Startup benefits from business development center

From greenbaypressgazette.com: “Startup benefits from business development center” — Jamie Veeser is confident in his abilities as a machinist, but owning a machine shop was at the edge of his expertise.

Veeser’s company, Machine-plus, which opened for business at the beginning of the year, is the first manufacturing tenant in the Advance Business & Manufacturing Center at 2701 Larsen Road, Green Bay, and the first to receive assistance from each of the incubator’s constituent agencies.

“Jamie is a pretty classic example,” said Chuck Brys, business counselor with the Small Business Development Center. “You understand they have the background to do it. The gap we try to fill is ‘You now have to sell yourself to somebody who’s going to finance this thing.'”

Financing was critical. Without it, there would be no business, but preparing a business plan that would satisfy lenders meant looking at the business in every detail.

“It’s kind of your book to business. It’s your guide,” Veeser said of the business plan.

He discovered there were little things he hadn’t thought of, such as including the cost of gasoline for his truck and assuming too much for the cost of a website.

Veeser had 15 years’ experience, was a graduate of Northeast Wisconsin Technical College’s machine tool program, and is in the window — five to 15 years after graduation — when most people are in a position to strike out on their own.

First, he approached Paul Carron, chapter chairman of SCORE, which also works at the incubator, to determine if he should even try.

“Was this a waste of my time? Should I go back to work?” he said. “You don’t get negative feedback, but I think they would have told me if it was a stupid idea. I realized I didn’t have enough experience after talking to (them).”

He got a job as the manager of a shop to add to that experience. He did that for a year, then it was back to getting a loan. His credit was good, but that means little in the current financial environment.

“Jamie is going to be pretty attractive (to conventional lenders) down the road, but getting a loan upfront was going to be nearly impossible,” Brys said. “You walk in as a startup, they look (at you) like you have a third eye in the middle of your forehead.”

In the end, he got a loan from the Advance Brown County Microloan Program, also housed at the center. That didn’t make it a slam dunk. Veeser had to make a presentation before the microloan board, made up of the same bankers who might not lend him money at their own institutions.

Fred Monique, vice president of economic development for the Green Bay Area Chamber of Commerce at Advance, called the microloan program “a game changer,” both because it has provided money to startups and businesses needing to expand that otherwise would be unable to do so, and because the process requires the kind of comprehensive look at the business plan that Veeser experienced.

“It’s huge,” Brys said. “When the machine hit the ground, he knew where his first customers were. That is a result of his knowledge and the business plan.”

Advance moved to the center adjacent to NWTC in 2005 with a goal of luring more high-tech and manufacturing businesses. Mostly, its been home to service businesses. It added the manufacturing bays in 2010 and changed its name to put more emphasis on manufacturing. The microloan program is another piece to completing that puzzle, though it’s made its share of service-business loans as well.

Veeser’s shop consists of a bay in the Advance manufacturing area. He has a CNC machining center, a lathe and a drill press. A corner of the bay is set aside for a small office, occupied by an office administrator.

“They said, ‘Get help.’ They said I needed an administrator, and they were right,” he said. “I thought I could do it.”

He quickly discovered he’s already got enough to do. In fact, one of his first jobs required making individual parts, a time-consuming process that kept him from looking for new business. He’s already feeling the need for a machine operator.

“I have 32 students. Get over there now,” advised Mark Weber, dean of Trades & Engineering Technology at NWTC, who was sitting in on an interview with Veeser.

The technical school is connected with the incubator, physically and philosophically.

When Veeser’s Haas VF4 machining center arrived, it didn’t work properly. He’s worked with Haas Automation Inc. equipment his entire career, but wasn’t able to pinpoint the problem. Two instructors from NWTC helped sort it out.

The incubator provided Veeser with furniture, office supplies and other essentials, allowing the business to focus on what needs to be focused on, Brys said.

“Right down to the trash,” Veeser said. “They take care of that.”