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Business is Blooming
Orange County has plenty of entrepreneurs with ideas that flourish.
By Jerry HicksPublished: June 19, 2008
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Christine Saunders of Anaheim Hills started her own eco-friendly flower arrangement business four years ago with $150 and a garage for storing her roses and orchids. Today, she has a small warehouse and eight part-time employees. Less than four months into 2008, she already has doubled her business for all of last year.
A serious learning disability kept Tim Dormick of San Clemente from pursuing college. When he lost his job in a card shop five years ago, he and his wife, Autumn, scratched out a living selling items on eBay that they picked up at neighborhood garage sales. Today, the Dormicks sell thousands of surfboards each year at their Discount Water Sports. He has since expanded into massage equipment.
Dormick, just 29, was recently named Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the Santa Ana office of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Kim Nguyen Zastrow was turned down for a corporate job eight years ago, after she obtained a graduate degree in business from Pepperdine University. The company she’d hoped to work for wouldn’t recognize her many years of corporate experience in her native Vietnam. So, she decided to start her own job-placement business, working from her Irvine bedroom. Fast forward to 2006, and Zastrow’s multi-million dollar company, Vitesse Recruiting and Staffing Inc., made $7 million in sales.
“My bosses in Vietnam used to say I was a ‘gold mine,’ ” Zastrow says. “But it’s here where I get a chance to really show what I can do. Orange County I hold very dear to my heart.”
O.C.’s entrepreneurial climate
Many who attempt to run their own businesses do fail. But entrepreneurship is big in Orange County.
The Orange County Business Council glowingly points to the county-sponsored 2008 Community Indicators report, which states: “Small businesses flourish in Orange County’s
entrepreneurial climate.”
Over a five-year period, small businesses with 50 or fewer employees have grown in the county by 14 percent. But that’s in part because businesses with “four or fewer” employees have grown here by 18 percent in that same time period.
Records from the U.S. Small Business Administration show that of more than 650,000 small businesses and entrepreneurships in the local three-county region, Orange County has as many as Riverside and San Bernardino counties combined.
“The fastest growing entrepreneurships seeking counseling are in minority-owned and women-owned businesses,” says Christopher Lorenzana, business development director for the Small Business Administration’s Santa Ana office.
One benchmark of that growth: Three years ago, there were about 175 members of the Orange County chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners. Today, that number is up to more than 400.
“It takes hard work and discipline to run your own business,” says Camille Jayne, a former president of that group. “But more and more, women are finding it a satisfying alternative to the corporate world.”
They’re also finding that Orange County is a good place to get started – for lots of reasons.
“Yes, the economy is down, but we’ve still got 3 million people in Orange County,” says Enrique Perez, executive director of business development for the Rancho Santiago Community College District. “There is still plenty of money here. Orange County provides a strong market for those willing to take advantage of it.”
The high level of education in the county is another positive factor, and Southern California – Orange County, especially – has become known as a trend-setting region in business.
“The rest of the country looks to Southern California for innovation,” says P.K. Shukla, director of the Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship and Ethics at Chapman University. “Orange County is loaded with people with ideas – and they’re selling them nationwide.”
But Zoey Smith – whose Web-design business in the city of Orange, zbradesigns.com, includes nearly 50 clients nationally and in Canada – credits another reason for setting up business here: “Orange County has a real community feel to it,” she says. “You can’t say that about a lot of large counties. You’re networking with people here who are like your friends and neighbors.”
A region rich in resources
If there’s one thing Orange County has that almost all entrepreneurs agree on, it can be said in one word: Resources.
Small businesses have a better chance of succeeding here because they don’t have to go it alone. There is help all around.
One example: The O.C. Small Business Development Center, a nonprofit that works closely with the U.S. Small Business Administration, offers dozens of low-cost or no-charge seminars and workshops each year for entrepreneurs – everything from how to start a business and manage your money, to tax help and how to build your business image.
“We’re the best kept secret in Orange County,” quips Ruth Cossio-Muniz, assistant director of the center’s Orange County office. “Our sessions are packed. Especially those on how to start a business. We have an overwhelming number of new people who want to make it on their own.”
Saunders, 30, will tell you her business didn’t skyrocket until she reached out for help. She had been handling flowers for an average of about 40 weddings a year for close to three years. It wasn’t enough to let her quit her job as a city planner. But last year, when Saunders marched into Anaheim City Hall to renew her business license, she asked, almost on impulse: “Would there be somebody here from the economic development office?” That’s when she met Janet Coe, the city’s economic development coordinator.
Anaheim, like many Orange County cities, actually has an office just to help entrepreneurs. Saunders says confidently: “My No. 1 piece of advice for anyone starting a business: Talk to your city’s economic development department. They want you to succeed, because it’s good for the city, too.”
Coe directed Saunders to the Small Business Center, where she learned how to sharpen the focus on her business and was given a handful of pointers on how to manage her finances. The center also opened the doors for Saunders to numerous other resources. From there, Saunders’ business took off.
She saw a growing market in what’s called eco-friendly flowers – those grown with little or no pesticides. That’s her specialty. Now, instead of doing just weddings, her business – thespiraledstem.com – does flower arrangements for numerous businesses and nonprofits, large and small. For example, Saunders did all the flowers for Fox Broadcasting Co.’s coverage of the Emmys. She also did flowers for the 50th anniversary of the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Orange County. At her kickoff for her small warehouse on Miraloma Avenue in Anaheim, many of the people who showed up wound up becoming clients.
Smith, of zbradesigns.com, found support through the local chapter of Business Network International, which bills itself as the largest business-networking group in the world. Smith says the group meets each week, and she always leaves with ideas or new contacts.
Inspired by an award she received in 2003, Zastrow, of Vitesse Recruiting and Staffing, became active in the Asian Business Association of Orange County. She was recently honored by the Small Business Administration for her work helping other Asian-Americans get started in entrepreneurship.
Dormick, of Discount Water Sports, did not seek outside resources for his endeavor. But he will readily tell you that it was his wife who made him a success. “She was the real visionary, working the Internet all hours of the night to help our business grow,” he says.
Think resourcefully
If Orange County is a place for entrepreneurships to thrive, why is it so many fail?
“To succeed, you first have to have a real passion for the business you’re in,” says Cossio-Muniz. “But passion isn’t enough. You have to know how to run a business.”
You must learn quickly to become resourceful. Saunders, for example, got free work tables, perfect for her business, when a local Kinko’s was throwing out all its old storage benches.
“Unlike the corporate world where you can access budgets for launching new projects, being an entrepreneur, you think about using both sides of the paper and not throwing out paper clips,” says Jayne. Jayne is not only one of the county’s most successful entrepreneurs – she runs two businesses, Matters at Hand and Jayne Group – she’s also won numerous awards recognizing her work and promotes entrepreneurship as a career choice.
Jayne was the chairwoman and CEO of a major public company before leaving the corporate world to become a partner in a promising business. When the funding for the undertaking disappeared with 9/11, she had to decide whether to return to corporate work, or try it on her own. “In the corporate world, I spent so much time traveling, I never really had a chance to get to know Orange County,” she says.
So, she went out on her own. And she hasn’t regretted it. “At a recent conference of about 200 women, I realized that I actually knew over half of them. I could never have gotten to know that many successful women if I hadn’t become an entrepreneur,” says Jayne.
Smith points out that a brief venture into the corporate world right out of school left her disillusioned.
“You spend four years in college learning how to think on your own,” she says. “Then you take a corporate job, and nobody is willing to listen to you. I ran into the worst case of the good ol’ boys network.” So, she made her part-time design work full time.
Starting right out of college is a growing trend, says Shukla of Chapman University, whose entrepreneur program has been nationally ranked in the Top 10 by Princeton Review.
“We have two kinds of students in entrepreneur programs,” he says. “Some take notes wondering if this might be on the final exam. Others take notes thinking, ‘How can I apply this to a business of my own?’”
Mike Brown, a 2006 Chapman business graduate, chuckles at that comment: “I took two notebooks to class – one to prepare for exams, the other to help me in the business I was starting.”
At 19, Brown started his own online service, selling to people who wanted to modify their vehicles – something he had done to his own car. Before he graduated, he was named Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year at the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization conference in Chicago. He became so successful that his Brea-based, one-stop shop, ModBargains.com, is now a multi-million dollar business.
And Brown is just 23. With most of the major auto-parts businesses located in Southern California, Brown says, running the business from Orange County became
a natural.
But Perez suggests you don’t have to wait for college. His center will put on a summer program called O.C. Young Entrepreneurs.
“Even high school
students these days are interested in learning how to start their own business,” Perez says.
Perez is especially proud of another conference his group is sponsoring. It’s a youth program called Got Global Skills?
“In today’s increasing global economy, California students learn virtually nothing about global issues in their classes,” he says.
Shukla agrees that going global is the trend. In November, Chapman is participating in hosting global entrepreneurial celebrations. “More and more, it’s a global economy,” Shukla says. “And Orange County entrepreneurs are well aware of the need to take advantage of that.”
The 2008 Community Indicators report shows that exports from Orange County alone in the latest reporting year topped $18 billion.
That’s up almost $2 billion from the previous year.
It’s all the more reason to see Orange County entrepreneurship grow. For Dormick, the success is all a bit mind-boggling: “We went on vacation for a week, and business just kept going on its own while we were
gone.” OCMB
Jerry Hicks is a former columnist for the Los Angeles Times Orange County Edition who now teaches journalism at Chapman University.
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Christine Saunders of Anaheim Hills started her own eco-friendly flower arrangement business four years ago with $150 and a garage for storing her roses and orchids. Today, she has a small warehouse and eight part-time employees. Less than four months into 2008, she already has doubled her business for all of last year. A serious learning disability kept Tim Dormick of San Clemente from pursuing college. When he lost his job in a card shop five years ago, he and his wife, Autumn, scratched out a living selling items on eBay that they picked up at neighborhood garage sales. Today, the Dormicks sell thousands of surfboards each year at their Discount Water Sports. He has since expanded into massage equipment. Dormick, just 29, was recently named Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the Santa Ana office of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Kim Nguyen Zastrow was turned down for a corporate job eight years ago, after she obtained a graduate degree in business from Pepperdine University. The company she’d hoped to work for wouldn’t recognize her many years of corporate experience in her native Vietnam. So, she decided to start her own job-placement business, working from her Irvine bedroom. Fast forward to 2006, and Zastrow’s multi-million dollar company, Vitesse Recruiting and Staffing Inc., made $7 million in sales. “My bosses in Vietnam used to say I was a ‘gold mine,’ ” Zastrow says. “But it’s here where I get a chance to really show what I can do. Orange County I hold very dear to my heart.” O.C.’s entrepreneurial climate Many who attempt to run their own businesses do fail. But entrepreneurship is big in Orange County. The Orange County Business Council glowingly points to the county-sponsored 2008 Community Indicators report, which states: “Small businesses flourish in Orange County’s entrepreneurial climate.” Over a five-year period, small businesses with 50 or fewer employees have grown in the county by 14 percent. But that’s in part because businesses with “four or fewer” employees have grown here by 18 percent in that same time period. Records from the U.S. Small Business Administration show that of more than 650,000 small businesses and entrepreneurships in the local three-county region, Orange County has as many as Riverside and San Bernardino counties combined. “The fastest growing entrepreneurships seeking counseling are in minority-owned and women-owned businesses,” says Christopher Lorenzana, business development director for the Small Business Administration’s Santa Ana office. One benchmark of that growth: Three years ago, there were about 175 members of the Orange County chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners. Today, that number is up to more than 400. “It takes hard work and discipline to run your own business,” says Camille Jayne, a former president of that group. “But more and more, women are finding it a satisfying alternative to the corporate world.” They’re also finding that Orange County is a good place to get started – for lots of reasons. “Yes, the economy is down, but we’ve still got 3 million people in Orange County,” says Enrique Perez, executive director of business development for the Rancho Santiago Community College District. “There is still plenty of money here. Orange County provides a strong market for those willing to take advantage of it.” The high level of education in the county is another positive factor, and Southern California – Orange County, especially – has become known as a trend-setting region in business. “The rest of the country looks to Southern California for innovation,” says P.K. Shukla, director of the Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship and Ethics at Chapman University. “Orange County is loaded with people with ideas – and they’re selling them nationwide.” But Zoey Smith – whose Web-design business in the city of Orange, zbradesigns.com, includes nearly 50 clients nationally and in Canada – credits another reason for setting up business here: “Orange County has a real community feel to it,” she says. “You can’t say that about a lot of large counties. You’re networking with people here who are like your friends and neighbors.” A region rich in resources If there’s one thing Orange County has that almost all entrepreneurs agree on, it can be said in one word: Resources. Small businesses have a better chance of succeeding here because they don’t have to go it alone. There is help all around. One example: The O.C. Small Business Development Center, a nonprofit that works closely with the U.S. Small Business Administration, offers dozens of low-cost or no-charge seminars and workshops each year for entrepreneurs – everything from how to start a business and manage your money, to tax help and how to build your business image. “We’re the best kept secret in Orange County,” quips Ruth Cossio-Muniz, assistant director of the center’s Orange County office. “Our sessions are packed. Especially those on how to start a business. We have an overwhelming number of new people who want to make it on their own.” Saunders, 30, will tell you her business didn’t skyrocket until she reached out for help. She had been handling flowers for an average of about 40 weddings a year for close to three years. It wasn’t enough to let her quit her job as a city planner. But last year, when Saunders marched into Anaheim City Hall to renew her business license, she asked, almost on impulse: “Would there be somebody here from the economic development office?” That’s when she met Janet Coe, the city’s economic development coordinator. Anaheim, like many Orange County cities, actually has an office just to help entrepreneurs. Saunders says confidently: “My No. 1 piece of advice for anyone starting a business: Talk to your city’s economic development department. They want you to succeed, because it’s good for the city, too.” Coe directed Saunders to the Small Business Center, where she learned how to sharpen the focus on her business and was given a handful of pointers on how to manage her finances. The center also opened the doors for Saunders to numerous other resources. From there, Saunders’ business took off. She saw a growing market in what’s called eco-friendly flowers – those grown with little or no pesticides. That’s her specialty. Now, instead of doing just weddings, her business – thespiraledstem.com – does flower arrangements for numerous businesses and nonprofits, large and small. For example, Saunders did all the flowers for Fox Broadcasting Co.’s coverage of the Emmys. She also did flowers for the 50th anniversary of the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Orange County. At her kickoff for her small warehouse on Miraloma Avenue in Anaheim, many of the people who showed up wound up becoming clients. Smith, of zbradesigns.com, found support through the local chapter of Business Network International, which bills itself as the largest business-networking group in the world. Smith says the group meets each week, and she always leaves with ideas or new contacts. Inspired by an award she received in 2003, Zastrow, of Vitesse Recruiting and Staffing, became active in the Asian Business Association of Orange County. She was recently honored by the Small Business Administration for her work helping other Asian-Americans get started in entrepreneurship. Dormick, of Discount Water Sports, did not seek outside resources for his endeavor. But he will readily tell you that it was his wife who made him a success. “She was the real visionary, working the Internet all hours of the night to help our business grow,” he says. Think resourcefully If Orange County is a place for entrepreneurships to thrive, why is it so many fail? “To succeed, you first have to have a real passion for the business you’re in,” says Cossio-Muniz. “But passion isn’t enough. You have to know how to run a business.” You must learn quickly to become resourceful. Saunders, for example, got free work tables, perfect for her business, when a local Kinko’s was throwing out all its old storage benches. “Unlike the corporate world where you can access budgets for launching new projects, being an entrepreneur, you think about using both sides of the paper and not throwing out paper clips,” says Jayne. Jayne is not only one of the county’s most successful entrepreneurs – she runs two businesses, Matters at Hand and Jayne Group – she’s also won numerous awards recognizing her work and promotes entrepreneurship as a career choice. Jayne was the chairwoman and CEO of a major public company before leaving the corporate world to become a partner in a promising business. When the funding for the undertaking disappeared with 9/11, she had to decide whether to return to corporate work, or try it on her own. “In the corporate world, I spent so much time traveling, I never really had a chance to get to know Orange County,” she says. So, she went out on her own. And she hasn’t regretted it. “At a recent conference of about 200 women, I realized that I actually knew over half of them. I could never have gotten to know that many successful women if I hadn’t become an entrepreneur,” says Jayne. Smith points out that a brief venture into the corporate world right out of school left her disillusioned. “You spend four years in college learning how to think on your own,” she says. “Then you take a corporate job, and nobody is willing to listen to you. I ran into the worst case of the good ol’ boys network.” So, she made her part-time design work full time. Starting right out of college is a growing trend, says Shukla of Chapman University, whose entrepreneur program has been nationally ranked in the Top 10 by Princeton Review. “We have two kinds of students in entrepreneur programs,” he says. “Some take notes wondering if this might be on the final exam. Others take notes thinking, ‘How can I apply this to a business of my own?’” Mike Brown, a 2006 Chapman business graduate, chuckles at that comment: “I took two notebooks to class – one to prepare for exams, the other to help me in the business I was starting.” At 19, Brown started his own online service, selling to people who wanted to modify their vehicles – something he had done to his own car. Before he graduated, he was named Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year at the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization conference in Chicago. He became so successful that his Brea-based, one-stop shop, ModBargains.com, is now a multi-million dollar business. And Brown is just 23. With most of the major auto-parts businesses located in Southern California, Brown says, running the business from Orange County became a natural. But Perez suggests you don’t have to wait for college. His center will put on a summer program called O.C. Young Entrepreneurs. “Even high school students these days are interested in learning how to start their own business,” Perez says. Perez is especially proud of another conference his group is sponsoring. It’s a youth program called Got Global Skills? “In today’s increasing global economy, California students learn virtually nothing about global issues in their classes,” he says. Shukla agrees that going global is the trend. In November, Chapman is participating in hosting global entrepreneurial celebrations. “More and more, it’s a global economy,” Shukla says. “And Orange County entrepreneurs are well aware of the need to take advantage of that.” The 2008 Community Indicators report shows that exports from Orange County alone in the latest reporting year topped $18 billion. That’s up almost $2 billion from the previous year. It’s all the more reason to see Orange County entrepreneurship grow. For Dormick, the success is all a bit mind-boggling: “We went on vacation for a week, and business just kept going on its own while we were gone.” OCMB Jerry Hicks is a former columnist for the Los Angeles Times Orange County Edition who now teaches journalism at Chapman University. |
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