clairsville. Stein founded the commercial real estate and retail development company and served as its president and chief executive officer. He negotiated and was responsible for all sale, lease and build-to-suit deals in a 200-acre tract off I-70 at Mall Road and U.S. Route 40 in St. Clairsville, resulting in $150 million in new construction, 2,800 jobs and 75 new businesses.

“There is pent-up demand here, I know that,” he said of the need to focus on small business establishment and expansion.

Stein plans to have a couple of employees in the Valley Ventures office, but he said most of his work will occur at the business places of established firms and in the homes of people looking for help in making their ideas for new businesses become reality. Stein lives in Wheeling and with the office in Weirton, he says he’s just a half hour away from either end of the counties he serves.

“That’s the key. We go to them. We don’t wait for them to come to us,” he said.

He also plans to use an untapped resource: The business students at area colleges. Stein said he’s already met with many of the area schools.

“It’s not just for internships. It’s a career. I want to teach those who want to learn,” he said.

Stein said much of what Valley Ventures does in coming months will be the foundation of momentum for more work in the future. He said once Valley Ventures is able to point to successful efforts, and the people in those businesses begin telling their story, the organization will attract even more clients.

“We’re going to take a very aggressive, hands-on approach geared to making their business happen, and happen quickly,” he said.

As part of that, Stein is planning to hold business basics classes around the area.

He envisions a 2.5-hour course during which potential entrepreneurs will learn the basics of startup and management of their business, to help them decide if they want to take the next step.

If they do, they’ll have Valley Ventures at their disposal, with its free and confidential services.

“I’m paid. You’re not going to pay for any of my services,” he said. “If I have to refer you to outside services, such as an accountant or a lawyer, that’s why we’re setting up the network of professional service providers, to provide affordable and reasonable and timely service.”

And, Stein said, when he helps with developing a business plan, he doesn’t mean he’ll hand out software or give a person a copy of another business plan to adapt for their needs.

“We will sit down together to go over what needs to be in the plan. I will do some. The client will do some. And we’ll do some work together,” he said. “We will determine first if it’s a viable idea and the plan is required to get sources of funding.”

Valley Ventures is planning to be a funding resource through offering of micro-loans capable of funding as much as 90 to 95 percent of a business’ startup costs for between $1,000 and $15,000 loans. Money paid back will go directly back to the micro-loan account to fund other loans, he said. The micro-loan program helps startups to obtain funding they might not be able to get through conventional lenders, who would consider the loans too risky.

In addition, Valley Ventures will establish a revolving loan program funding up to half of a business’ project costs between $16,000 to $50,000. Banks are more likely to participate, Stein said, because the business has collateral to put toward the project.

He said seed money for the loan programs will be both from public and private sources.

“We’re not in competition with existing organizations,” he said. “We are working to find out the services that each organization offers and learn how to fit them into what we’re doing. We will have referrals to them and from them. We’ll bring more activity to their organizations and they to ours.”

Stein knows economic development can be a “what have you done for us lately” proposition.

“I have to prove myself. But it’s not what I say. It’s what I do. I like to talk about things when they’re done, not about what I’m going to do. That’s the credibility this program needs,” he said.
 

 This story originally appeared in the Herald Star newspaper, Steubenville, Ohio.