Center for Entrepreneurship Director, gives thumbs up to 2024

Mike Stull, director of the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship at Cal State San Bernardino, says 2024 was a good year for the nonprofit that helps grow businesses in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

With an annual budget of $4 million to $5 million, the center helps people create a business – or expand the one they’re already operating – and 2024 appears to have been a good year for the center and its 51-member staff.

Three thousand eight hundred and fifty-one businesses helped, $5.3 million in exports, a $51.8 million increase in sales by its clients, according to its recently released economic impact report for 2024.

Most important of all, the center is claiming to have had a $146.3 million impact on the Inland economy last year.

“Our team has been out working in the community, with our counseling and training services,” Stull said during a recent telephone interview with IE Business Daily. “We feel like we’re providing a valuable service to all of the people who have either started a business, or who are trying to start a business.”

The following conversation hasn’t been edited for clarity and length.

 

 

IEBD: How do you assess the past year? What do you believe the report is saying?

MS: Our impact this year was up across the board, in every category. I don’t know all of the percentages, but I was summarizing for someone last week, and I looked at all the categories, and yes, all of the key indicators – starting with jobs created – were up from 2023. Now, we just want to keep growing and see where we can go.

IEBD: What is the center’s biggest goal? What is it you’re most trying to accomplish?

MS: I have a conversation with our entire team, whenever we review numbers and when we do our quarterly meetings, I remind them we are focused on getting results. When someone who is starting a business, or somebody that already has a business, comes to us, what they’re looking for is results. Whether they need access to capital, or they need help with marketing, they’re looking for results. We need to do more than that. We also have to remember that there’s more involved than just business.

IEBD: In what way?

MS:  When we help someone launch a business we’re probably helping them fulfill a dream that they’ve had their entire life. It’s the same if someone is trying to get their business to the next level. Our real purpose is to help those people so they can make a difference in the community.

IEBD: So there’s more at stake than just helping a business get started, or get bigger? 

MS: Absolutely. Numbers are nice, but underneath those numbers are lives that are being impacted.
IEBD: The report states that the entrepreneurship center had a $146 million impact on the Inland Empire economy. How did you arrive at that figure?

MS: That’s the biggest thing we track. If we help a startup, and they make an equity investment and get a loan, and they report all of that information to us. That way we both know exactly what happened.

IEBD: Assuming its accurate, how would you assess a $146 million impact?

MS: It’s definitely a big number. Last year we were around $144 million. Whenever we get above $100 million we know we’re having an impact.

IEBD: You work primarily with small businesses. How do you define a small business?

MS:  I suppose our sweet spot, the one we work with most often, is about 25 employees.  A few have as many as 100 employees, but not many.

IEBD: Economic impact is probably the most important number in the report. How do you determine that?

MS: It is the most important number we track.  We ask a lot of questions to get that number.  Are we helping people get access to capital? Are we helping them increase their sales and get the government contracts they’re after? Are they getting to export their products or services, which is becoming more important for a lot of businesses.

IEBD: Is there a way you can measure all of that?

MS: We have metrics that determine success, and we’re looking to get our clients successful on different metrics.

IEBD: Why did you decide not to include a multiplier in that number?

MS: We have some people on our research team working on our own multiplier. I told them to look at all of the multipliers that are out there. Look at what’s been published, what’s in use, and see which one fits us best.

IEBD: Do you charge a fee?

MS: We do not. Nearly all of what we do, the counseling and training programs, are all available at no cost.

IEBD: Where does your funding come from?

MS: We’re subsidized by grants by the U.S. Small Business Administration, the support organizations that are listed in the report. We try to leverage all of the organizations that make funding available tor organizations like us.

IEBD: So your goal is not to make money?

MS: No. There may be an few longer training programs where we charge a nominal fee, but they are few and far between.

IEBD: Do you have any sense of what the rest of 2025 is going to be like? It feels like it’s going to be a tough year.

MS: I think volatile is a good word to describe what the rest of 2025 will be like. A lot of the clients we work with are going to be uncertain about making investments. That uncertainty will have an impact. It may not affect the number of people who use our services, but it could have an impact on access to capital, or people’s plans to expand their businesses. Some people who are thinking about starting a business will wait to see how all of this plays out, particularly what happens with tariffs.

IEBD: When will you have a better feel for where the economy is going?

MS:  I’ll know more in a few weeks, when we get the first quarter numbers. But I can’t really answer that question now. Like we said, the economy is very volatile at the moment.

IEBD: Can you speculate on how that volatility might affect the entrepreneurship center? 

MS: Probably in our funding. Much of what we get comes from the federal government, and most of that has been the Small Business Administration, which has always been pretty stable and had bipartisan support. There may not be any issues, but we still have to take it day by day, because everything is changing day by day.

IEBD: You’ve started the Veterans Entrepreneurship Training Program, which will help Inland Empire veterans start, or expand, their own business. How is that going to work?

MS:  We just launched it in Riverside several weeks ago. We got some seed capital from the Riverside County Economic Development Agency, and we’re committed to helping one business a year. If it gets some traction, we may end helping two businesses a year get started.

IEBD: The Inland Empire economy took a beating during the pandemic, but it seems to have recovered. Is it still a good place to start a business?

MS: I think so. There’s a critical mass of population here, a lot of diverse markets in both counties, and it’s a growing area. It’s also a lot cheaper to do business here than in the coastal areas. I think it s a very good place to start a business.