Business

January 6, 2010

Seminar targets entrepreneurs mulling startups

Potential business owners will learn about raising capital, insurance and legal protection for investments.

By Ron Bartizek rbartizek@timesleader.com
Business & Consumer / City Editor

WILKES-BARRE – Consistent with the trend during other economic downturns, more people are exploring the leap from employee to business owner. A seminar sponsored by several economic development organizations aims to help those budding entrepreneurs master the basics of setting up an independent enterprise.

“Get Ready to Launch” is scheduled for 4-7 p.m. Tuesday, at the Innovation Center, 7 S. Main St., Wilkes-Barre. During those three hours participants will learn about raising capital, insurance and taking steps to legally protect their investment.

John Augustine, senior director of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry, which is hosting the event, said he’s seen “50 percent at least” more interest in startups during the past 18 months – proposals that range from high-tech services to pizza shops.

There’s a waiting list to get into the chamber’s business incubator at the Innovation Center, and the organization is actively seeking a second location.

Jack St. Pierre, executive director of Can Be, the Hazleton area incubator program, will give entrepreneurs tips on making a pitch to non-traditional investors. Bank loans are tough to get, he acknowledges, but “people can get funding for good ideas.”

There’s a “moderately active” angel investor group in Northeastern Pennsylvania, St. Pierre said. Also, chambers of commerce and other organizations belong to Mid-Atlantic Angel Investment Group out of Philadelphia that offers other funding possibilities.

St. Pierre has been organizing the Can Be Start Your Own Business Series since 2006. Until last fall, events were held only in the Hazleton area and were well-attended. “I never had less than 20 people” and as many as 60, he said.

But an effort to offer the seminars regionally has so far sputtered; events in Stroudsburg, Carbondale and Bloomsburg were canceled because of a lack of response. “It’s kind of a mystery to me” why that happened, St. Pierre said. “This is a real good one.”

Scheduled presenter Matthew Rogers, an attorney with Rosenn, Jenkins & Greenwald, will focus on protecting intellectual property, which includes patents, copyright and trademarks.

“It’s so easy to copy things today,” he said. “If you don’t protect yourself, you may lose even the principal asset of the business.” That’s particularly true in technology, he said, where a business is founded on a single idea such as a software program.

Reservations have lagged for Tuesday’s seminar, but the sponsors, which include Ben Franklin Technology Partners, the Small Business Development Center at Wilkes University and the Scranton Enterprise Center, are making a last-minute push to round up a few more.

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