My First Class

I went to class all day yesterday at the Small Business Administration. They have four workshops, one a week for the next three weeks, and it is put on by the group called SCORE. This is the same group who also offers the free counseling. The class yesterday had three components: first they talked about general things in starting a business, second one gentleman talked about financial statements, and third a woman from the denver public library. I found the class extremely insightful and definitely took alot from it; I am excited for the next three weeks. One of the big things they talked about was creating a business plan, I have read some examples and they are very thorouhg, very in depth and 20-30 pages long. This is one thing that I will be working on, it is similar to a road map of your business and they say you should always be referring to it as you run your business. I also learned the Denver Public Library has amazing resources for people starting businesses. They have lists of every business in just about every field in the United States, 13 million small businesses to be exact, they also have detailed information about consumers and their spending habits. For example there are 190,000 households in Denver that are 18-34 year old singles. This is all information that is important when determining who your customers are and what they spend their money on.

There were about 20 people in this class, all different ages and all with different business ideas. Some good, some interesting, some maybe more difficult to start. There were three people who wanted to start hypnotherapy and accupuncture clinics, this must be getting more popular. There were also more women than men in the class, which I thought was great. It was cool to see so many people who were passionate about starting a business and who had so many great ideas. A few of the people had already been in business for a few years and some had started more than one business, smart dedicated and driven people, hopefully I can match them.

Fitzy in Great Basin National Park