IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
The Randall W. Lewis Center for Entrepreneurship at Cal State San Bernardino is getting ready to take a victory lap.
On April 23, the organization that promotes start-up businesses and business expansion in the Inland Empire will hold a gala celebration at The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa in Riverside. The Billion & Beyond Celebration will mark the center’s passing $1 billion in regional economic impact.
The center reached that milestone a year or so sooner than Director Mike Stull thought it would.
“Not that I didn’t think we could reach that goal, but we knew we would have to work hard to get to it,” said Stull, who has overseen the center since 2002. “But we had a great fourth quarter last year, and that pushed us over $1 billion.”
Since its founding in 1999 the center has assisted 213,552 businesses, helped launch 2,839 startups, and supported the creation or retention of 62,459 jobs, according to a statement released by Cal State San Bernardino.
The center was renamed for local developer/philanthropist Lewis one year ago.
Stull spoke to IE Business Daily last week about how the $1 billion impact figure was determined, how reaching that milestone might help the center, and how he views the possibility of an economic downturn.
The following has been edited for clarity and length.
Q: For those who might not be familiar with the Center For Entrepreneurship, what does it do? What does it try to accomplish?
Mike Stull: We offer services to people who already own a business, or who want to start a business, in the Inland Empire. We offer business counseling, training, and some special programs, and we help arrange financing for people who want to start or expand a business.
Q: How do you determine the $1 billion impact figure?
MS: We have metrics to track that. The first one is how many businesses we’re working with get access to capital, and how much they received. That could be a (federal) Small Business Administration loan, an injection of equity capital, or a combination of the two. We also look at how we’re able to assist businesses, increase their sales, and their profits, and whether we’re getting them government contracts, either state or local. Finally, we make sure we’re helping businesses export their products to other markets.
Q: Where does your funding come from?
MS: We get a lot of funding from foundations and the public sector, depending on how the economy is performing and how their budgets are doing. We just have to adapt and ride whatever wave turns up, and it doesn’t always follow the economy. We got a huge infusion of grants during COVID.
Q: So you add up all those numbers to determine the financial impact?
MS: Yes, over a long period of time.
Q: Was it difficult to put the center together?
MS: Not really. I wasn’t here when it got started, but I’ve never gotten a sense that it was difficult. They had to go through some processes and get the funding together. It was a time when entrepreneurship centers at universities were not common.
Q: What is the center’s immediate future?
MS: We’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing, which is grind it out. I like to say that we’re a 25-year overnight success. We’ve been through a lot of challenges, and we’ve evolved. We had our annual retreat in February, and we came up with our big goal which we’re going to announce at the gala. I can’t say anything about that now.
Q: Looking back on your 24 years as director, would you do anything differently?
MS: There’s probably always something you would do differently, but I think we did more things right than we did wrong. We tried a lot of things, some of them worked, some of them didn’t.
Q: Can you give me an example of something you tried that didn’t work?
MS: We tried to create a family business program in the early 2000’s, but it never got traction. I don’t think it was a bad idea, but we were in an early stage of our development. This is a tough market, and family-owned businesses are a niche. I think the fact that it never got going had to do with the nature of the businesses.
Q: Is it that difficult to do business in California? The business community maintains that there’s too much regulation, but don’t you think the business community in every state says that?
MS: Probably so, but I do think that California does have too much regulation. A couple of years ago we did a focus group that was part of our annual State of Entrepreneurship report, and a lot of the people we surveyed said yes, it’s tough to do business in California, but what’s the alternative? A huge part of their customer base is in California, it’s still a relatively great place to live, the climate is great. You also have better access to resources. So they balance it out and decide they’re better off staying here.
Q: Why do you believe the Inland Empire is a good place to do business?
MS: Because compared to the coastal communities the cost of doing business here is a lot more attractive. The Inland Empire may not have the highest level of education, but it still has an attractive workforce, and you can attract good talent to come here. Also, the cost of living isn’t as high as it is in the coastal communities. The Inland Empire has some built-in advantages that other markets don’t have.
Q: Any plan to expand the center?
MS: We’re always looking to grow, but we want to stay true to our core goals and keep our funding going. We have a lot of ideas for programs and services that we could roll out in the next two or three years. It’s very easy for an organization like ours to wander into areas that don’t make sense. We need to stick to our core: counseling, mentoring, training, and providing special programs.
Q: Do you have any competition? Is there any other organization, academic or otherwise, that does what you do?
MS: No direct competition. The University of La Verne has an entrepreneurship center, but they don’t do what we do. They’re more focused on social impact. There are some other entities doing business counseling, but we see them as complimentary to what we’re doing. We don’t see them as competition.
Q: How do make sure that the center is able to grow?
MS: That was the big question when we started. How are we going to grow, and how are we going to have an impact, We tried to create our own niche, and find things that weren’t being done yet that we could do. The family business project is a good example of trying fill a gap, even though we couldn’t make it work. Maybe we could have stuck with it longer.
Q: Are family businesses an important part of the market?
MS: Absolutely. There are a lot of them, and they have unique problems. Cal Baptist is trying to do what we did, and I like that they’re doing that.
Q: Will reaching the $1 billion impact mark help your fundraising?
MS: I hope so. I think it might make it easier for donors to come in and help us. We have built a lot of partnerships in the public and private sector, and we have a reputation for doing what we say we’re gong to do. I also think it helps that we’re not a small non-profit, that we’re part of a large university that’s been here 60 years.
Q: Can you talk about the war with Iran and what it might do to the economy. If the economy does suffer a severe downturn, how will it affect what the Center for Entrepreneurship is doing?
MS: We have a pretty diverse base of funding, in both the public and private sector, so if we were to lose a grant we wouldn’t have to shut down. We might lose some ground, but we have enough in reserve that we could continue operating.
Q: You must have dealt with this sort of thing before.
MS: Yes. There are times when there’s a lot of money coming in, and times when no money comes in. I’ve seen plenty of both in the course of 24 years.
Q: How long do you think it will take you to get to $2 billion?
MS: I get asked that a lot. That question seems to be on everyone’s mind. I have no way of knowing, but I hope it doesn’t take a another 25 years. If it does I probably won’t be around to see it.
