Launching a Business in Columbus

Tim Fulton 0:12Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. In the few short months that we've been doing the Confluence Cast, we've done a couple of episodes where we've talked about what it's like to run your own business and to be an entrepreneur. But what if you're just getting started? This week, we sat down with ECDI, the Economic and Community Development Institute, to find out how to get your business going. First up this week, I spoke with ECDI founder and CEO, Ina Kinney, about the phases of entrepreneurship, what ECDI has to offer, and why they see a need for their services in the community. Then we delve a little deeper into the financing options that ECDI has available with their president and general counsel, Steve Fireman. You can get more information on what we discussed today, along with links to past business-centric episodes in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Enjoy the interviews. Sitting down here with Ina Kinney, founder and chief executive officer of ECDI. Ina, how are you?

Inna Kinney 1:31I'm well, thank you, Tim.

Tim Fulton 1:33Y-

Inna Kinney 1:33Thank you for having us here today.

Tim Fulton 1:35Oh, thank you for having me. Ina, tell us what, for those that don't know, what is ECDI?

Inna Kinney 1:40ECDI is a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs-

Tim Fulton 1:44Okay

Inna Kinney 1:44... who are starting or expanding their businesses. We provide myriad of services that we can talk to throughout this, uh, podcast.

Tim Fulton 1:52Great. And what does ECDI stand for again?

Inna Kinney 1:54ECDI stands for Economic and Community Development Institute.

Tim Fulton 1:59Excellent. And you got it going back in 2002. Is that right? Or '92?

Inna Kinney 2:04Um, no. ECDI officially was started in July of 2004.

Tim Fulton 2:09That's very recent. Only 12 years.

Inna Kinney 2:11Only 12 years.

Tim Fulton 2:12Uh, how's it been?

Inna Kinney 2:13Uh, it's been a journey. It's been, you know, as the life of an entrepreneur, it's never, you know, it never not busy. It's always something. But, you know, that's what we teach people. You know, a life of an entrepreneur is something, it's a journey, and, um, we've gone through a journey ourselves. You know, positive. Uh, there's certainly a need out there for individuals to have access to resources, and that's where ECDI comes in.

Tim Fulton 2:38Absolutely. And you guys are a statewide small business administration lender. We will talk with your associate, Steve Fireman, later on in this episode about that. So that's the investment portion of it, right? You guys-

Inna Kinney 2:51That's correct. ECDI has three buckets, if you will, for our one-stop shop, uh, strategy, which is invest, educate, and innovate.

Tim Fulton 3:01Okay.

Inna Kinney 3:01And you are correct, we're a statewide, uh, organization. Uh, our headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio. It's 1655 Old Leonard Avenue, so please come and see us.

Tim Fulton 3:11Mm-hmm.

Inna Kinney 3:12Had to do a little plug, right?

Tim Fulton 3:13Indeed.

Inna Kinney 3:14Um, and we cover all 88 counties in Ohio. Uh, we have offices, like I said, in Columbus. Uh, we also have an office in Cleveland. We have an office in Akron, and then we have satellite offices in Cincinnati and Toledo.

Tim Fulton 3:29Can I ask what the... I tend to sometimes get into the weeds a little bit.

Inna Kinney 3:33Sure.

Tim Fulton 3:33But what's total operating budget?

Inna Kinney 3:35It's about eight and a half, $9 million-

Tim Fulton 3:37Okay

Inna Kinney 3:37... annually.

Tim Fulton 3:38Okay.

Inna Kinney 3:38So yeah, we're a pretty substantial organization. You know, we have roughly 60 staff on, uh, at ECDI throughout all of our, you know, footprint. And, you know, we provide intense services, and it takes a lot of manpower and a lot of resources to do so.

Tim Fulton 3:53Talk about, if you could, some of the classes that ECDI offers.

Inna Kinney 3:58Well, we offer classes for what we call a pre-entrepreneur. So we really look at individuals for, in three categories. You know, somebody that is, has that spark, that idea, but then necessarily idea is not vetted.

Tim Fulton 4:12Okay.

Inna Kinney 4:12So that's would be our, you know, phase one client, if you will. Our phase two client is somebody that is, again, has that idea, may have a business plan that needs refinement, but is still in a pre-funding stage, if you will.

Tim Fulton 4:26Okay.

Inna Kinney 4:26And then our phase three client is somebody that already has a business and needs that business to grow or hire additional individuals or to work on specific issues that businesses encounter daily.

Tim Fulton 4:39Okay.

Inna Kinney 4:39So our classes really address all three of those buckets, if you will, and so it's very dynamic. Uh, one month we may have a class that focuses specifically on an entrepreneur that, with a, just an idea.

Tim Fulton 4:53Okay.

Inna Kinney 4:54Next month we will have a class that focuses on that phase three entrepreneur. And then, of course, you know, we do client surveys on a regular basis to see what type of needs they have. So we also focus on the entrepreneurs that already have loans with us, and those might be workshops or seminars. So our training is very comprehensive. It starts, like I said, it starts out with that idea, and then it goes on to provide, you know, really clear Type of trainings and services to individuals that already have businesses.

Tim Fulton 5:26And you do have sort of introductory sessions every two weeks where-

Inna Kinney 5:30That is correct. We have our introductions to ECDI every two weeks, um, on, at noon and at 6:00, I believe, and, uh, that really gives an opportunity to individuals who are not familiar with ECDI to come in and, you know, find out about what we do and how we can help them in, within their journey.

Tim Fulton 5:48And are the classes and the loan, the possibility of the loan, are those linked at all?

Inna Kinney 5:53Yes and no.

Tim Fulton 5:54Okay.

Inna Kinney 5:55For those individuals that do not have a business, that is very much, uh, required that they do take a class, because it's very important to have a class or to have that education in a pre-loan setting so an individual has a better chance of success. We know that two out of three businesses fail, obviously.

Tim Fulton 6:15Right.

Inna Kinney 6:15So we wanna give, um, our clients the best opportunity to succeed, so having a business plan, having financials, having projections is very critical.

Tim Fulton 6:24Okay. I think maybe the best way to demonstrate sort of what ECDI is and what you do is to sort of walk through a success story. If you have an example of somebody that came in maybe at phase two even, took some classes, got themselves sort of lined up, straightened up, they received a loan, and now they're a flourishing business.

Inna Kinney 6:45Sure. We, I mean, we served over 6,000 people in the last 12 years, so there's a lot of success stories. I, I'll use a couple of examples. Josephine Talley came to ECDI about 10 years ago. She had an idea. She had an idea to serve individuals through a home healthcare business.

Tim Fulton 7:06Okay.

Inna Kinney 7:06Did not really have an, a, a understanding how that business would run, but saw a need within the community. And, you know, went through our training and received a number of loans through us, and now she has over 100 people that work for her.

Tim Fulton 7:21That's fantastic.

Inna Kinney 7:22Yeah, so in fact, she received multiple loans. You know, sometimes there's cash flow is- situations, you know, she's not getting paid by her providers through Medicare, so she'll come to us and say, "Hey, you know what? I need a little bit of cash flow right now."

Tim Fulton 7:34Just so that she can make payroll.

Inna Kinney 7:35Exactly.

Tim Fulton 7:36Right.

Inna Kinney 7:36I mean, businesses are very, you know... They go through journeys. Like, I always w- use the word journey, you know? You don't know what it's gonna happen tomorrow, and ECDI's really that place that you can come to, that we can help you, whether it's, again, through training, that technical assistance, or access to capital.

Tim Fulton 7:53And is home healthcare one of the specialties of ECDI?

Inna Kinney 7:56Um, you know what? We, we focus on really, like, five lines, if you will.

Tim Fulton 8:00Okay.

Inna Kinney 8:00I mean, if you look at... These are all main street businesses. You know, trucking is one of them, food-based business is another, home healthcare, and just, you know, business to business. I mean, that's what we do. You know, doctors, attorneys, you know, beauty shops, restaurants, um-

Tim Fulton 8:14And when you talk about trucking, are you talking about, like, owner-operators? Are you talking about people that, like, "Hey, I wanna start a logistics business"?

Inna Kinney 8:20Both.

Tim Fulton 8:21Okay.

Inna Kinney 8:21Both.

Tim Fulton 8:22Wow.

Inna Kinney 8:22Yeah, very much so, especially for those individuals that are coming from other countries, you know?

Tim Fulton 8:27Okay.

Inna Kinney 8:28And that's a good way for them to get into a business, so it's owner/operator, it's logistics, it's all over the place.

Tim Fulton 8:34And my questions are about to start to be all over the place. So logistics and trucking, how did you become aligned with that specifically?

Inna Kinney 8:42Again, I think it's the needs of the community. You know?

Tim Fulton 8:45Okay.

Inna Kinney 8:45We don't go out there and say we focus on these lines of business. I think it's-

Tim Fulton 8:48But they just happen to be-

Inna Kinney 8:50That's exactly it. You know, you wanna meet people where they're at.

Tim Fulton 8:53Right.

Inna Kinney 8:53I mean, like, for instance, like daycare, home healthcare, trucking, food, those are all businesses that banks kinda shy away from.

Tim Fulton 9:01Okay.

Inna Kinney 9:02And so that naturally becomes-

Tim Fulton 9:04Why do you think that is?

Inna Kinney 9:05Uh, high risk.

Tim Fulton 9:06Okay.

Inna Kinney 9:06Yeah. And that naturally becomes an area where we start specializing in because, you know, those businesses are still getting, being started, and there's certainly a demand for those type of businesses, especially with, when it comes to home healthcare. Look at our, you know, the generations. You know, people are g- aging.

Tim Fulton 9:22Absolutely.

Inna Kinney 9:23And, you know, somebody needs to take care of them, so you know, we... One of the things that we also do as part of our training is we do look at different business sectors that are hot at, at any point-

Tim Fulton 9:34Okay

Inna Kinney 9:34... and try to steer individuals in those directions.

Tim Fulton 9:36So literally someone could come in the door and say, "These are the things I'm passionate about. These are the com-," even-

Inna Kinney 9:42These are the skillsets that I might have-

Tim Fulton 9:44Right

Inna Kinney 9:44... or how do you take those skillsets and translate them to what is real today?

Tim Fulton 9:49Well, or may, and do you think you guys would be able to say to someone, "Here's what we think a business that you could start could be"?

Inna Kinney 9:55We do do that. Again, we need to see that.

Tim Fulton 9:57'Cause that's a phase one, right?

Inna Kinney 9:58That is a phase one. Yeah, I mean, you know what? You know, the best story is the story where somebody comes in and they have not a clue, or they might have 20 different ideas, you know?

Tim Fulton 10:06Right.

Inna Kinney 10:07And then we try to direct them, like you said, in a w- in a, in a sp- place that's gonna make sense for them.

Tim Fulton 10:13So we talked a little bit about the industries, and we're gonna circle back on the food for here in a bit. Are there populations you feel that you're serving more than others? I know Steve's gonna talk to me a little bit about the unbanked-

Inna Kinney 10:25Correct

Tim Fulton 10:25... uh, because they don't tend to have access to traditional capital.

Inna Kinney 10:30Right. We like to say unbanked and underbanked, you know?

Tim Fulton 10:32Okay.

Inna Kinney 10:32Those are two separate type of, you know, really cohorts for us. Um, you know, underbanked could be somebody that comes from another country.

Tim Fulton 10:39Okay.

Inna Kinney 10:40You know, they don't have a credit.

Tim Fulton 10:41Right.

Inna Kinney 10:41Doesn't mean that they have bad credit, just don't have credit, you know? So they're trying to establish themselves United States, especially for people that are coming in from, you know, w- we, we would say, you know, Africa or the war-torn countries, you know, uh, Middle East. You know, these people-

Tim Fulton 10:54These are refugees, to an extent.

Inna Kinney 10:55These are refugees, exactly, and we serve, you know, quite a b- about 30% of our clients are what you would call refugees or immigrants.

Tim Fulton 11:0230%?

Inna Kinney 11:03Oh, yeah.

Tim Fulton 11:04Okay.

Inna Kinney 11:04Yeah. I mean, and there, there's a huge need there for, uh, for, for that, you know, in that space. Um, these people are well-educated. They have, you know, entrepreneurial spirit, 'cause you know to leave the country of origin is very hard in itself. You know-

Tim Fulton 11:18Absolutely

Inna Kinney 11:18... you don't bring much with you. You know, it's yourself and, you know, your family.And you're trying to make a life for your family.

Tim Fulton 11:24Right.

Inna Kinney 11:24So are you gonna go work at a Odd Lots, you know, making $8 an hour, or you gonna try to start something for yourself? And so when we see the new populations, you know, again, we could talk about Iraqis or Syrians, we could talk about Somalis, we could talk about, you know, folks from the former Soviet Union, you know, I think ECDI's always had a hand in establishing those businesses from those populations because, you know, as they come to United States, to Columbus, Ohio, uh, they're trying to not only establish themselves, but they're also trying to serve their own communities.

Tim Fulton 11:56Right. Absolutely.

Inna Kinney 11:57So it's a, it's a good, uh, you know, holistic approach for us to help start a business that's gonna at the end of the day not only serve their community, but also hopefully expand and serve everybody.

Tim Fulton 12:07Absolutely. Talk about the services that you offer for food-based businesses.

Inna Kinney 12:12Well, you know, we've always seen, uh, food-based businesses as the lifeblood of our economy.

Tim Fulton 12:19Okay.

Inna Kinney 12:19Um-

Tim Fulton 12:20Everybody's gotta eat

Inna Kinney 12:21... everybody's gotta eat, and there's a lot of people. You know, I mean, we've seen resurgence of, you know, great restaurants. We've seen America really start focusing on, you know, healthy food, good food. I mean, look at Columbus over the last 10 years. Look at all these great restaurants. And I tell you, ECDI's had a huge play in starting up a lot of local restaurants, you know, like, uh-

Tim Fulton 12:43You wanna drop a couple names for me?

Inna Kinney 12:45Well, uh, yeah. Well, Chris Krater, you know, the Harvest Pizza, The Sycamore-

Tim Fulton 12:49Mm-hmm

Inna Kinney 12:49... and, uh, you know, we financed pretty much all of his businesses to date. And, you know, you might think that, you know, a lot of our businesses that we've started that are successful, you know, they're bankable, but they still come to us.

Tim Fulton 13:00Right.

Inna Kinney 13:00And they come to us for a reason. You know, it's, uh, it's not about the interest rate, it's not about what banks offer, what we offer. What it is, is it's about the home touch, you know?

Tim Fulton 13:09Okay.

Inna Kinney 13:09We touch our businesses. We, we are on a journey with them. And it... like I said earlier, banks are not lending money to restaurants. You, you know, banks are more focused on, you know, paying dividends to their shareholders. They're for-profit businesses. So are they gonna fund a risky business? Probably not, right?

Tim Fulton 13:26Right. Absolutely.

Inna Kinney 13:27So Chris Krater's been with us for many, many years. We have so many restaurants and so many caterers, food-based businesses that are mobile, you know. I think we started the whole movement in Columbus with our Food Fort, which is our, uh-

Tim Fulton 13:41Absolutely

Inna Kinney 13:41... commercial kitchen and our commissary for food, uh, based clients. Uh-

Tim Fulton 13:46And when did the commissary get going?

Inna Kinney 13:48The commissary started, I believe, in 2008.

Tim Fulton 13:52Okay, so quickly.

Inna Kinney 13:53Oh, yeah.

Tim Fulton 13:53Yeah.

Inna Kinney 13:53Yeah. Well, I've always seen food businesses as the lifeblood of our economy. And so, you know, early on when we- I started ECDI, yeah, I knew that we needed to focus on that economy and make sure that those businesses succeeded. Look, if you look at a entrepreneur who wants to s- to open up a restaurant, I mean, that's a huge undertaking, right? And who knows if it's gonna be successful?

Tim Fulton 14:18Yeah.

Inna Kinney 14:18I mean, two out of three restaurants fail. That's a reality.

Tim Fulton 14:20Yeah.

Inna Kinney 14:21So why not have them come to ECDI, use our kitchen, perfect their recipes, perfect their strategy, uh, rent a food cart from us-

Tim Fulton 14:31Right

Inna Kinney 14:31... which we have food carts for rental.

Tim Fulton 14:33Okay.

Inna Kinney 14:33Try out their, you know, food.

Tim Fulton 14:35Take it to the street.

Inna Kinney 14:36Take it to the street, see if it's successful. Then get into a food truck. And by the way, ECDI has a membership model where we have food trucks that are using our facility. We have warehouses on our site-

Tim Fulton 14:49Right

Inna Kinney 14:50... that, you know, one has a kitchen, another one has storage, you know. It, there's a commissary, and then we have a parking lot full of food trucks that we offer, you know, electricity to, that we offer a lot of different services to. We even, uh, book their gigs.

Tim Fulton 15:04Right.

Inna Kinney 15:04So it's a place to come to, right? For somebody that's a caterer, the same thing, you know. To have a commercial facility accessible to you that's, you know, $1 million facility as opposed to, you know, do, make something out of your kitchen, which you can't really do-

Tim Fulton 15:19Right

Inna Kinney 15:19... and sell your product. So I, I think the food-based, the strategies that we offer to entrepreneurs are, you know, bar none best in the country, I think.

Tim Fulton 15:28How did you have the vision to start ECDI?

Inna Kinney 15:31Well, it's one of those things that, you know what, sit at home one day being bored and say, "What can I do to help our community?" I'm just kidding.

Tim Fulton 15:38Is that true?

Inna Kinney 15:38No, no. No, it's, it's been a journey. You know, my family came to United States from the former Soviet Union-

Tim Fulton 15:46Okay

Inna Kinney 15:46... in 1974, so I was a, you know, I experienced that entrepreneurial spirit from the time I came to United States. My, uh, family was the first family resettled in Columbus from former Soviet Union.

Tim Fulton 16:00Okay.

Inna Kinney 16:00So, and my, my f- parents always wanted to have their own businesses. So I think the journey started from seeing my parents start businesses. Some failed, some worked.

Tim Fulton 16:10Okay.

Inna Kinney 16:11But, you know, always looking at it from an inside out thinking, "Well, what could have happened in order for them to have had better experience in starting their business?"

Tim Fulton 16:20Right, better success.

Inna Kinney 16:21Exactly. Um, you know, I don't think it matters whether you're coming from another country or you're American-born person. Even for those that go to college and get a degree in business, guess what? It doesn't teach you entrepreneurship.

Tim Fulton 16:32Right.

Inna Kinney 16:32It's one of those things that's gotta be very specific to the individual. And, you know, one of the reasons why I started ECDI is to give resources to those that wanted to start businesses. We started out doing training.

Tim Fulton 16:44Okay.

Inna Kinney 16:44Always felt that training was the key component of making your business successful. You know, again, having a business plan, having an operations plan, really understanding what it's gonna take. And you gotta follow it. You know, you gotta operationalize it, and you gotta look at it monthly to see are you on the schedule to make your success or not.

Tim Fulton 17:02Right. And so what's your professional background before ECDI?

Inna Kinney 17:06I was at IBM.

Tim Fulton 17:07Okay.

Inna Kinney 17:08Well, so what happened is, went to Bexley.

Tim Fulton 17:10Uh-huh.

Inna Kinney 17:11Bex- Bexley High School. I graduated at 16. I went to college, went to Ohio State University, and then moved to Chicago and s- you know, started working.

Tim Fulton 17:20Okay.

Inna Kinney 17:20And, um, in 198-'88 with two little kids, my husband and I moved back to Columbus, and my husband went into business with my father.

Tim Fulton 17:29Okay.

Inna Kinney 17:29Then, you know, the businesses are very successful 30 years later.

Tim Fulton 17:33Uh-huh.

Inna Kinney 17:33I was at a- staying at home with my two little kids.

Tim Fulton 17:36Oh, okay.

Inna Kinney 17:36And so I decided, you know, for those of people that know me, I can't stay still.

Tim Fulton 17:41Mm-hmm.

Inna Kinney 17:41So I decided to start volunteering, and I started volunteering at an organization called Jewish Family Services-

Tim Fulton 17:47Okay

Inna Kinney 17:48... which was a nonprofit that resettled us back in 1974 when we came from the former Soviet Union. So here's a little plug for Jewish Family Services.

Tim Fulton 17:57Yeah.

Inna Kinney 17:57At that time, there was a third wave of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, highly educated, and I-

Tim Fulton 18:02This is late '80s, early '90s, or?

Inna Kinney 18:04This is late '80s, early '90s.

Tim Fulton 18:06Okay.

Inna Kinney 18:06Third wave of immigrants.

Tim Fulton 18:07Right.

Inna Kinney 18:07Third and final wave, I was, actually, 'cause this is around the time that, you know, Russia kinda took down their, you know, communist approach, you know, perestroika and everything.

Tim Fulton 18:16Right.

Inna Kinney 18:17So the immigrants were coming to Columbus, Ohio, same issues as when we came to United States in the early '70s, you know? Wanna start my own business. This is the land of opportunity. You know, we stand for capitalism, but how do you really make capitalism work for those individuals-

Tim Fulton 18:31Right

Inna Kinney 18:31... that are not familiar with it, right? So idea was born to start a program at Jewish Family Services, microenterprise. What is microenterprise? Microenterprise is a business with five or less employees of capitalization of fifty thousand or less.

Tim Fulton 18:45Okay.

Inna Kinney 18:46So I started that at Jewish Family Services, and then it morphed into ECDI in 2004.

Tim Fulton 18:51I see.

Inna Kinney 18:52So that's the story.

Tim Fulton 18:53Okay.

Inna Kinney 18:53The story is help everybody make their dreams a reality, whether they're foreign-born, whether they're American-born. Wherever they are in their journey, we'll meet them. We serve everybody.

Tim Fulton 19:03Right, and all types-

Inna Kinney 19:04We help-

Tim Fulton 19:04... of businesses as well.

Inna Kinney 19:05We help everybody. You could be a immigrant. You can be an American-born. You could be, you know, public assistance. You could be-

Tim Fulton 19:13Well, and any type-

Inna Kinney 19:13... you know, well-established business

Tim Fulton 19:15... any-

Inna Kinney 19:15We're here for you.

Tim Fulton 19:16And any type of business as well.

Inna Kinney 19:17And any type of business, that's right.

Tim Fulton 19:19What are the initiatives that you're working on right now?

Inna Kinney 19:22Well, there's a lot. I mean-

Tim Fulton 19:23Okay

Inna Kinney 19:23... you know, we're always, you know, to be an en- to teach somebody how to be an entrepreneur, you have to be an entrepreneur yourself. You know what?

Tim Fulton 19:29Absolutely.

Inna Kinney 19:29We're a nonprofit, but we, you know, really are at a place right now, there's a lot of opportunities, and so we wanna enhance those for our clients. We have had two new projects in the last couple of years. One is our Women's Business Centers.

Tim Fulton 19:43Mm-hmm.

Inna Kinney 19:44ECDI's the only Women's Business Center s- through s- small business, US Small Business Administration. We have one in Columbus, and we have one in Cleveland.

Tim Fulton 19:53Okay.

Inna Kinney 19:53We focus on women entrepreneurs, you know, taking them, again, through their journey because we know women have different needs than men. There's a professional advisory network. There's a resource center. There's a resource library. Most of-

Tim Fulton 20:06There's a co-working space.

Inna Kinney 20:08Co-working space, but most, more importantly, women are, you know, w- women who come in here, we help them through, again, the life of their journey. They need a loan, we're there. They need training, we're there. They need access to our food-based and, you know, warehouses, we're there. So we're there throughout the life of their journey. And of course, uh, the co-working space is very important. We like to call that our Warehouse One. We have three warehouses. I think I mentioned that earlier.

Tim Fulton 20:33Okay.

Inna Kinney 20:33Our newest warehouse that we converted into co-working space is a place for b- businesses, you know, in a startup stage where they can come in and use the space to get their business up and going.

Tim Fulton 20:44And that is a true, that is a more traditional co-working space than... Like the Food Fort is technically a co-working space.

Inna Kinney 20:51But it's focused on food-based businesses, where this is for general business, for anybody. And frankly, we have some Food Fort members that need, you know, desk space-

Tim Fulton 20:59Right

Inna Kinney 20:59... to run their business out of.

Tim Fulton 21:00But it's, but to be clear, it has desks and phones and c- a copy machine and-

Inna Kinney 21:06It's got everything you need-

Tim Fulton 21:07Okay

Inna Kinney 21:07... in order to make your business a reality, plus access to training, obviously.

Tim Fulton 21:10What are the costs on that for the user?

Inna Kinney 21:13Uh, you know, it, it depends upon a user. So I think, you know, uh, please reach out to ECDI at 614-559-0115 or go onto our website, ecdi.org-

Tim Fulton 21:25Right

Inna Kinney 21:25... to get more information about our training, our lending, and our co-working space.

Tim Fulton 21:30Great.

Inna Kinney 21:31Some of the newer projects that we're working on, you know what, our, the demand for our food-based services has, uh, has really increased over the last, you know, four or five years.

Tim Fulton 21:43Okay.

Inna Kinney 21:43We currently have, I believe, 17 or 18 food trucks that use our facility, our outdoor parking, and they, you know, hook up to our generators. They get, uh, propane from us. You know, again, we're trying to create income for the organization as well. So we own a lot across the street, so we're expanding our Food Fort, and we're gonna build another commissary, if you will, so we could house additional food trucks. Uh-

Tim Fulton 22:10Do you have a timeline for that?

Inna Kinney 22:11Uh, well, should be up and operational, God willing, everything, you know, with groundbreaking and everything, early summer.

Tim Fulton 22:18Okay.

Inna Kinney 22:18The other thing that we're looking at is to do bigger loans. Right now, we go up to $350,000. We know that there's a demand for more established businesses to get additional capital-

Tim Fulton 22:29Yeah

Inna Kinney 22:29... more than 350. We're looking at that as well. We're also looking at sector-specific lending, starting a, well, loan fund, uh, for minority contractors-

Tim Fulton 22:39Okay

Inna Kinney 22:39... because we know that space is very much... There's a need for-

Tim Fulton 22:43Mm-hmm

Inna Kinney 22:43... different type of loan products, like lines of credit for contractors, you know, that are trying to get into a business but get stymied because their generals might not be paying them on time.

Tim Fulton 22:54Right. Well, and that's a space that you guys aren't in a whole lot right now, right?

Inna Kinney 22:58Well, we do have home repair contracts that we currently run out of ECDI.

Tim Fulton 23:02Okay.

Inna Kinney 23:02It's called our Home Repair Program, where we help entrepr- not only our clients, but also senior citizens and disabled to stay in their homes-

Tim Fulton 23:10Okay

Inna Kinney 23:11... by doing minor home repairs. So it's, uh, you know, it's one of those double, uh, whammy type of things for the organization.

Tim Fulton 23:18Right.

Inna Kinney 23:18A, we help our clients, and B, we help senior citizenscitizens and disabled.

Tim Fulton 23:23That's great.

Inna Kinney 23:23So we, it's a true social enterprise for us.

Tim Fulton 23:26That's great.

Inna Kinney 23:27The essence of ECDI, come and see us.

Tim Fulton 23:29Mm-hmm.

Inna Kinney 23:30If you wanna start or expand a business, we're the place to go.

Tim Fulton 23:33Fantastic.

Inna Kinney 23:34And also, I might wanna do a little plug. You know, it takes a lot of money to run this business. For those of you that wanna support local entrepreneurs, call us, come and see us, volunteer.

Tim Fulton 23:44Always happy to take a donation or-

Inna Kinney 23:46Donation, volunteers. We're always looking for volunteers. You know, what a great place to be, you know, to invest local, to support local. That's the other thing I haven't talked about-

Tim Fulton 23:56Okay

Inna Kinney 23:56... is our investment strategy. So Invest Local Ohio is a great, great avenue for those individuals that wanna invest money in their local businesses, local economy. Don't put your money on a Wall Street. Invest in ECDI. It's a $1,000 a minimum. Uh-

Tim Fulton 24:13Okay

Inna Kinney 24:13... it's an investment.

Tim Fulton 24:14Tell me about sort of what the structure of, for an investor f-

Inna Kinney 24:17I-

Tim Fulton 24:17... of Invest Local Ohio.

Inna Kinney 24:19So the way it works is for a, uh, investment of a minimum, it's $1,000.

Tim Fulton 24:25Okay.

Inna Kinney 24:25We did a security filing with the State of Ohio for a million dollar, um, in-

Tim Fulton 24:30Fund

Inna Kinney 24:30... fund. Exactly.

Tim Fulton 24:32Okay.

Inna Kinney 24:32And that was a number of years ago. I think we're pretty much the e- tail end of that, and then we're, we're gonna be doing another fund.

Tim Fulton 24:38And to be clear, these are funds that you're taking and then loaning out. This is-

Inna Kinney 24:42That's right. We're leveraging those dollars for... The investments from individuals, we're leveraging them at least three to one with other loan funds.

Tim Fulton 24:50Okay.

Inna Kinney 24:50So, and it's going all to local businesses, but we also recognize that people wanna, you know, get back the money, right?

Tim Fulton 24:58Right.

Inna Kinney 24:58So we are on a three-year note, 2% return to an investor.

Tim Fulton 25:03Mm-hmm.

Inna Kinney 25:03On a five-year note, it's a 3% return to an investor. You know, for those of you that have your money sitting at a bank earning, what, 00.11%?

Tim Fulton 25:11Right.

Inna Kinney 25:12This is a better investment. Not only are you getting a bi- bigger return, but also you're putting money right into your local cities, your local counties, your local state, as opposed to putting it back on Wall Street.

Tim Fulton 25:25And while most if not all of the funding that you guys are doing right now is in the form of loans, you have done some, like, actual capital investment in small businesses in the past.

Inna Kinney 25:35We have. Yeah, we've taken equity investments in some of our businesses over the years.

Tim Fulton 25:39Is that something you're interested in pursuing more, or-

Inna Kinney 25:41We are. We are. You know, we have to be... You know, w- we wanna make sure the businesses that we do capitalize-

Tim Fulton 25:48Yeah

Inna Kinney 25:48... through our, uh, equity investment strategy meet certain criteria. We'd like them to create jobs, obviously.

Tim Fulton 25:56Right.

Inna Kinney 25:56We w- would like to see them maybe be s- you know, focused on social enterprise to giving back.

Tim Fulton 26:01Right.

Inna Kinney 26:01So there's certain criteria, but definitely this is an avenue that we're trying to explore more and more.

Tim Fulton 26:06Yeah, and obviously you guys have an obligation to see a return on that investment as well.

Inna Kinney 26:10Absolutely. Right. I mean, you know, everybody talks about sustainability, you know, why we teach business has to be sustainable. You know, even though we're a nonprofit, we wanna be more and more sustainable.

Tim Fulton 26:20Absolutely.

Inna Kinney 26:20And so that creates a different a- type of an approach for us. And, you know, certainly social enterprise is something that we truly believe in, 'cause frankly, we are a social enterprise ourselves. So we wanna invest our money also in social enterprise that are gonna give back to a community as well.

Tim Fulton 26:35Great. Inna, thanks s- you so much for your time.

Inna Kinney 26:37Thank you. I really appreciate it. And again, please come and see s- us, and, uh, let us help make your dreams a reality.

Tim Fulton 26:44Absolutely. Thanks.

Inna Kinney 26:45All right.

Tim Fulton 26:48The Confluence Cast is sponsored by ECDI, a one-stop shop for small businesses. They are located in the Near East Side of Columbus. The goal of ECDI is to assist in the establishment or expansion of small businesses by combining training and technical assistance with access to capital. Info and training opportunities are available at ecdi.net. Sitting down here with Steve Fireman, the president and general counsel for ECDI. We're gonna talk about the financing and the capital that ECDI is able to provide to... Do you refer to them as clients?

Steve Fireman 27:28Yeah, they're clients. Clients and members.

Tim Fulton 27:30Okay. First of all, talk about the loan options that are available through ECDI.

Steve Fireman 27:35Well, at ECDI, we try to keep it simple. Where it gets complicated is we devise a technical assistance and training program-

Tim Fulton 27:42Okay

Steve Fireman 27:42... for pretty much anyone and everyone who comes through the door. That doesn't mean everyone qualifies for a loan.

Tim Fulton 27:47Okay.

Steve Fireman 27:47But it means that we can try to make them as loan ready as possible.

Tim Fulton 27:50Okay.

Steve Fireman 27:51You have to remember that everyone that comes here has probably been either turned down or at least discouraged from getting a bank loan, a business bank loan.

Tim Fulton 27:58Which you guys refer to as sort of, you know, more of a traditional loan.

Steve Fireman 28:02More of a traditional loan, which... A- and that's a whole nother conversation. The small business loan or micro loan as we knew it 10 years ago, six years ago, basically doesn't exist anymore-

Tim Fulton 28:11Okay

Steve Fireman 28:12... because the banks don't get the return on investment that they w- once got. It costs them the same amount of money to do a $5 million loan essentially as a $100,000 loan or even a $25,000 business loan. It's-

Tim Fulton 28:24And so why would they mess with it?

Steve Fireman 28:26Correct. There's no ROI, so they're actually being good business people by not messing with it.

Tim Fulton 28:30Okay.

Steve Fireman 28:31So that's why we partner with all of the banks that we possibly can around Ohio.

Tim Fulton 28:35And so talk about how you guys get the capital that you're able to offer to your members and clients.

Steve Fireman 28:41Well, there's three primary ways that we get our capital, three major categories. One of them is through partnerships with municipalities, and that's kinda where ECDI started, our longtime partner, City of Columbus, Franklin County, now Cuyahoga County, City of Cleveland, and those are contracts. And what we're doing is we're merely administering monies, usually CDBG, which are block grant dollars from the feds that come down to the city.

Tim Fulton 29:09Okay.

Steve Fireman 29:09And they don't want to lend them because the city or the county is not in the business of lending.

Tim Fulton 29:14Right.

Steve Fireman 29:15They don't have the wherewithal. They don't have the personnel. That's not what they do, so they contract with us to do so. So we don't own those loan funds. We administer them for the public good, and those are a major part of our early loan funds that we developed, and it helped really get ECDI started in the lending, business lending game.

Tim Fulton 29:30Okay. And then what are the other two sources?

Steve Fireman 29:32Another major, major category would be our partnerships with banks, and our partnerships with banks look like couple different... They, they have some subcategories, but basically they're term loans from banks, five, six, seven years.

Tim Fulton 29:45Okay.

Steve Fireman 29:46Banks lending us money, usually a million dollars at a time, at 2% to 4% interest. We turn around and re-lend those dollars at 8% to 12%.

Tim Fulton 29:55Okay. And so basically it allows you to have funds to distribute.

Steve Fireman 30:01Correct, and they revolve. But the spread that I just mentioned, which we do not hide, we have to make money as well.

Tim Fulton 30:07Right.

Steve Fireman 30:07But s- that money is reinvested back in the company so we can provide the technical assistance and training, and pay our people to do so for the people that come here, our clients and members-

Tim Fulton 30:16Right

Steve Fireman 30:16... that I mentioned earlier.

Tim Fulton 30:17We, we should reiterate that ECDI is indeed a nonprofit.

Steve Fireman 30:20We are a nonprofit, and everything and everyone, like I said earlier, is coming to us for a reason, probably 'cause they're underbanked or unbanked, and therefore we, uh, you know, from the beginning of the process, we assess them, which takes a lot of time, and we customize a training program with them, whether they go, need to go to financial literacy, whether they need to go to training to help them to develop a business plan. Whatever it is, we have the proper training here on site, and we have partners that help us as well.

Tim Fulton 30:46What's the third tier of where you guys get funds?

Steve Fireman 30:49The third tier would be from foundations.

Tim Fulton 30:52Okay.

Steve Fireman 30:53It's actually a double, double tier. The foundations and the federal government.

Tim Fulton 30:56Okay.

Steve Fireman 30:56Like, we're, we're an SBA microloan intermediary, and that's one of our major sources of funding. Currently close to $5 million. And we... It's not an SBA guarantee. We actually borrow money from the feds at attractive interest rates, and we re-lend them again, similar to the bank model. That's where we got the bank model from, and we modeled after the SBA model. So there's... We're actually the third-largest microloan intermediary in the country right now as of last year, and we'll see this year we might have moved up again.

Tim Fulton 31:25Wow. So walk me through the process of what happens when someone comes in, says they may have just started a small business, or maybe they just have the seed of an idea for a small business.

Steve Fireman 31:35Right.

Tim Fulton 31:36What has to happen for them to even apply for a small business loan?

Steve Fireman 31:41Well, generally speaking, there's three types of clients that mo- walk in here, and we categorize them as phase one, phase two, and phase three.

Tim Fulton 31:49Okay.

Steve Fireman 31:50A phase one client might come in with five different business ideas on five different napkins.

Tim Fulton 31:55Okay.

Steve Fireman 31:56So as we assess them, we realize that we need to help them decide which is the most viable, and which one we, they should spend their time and energy on, and which one they'll take classes to build a business plan for.

Tim Fulton 32:07So this is somebody who literally is just like, "I'm an entrepreneur, and these are the things that I think I could do."

Steve Fireman 32:13Yeah, it, it's like, "I'm an artist," or whatever. They have it in their blood. They wanna start a food truck. They wanna start a restaurant. They wanna start a home health care agency. Something in their life, whether it's they've been displaced from work and they're kind of a middle career person, or it could be a young person that got out of college and never wants to work for anyone.

Tim Fulton 32:30Well, jobs are for suckers. I mean-

Steve Fireman 32:32That's right. Millennials- We know millennials don't wanna work for anyone, right?

Tim Fulton 32:35Exactly. Exactly.

Steve Fireman 32:36S- so, so that could be a phase one, and we help them focus their idea onto their best idea. And their best idea might not be the one they love the most, but it might be the most viable-

Tim Fulton 32:46Okay

Steve Fireman 32:46... in the marketplace.

Tim Fulton 32:47Okay. And so to be clear, as we talk about these phases, people may come in at any of the three, but you are literally trying to transition them to the next one, correct?

Steve Fireman 32:57Well, corre- actually, we're just kind of grading them or s- for internal purposes saying you're-

Tim Fulton 33:02Okay

Steve Fireman 33:02... a phase one, a phase two, a phase three. So a phase one, pretty early, early stage. No, no-

Tim Fulton 33:07So what's phase two, then?

Steve Fireman 33:08Phase two, someone comes in, they've probably filed a limited liability company with the state.

Tim Fulton 33:13Okay.

Steve Fireman 33:13They probably have some customers. Somebody likes their cookies, as I like to say. They're making them out of their kitchen. They're selling them.

Tim Fulton 33:20Which is a violation of a couple of things-

Steve Fireman 33:22That's correct

Tim Fulton 33:23... that I can think of.

Steve Fireman 33:23That's right. They're wrapping them with their own Saran Wrap or in their own baggies, and they're not necessarily washing their hands between every phase. They don't know the-

Tim Fulton 33:31Their kitchen is probably not a certified commissary.

Steve Fireman 33:33That's correct.

Tim Fulton 33:34Right?

Steve Fireman 33:34The dog's, dog's jumping up, you know, reaching to the counter. Cat's walking across the counter, all that good stuff. So-

Tim Fulton 33:40Sounds like great cookies, man.

Steve Fireman 33:41But meanwhile, people love these cookies. What's in these cookies? So that kinda client we would assess and say, "Hey, you've got a little bit of a business. You gotta get it out of your kitchen. You gotta get into the food fort where we can train you on the food safety laws, where we have expertise. We can help you with all your business needs in terms of marketing, accounting." You might have to take a financial literacy class, depending, you know, we'll take a look at their credit, take a look at their history of paying people, and kinda where the busi- how sophisticated the business is at that point. And we will definitely kinda analyze kinda where they are in phase two, meaning some people are making a lot of money gross above the line, but aren't dropping it down the line because they're spending it, spending more money, or they have more expenses, obviously, than they are generating revenue.

Tim Fulton 34:24Right.

Steve Fireman 34:24But, but they think they're doing well, but it's all mixed or intertwined with their personal finances, and so we do spend a lot of time separating them and making the business have its own life and its own financial life.

Tim Fulton 34:34Okay. And is that part of the financial literacy classes?

Steve Fireman 34:37That's... Financial literacy is more based on the personal financial literacy, so yes, that, it would overlap with that, and then the next class, which is called the seed class.

Tim Fulton 34:46So phase two is somebody who just, who has started a business, had, again, somebody likes their cookies, and they need their processes sorted out.

Steve Fireman 34:54Correct.

Tim Fulton 34:55Okay.

Steve Fireman 34:56And then they probably need our help in just applying for the loan, because our process, though we're not a bank, kinda looks like a bank's in the sense that there's, you know, a fairly sophisticated application. We learn a lot about you personally and about your business, and like I said earlier, a lot of, more of it's gonna be about the business 'cause that's all there... I mean, about the person, 'cause that's all there is.

Tim Fulton 35:16Right.

Steve Fireman 35:16And then later on we're gonna separate the person and the business.

Tim Fulton 35:19And that's for everybody's safety and-

Steve Fireman 35:21Yeah

Tim Fulton 35:22... you know.

Steve Fireman 35:22Yeah. I mean, the whole purpose of forming a separate entity, an LLC or a corporation, is for this thing to have its own life to protect your personal assets from your private assets.

Tim Fulton 35:31Right.

Steve Fireman 35:31I mean, your private assets from your business assets.

Tim Fulton 35:33Right. And is that essentially phase two?

Steve Fireman 35:35Yeah. I mean, phase two can be pretty broad, 'cause the people can be a little more sophisticated, but then, and we think they're a phase three, and I'll just go ahead and tell you what a phase three is. A phase three is someone that's probably been referred to us by one of our bank partners. They have a business. They've probably been in business for a year and a half or two, or filed some tax returns. They've had some success. The bank is either not ready to lend them money, or they no longer want to lend them money. But since we partner with the banks, we don't badmouth the banks in any way Way, we just gladly take the referral, get them into our lending pipeline. Usually, those are bigger loans, 'cause, uh, I didn't mention earlier that our loans are anywhere from a $750 credit enhancement or credit builder loan-

Tim Fulton 36:13Mm-hmm

Steve Fireman 36:13... all the way up to a $350,000 small business loan.

Tim Fulton 36:16And that credit enhancement loan is much more sort of like if someone is unbanked, it's basically a, a credit card, right? That they can then sort of build up a credit history for the business.

Steve Fireman 36:27Yeah. Yeah, I mean, a low interest rate credit card, 'cause our maximum interest rates are 12 and a half percent.

Tim Fulton 36:31That's not bad.

Steve Fireman 36:32Right. So that would be a phase one. Credit builder is one of two things. It's just an early phase one, or it's somebody that needs a little bit of money to do some things we're asking them to do before they apply for the loan.

Tim Fulton 36:44Okay.

Steve Fireman 36:44So it could be either, kinda either extreme of phase one. Then again, phase two, like we talked about, someone's got some business, they got some revenue, along with no business plan, a long way to go to really get themselves up and running. And, and they're either one of the legs of the stool, either marketing operations or accounting, that's marketing operations or accounting, one of them is very, very deficient.

Tim Fulton 37:03Okay.

Steve Fireman 37:04Phase three is someone that's got it going on a little bit, probably filed some tax returns, and then we're gonna find how we can help them, which leg of the stool's a little bit wobbly. But remember, they've probably been referred to us by our banking partners, and they're probably pretty ready to apply. So they probably will not go to classes or training. They'll probably get one-on-one technical assistance. And if they're a food-based business, it might be at The Food Fort. If they need an accountant, we'll find them an accountant. Oftentimes they need a little more sophisticated legal help than they're willing to afford themselves to.

Tim Fulton 37:34Right.

Steve Fireman 37:34'Cause that's a big problem with, you know, small businesses. Last person they wanna call or spend money on are the accountants, but especially the lawyers, preemptively. So we encourage that.

Tim Fulton 37:44Yeah. And so how does that process start for a business? Is it literally just, say they're not referred through a bank, is it literally just them coming to you, making an appointment, and saying, "I wanna come in and talk about my business"?

Steve Fireman 37:57Yeah, I mean, people come to us in a lot of different ways. Every Thursday, or it might be every other Thursday, and it alternates between noon and 6:00 PM, we have information sessions. And people come to us through r- you know, every kind of referral partner that we have, other agencies, other nonprofits. It could be banks. It could be a lot of word of mouth. I think that's, you know, guerrilla marketing, that's a lot of it.

Tim Fulton 38:20Yeah.

Steve Fireman 38:20And they come and they hear about all of our programs. They sit and they hear, they talk to each other. They talk to the person that puts on the info session. As a matter of fact, last week, Ina Kinney, our CEO and founder, she did the info session, had a great time, and has said that she wants to get back to doing it, 'cause there's no one better to do an info session than Ina because she's obviously been-

Tim Fulton 38:39She got it started.

Steve Fireman 38:40She got it started. She's been here from the beginning, and she's got incredible passion for the organization. And, uh, as you heard earlier, I mean, there's n- no one more passionate about their organization or business. It's like another child. So-

Tim Fulton 38:53Right

Steve Fireman 38:53... she does a great job. So they come in through either the information session, that's literally 25 to 30 people every couple weeks, and then we kinda channel them down the right road. Do they need to go to The Food Fort? Do they need to go to SEED training? Do they need to go to financial literacy, et cetera? We often, as I mentioned, get bank referrals. Those are usually phase three. And then sometimes people are just referred from the foodie community to The Food Fort. You know, they wanna start a food truck, a food cart. There's some kind of caterer that they need a kitchen to c- cook out of or, you know, make their product out of.

Tim Fulton 39:24Right.

Steve Fireman 39:25So that, in that regard, they just come through The Food Fort front door. And then finally, something I haven't mentioned yet, something that we're incredibly proud of, and we're in our fourth year of being the only statewide women's business center.

Tim Fulton 39:35Okay.

Steve Fireman 39:36So that's another door for women-based businesses, usually very early stage women-based owned businesses, to come and to work in a more collaborative, nurturing environment. They can get access to all of VCDI's lending, all of VCDI's classes, but it's basically women training women. You know, I, I guess as the saying goes, women... or the old adage goes, "Women are, women just work better or work more collaboratively than men do. Men try to go it alone." So if you go to the women's business center at any given time, you'll see shared office space and drop-in space, and women with different businesses sitting next to each other working on their businesses, bouncing ideas off each other. The point is, they might come through that door, and that might be our first point of contact. So we gotta capture all that, kinda centralize them, assess it, decide what phase they're in, and then d- design a, a program for them.

Tim Fulton 40:24So are your loans typically... While you are going through a very similar process to the bank process, is the barrier of entry for those loans lower? Is it easier to get those loans?

Steve Fireman 40:35Yeah, I mean, we're looking for a reason to make a business loan to our clients. Doesn't mean we make loans to everybody, but we at least give them a path to get there. Sometimes it could be three weeks, sometimes the path could be a year.

Tim Fulton 40:48Okay.

Steve Fireman 40:49Or c- or it could be more than that. It just depends how well people listen to us, follow our instructions, work collaboratively, you know, really how badly they want it. Because you, you wanna put them a little bit through some, some challenges and barriers, especially if they're not a phase three and pretty much loan ready.

Tim Fulton 41:05Okay.

Steve Fireman 41:05That's kinda part of the underwriting process. Will they take your classes? Will they accept assistance? Will they listen to your advice?

Tim Fulton 41:10Okay.

Steve Fireman 41:11You know, do- will they go get a lawyer instead of trying to do it, you know, online with a do it yourself service?

Tim Fulton 41:16What do those loans tend to be for?

Steve Fireman 41:18They're small business loans-

Tim Fulton 41:19Mm-hmm

Steve Fireman 41:19... or microloans. And our five sectors are generally food, which represents about 25 to 27% of all of our loans.

Tim Fulton 41:27Okay.

Steve Fireman 41:28Retail.

Tim Fulton 41:28And I'm sorry, is that dollar amount or like each loan?

Steve Fireman 41:31Uh, I would say no, uh, it's in, not in dollar amount-

Tim Fulton 41:34Okay

Steve Fireman 41:34... but i- in, in sectors of, like, units of loans that we do.

Tim Fulton 41:38Okay.

Steve Fireman 41:39Then there's retail, which is much smaller. I don't know why I just said that one, 'cause that's probably the smallest, but it's, it's, it's still-

Tim Fulton 41:45Well, you've got five sectors

Steve Fireman 41:46... still, it's still double digit.

Tim Fulton 41:47Okay.

Steve Fireman 41:48There's home healthcare and home daycare, and then there's transportation.

Tim Fulton 41:52Okay.

Steve Fireman 41:52And then I guess there's one more, which would be a catchall, which just would be service, which we're finding much more service. I mean, we, we make loans to lawyers, to dentist office, to insurance agencies, you know, you name it. I mean, the, the main theme is what we do Unlike Rev1 and some of the, you know, JobsOhio initiatives, for instance, we are non-tech. We are Main Street businesses, everyday businesses, whatever people do to create jobs for themselves, their families, and hopefully some other jobs as well.

Tim Fulton 42:21Well, and to be fair, and you guys don't... You are not structured like Rev1. Rev1 does investments out of, like, the Ohio Tech Angel Fund, and they're doing investments. They're not really doing loans. You guys aren't-

Steve Fireman 42:31Correct.

Tim Fulton 42:31Is that option available for... Do you guys do actual investment and take a stake in any companies?

Steve Fireman 42:37We, we have done that.

Tim Fulton 42:38Okay.

Steve Fireman 42:39But that's, you know, in the just, I'd say, five over the, uh, eight years that I've been here.

Tim Fulton 42:44Okay. They've gotta be great. They- they've gotta be phase four.

Steve Fireman 42:47Phase four, probably somebody we know because we've had some loans with them. They've paid them off. They've actually probably been a technical assistance provider and, and volunteered a lot here, and we know them really, really well.

Tim Fulton 42:58Okay. And obviously, if somebody goes through and gets a loan, they're gonna be paying back that loan and paying interest on it. Are there fees for the other services? I'm sure there's fees for renting out space in the Food Fort, but are there fees for the consulting and technical support?

Steve Fireman 43:12Yeah. There are fees, loan application or processing fees-

Tim Fulton 43:16Okay

Steve Fireman 43:16... which are, you know, de minimis, $25 up to... If the loan closes, then it's a percentage, 3 to 5% of the loan amount.

Tim Fulton 43:25Okay.

Steve Fireman 43:25Okay? The Women's Business Center has an annual fee of $80, which gives you access to the Women's Business Center, a certain amount of copying, a certain amount of discounted training classes.

Tim Fulton 43:37And to be clear, you do have to be a woman.

Steve Fireman 43:39You d- you don't. You don't have to be-

Tim Fulton 43:40Okay

Steve Fireman 43:40... a woman. It's kind of like it started off that way, but there's more and more men that join it. And the nice thing is, is side by side with the Women's Business Center, we have our Business Innovation Center, or BIC.

Tim Fulton 43:51Okay.

Steve Fireman 43:51It's kind of a shared facility, so men or women can use it.

Tim Fulton 43:55Okay.

Steve Fireman 43:55But they definitely... So they, men might feel more comfortable saying, "I, I belong to BIC," than the Women's Business Center, but it just depends on the-

Tim Fulton 44:01Or they could just call it the WBC, uh

Steve Fireman 44:04Right. Exactly.

Tim Fulton 44:05And move on. Right.

Steve Fireman 44:05So the Women's Business Center has that, again, what we feel to be a f- fairly de minimis $80-a-year membership fee at this time. And, you know, that's subject to change. We're constantly analyzing it because it does have, again, that includes workshops. It does not include all the training. Some of the training is a la carte, but it gets you a discounted fee on some of the, the trainings. And then, like for instance, the seed class is $150.

Tim Fulton 44:27Okay.

Steve Fireman 44:27So I... And that's a six-part class. Sometimes they do a four-part, but it's basically 20-plus hours and then some one-on-one technical assistance. So if you think of that amount of time and some technical assistance for the seed class for $150, I mean, that's, that's, that's nothing.

Tim Fulton 44:42Absolutely. Well, and, like, what about the day-long financial wellness?

Steve Fireman 44:45The financial literacy class is usually taught in four parts.

Tim Fulton 44:49Okay.

Steve Fireman 44:49And it's, again, I keep using the word de minimis, which is obnoxious- ... but it's, it's, it's basically... I, I, I don't know the number now. I think it's $75.

Tim Fulton 44:58Okay. Okay.

Steve Fireman 44:59And the bottom line is we never turn anyone away. If someone can prove to us that they really can't afford it, and it's a low to moderate income family, then we're gonna get them in the class and help them out. No one's turned away because they can't afford it.

Tim Fulton 45:10Okay. And those classes are held here at ECDI?

Steve Fireman 45:13For the most part. Sometimes we partner with some of our partners around town and take them out into the community over at Ohio Dominican or at... Hopefully, we're gonna start to do some at the libraries as we partner more with beautiful libraries around town, so.

Tim Fulton 45:25Absolutely. I wanna get a little bit more into what are the loans for because you have to demonstrate a need, right? I can't just say, "Hey, I wanna start a childcare facility. Can I have $1,500?"

Steve Fireman 45:36Yeah. Our loans are generally for working capital, assets for the business, or inventory.

Tim Fulton 45:42Okay.

Steve Fireman 45:43Working capital is pretty broad. It needs to be a business that obviously is... requires them to have some employees and to have a little bit of a runway to get it going. You know, we gotta see the expenses.

Tim Fulton 45:53Right.

Steve Fireman 45:54We don't necessarily control that money as closely as if somebody says they're buying a semi-truck for a transportation business.

Tim Fulton 46:01Okay.

Steve Fireman 46:01In that case, we wanna see the truck to the dealership that we're buying 'cause it's a big asset, and that's what our lien or our collateral is gonna be.

Tim Fulton 46:08Right.

Steve Fireman 46:09And we wanna see the warranty. We wanna hold it. You know, we want pictures of it. We want serial numbers, VINs, I guess-

Tim Fulton 46:15You're gonna maintain that lien, right.

Steve Fireman 46:17Right. And then, you know, it could just... It could be stu- inventory stuff people put on their shelves, whatever it might be.

Tim Fulton 46:22Okay. Are you asking for much follow-up on that? Like, are you asking for, you know, receipts from a distributor?

Steve Fireman 46:27At times we do.

Tim Fulton 46:28Okay.

Steve Fireman 46:29At times we do.

Tim Fulton 46:29Just depending on-

Steve Fireman 46:30It just depends how, you know, again, if they're phase one, phase two, phase three-

Tim Fulton 46:33Right

Steve Fireman 46:34... and what kind of, what the relationship is.

Tim Fulton 46:36Right.

Steve Fireman 46:36The other thing is, we haven't talked about much yet, is what we do after we deliver a loan and we're successful and we finally get someone. We like to say that's when the relationship really begins.

Tim Fulton 46:46Okay.

Steve Fireman 46:46Because unlike a bank, we're here to continue to help those businesses grow and be p- be the partner to that business. Whether in successful times or challenging times, we're gonna be there. Trust me, we're gonna be there in challenging times 'cause we wanna get paid back because those dollars need to revolve and go to somebody else down the road.

Tim Fulton 47:03Right.

Steve Fireman 47:03But in successful times, if people wanna scale, if they wanna grow, if they wanna leverage our resources, our contact, if they need help with marketing, you know, we're constantly doing events that feature our clients. Anything and everything we do that you'll ever see us do from a marketing perspective, really other than this conversation we're having here today, 'cause I haven't mentioned any specific businesses-

Tim Fulton 47:23Okay

Steve Fireman 47:23... but anything we do, we market ourselves through marketing our businesses. We never lead with ECDI.

Tim Fulton 47:29Okay.

Steve Fireman 47:29I mean, literally, I can't even think of the last time we've done it. You'll never just see a picture of ECDI loan special. You know, $500 loans, 20% off. You know, you, you-

Tim Fulton 47:38Right

Steve Fireman 47:38... don't see that. You mostly will see testimonial type stuff of our great clients talking about the work we've done, not for them, but with them.

Tim Fulton 47:45Okay. And so what is the nature of the work that you're doing with them afterwards? Is it just do you require them to check in, uh-

Steve Fireman 47:52Yeah, I mean, we get, we get financials, and we get proof of insurance, and we hopefully get that quarterly or at least twice a year. We get jobs numbers 'cause at, at the end of the day, a lot of our funders, be they banks, be they the federal government, be they the local municipalPoliticians I mentioned earlier.

Tim Fulton 48:07Right.

Steve Fireman 48:08They wanna see us create jobs-

Tim Fulton 48:10Okay

Steve Fireman 48:10... because we're, we are a job creation strategy for them. That's why they're investing in us, 'cause businesses create jobs. We're not just... Hopefully not every one of our businesses just have one or two people, and we've proven over the years, I mean, for instance, Grow Industries and Chris Crater now has o- over 250 employees.

Tim Fulton 48:26Mm-hmm.

Steve Fireman 48:26So a lot of the businesses grow quite rapidly. So we gotta collect job forms. So people need to know from the beginning if they're gonna start their business or grow their business with ECDI, they are gonna constantly be reminded we need job forms. When you create jobs quarterly, we need to see the jobs, we need to see the wage growth, things like that. The other things that we do more for them, like I said, w- marketing's a big one, marketing and advertising and promoting. Oftentimes feel like when the businesses get a little more sophisticated, they need more sophisticated legal representation, which I mentioned earlier. Oftentimes they're slow to get that. So we try to kinda, I don't wanna say negotiate, but broker deals and get attorneys that wanna grow with small businesses to work with them.

Tim Fulton 49:08And maybe get slightly smaller fees for those small businesses.

Steve Fireman 49:10Correct. That's exactly right. A lot of times people grow too rapidly, don't have control or understanding of their cash flow, so we have accountants that we work with them with. And then we're constantly having workshops, whether it's on social medias, things, quick workshops that somebody can learn something during a lunchtime, doesn't take too much of their time as a busy entrepreneur or business owner, and they walk away with a skill they didn't have before they walked over to the Women's Business Center or BIC.

Tim Fulton 49:36So after a business owner or potential future business owner goes through the information session, do they then just book a one-on-one with someone?

Steve Fireman 49:45Yeah, I mean, depending, again, usually the, what they do is they'll be contacted by a ECDI kinda concierge person. If they don't get signed up right there for the Women's Business Center-

Tim Fulton 49:54Mm-hmm

Steve Fireman 49:55... or to go to the Food Fort, we have representatives at the information session from lending, from the Women's Business Center, as well as from the Food Fort.

Tim Fulton 50:03Okay.

Steve Fireman 50:03So they kinda group off with those people. They get their names, and then they'll follow up, and then that's how they'll go down that track.

Tim Fulton 50:09Gotcha. Steve, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, your family, your contacts, your enemies, your local underwriter. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a good week.