Charlotte Inno launched its virtual event series, Pivots and Positioning for Startups and Small Businesses, on Thursday with a turnout of 100 founders, innovators and small business owners. If you missed out on the live event, make sure to check out the recording here.
Charlotte Inno General Manager Juan Garzon kicked off the hour with a fireside chat with local small business attorney Liz Vennum of Vennum PLLC. The pair's discussion ranged from the importance of understanding Paycheck Protection Program loans to Covid-19's impact on small businesses.
Next up was a roundtable discussion with Sharon Jones, founder and CEO of Dottie Rose Foundation; David Hunt, founder of Framewrk; and Brian Helfrich, founder of Summit Coffee. The group chatted about their challenges and triumphs in the middle of the pandemic.
Here are a few takeaways from the conversation.
Before you make big business decisions, talk to a lawyer
Vennum said one mistake small business owners have made throughout the pandemic is not speaking to a lawyer before making big decisions.
"There are a lot of decisions people are making now, and it’s tricky, and it can be scary. Get good advice before you have to make big decisions, so that later on there aren’t problems," she said.
Vennum's firm is offering free consultations on a limited scope for small businesses impacted by Covid-19.
"I feel like it’s everybody’s job to help everybody right now, to the extend that we can help people get an idea of the legal landscape before they make big decisions," she said.
On the day Covid-19 became real to them...
Sharon Jones: It was the day that the governor closed the schools. We knew there would be something coming, and we’d have to change the way we were doing business, but the closures of the schools was a big moment. Immediately that afternoon I was like “oh boy. Ok, how are we going to work with this?” David Hunt: We just did a little ping out to clients to get a pulse check and find out, like hey what are you struggling with, what’s the focus? And the focus had shifted from their biz wanting to grow and thrive, to just wanting to survive. By it hitting them, it transferred to us. Brian Helfrich: We were monitoring how other states and governments were handling coffee businesses and started preparing for when this hits, not if this hits, and what we were going to do to adapt. It was March 16, when we first really spent the day focused on what are we going to do to shift the business.
What challenges did they face early on?
Sharon Jones: At that point, we already had a semester-long project in place with Century One, and I knew we wanted to complete that project. I knew we could pop online, but how we were going to do it and how we were going to facilitate it where the young ladies felt they were still getting the experience they had prior to all of this was going to be an issue. It was a great opportunity for us to fail forward, because we definitely failed some. We tried a couple of things, and they didn’t work. David Hunt: It just ratcheted up our back-pocket plan we called recession mode. We’d never fully developed it out. Biggest challenge for me personally was, we used to take Mondays off to go to float tanks or meditation as a team. Then it was just like, no we have stuff we have to build out and understand how this infrastructure scales out in a new market. Brian Helfrich: I was going to figure out how to keep our employees at work and keep customers coming safely, and my (chief revenue officer) was going to figure out how much money we needed to make to keep these jobs and keep our doors open.
Pivots and big wins
Sharon Jones: As a former educator, that switch from in-person to online was going to take our school systems some time. I knew we needed to provide a place for kids to come and learn and create with the technology and not just use it. So we opened up our doors to boys and girls, and that has been really fun to watch how the kids have interacted and grown talking to each other. David Hunt: We shifted into saying, we've been looking at working with entrepreneurs, are there any adjacent markets we can use our existing infrastructure for? It was very much, this is going to pass, so we understand any pivot is going to be temporary... We've got this existing infrastructure based on a database of questions. We started thinking, what other markets are there where we can apply that? Standardized testing was a prime one for us. Brian Helfrich: We were doing about $2,000 a month in online coffee sales, and in April we did about $32,000. It really gave us some insight into if we really put some energy into e-commerce direct-to-consumer, we'd have a lot off potential here too.
This event was powered by Vennum Law.
Check out their resources for Small Business and Startups below:
Guidance for employers and managers
- OSHA guidance
- CDC guidance
- Employee masks
Anti-discrimination policies under the EEOC
- Disability inquiries
- Medical information
- Hiring onboard
- Reasonable accommodations
- Harassment due to race, national origin or other protected clauses
- Qualifying private employers
- Paid entitlement
- Emergency family medical leave expansion
Legal toolkit for startups and small business navigating the Covid-19 crisis
- Immunity for essential businesses
30 minute strategy session for small business owners
Small businesses face unprecedented challenges during this uncertain and chaotic time. Schedule a 30-minute Zoom or phone consultation with our small business attorneys to discuss how best to position your business for success moving forward.
