Charleston, S.C.: A Friendly Place to Run a Small Business

Considering its rich history and architecture, booming restaurant scene, proximity to the beach and Southern hospitality (it’s the friendliest city in the entire country, according to one survey), it’s no surprise that Charleston, South Carolina, is a major tourist destination. However, Charleston’s small-business owners and experts also say it’s a pretty attractive place to own a business.

Here are some of the potential benefits and challenges to owning a small business in Charleston, as well as some important local resources.

Overview of Charleston

Founded in 1670 as Charles Town in honor of King Charles II of England, Charleston is the oldest and second-largest city in South Carolina, with a 2013 population of 127,999. The city is home to numerous luxury hotels, a historic district with museums, art galleries, a shopping and live theater scene, and plantations and gardens that are open to the public.

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Besides tourism, Charleston also benefits from a diverse economy. The area is home to private sector employers such as Boeing, Blackbaud, Trident Health System, Google and Verizon, as well as public sector employers such as the Medical University of South Carolina, the College of Charleston, the Citadel and the Charleston County School District.

Just a few minutes away in North Charleston is Joint Base Charleston, a military facility that supports the Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and Army and employs more than 20,000 active-duty, reserve and civilian personnel.

Charleston has also been nicknamed “Silicon Harbor” for its growing tech scene, with over 200 tech companies calling Charleston home, including Benefitfocus, BoomTown, PeopleMatter, BlueKey and PhishLabs, according to CharlestonWorks.

Benefits to owning a business in Charleston

There are many benefits to owning a small business in Charleston, according to some of Charleston’s small-business owners and experts.

Growing population: One main benefit is population growth, as Charleston County’s population has soared from 350,204 in 2010 to an estimated 381,015 by 2014, an 8.8% increase, according to Census figures.

“We’re blessed that we live in an area that many people are moving to, whether it’s because of the beauty, or the weather, or numerous other things,” says Laura Bright, vice president of marketing with the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Low unemployment: Charleston’s unemployment rate is 5%, compared to a 5.8% national average and a 6.8% rate in the state of South Carolina, according to recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Forbes has listed Charleston as No. 59 in the Best Places for Business and Careers, and projects annual job growth of 2%. According to the Chamber’s 2015-16 Economic Outlook Forecast, total employment is projected to increase by more than 6,000 net new jobs in 2015 and another 5,000 in 2016.

Tourism economy: The tourism scene is a big positive for food and beverage companies, says Max Blackman, co-founder of Holy Smoke Smoked Olive Oil.

“There are a lot of really great restaurants and bars in town, farmers markets, and gourmet shops and gift shops,” Blackman says. “We see a lot of business passing through every summer because people just flock down to Charleston.”

Friendly people: Paula Dezzutti-Hewlette, CEO and founder of the Daniel Island-based Local Choice Spirits, says Charleston’s small-business owners like to work together, collaborate and exchange ideas instead of waging war against each other.

“I think everybody here has just been really warm and welcoming,” says Dezzutti-Hewlette. “It’s a great opportunity to start a business here because it’s such an eclectic group of people, and there’s a great amount of wealth, experience and resources in this community.” 

Mark O’Driscoll owns a Marco’s Pizza franchise in James Island and West Ashley, two neighborhoods in Charleston. Originally from Dublin, Ireland, O’Driscoll has also lived for years in New York and Florida, but has called Charleston home for the past 10 years and said he doesn’t regret the decision.

“I think everything’s a little bit easier here, from walking down to the city and meeting with helpful people who will walk you through the whole permitting process,” O’Driscoll says. “There just seem to be some good, friendly, helpful people down here. I just found that from the health inspector to the fire officer, you can get them on the phone.”

Challenges to owning a business in Charleston

Rising cost of living: Charleston’s cost of living is 7.9% higher than the national average, according to Forbes. The median 2-bedroom apartment rent is $1,057 per month, while the median three-bedroom, two-bath home costs $250,589, according to NerdWallet’s Cost of Living Calculator.

“Real estate is kind of expensive because there’s a huge housing boom here,” Blackman says. “So finding an adequate space for a reasonable amount of rent is pretty hard to do.” 

Permitting: You’ll face a little bit of red tape when starting up a small business.

“One of the things we think is very important is that all of our municipalities and counties become a little bit more streamlined in the licensing, regulation and permitting process,” Bright says.  “And right now, it’s still relatively fragmented, depending on which municipality you live in. So that’s something that we can work on, and we are.”

Lack of funding: Finding financing is a problem for small-business owners nationwide, and Charleston is no different. Traditional banks typically lend only to established companies that are already profitable and will likely require collateral to back a loan.

“Banks are not keen on helping startups, and other investors like to come on later in their growth stage,” Bright says.

Not enough workers: The restaurant industry is struggling to hire enough workers to keep up with the demand, O’Driscoll says. “It’s growing so fast and most people in the restaurant business will say it’s tough to keep good people,” he says. “There’s not enough quality coming through.”

Resources for local small-business owners

“I love Charleston because they’re very committed to supporting local business,” says Dezzutti-Hewlette. “There’s so many organizations that really bring attention to what a difference you make when you support local.”

South Carolina Business One Stop (SCBOS): SCBOS is a vital resource for small-business owners. This business-to-government portal is where you’ll file permits, licenses, registrations, and pay your taxes. The portal also links to useful external startup business resources.

Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce: Established in 1773, the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce represents the entire region. It’s a 17,000-member organization that provides small businesses with resources and support.

For example, the Chamber hosts several events throughout the year to help small-business owners develop relationships and get a better understanding of the local economy, such as “Business in Your Backyard” and “Perfect Pitch.” The Chamber also started the Charleston Entrepreneur Ecosystem as a tool to help small-business owners find funding, skills and support to grow their company. 

Charleston SCORE Chapter: This organization provides free business mentoring for Charleston entrepreneurs, plus existing and startup businesses. You just need to request a meeting and complete a form with some information about yourself and your company.

“You just apply at the SCORE office and they sent you up with one of their mentor‘s who’s been working in your field — they help you with your finances, your marketing,” Blackman says.

SCORE also hosts several workshops each month to help small-business owners tackle important issues, such as help with taxes, how to recruit and train employees and how to get financing for a small business. Another useful resource is the websites’ templates and tools page rel=”nofollow”, where important questions are answered for small-business owners. 

South Carolina Small Business Development Center (SBDC): Operating in partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration, this organization provides one-on-one consultation to startups and existing small-business owners in Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties.

The services are free and available by appointment only. Free workshops include help with small-business taxes, QuickBooks and how to prepare a business plan. The website also provides free templates such as a business plan, cash flow template, marketing plan and startup checklist.

Charleston Digital Corridor: The Digital Corridor focuses on the growing technology industry in Charleston and was created to attract, nurture and promote Charleston’s knowledge economy, says Ernest Andrade, its founder and director.

The corridor provides networking opportunities through numerous events throughout the year, matches qualified career seekers with job openings, trains workers, provides two incubator working spaces in downtown Charleston (with a third space opening in 2016) and offers guidance on startup financing options.

Charleston Local Development Corporation (LDC): The Charleston LDC serves as a funding resource for small businesses in Charleston. It works with banks and financial institutions to provide small-business loans, whether it’s for startup, expansion or business continuation financing.

For more information about how to start and run a business, visit NerdWallet’s Small Business Guide. For free, personalized answers to questions about starting and financing your business, visit the Small Business section of NerdWallet’s Ask an Advisor page.

Steve Nicastro is a staff writer covering personal finance for NerdWallet. Follow him on Twitter @StevenNicastro and on Google+.

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Photos of downtown Charleston and the city’s iconic Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge via iStock.

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Breaking Down the Average Salary in San Francisco’s Top Industries

There’s more to San Francisco than fog, Haight-Ashbury and the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s also a great city for recent college grads to make a living. It can be expensive to live in San Francisco, a fact that really hits home when you’re looking for an apartment. But pay in many industries is higher than average, too.

Annual salaries for full-time employees in San Francisco jumped an average of 2.8% from the first quarter of 2014 to 2015, according to Payscale Inc. Annual pay nationally went up just 1.8% in that time. Your pay and job opportunities will vary depending on the industry you work in, but for lots of grads, working in San Francisco can help kickstart your career — and your bank account.

Tech

San Francisco is known for its startup scene, so it’s no surprise that tech is your best bet for a well-paying job in the city.

“The technology industry is where you will get the highest paycheck,” says Scott Dobroski, a career trends analyst at the career website Glassdoor. “It’s also the one right now with the biggest opportunities for new grads.”

The three highest-paying positions in San Francisco, as self-reported by Glassdoor members, are all in tech. The average salary in San Francisco for a data scientist is $127,000 a year; software engineers make $103,000 a year; and database administrators earn $77,000.

Keep in mind that if you’re coming straight from college, you’ll likely earn slightly less your first year than a more seasoned employee would. But even entry-level salaries for software engineers in San Francisco are high: Their median pay is $97,000 per year, according to a PayScale salary survey.

If you’re not a computer whiz, there’s room at tech companies for graduates with all kinds of backgrounds, Dobroski says. Job seekers will find openings in sales, business development, finance, human resources and facilities management at tech companies in San Francisco.

Plus, once get your foot in the door, equity, stock options and bonuses are additional benefits of working in this industry. Recent grads with a stake in the tech companies they work for will often profit if those companies go public, or sell shares of their stock to investors. When it comes time to negotiate your job offer at a startup, make sure these non-salary benefits are part of your compensation package.

Health care

Tech might be what San Francisco is known for, but the health care sector is the biggest employer in San Francisco, according to a November 2014 study by the Hospital Council of Northern and Central California. More than 120,000 people work in health care in the city, the most of any industry, and construction will start on five new hospitals between 2015 and 2019 — paving the way for even more jobs.

Grads coming out of school with degrees in health care can expect to get paid well, too. Registered nurses in San Francisco make an average of $91,423 a year, according to Glassdoor, compared to the national average of $65,920. Physician assistants in San Francisco earn an average of $115,924 per year, according to salary.com, slightly more than the average base salary of $111,376 that Glassdoor members report for the position.

Glassdoor’s annual ranking of the 25 Best Jobs in America placed physician assistant in the top spot, since they make a high average base salary and there’s a strong demand for them nationwide. Software engineering earned the title of second-best job for 2015. It’s a good sign for new grads in San Francisco that there are a lot of opportunities in the city for these high-demand careers.

Finance

New York’s Wall Street might be the epicenter of the financial industry, but San Francisco has its own vibrant finance community. San Francisco is home to Wells Fargo’s corporate offices, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and several venture capital firms that invest in tech companies.

The average salary in San Francisco for financial analysts, often an entry-level position, is $73,751 per year according to Glassdoor — almost $10,000 more than the national average. Some of these positions require prior experience, though, and employers in San Francisco often favor candidates who can show they’ve taken on responsibilities during their college years that set them apart, says Glassdoor’s Dobroski.

“Even though there is a lot of opportunity, there’s a lot of competition,” he says.

You can get a leg up on others hoping to build a career in San Francisco by showing employers that you have some work experience in your chosen field. Internships, leadership positions in on-campus organizations and volunteer organizations will all give your applications to tech, health care and finance companies a boost. Whichever route you choose, it’s likely there’s a place for you as a recent grad on San Francisco’s vigorous job market.

Brianna McGurran is a staff writer covering education and life after college for NerdWallet. Follow her on Twitter.

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Image via iStock.

 

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Offbeat Santa Cruz Inspires Singular Small Businesses

Santa Cruz made history as the place where in 1885 surfing was introduced to the U.S. mainland. Nowadays, it’s also known as the California coastal city where small businesses make big waves.

Take a company called Surf Office. That’s a communal-workspace company with an unusual perk. If you need a break from office work, you can — what else? — go surfing. Surfboards are provided. The beach is right outside the front door.

Then there’s Best Baby Rentals, which lets you rent a stroller, a crib or baby toys if you’re visiting Santa Cruz with your family. And if you’re into beer, hop on Brew Cruz, a converted school bus that offers tours of the area’s craft breweries.

“Santa Cruz is a very creative city,” Surf Office co-founder Emmanuel Guisset tells NerdWallet. “It has always been full of artists, hippies and surfers, but now more and more startups are popping up, and this creates a creative and innovative environment with different values than Silicon Valley or San Francisco.”

Jeremy Neuner, chief executive and co-founder of NextSpace, cites residents’ work ethic as well as their love of fun. NextSpace is another successful collaborative-workspace company and has already expanded to cities including Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“People want to live here,” he tells NerdWallet, “because they want to work hard and play hard.”

There’s a considerable reserve of creativity and talent in Santa Cruz, says Brent Haddad, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

You need “a whole bunch of things in place” for that environment to  flourish, he tells NerdWallet. Among them, the city “has to have smart, creative people. And Santa Cruz has that in spades.”

Some of the city’s entrepreneurs are people who just came to visit but “ended up falling in love with Santa Cruz and not wanting to go home,” says Rebecca Unitt, economic development coordinator with the city.

That’s what happened to Zach Davis. “Santa Cruz was a place we fell in love with as residents,” he tells NerdWallet.

A few years ago, he and veteran pastry chef Kendra Baker started the Penny Ice Creamery, which makes ice cream from scratch. They eventually expanded the venture into other restaurants now collectively known as The Glass Jar. Their company stresses sustainable food and community, and it became such a shining example of a successful small business following the financial crisis that Baker and Davis were invited to be guests at President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address.

Willing to take a risk

Davis cites the Santa Cruz environment as one of the keys to their success. “There’s a tremendous amount of … people who are willing to take a bit of a risk,” he says.

Bud Colligan, CEO of the investment firm South Swell Ventures and the former chief executive of Macromedia, pointed to “a broad range of very educated and qualified people” whom small companies can easily tap and a “supportive political environment.”

In some ways, Santa Cruz, a city of 63,400 tucked away in a corner of the Central California coast known for its colorful surfer scene and hippie communities, is an unlikely haven for innovative small-business pioneers.

But that diversity and location drew bold-thinking entrepreneurs, says Peggy Dolgenos, co-founder of the local Internet service company Cruzio.

“Santa Cruz has attracted a motley group because it’s off the beaten track and such a beautiful place,” she tells NerdWallet.

“We have a top-notch university, UC Santa Cruz, so we have the movie theaters, coffee houses and bookshops that intellectuals love. At the same time, we’re surrounded by jagged mountains, towering redwoods and some of the best surf breaks in the world. Who would choose to live in a place like that? Turns out, a lot of creative people do.”

Teresa Thomae, director of the Cabrillo College Small Business Development Center, tells NerdWallet, “Santa Cruz has always been a pretty entrepreneurial community.”

A small-business owner, even someone just starting out, can expect support from local government and organizations and the community itself, says Krista Bordner, who quit her Silicon Valley job to start Best Baby Rentals.

“It’s overwhelming how supportive people have been,” she tells NerdWallet. “It just felt so good to feel supported by our local community and local businesses, to know that they want me to succeed as a small business.”

Christina Glynn, communications director for the Santa Cruz County Conference & Visitors Council, echoed this sentiment, calling Santa Cruz “a perfect environment” for business leaders and innovators. “We are so open to new ideas and thinking outside the box,” she tells NerdWallet.

That openness is shared by city and business leaders. Davis of The Glass Jar praises Santa Cruz for offering “some really valuable resources for business.” You can see what he’s talking about on the Santa Cruz city government website, under “Business Support.”

You’ll find information on:

• Local funding programs for small businesses, such as the Opportunity Fund, which offers microloans, and the Grow Santa Cruz Loan program, which the city runs in partnership with the National Development Council and the U.S. Small Business Administration.
• An up-to-date list of available office space and other properties in the city.
• A city-sponsored analysis of the Santa Cruz retail market.
• A “facade improvement program” that offers grants of up to $10,000 to help small businesses “enhance and restore” their storefronts.

Great tool for startups in Santa Cruz

A central feature of the website is Open Counter, the online system the city developed with Code for America, a nonprofit focused on transparency in government. It was set up a few years ago to help entrepreneurs hoping to set up shop in Santa Cruz.

It’s a critical tool for anyone thinking of opening a small business in the city. With Open Counter, you can go through the step-by-step process of setting up your small business in Santa Cruz. Included are a checklist of permits and licenses you’ll need to apply for and a schedule of the fees you will need to pay.

“Our role is to be the advocate for businesses in the community. We focus on providing resources at the early stages, when the business is just starting out,” says Unitt of the Santa Cruz Economic Development department.

In fact, it’s not just for businesses starting out. Davis of The Glass Jar said his company used it when opening his latest restaurant.  “It definitely got things moving a lot quicker, which was pretty cool,” he says.

You can expect help beyond cool online tools, says Bill Tysseling, executive director of the Santa Cruz Area Chamber of Commerce.

“We have lots of experienced people here to help,” he tells NerdWallet.

One of them is Dolgenos of Cruzio, which started in 1989, even before the World Wide Web went live.  It’s no surprise that small companies such as Cruzio have managed not only to survive, but also to thrive despite facing stiff competition from giants including Comcast and AT&T, she says.

“Santa Cruz welcomes new and different ideas, so small businesses here have an advantage,” says Dolgenos, who is also the chair of the Santa Cruz County Business Council.

“People here think that something unique is a good thing. For a company like Cruzio, an independent Internet provider, that allows us to survive,” he says. “We compete with Comcast and AT&T, who have zillion-dollar ad budgets, and yet we have thrived. Our community is willing to support a local alternative to a national corporation.”

Of course, as with any city or region, expect to encounter challenges as a small-business owner in Santa Cruz. “I often sit down with people who are trying to figure out whether they want to jump in,” Tysseling says. “Starting a business anywhere is a daunting process.”

Housing costs a challenge

One challenge he cites is the high cost of housing. The median home price in Santa Cruz is $666,300, according to city data. A low-end one-bedroom apartment in Santa Cruz rents for roughly $1,300 to $1,500, Tysseling says. City and business leaders are looking to build higher-density units, he says, but housing costs are definitely a challenge for companies looking to locate here.

For one thing, it makes recruiting young workers more challenging. “We have a strong base of workers,” he says. “But in general, it is difficult to bring in skilled workers because of the cost of housing.”

Unitt, of the Santa Cruz Economic Development department, also cautions that despite “amazing” ideas for services and products, there can be bumps in the road. “Even having an MBA doesn’t always prepare them for how to get their small business established and growing.”

“Your business plan may be flawless, but your small business will encounter opportunities and adjust to the market,” Unitt says. “Small businesses are at their most precarious when fast growth pounces and vision, values, and strategy struggle to remain balanced.”

This is where city and business leaders can help, she says. “We can connect you with free, confidential, expert business consulting through the Central Coast Small Business Development Center to ensure your fast-growing business has the long game in mind as well.”

The good news is, according to those we talked with, meeting these challenges is more engaging and fun in a place like Santa Cruz.

If you’re thinking of starting a small business in the city, here are some good places to start:

• City of Santa Cruz Economic Development
• Cabrillo College Small Business Development Center (also known as the Central Coast Small Business Development Center)
• Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce
• Santa Cruz County Conference & Visitors Council
• Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of California, Santa Cruz

For more information about how to start and run a business, visit NerdWallet’s Small Business Guide. For free, personalized answers to questions about starting and financing your business, visit the Small Business section of NerdWallet’s Ask an Advisor page.

Benjamin Pimentel is a staff writer covering small business for NerdWallet. Follow him on Twitter @benpimentel, on Google+ and on LinkedIn.

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Buyers in Hot Markets Try Creative Home Financing

First-time homebuyers face an uphill battle in the best of circumstances, but in high-price areas, many have a particularly hard time coming up with a big enough down payment. That’s why some buyers in Washington, San Francisco and Seattle are getting creative.

Some turn to a San Francisco-based company called FirstREX, which began providing equity home financing to buyers in 2013. In the business world, a provider of equity financing typically acquires an ownership stake, the way venture capitalists do when they fund a startup. But FirstREX doesn’t become a part owner of the homes it helps finance. Instead, the company enters into a contract in which the buyer agrees to repay the company’s investment plus as much as 40% of the change in value of the home when it’s sold.

“The return on investment to our investors is based strictly on the performance of the property going forward,” says Michael Lyon, director of sales for FirstREX. “We take no ownership.”

Smaller down payments

In most cases, buyers with a smaller down payment can get a loan backed by the Federal Housing Administration, or FHA. But loan limits for these programs top out at $625,500 for single family homes in pricier metro areas like San Francisco or New York, and less in lower-priced cities and regions.

Banks generally don’t accept funding from outside the buyer’s own resources when it comes to down payments. Lenders often regard the down payment as a measure of the buyer’s ability to repay a mortgage loan, because amassing a down payment takes most people more than a few years of saving, and that requires a certain amount of self-discipline. But a handful of lenders, including Seattle’s HomeStreet Bank, give buyers the option of using FirstREX for down payment assistance.

Jumbo loans, which are above lending limits for most mortgages, almost always require a 20% down payment, according to Christopher Caproni, a loan advisor with RPM Mortgage in Mill Valley, California. The limits for home loans that are generally repackaged and sold to investors are set by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises that backstop most mortgages in the U.S.

In most cases, FirstREX works with buyers who can muster a down payment of 10% to 12.5% of the purchase price. The company matches the buyer’s down payment. That means the buyer is able to get a loan for 80% of the purchase price or less, avoiding private mortgage insurance, which is usually required when a borrower puts up less than 20%. The insurance protects the lender against a default on the debt.

“A lot of people don’t even know they can buy with 10% of their own funds and avoid mortgage insurance,” Caproni says. “People go from fence-sitting to a yes when they hear about this.”

Buying sooner than expected

Steve Lapin and his wife, Courtney, found that an agreement with FirstREX meant they didn’t need to wait to buy the home they wanted. They were renting a loft apartment that Lapin describes as a “bachelor pad” in San Francisco’s Mission District. But the space had no interior walls, and they were expecting their first child.

“We knew we were growing out of the space,” says Lapin, who works in the financial industry. They looked at two-bedroom rentals, but the places they liked cost astronomical amounts. They found a condo for sale in the city’s Inner Richmond district, but couldn’t qualify for a loan. Their bank expected them to come up with 30% of the purchase price — 20% for a down payment and an additional 10% in reserve funds. Time was tight because they were competing against other potential buyers.

“We had to act within 24 hours,” Lapin says. FirstREX connected the couple to RPM Mortgage and matched their 10% down payment to get the deal done.

“This is a way that a first-time buyer can get into a neighborhood that they couldn’t otherwise get into,” Caproni says.

There are other alternative sources for down payment funds. FHA-backed loans permit down payments as low as 3.5%, although mortgage insurance on such loans can be expensive. Freddie Mac’s HomeSteps program offers buyers a chance to score foreclosed homes for a 5% down payment and no mortgage insurance. There are also assistance grants available from some state and local governments. But many of these programs can’t provide enough cash in high-priced markets, which adds to the appeal of FirstREX for some buyers.

Homeowners make no payments to FirstREX, and no interest is charged on the company’s investment. When the owner decides to sell, the property is appraised and that’s used to determine any gain in value due the company. If the owner has renovated or improved the home in ways that increase its sale price, that added value belongs to the owner.

Some buyers may find it challenging to give up a significant percentage of the gain from a sale. But Lapin says it will be worth it.

“I knew I’d have to give up some of the return” on my investment, he says. “But that’s OK, because their capital allowed me to get a bigger home and get the home I wanted for my family. It seems like a pretty fair trade.”

Limited availability

The availability of FirstREX financing is limited to buyers in three states and Washington, D.C., and no other company offers a similar product, according to Lyon, the FirstREX sales director. Buyers don’t need perfect credit for FirstREX to invest — RPM’s Caproni says a 680 FICO score, which is considered average credit, is the minimum needed for a deal with his firm.

Mortgage-appreciation financing first appeared in the 1970s, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which cited Fannie Mae Foundation research. A company in San Diego, EquityKey, offers an alternative to home equity loans using a similar approach. FirstREX also provides homeowners with a way to cash out some of their equity without taking out a second mortgage or refinancing.

Homeowners can buy out FirstREX before selling by returning the company’s initial investment plus its share of any gain in value, based on a third-party appraisal. But there’s a financial penalty for doing so within the first three years. FirstREX investors prefer to partner with homeowners for the long haul.

“REX’s money comes from pension funds and endowment funds,” says Caproni, who is one of the few mortgage lenders in California that provides loans to buyers who have partnered with FirstREX. “Those asset groups are very patient.”

Lapin, meanwhile, says he’s very happy. He and his wife moved into their new home just 10 days before their son was born.

Virginia C. McGuire is a staff writer covering personal finance for NerdWallet. Follow her on Twitter @vcmcguire and on Google+.

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Vistage CEO: Peer Advisory Groups an Invaluable Tool for SMB Owners

When small business owners have questions about how to propel their business forward, it’s not always clear where to find answers. Consultants are expensive, employees may have other priorities and industry groups may not have resources to help.

Business peer advisory groups may be the solution for some SMB owners. These groups consist of experienced professionals offering their peers a sounding board, a wealth of knowledge and no objective other than helping each other succeed.

As fourth-generation owner and president of 120-year-old Garvin Industries, an electrical manufacturing company headquartered outside Chicago, Bart Garvin struggled to grow his business. Then a friend introduced him to a business peer advisory group called Vistage.

Company revenue was around $4 million when Garvin joined his peer advisor group. Over six years later, it’s almost five times that amount. Garvin, who’s still a member, says the group provides an independent lens through which he views his company.

“Because we’re all human, every business owner or CEO has multiple blind spots,” Garvin explains. “Those blind spots often give us distorted perception of truth inside our company, and it’s all based on our past experiences. [The group] forces me to step outside my business and be intellectually honest about my blind spots so I can change them.”

Lisa Reisman was also introduced to Vistage through a friend and has attended for years. She’s the co-founder and managing director of Azul Partners, a B2B media company in Chicago. For Reisman, the benefits are clear: “Getting outside feedback, having an outside sounding board and being exposed to ideas that are outside of my industry that could be applied to my business and my industry.”

Reisman says she also values the mentorship from group members possessing more experience. For example, many members in her current group have bought and sold companies — something she hasn’t done much of yet — so she’s grateful for their shared insight and perspectives.

Vistage is the largest for-profit company offering business peer advisory groups. The groups are confidential and professionally facilitated by highly trained individuals, often former CEOs. NerdWallet recently interviewed Vistage’s CEO, Leon Shapiro, to learn more about how the company works and why peer advisory groups are so powerful for small business owners in particular.

NerdWallet: How did Vistage get its start?

Shapiro: Vistage started back in 1957 in Wisconsin. A gentleman by name of Robert Nourse was out of work. He got together with a group of executives; they sat around a table and realized the value they brought to each other as business owners, and facilitated that group meeting every month. From there, it really spread throughout the United States, and today is in 16 countries and has almost 20,000 members around the world.

What types of advisory groups does Vistage offer?

All of the groups conceptually do the same thing; all are founded on the same principle. The different flavors, if you will, relate to four segments: first the CEOs, leaders and owners of larger businesses, then CEOs and leaders of smaller businesses — perhaps in the $1 million to $5 million revenue range. The third segment is all of the key direct reports to these executives, then the fourth is all the trusted advisors to the ecosystem; the lawyers, accountants, service providers, etc.

Who facilitates these groups?

They’re all facilitated by what we call our chairs, or chairmen, who are independent contractors that are schooled in the Vistage process; there’s a very particular process. They go through ongoing learning and development at least six times a year, if not more.

We heard Vistage also offers one-on-one mentoring sessions with the chairs; is this available to all members?

It’s available to everyone; it’s priced and packaged into programs differently. So for example, our flagship program for CEOs consists of them attending monthly meetings and also meeting for two hours a month with their chair on an individual, one-on-one basis, so that gives them opportunity to deal with specific, individual issues. It’s also a great opportunity for the chair to work with someone and perhaps encourage them to bring their issue to the group meeting, which is where all the power of Vistage happens.

Can someone stay in a Vistage group indefinitely?

There is a natural graduation point, typically when you sell your business, retire, or if you’re a CEO and you move on to do something else. But our average member sticks around for over five years. And if they make it past the first year, they typically stick around seven and a half years, so they’re very long-term members in the group.

What are some of the benefits small business owners can experience from meeting with a Vistage group?

As a CEO or small business owner, you really don’t have any place in the world to go to get objective advice given to you by people who don’t have any interest or connection in the outcome. So from your management team to your lawyer to your accountant to your family, everyone you interact with does so in a very caring and positive way, but has a connection to the outcome. A peer advisor group is the one place where a trusted group of 15 of your peers whose only vested interest is in helping you become a better leader, solve your business problems, take advantage of opportunities, in a very direct and open way. They don’t hold any punches, but at the same time, they’re there for you as a support network.

Really, you feel accountable to them and they feel accountable back to you. You’re likely to use this information, the benefits of their experience. I mean, 15 other people with 10, 20 30 years of experience under their belts — you’re much more likely to use that in a meaningful way and feel accountable to the group. And in fact, part of the process is that when an issue is processed or the group helps you, you commit to a set of actions that you choose, and commit to bringing it back to the group and letting them know what you’ve done. It tends to be very, very effective.

Do small business owners often experience quantifiable benefits from participating?

Absolutely. The performance of companies in Vistage far outweigh the performance of their peers. [Vistage later provided us with results of a survey by Dun & Bradstreet showing Vistage member companies outpacing annual growth at comparable companies by more than six percentage points, over a four-year period.]

What are other member benefits in addition to peer meetings and one-on-one sessions?

At every monthly meeting, half of the day is dedicated towards an expert speaker. We have close to 1,000 experts in a speakers bureau, so groups book these speakers. Those are experts on very specific business issues—marketing, how to deliver presentations, to work/life balance issues. Every year in each region we hold events for the entire region…we put together a full day event with expert speakers, content, and interaction between members. There’s also an online content library, webinars and more.

There are many other smaller, niche peer advisory groups available. What makes Vistage a better choice?

I think there is value to certain niche groups. They do bring very different value than Vistage brings. The magic of Vistage is in a 58-year-old, tried and true process with chairs that are incredibly experienced and continue to develop and hone their skills every year, year in and year out. Really that complete perspective coupled with a very rigorous process in safe environment of a group has proved to be unbelievably successful.

We also are establishing membership networks for some of the very reasons that people have other needs. For example, people in the manufacturing industry—we have probably 1,000 plus members in Vistage that are in manufacturing and need to interact with other people in the manufacturing industry on industry specific issues that are separate from being a CEO and just leading company. So we facilitate those member networks as well. Those are both online and in person. For example, in Chicago at a big manufacturing event several months ago, we had close to 100 Vistage attendees there who got together at the much larger manufacturing event.

Must members meet certain criteria to join?

Yes, they do. There’s a selection interview process that takes place, because at the end of the day, everyone needs to make sure that there’s a fit between the prospective member, the existing chair and the existing group. You wouldn’t want 14 CEOs of $100 million businesses and someone who’s just done a start-up and has one person under them. So there’s a very good process of mutual selection.

What are the costs associated with joining?

Members pay a monthly fee that ranges between $1,000 to $1,300. Most people think of it as an annual ongoing fee.

What’s your best advice for small business owners?

Find a group of peers; it’s the most powerful thing you have going for you as a leader. Vistage isn’t so much a place you go to have your questions answered, but rather a place you go to have your answers questioned.

For more information about how to start and run a business, visit NerdWallet’s Small Business Guide. For free, personalized answers to questions about starting and financing your business, visit the Small Business section of NerdWallet’s Ask an Advisor page.

Emily Starbuck Crone is a staff writer covering personal finance for NerdWallet. Follow her on Twitter @emstarbuck and on Google+

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Google Debuts ‘Project Fi’ Wireless Service

Google on Wednesday introduced Project Fi, its own wireless service that, after a small monthly fee, will charge users based solely on how much data they use each month.

The program, which will at first be limited to owners of Google’s Nexus 6 smartphones, is a partnership between the technology giant and established wireless carriers Sprint and T-Mobile, which have agreed to carry the mobile traffic Project Fi creates.

The service will be able to switch automatically between Sprint and T-Mobile, depending on which has the strongest signal at any given time and place.

Project Fi will cost a flat rate of $20 per month, and $10 for each gigabyte of data a customer uses.

“As mobile devices continually improve how you connect to people and information, it’s important that wireless connectivity and communication keep pace and be fast everywhere, easy to use, and accessible to everyone,” Google Vice President Nick Fox said in a blog post. 

Fox wrote that in addition to Sprint and T-Mobile connectivity, the Project Fi network incorporates “more than a million free, open Wi-Fi hotspots we’ve verified as fast and reliable.”

The $20 flat rate will cover talk, text, Wi-Fi tethering, and international coverage in more than 120 countries. Users will then select the number of gigabytes of data they expect to use and pay $10 for each. They’ll receive a refund each month if they use less.

Many existing U.S. wireless plans require consumers to pay for a set amount of data that rolls over at the end of each month. In many cases, that means people are paying for data they never use.

People interested in trying out the plan — which, again, is going to require a Nexus 6 at least for now — may request an invitation to take part in its Early Access Program. They should first check to make sure they live somewhere that Project Fi has coverage.

Google Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai has said the company expects its wireless project to be a relatively limited experiment, not one aimed at disrupting the wireless industry (which may explain Sprint and T-Mobile’s reported willingness to play along).

“While Google may not be targeting huge numbers of subscribers, their entry into this market is very important, because it has the potential to disrupt the wireless industry in much the same way Google Fiber prompted changes in the cable and broadband industries,” Rajeev Chand, head of research at investment bank Rutberg & Company, told The Wall Street Journal.

Fiber promises super-fast 1-gigabit per second speeds. Google Fiber is active in three metro areas and was announced for four more earlier this year, with others on the way. As it rolls out, other Internet providers have begun making their own high-speed options available.

Doug Gross is a staff writer covering personal finance for NerdWallet. Follow him on Twitter @doug_gross and on Google+.

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Small Business Success Story: Hot Dang Conquers Growth Challenges

It started with an outrageous challenge. Martha Pincoffs, a trained chef and cooking instructor in Austin, Texas, was dared by her partner to eat every meal at home — made with local ingredients — for an entire year. The couple expected to save money and learn more about homegrown food, but Pincoffs had no idea that a concoction whipped up during this yearlong experiment would later end up in hundreds of grocery stores nationwide.

That concoction — a humble, grain-based patty Pincoffs assembled on the fly in her kitchen — launched her on a journey filled with many challenges: spending long, non-lucrative hours at the farmers market, learning to forge strategic partnerships, conquering production challenges and understanding how to navigate the retail grocery world.

Looking back, Pincoffs says overcoming these hurdles allowed her to fulfill her mission: “I wanted clean food for the masses.”

An unexpected product

During her year of culinary austerity, Pincoffs spent lots of time at farmers markets and grocery stores. She says she found herself falling in love with the small food business, becoming intrigued with making consumer packaged goods, and admiring successful local ventures like Dai Due and Salt & Time.

Hot Dang founder Martha Pincoffs.

Since Pincoffs and her partner weren’t dining out, their home became a social hub. One day, not in the mood to go to the market yet again, Pincoffs experimented with ingredients she had on hand and ended up with a grain-based veggie burger. She and her partner weren’t vegetarian, but she realized there was nothing like it commercially available. It became the most requested item by their frequent guests, and it occurred to her that other people might enjoy her veggie burgers, too.

“It’s made of all recognizable ingredients, and it’s something I really believed in, because at the time, a lot of the competition had stuff I didn’t recognize and texturized vegetable protein, which is a really processed version of soy,” Pincoffs says. She named the product Hot Dang, and she encourages people to eat it in more creative ways than just as a burger substitute (think crumbled on a salad or chopped up in a frittata).

On a Saturday morning in April 2011, Pincoffs awoke at the crack of dawn and spent hours preparing for her debut at Austin’s Sunset Valley Farmers Market. She describes the experience as backbreaking: Starting three to four hours before the market opened, she prepared her patties by hand at home and gathered a glut of supplies. Pincoffs then arrived and worked long hours to set up the booth, operate her station and break it down at the end — all for less than a livable wage, she says. Nevertheless, it was an ideal place to start because she found a curious customer base willing to try new things and received direct feedback on her product. Locals tried it, and they liked it. A few months later, Pincoffs was able to land her product in several Austin grocery stores.

Strategic partnerships needed

In the early stages of the business, it was a one-woman show. “I was bootstrapping it, so I was paying for it, making all the product, doing the demos and making deliveries,” Pincoffs says. She also had a life partner and two small kids, and all of her commitments eventually became too much to handle, she says.

“It forced me to look outside and give up some of the company in order to be able to get the vision further,” she says. In 2012, she found a business partner, Tim Murphy, who had valuable industry knowledge, including experience with General Mills and working with Naked Juice when it sold to Pepsi. Pincoffs says bringing him on board was by far her best move yet.

Pincoffs and Murphy took the first year together to redesign the product packaging, increase their offerings and improve processes on the back end, such as making production more efficient. Pincoffs says the operation had to be tightened up before the business could really grow. Though the company officially started four years ago, 90% of the growth has occurred in the past year as she and Murphy have optimized everything together.

Initial production challenges

When Pincoffs started her business, she made every veggie patty by hand. As the business grew, a key challenge was streamlining production and moving from her home kitchen to an actual manufacturing facility. Although Austin is quickly growing, it’s still a midsize metro area, and Pincoffs found that it lacked the infrastructure and support she needed to scale her product.

“We wound up going to Boulder (Colorado) for six to nine months, making our product there, because they had a manufacturing incubator that basically had to make our product at scale,” Pincoffs explains. “Then we could bring it back to right outside of Austin.” Her products are now produced at a facility in Buda, a small town a few miles south of Austin.

Taking a product from a farmers market booth to grocery store freezers is no easy task. “Getting into big grocery stores has been a mix of persistence, well-placed introductions and having brokers working for us,” Pincoffs says.

Making the jump

Her first goal was to get into Whole Foods Market, a health-oriented supermarket chain headquartered in Austin. She says Whole Foods has an unusual decentralized system, so a company can get into one store at a time and learn how the system works. “It gives the stores room to really embrace the communities they are in; they are great about scouting local products for their regions,” Pincoffs explains. Whole Foods employs a network of “local foragers” to find such products.

Hot Dang encourages consumers to think of its products as more than simply burger substitutes.

How does someone get a product into Whole Foods? Lynda Berrios, Southwest local forager for Whole Foods, says the first step for small suppliers is to get in touch with the forager responsible for their area, like herself. After making the connection, suppliers go through a vetting and review process. “We will look at everything from ingredients, sourcing, packaging, cost, pricing and take a tour their facility or manufacturing space,” Berrios says. “Sometimes that process can take a matter of weeks or more than a year depending on how ready the supplier is for retail.”

Berrios adds that Whole Foods has very high standards for what ultimately makes the cut; this includes such things as adhering to animal welfare standards and requiring that items be free of artificial flavors, colors and preservatives. “Each category has its own set of deep and broad standards specific to that type of product,” she explains.

Hot Dang met the rigorous standards, and through Pincoffs’ own efforts, she got into all Austin Whole Foods locations. After her products performed well, she brought in a broker, Green Spoon Sales. This company presented Hot Dang to the rest of Whole Foods’ Southwest region and the Rocky Mountain region and successfully landed her products in those stores.

Not every business can expand into new markets so quickly. “We gauge that readiness on several factors,” Berrios explains, “including their production capacity, strong sales compared to similar products in that store, active demo support and the relationships they build with store buyers and team members.” This expansion can also be financially difficult for small operations, so Whole Foods offers Local Producer Loans — low-interest loans to small suppliers who need cash to grow their business.

Going from farmers markets or direct sales into wholesale retail is a big leap for small food suppliers, Berrios says. While visibility and brand awareness are huge perks, it’s a challenge to compete with products that may have more of a following — especially national brands. To overcome this hurdle, “we offer our small suppliers a lot of in-store signage through our local supplier profiles, the opportunity to participate in events and vendor fairs, and we are always looking for creative ways to promote our local suppliers via in-store events, pop-ups, community education classes or opportunities we might dream up together,” Berrios says.

Pincoffs next aimed to get into HEB, one of the largest grocery chains in Texas. The process there was quite different, she says. She and Murphy went on a sales call with HEB’s frozen foods buyer, thinking they might get into 40 stores if they were lucky. The meeting was a success, and they found out they got into 150 stores. She notes that it was hard to fulfill the first few purchase orders while they were in the midst of transitioning manufacturers, but once they got into their new facility, they’ve been able to comfortably fill all orders — and grow with them.

Hot Dang products are now sold in 300 stores in 14 states, with eight more states on the horizon.

Supportive local community

Pincoffs credits some of her success to being based in Austin, a supportive community full of creative food entrepreneurs. “There are wonderful people willing to collaborate, and it feels like everybody’s in it to see everybody else succeed,” Pincoffs says. “It makes a huge difference to have people ahead of you willing to take time and encourage you,” she says.

This camaraderie led her to create a group called ATX Makers Club, made up of locals who produce consumer packaged goods. “It’s a bunch of different food entrepreneurs that get together once a month and troubleshoot challenges and opportunities of growing a small food business, and it’s been really helpful,” she says.

For more information about how to start and run a business, visit NerdWallet’s Small Business Guide. For free, personalized answers to questions about starting and financing your business, visit the Small Business section of NerdWallet’s Ask an Advisor page.

Emily Starbuck Crone is a staff writer covering personal finance for NerdWallet. Follow her on Twitter @emstarbuck and on Google+.

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Small Business Success Story: Blossom Foods Blooms With Bank of America

Sue Adams got the idea to launch Blossom Foods when she worked as a speech pathologist in San Francisco.  Many of her patients had a difficult time swallowing food — a condition known as dysphagia — and the worst parts of the day were mealtimes.

Adams recalls how her patients could no longer chew and swallow their favorite meals, and in many cases, their only options were unappealing plates of mush.  “Every time you saw a patient who had an issue with swallowing, you saw that they had to downgrade their diet.  These balls of beige would show up on their plates and they would always ask, ‘What is this?’ because it didn’t seem like real food,”  Adams says.  Many of her patients literally couldn’t stomach what was on the menu, even though the nutrients were essential to their health.

Adams decided to launch a company that would provide tasty breakfasts, lunches and dinners for people with dysphagia.  The condition affects one in seven people, and that figure could increase as the population ages, which suggested she’d have a strong market.

Blossom Foods was born in 2006 and Adams began testing recipes and assembling taste panels.  By 2008, she was selling pureed, ground and chopped entrees to local hospitals.  “I quit my job and my former employer was my first client,” she says. Today, Blossom Foods sells entrees like turkey, chicken enchiladas and pancakes with eggs.

Financing taste tests

When Blossom Foods first launched, Adams and her husband dipped into their savings to get the business off the ground.  She didn’t hire her first employee until about three years after they started selling food, she says.  Adams hired a chef and also moved into a kitchen that could accommodate USDA inspections.  Word got around to local hospitals and her business grew.

With demand increasing, Adams knew that she’d need financing help to get better kitchen equipment.  A specialized meat grinder would cost several thousand dollars, and a larger capacity freezer could cost even more.  But Adams predicted that such equipment additions would allow Blossom Foods to increase its business volume up to three times.

Finding a financial partner

At first, Adams didn’t consider applying for financing at her regular institution, Bank of America, even though she and her family had been customers for several years. Her perception was that big banks weren’t for small business.

Adams looked first into partnering with angel investors, but couldn’t seem to find the right fit. She hoped to get in touch with someone who could partner with her and provide entrepreneurial expertise, but she never met that person, she says. After not finding what she was looking for from other avenues, Adams considered her traditional bank.

It’s a smart move for entrepreneurs to check with their home bank to see what opportunities may exist, says Desi Stark, senior vice president for small business at Bank of America in San Francisco. “That’s pretty much how our small business banking channel was born,” she says.  “We started listening to small businesses and we started hearing people asking for that attention.  We ended up hiring experts in the field,” she says.

The ideal business owner is someone who starts a business with an intention to grow, somebody ambitious, Stark says.  But it can take time for a small business to get a loan from a traditional bank. “There are a lot of regulations that we have to abide by,” Stark says.  “We look at how the business shows profitability.  We look at tax returns and revenue, and we also look at future projects and business forecasts.  We have to understand the whole story.  It’s not just the numbers.”

Even after financing is secured, it’s important to continue the banking relationship, Stark says.  “It’s not just about funding.  Business owners also need to know how to maximize their dollar, and how they can make their business grow,” she says.  “Bankers can go into the field, sit down and have a conversation about how you run your business and ask what you need.”

After meeting with Bank of America, Adams opened a business credit card account with a $35,000 credit line. She says it gives her the flexibility to purchase kitchen equipment and expand her operations. Today, Blossom Foods serves close to 80 hospitals, medical offices and rehabilitation centers. “We’ve been profitable the past three years, and we’re growing,” Adams says. She has plans to continue to grow and serve medical centers across the country.

Tips for small business owners

Before you seek outside funding, invest your money in your business, Adams says.  Even after Blossom Foods became profitable, Adams says she reinvested her money in her business for several years instead of buying fancy cars or taking exotic vacations. “When you self-fund your business, you do need to be willing to make the tough choices about what you want to do with your company,” she says.

It’s also important to stay on top of advancements in your industry. Adams keeps her speech pathology credentials current, which she says helps her understand patient-related issues and puts her in a better position to respond to medical changes or breakthroughs that affect her clients.

When you are ready to seek financing, make an effort to develop a relationship with your local banker, Stark says.  With a relationship, you get advice and you get someone who can talk to you and help you know the right questions to ask, as well as how to answer them, she says.  “Sometimes it’s not just numbers. We also want to understand what you’re thinking.  Do you want to open just one store, or do you have expansion plans?” Stark says.

When you have an existing business relationship with your bank, it can be very helpful when it comes time to apply for future financing, including lines of credit and business loans.  Blossom Foods is one such company that has taken the first step in what could be a long and prosperous relationship.

For more information about how to start and run a business, visit NerdWallet’s Small Business Guide. For free, personalized answers to questions about starting and financing your business, visit the Small Business section of NerdWallet’s Ask an Advisor page.

Margarette Burnette is a staff writer covering personal finance for NerdWallet. Follow her on Twitter @margarette and on Google+.

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Trek Recalls Nearly 1 Million Bicycles

Major bicycle maker Trek has recalled nearly 1 million bikes over a problem with the braking system. That problem reportedly led to accidents that left one rider paralyzed.

The recall covers about 900,000 bikes in the United States and another 98,000 in Canada.

According to the recall, the bicycles have a quick-release lever on the front wheel hub which, if improperly adjusted or left open, can come into contact with the disc-brake assembly, causing the front wheel to lock up or fall off.

The Trek bikes with the system were sold from about September 1999 to April 2015, for prices ranging from $480 to $1,650.

Trek says it is aware of three accidents related to the problem. One resulted in a rider becoming paralyzed, while injuries in the other two were less severe — one leading to facial injuries and the other a fractured wrist.

Owners are advised to stop using the bikes and take them to an authorized Trek retailer to get a new quick-release installed on the front wheel. Trek will give everyone who participates a $20 coupon toward merchandise from Trek-owned Bontrager, a line of products including helmets, seats, tires and cycling shoes.

Consumers with questions may contact Trek at 800-373-4594  or online at www.trekbikes.com. Click on “Safety & Recalls” at the bottom of the page for more information.

Doug Gross is a staff writer covering personal finance for NerdWallet. Follow him on Twitter @doug_gross and on Google+.

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Google Rolling Out Its Own Wireless Service This Week

Google is expected to unveil its own wireless service in the United States this week, putting the tech giant in at least limited competition with the likes of AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint.

Google’s wireless service could debut as early as Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.

What will make it stand out — aside from association with Google’s existing expanse of products across mobile and the Web — is a model through which users would pay only for the amount of data they actually use.

As the Journal notes, many existing U.S. wireless plans require consumers to pay for a set amount of data that rolls over at the end of each month. In many cases, that means people are paying for data they never use.

Google’s wireless service is expected to run on networks owned by Sprint and T-Mobile, which have agreed to carry the traffic, according to “people familiar with the matter.” The service will be able to switch automatically between Sprint and T-Mobile, depending on which has the strongest signal at any given time and place.

The Journal says that, initially, the service only will be available for Google’s new Nexus 6 smartphones. In the past, Google has introduced services that only work with its own products before rolling them out more widely.

In March, Google’s Sundar Pichai, a senior vice president, said the wireless network was months away from release and that it would be a relatively limited experiment, not one aimed at disrupting the wireless industry (which may explain Sprint and T-Mobile’s reported willingness to play along).

“While Google may not be targeting huge numbers of subscribers, their entry into this market is very important, because it has the potential to disrupt the wireless industry in much the same way Google Fiber prompted changes in the cable and broadband industries,” Rajeev Chand, head of research at investment bank Rutberg & Company, told the Wall Street Journal.

Fiber promises super-fast 1-gigabit per second speeds. Google Fiber is active in three metro areas and was announced for four more earlier this year, with others on the way. As it had rolled out, other Internet providers have begun making their own high-speed options available.

Doug Gross is a staff writer covering personal finance for NerdWallet. Follow him on Twitter @doug_gross and on Google+.

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How Student Loan Default Can Hurt You, and Someone Else

The tower of debt that’s often attached to a college degree can be intimidating. But when it comes to paying back student loans, borrowers must put their fears aside and attack debt systematically or face potentially long-lasting credit consequences. Here are five things to expect should you not pay your student debt:

1. Your FICO score will plummet

Several factors go into calculating your FICO score, but payment history is the most important. Not paying your student loans on time hurts your payment history record, and hurting your payment history record lowers your FICO score, plain and simple. As a borrower, you want your FICO score within a reasonable range, and having a higher score is never going to burden you in the credit approval process.

 2. Your credit report will be tarnished for 7 years

Applying for a car loan, a mortgage or even more student debt can all get harder when students don’t make their loan payments. Credit reports are like memory-foam mattresses: If you alter their shape, they’ll eventually bounce back — but it might take a while. A “while” in this case generally means seven years, the length of time late payments can stay on your credit report, affecting your creditworthiness the whole time.

 3. You won’t be able to get other loans

This one almost goes without saying. If you’re already not paying off an existing loan, new lenders will likely hesitate when considering you for a new loan. On the other hand, if your payment history is untarnished, you may qualify for lower interest rates, ultimately keeping more money in your pocket over time.

Nerd Tip: Overborrowing can be easy to do and hard to resolve. As a rule of thumb, try to keep your total loan amount less than your expected first-year salary after graduation.

4. You may not be able to rent an apartment

Running a credit check is standard procedure for landlords during the renter-approval process, and if you’re the type of person who fails to pay debts on time, landlords will probably assume you’ll do the same when rent is due. Not paying student loans can result in a new landlord requiring a higher deposit at the beginning of a lease. In more competitive rental markets, it might mean missing out on an apartment entirely.

 5. Your parents’ credit may suffer (if they cosigned)

If you have a cosigner on your student loans, the decisions you make affect more than just you. Most students taking out college loans do so with the help of a parent. But by cosigning, parents are making themselves fully responsible for the debt. If a student stops making payments, parental credit can suffer just as much as the student’s.

The moral of the story is to pay your student loans on time. Remember, bankruptcy can’t usually erase student loans, and issuers can put liens on bank accounts of those borrowers who refuse to pay. If making your student loan payment is literally impossible, deferment or forbearance may be options to consider as they generally don’t negatively impact your credit score. Either way, it’s best to plan ahead and design a payback strategy that works best for you.

Kevin Cash is a staff writer covering credit cards and consumer credit for NerdWallet. Follow him on Google+.

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Q&A: Georgia expert talks smart ways for small businesses to get funded

Gwinnett County, Georgia, is part of the metropolitan Atlanta area and home to nearly 880,000 residents, many of whom own local small businesses.  NerdWallet recently spoke with Nick Masino of the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce in Duluth, Georgia, about the outlook for small businesses in the county.

As the chamber’s senior vice president of economic development, Masino has helped build and lead a community-focused initiative called Partnership Gwinnett, which has brought thousands of jobs and nearly a million dollars in investment to the county, according to the chamber. Here’s what he had to say:

NerdWallet: How common are small businesses in the county?

They make up about 85% of the companies in Gwinnett County. Small businesses are the lifeblood of our community and integral to our economy.  If each small business in our community hired just one person, it would top the recruiting efforts of a Fortune 500 company.

How do local chambers help small businesses?

Many chambers have workshops on how to get funding, host opportunities to connect with customers and have awards programs that provide publicity for businesses.  Chambers can also put you in touch with professionals who’ll help you evaluate your startup idea to see if there’s a market for it.  They usually have resources to help you learn what you need to do to establish a business in your community, and they can help you network with other entrepreneurs.

If you don’t have experience pitching your company to an investor, or explaining why your business should receive a bank loan, you could find help at your local chamber.  Some have programs where entrepreneurs can practice presenting their ideas to a group of executives, who then provide feedback.

What specifically does the Gwinnett Chamber offer?

Gwinnett County actually has a director of entrepreneurship who helps promote small business in the county.  Through this office, the chamber publishes an entrepreneur resource guide, which describes the steps an entrepreneur in Gwinnett can take to go from having a great idea to creating a business.

We also have an annual Amazing Entrepreneur Contest, which awards a $10,000 cash prize for the best startup idea.  (Existing businesses started no earlier than three years ago can enter a separate established-business category.)  In addition, the Gwinnett Chamber has a roadshow that travels to every corner of the county to celebrate small businesses and let owners know about the resources and programs we have available.

Probably most important of all, we offer several opportunities for small-business owners to network and meet with people from organizations that can help them get funding, including banks, angel investors and loan organizations.  I’ve been seeing more lending activity recently, from SBA loans to traditional non-SBA loans. We’re even seeing more mezzanine funders, which are helping to close real estate deals.  In addition, we have a lot of angel investors.  I think things are as good as they’ve ever been in Gwinnett County to get funding.

How do small businesses get approved for funding?

The building blocks of any successful small business involve having a business plan that clearly shows a return on investment. For a bank loan, you should show a budget that forecasts revenue, expenses and profit for at least three, four or five years down the road.  Show that you’ve done your research and have a pretty good idea of what the next five years will look like for your company.

You also have to able to describe what your company will do.  Few people are willing to lend or invest money in a business idea unless they can understand the company concept.  You may not be able to explain every little detail about your business, but a loan officer or investor should be confident that they generally understand the purpose of your startup and how it meets its customers’ needs.  You have to be able to say, “This is what I want to accomplish, and this is what I know to be true in this market.”

Sometimes, I see people focus way too much on the company concepts, but not their ROI [return on investment]. Or they do the opposite, focusing way too much on the ROI, but they can’t explain what their business does.  A company that gets funding can do both successfully.

You also have to be concise.  Be able to clearly explain what your company does and how it will make a profit, preferably within five minutes.  That may be all the time you have to present a PowerPoint deck or give a speech to lenders.  If you can’t quickly tell someone what your company does and how it will make money, then you’re at a disadvantage.

Presentations? Speeches? This seems intense.

It’s not like the shows you see on TV where there’s pressure to make an immediate decision. In real life, it’s much more professional.  You can follow a process.  You’ll have time to describe your company, hear from the lender or investor and eventually agree on terms.  It may even be easier than in the past, because business plans don’t need to be as detailed as they used to be.

I’d say that five to 10 years ago, more research was expected in your business plan.  But today, people understand that the business environment can change quickly, especially with influences from social media and the Internet.  In most cases, you’re OK with a solid outline, ROI and budget that matches.  But you do have to make sure your business idea is a good one. You have to ask yourself if there are customers for your business.

What other advice do you have for entrepreneurs?

Use your network, and use your resources like the Chamber of Commerce.  We can help you reach out to people and find clients.  Also, get in touch with potential customers.  We see many entrepreneurs who are passionate about their product or service, but they haven’t taken the time to see if there is a market for it.  You need to be in touch with your customers and make sure you are focusing on their needs.

Finally, don’t open a small business because you only want to work 40 hours a week. When you open a company, you become the CEO, CFO and administrative assistant.  It should be something you enjoy doing, because with a new business, you work 70 hours a week, not 40.

For more information about how to start and run a business, visit NerdWallet’s Small Business Guide. For free, personalized answers to questions about starting and financing your business, visit the Small Business section of NerdWallet’s Ask an Advisor page. 

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How to Do Weekend Spending Right in San Francisco

When you’re young and living in San Francisco, you might be broke or you might be flush, but you’ll always seek weekend adventures. No matter the size of your wallet, there’s plenty to explore in the foggy city.

Whether you’re looking for rugged outdoors experiences, urban exploration or just love the nightlife, here are some weekend activities for every budget that won’t break the bank.

For the nature lover

The Bay Area is a gold mine for nature lovers. You can find wooded excursions, ocean views and countless opportunities for walking, hiking, biking and exploring right in San Francisco’s backyard.

Things to do for free:  $0

• Land’s End Trail for great views of the Golden Gate Bridge. While you’re there, check out the Camera Obscura and the old Sutro Baths.
• Fort Funston is a favorite hiking trail for local dog owners. It’s also one of the best places in the country for hang-gliding.
• Twin Peaks offers picture perfect 180-degree views of the Bay Area.
• Watch the surfers and have a legal bonfire at Ocean Beach.
• Explore tide pools and hike at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve.
• Picnic and enjoy the day in Dolores Park.
• See the buffalo roam at Golden Gate Park.
• Catch views of the Golden Gate Bridge — along with biking, walking, running and more — at Crissy Field, the opening to the Presidio.
• Watch the sea lions sunbathe at Pier 39.
• See the Mount Davidson Cross at the highest point in the city.

If you’re on a moderate budget: $10 to $30

• Walk the trails at the San Francisco Botanical Garden.
• Get a ticket for the ferry to Angel Island for a picnic and hiking.
• Shell out a few bucks for tolls and drive to nearby Rodeo Beach in the Marin Headlands and look for semi-precious stones. Or, go to Stinson Beach and search for sand dollars.
• Hit the trails at Muir Woods, just 20 minutes from the city, and feast your eyes upon ancient redwood trees.
• Sail San Francisco Bay.

When you can splurge: $50 or more

• Take a tour of wine country just north of San Francisco.
• See the city by helicopter.
• Charter a boat to sail around the bay.
• Kite the bay.

For the urban explorer

If you find yourself touring your own city on the weekends, you’re probably an urban explorer. From popular attractions to hidden gems, there’s plenty to experience in San Francisco if you know what you’re looking for.

Things to do for free: $0

• Go to the California Academy of Sciences on the free neighborhood weekends.
• Bike ride on Sundays in Golden Gate Park when the streets are closed to auto traffic.
• Get to the Mission and browse Clarion Alley between 17th and 18th streets off Valencia for its rotating street art.
• Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.

If you’re on a moderate budget: $10 to $30

• Climb to Coit Tower, check out the views then go down to Telegraph Hill and see the wild parrots.
• Visit Musee Mecanique at Fisherman’s Wharf for the free museum and old arcade games, which range from 1 cent to at $1 a pop.
• Wander around North Beach and check out the famed beat-generation hangout: City Lights Bookstore.
• Visit art museums throughout the city for less than $20 including the Legion of Honor Museum; De Young Museum; The Cartoon Art Museum; and Asian Art Museum.
• Thrift for treasure at flea markets around the Bay Area, but especially the Alemany Flea Market in Bernal Heights, open every Sunday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Wander the streets of Chinatown and grab some authentic dim sum.
• Shop at the farmers market at the Ferry Building.
• Sample food truck fare throughout the city.

When you can splurge: $50 or more

• Tour Alcatraz.
• Go to a Giants game.
• Catch jazz performances at the San Francisco Jazz Center.
• Get a yearly membership to museums or music centers throughout the city for insider events and free admission.
• Take a Segway tour through the city.

For the night owl

Night owls enjoy making the most of their nights then sleeping in until brunch. Luckily the city has a variety of clubs, bars, restaurants and evening events to fuel your nights on the weekends.

Things to do for free: $0

Look for cover-free nights:

• Blues music lovers should definitely check out The Saloon in North Beach: live music most nights and no cover charge; drinks are inexpensive, too.
• The Mint Karaoke Lounge has pretty much the biggest most awesome library of songs you could ever hope for. No cover, just a two-drink minimum on busy nights.

If you’re on a moderate budget: $10 to $30

• Hit up the all-ages DNA Lounge for the weekly Saturday late-night dance event, Bootie.
• Start your weekend early at the Academy of Sciences on Thursday evenings for its Nightlife event, or go to After Dark at the Exploratorium.
• Bar hop in the Mission. Check out El Rio, Elbow Room, Knockout Room, Make Out Room and more for small covers.
• Grab a seat at The Castro Theatre for movies, festivals and special events.

When you can splurge: $50 or more

• Go to Foreign Cinema to eat outside in the courtyard and watch old French films.
• Catch touring Broadway musicals, comedy, plays and concerts at the Curran, Golden Gate, Orpheum or Palace of Fine Arts theaters.
• Visit the San Francisco Opera.
• Hear the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Hall.

Anna Helhoski is a staff writer covering personal finance for NerdWallet. Follow her on Twitter @AnnaHelhoski and on Google+.

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Blue Bell Creameries Recalls All Products Due to Listeria Scare

Ice-cream maker Blue Bell Creameries has issued a recall of all of its products, citing possible listeria contamination.

The voluntary recall goes for all Blue Bell ice cream, frozen yogurt, sherbet and other frozen snacks.

“We’re committed to doing the 100 percent right thing, and the best way to do that is to take all of our products off the market until we can be confident that they are all safe,” said Paul Kruse, Blue Bell CEO and president, in a written statement. “We are heartbroken about this situation and apologize to all of our loyal Blue Bell fans and customers.

“Our entire history has been about making the very best and highest quality ice cream and we intend to fix this problem,” Kruse continued. “We want enjoying our ice cream to be a source of joy and pleasure, never a cause for concern, so we are committed to getting this right.”

The company, based in Brenham, Texas, said the problem was caught by its own sampling program. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough half-gallon containers produced on March 17 and March 27 were found to contain the bacteria. That was on top of previous findings on several dates at several different Blue Bell locations that had lead to partial recalls.

Five people in Kansas and three in Texas have been treated for listeria possibly related to eating Blue Bell products, the company said.

Listeria monocytogenes is an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy people may suffer short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headaches, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea.

Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.

Blue Bell says it is implementing a strategy called “test and hold.” All new batches of ice cream and other products will be tested after they are made and only released after tests show they are clear of listeria.

“At every step, we have made decisions in the best interest of our customers based on the evidence we had available at the time,” Kruse said. “At this point, we cannot say with certainty how Listeria was introduced to our facilities and so we have taken this unprecedented step. We continue to work with our team of experts to eliminate this problem.”

Anyone who has bought Blue Bell products my return them to the place of purchase for a refund. For more information, consumers may call 1-866-608-3940 or go to bluebell.com.

Doug Gross is a staff writer covering personal finance for NerdWallet. Follow him on Twitter @doug_gross and on Google+.

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Start-Ups Lenda, SoFi Reconfigure Mortgage Refinancing

Few money moves are as complicated as a mortgage refinancing. And even fewer are as important.

That’s why companies like Lenda and SoFi have come up with faster and cheaper ways for consumers to refinance their homes.

While a $300,000 refi using a traditional lender can drag on for months and typically cost 3% to 6% of the loan value, the average spent on a Lenda refi is about $800, according to the online-only operation’s website. Completing a refinancing can take just two to three weeks.

For borrowers like Kevin Wofsy, a San Francisco homeowner who turned to Lenda for his fifth refi in 13 years, the result was a more streamlined, enjoyable experience.

“It feels weird to say, but it was actually a pleasure to go through the process,” Wofsy says.

Accelerating the process

Over dinner with a friend who planned on refinancing a home loan later that week, Dan Macklin, a SoFi co-founder and its vice president of business development, suggested his pal needn’t wait. He urged him to try the SoFi site and apply on the spot.

“So he took out his phone, and literally within 60 seconds, received a rate,” Macklin says. He says his friend was amazed that SoFi had a loan at a rate that was 0.5 percentage point lower than what he was paying at the time.

Like Macklin’s friend, SoFi users can apply for loans using a desktop or mobile device to enter personal information and submit an application in as little as a minute. They are then presented with instant, individualized rate quotes.

The company uses a unique evaluation process that takes into consideration borrowers’ credit history, income, educational background and employment status. Highly qualified customers can borrow as much as 90% of a property’s value up to $5 million using SoFi.

SoFi is a marketplace lender, meaning it’s open to accredited investors, both on the individual and institutional level. However, SoFi self-funds the majority of its products, including student loan refinancing, personal loans and more. It’s the country’s largest provider of refinancing for education debt and has issued over $2 billion in all types of loans.

All-digital process lowers fees

Lenda, meanwhile, has digitized the entire refi process, enabling borrowers to compare loan options, apply and upload documents on its website. By bringing the entire experience online, the platform has sharply reduced its overhead. It doesn’t have to pay for physical branches or hire loan officers. These factors all contribute to lower fees for borrowers.

Lenda also provides the kind of around-the-clock access to its products that bricks-and-mortar lenders simply can’t offer, a huge plus for busy consumers.

“Imagine if you were a person who works the night shift, and you’re just on a different schedule,” says Jason van den Brand, Lenda’s co-founder and CEO. Most of these workers can’t exactly take a day off to apply for a loan.

What’s more, as complex as these platforms’ underlying technology may be, SoFi and Lenda both pride themselves on being easy to use.

“I’ll say it this way: If you’ve bought an airline ticket online, you can use Lenda to get a home loan,” van den Brand says.

For Wofsy, the San Francisco homeowner, using Lenda was a breeze compared with his earlier lenders.

“My previous experiences had made it seem like banks saw it as their job to find any reason to deny your application,” Wofsy says, adding that Lenda clearly laid out everything that was needed from him, leading to what he says was an “unbelievably smooth” refi.

Creating better alternatives

“Like finance in general, the mortgage space is a highly regulated industry and it’s hard for a newcomer to do things differently,” Macklin says.

But that hasn’t deterred him or van den Brand. And it hasn’t stopped a handful of other start-ups from tackling a mortgage industry that both entrepreneurs say is in desperate need of a tune-up.

A staunch supporter of other mortgage start-ups like SoFi, Expedite, and OnDeck, van den Brand says that he’s a “big fan of anyone who’s pushing the envelope for consumer behavior and who’s letting them know that there’s a better and faster way of doing tasks like loans.

“All these different models are better than what exists today,” van den Brand says. And what traditional lenders offer now may not be the status quo for much longer, he says.

“We can’t for one second think that in 20 years from now we’re going to be lugging paperwork down to the corner bank to get a home loan,” he says. “That’s just not going to happen. And that’s actually not going to happen in the next three years.”

Tony Armstrong is a staff writer covering personal finance for NerdWallet. Follow him on Twitter @tonystrongarm and on Google+.

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Roommates in San Francisco Can Boost Your Budget, Social Life

If you’ve just spent your college years shacked up with a bunch of roommates, it can be tempting to want to strike out on your own. Living alone means no messy roommates to clean up after, or loud music playing in the next room. There are some circumstances, though, that make it a good idea to share your housing costs and social life with roommates, especially as a college grad new to San Francisco.

What’s your budget?

Before you start the long and arduous apartment hunt, pick a firm maximum amount you’re willing to spend on rent. Take this opportunity to create a monthly budget, useful for any recent grad. Dig up your recent pay stubs and calculate how much money you take home after taxes each month, a figure known as your net pay (gross pay is the amount you make before Uncle Sam gets to it).

The financial experts here at NerdWallet recommend spending no more than 30% of your after-tax income on rent. If you bring home $3,000 a month, your maximum rental budget should be $900. The median price of a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco was $3,120 as of June 2014, according to Priceonomics. So if you can’t afford $3,120 for your own place, splitting rent with roommates is the right move for you.

How will you pay for other housing costs?

Don’t forget to include utilities like heat, electricity, cable TV and wi-fi in your rental budget. San Francisco consumers paid 60% more for electricity than the national average in February 2015, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so it’s worth considering splitting those costs with roommates. You should spring for individual renters insurance to protect your valuables, which will run you an additional $185 a year on average.

Moving into a new place also means buying furniture, decorations, kitchen accessories and cleaning supplies. Depending on your budget and how many of these items you already own, an apartment shopping spree could run you a few hundred dollars. Roommates will split these costs with you or might have stuff of their own to contribute.

Do you have friends in the area?

Even if you can afford to live on your own, living with roommates you get along with is a solid way to have a built-in friend network in a new city. You’ll have friendly faces to come home to after a long day of work and a crew to go out with on the weekends. Living in a studio or a one-bedroom in San Francisco could feel isolating without a big community around you, especially if you’re a social butterfly.

Put a call out on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see if any friends or friends-of-friends are moving to San Francisco, too. San Francisco is a popular city for recent graduates to live and work in — it even made it high on NerdWallet’s list of best cities for college grads. So it’s likely some of your friends from college might end up there. If not, roommates can fill the void.

Will you feel safe in the neighborhood?

Sometimes working within a tight budget means sacrificing the chance to live in a chic neighborhood. If you’re looking at apartments in areas that might be less safe, living with roommates is smart so you have friends to walk around the neighborhood with at night. Trulia’s San Francisco crime map includes regularly updated information on thefts, assaults and other crimes by neighborhood. Consider living with roommates for safety reasons if areas with higher crime rates are on your shortlist.

Going the roommate route in San Francisco? These resources can get you started.

• Roomidex: This new service, available only in San Francisco and New York City, links with your Facebook profile and connects you with people in your social network who are also looking for a roommate.
• Flatmate Meetup SF: This Meetup group plans events, usually at a local bar, for people in San Francisco to meet others looking for roommates. It’s a great way for you to scope out potential roommates in real life, rather than through online services. Check the website regularly for updates on upcoming events.
• Alumni networks: Get in touch with your college’s alumni coordinator and see if there are any listservs or housing boards you can post on. Chances are there’s someone from your alma mater who has an open room or who also needs a roommate in San Francisco.

Brianna McGurran is a staff writer covering education and life after college for NerdWallet. Follow her on Twitter.

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Short-Term Saving Tips for Summer Vacation

With summer drawing closer, your vacation may arrive before you’ve got the money to pay for it. But there are some quick changes you can make now to save or raise money for your trip. Consider these tips:

Open a designated savings account

After estimating the overall cost of your vacation, set up a savings account just for the trip. This will help separate that money from your regular savings and make it easier to track progress toward your goal.

Contribute weekly

Look at last month’s account statements from your financial institution to see what you spend in a given week. Then determine how much you can contribute to your vacation fund each week. Making it weekly instead of monthly will make this more of a priority in your life.

Track spending with a budgeting app

To pinpoint what’s going out of your account, let a budgeting app be your guide. Many popular apps let you categorize transactions and see overviews of your daily spending in a few taps or clicks.

Create an automatic savings plan

If you still find it difficult to save regularly, set up an automatic transfer from your checking balance to a savings account. This way you can allocate a percentage of your income and remove the temptation to spend money that should be going into vacation savings.

Reduce leisure spending

If vacation is the time to splurge, make the weeks before you go more restrained in your lifestyle. Minimize your trips to coffee shops, restaurants and movie theaters. Instead, brew your own coffee, cook more meals and watch films in your living room.

Get a side job

If you find yourself with extra time in your week, consider taking on a part-time job. See if you can watch any neighbors’ pets or homes while they’re away, or baby-sit. If you’re an avid writer or an academic, look into freelance writing or tutoring. Even a few hours of paid work a week can add up.

Sell unwanted belongings

To raise money more quickly than through a job, go through your home and collect anything you don’t need, from old books to furniture. Then sell your stuff online or in a yard sale.

Preparing for your summer vacation with these seven tactics can help ease the stress of funding all your travel expenses. This way you can stay in control of your finances and have no financial baggage when you return.

 

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