Bill Brigham, right, director of the University’s Small Business Development Center, confers with Ed Orminski, chairman of Farm Direct Distribution, who estimates that 23,000 new jobs could eventually be created through its Internet plan.

Small Business Development Center
University at Albany

Farm Direct Distribution, Inc., a group of 70 small farmers from across New York State, wanted to cut out the middleman. They came to the University at Albany’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) recently for help in directly marketing their dairy, livestock and other products. The SBDC helped the fledgling group create a business plan whose centerpiece is a World Wide Web site through which restaurants, hotels and other institutional customers in the Northeast may order food on line from Farm Direct’s members in an easy-to-use, grocery store-style format.

Approximately 30 percent of the businesses UAlbany’s SBDC assists are involved in some form of e-commerce these days, and the number is growing rapidly, according to the center’s director, William Brigham.

“Companies realize that they have to have a presence on the web and that e-commerce is the future,” Brigham said. Companies that have traditionally sold their products to wholesalers are finding the Internet useful in making the process easier, as well as in reaching individual consumers, and that reach is global, he said.

Another entrepreneur, Carol Dunn, who recently started her own business, Dunn Deal Realty in Rensselaer, N.Y., is now developing a web site where buyers can take virtual tours of homes she has listed. The SBDC helped connect Dunn with a web developer who created her site. “I was very impressed with the whole organization. When I discovered how many services they provided, and for free, it made me wish I had struck out on my own sooner,” she said.

Some clients are able to put their whole product line on the web. One, Line Ski Boards, an Albany-based manufacturer of ski equipment, set up a site that allows potential customers to download a demonstration of maneuvers that can be done with the trick skis it sells. “Their web site turned out to be very successful, and their sales grew tenfold over a three-year period,” Brigham said. Line Ski Boards recently moved its operation to Burlington, Vt., after merging with a cross-country ski manufacturer.

Brigham and his staff of nine advise clients to look at such issues as how much their target customers are actually using the web and whether any new companies have recently established themselves as competitors— which can happen quickly. Often, the center will refer clients to other entrepreneurs who can help them get a web site up and running. The center also makes sure its clients focus on promotion, sales and marketing strategies to get customers to the web site.

Finding venture capital for e-business can be difficult. “Many of these businesses are selling a concept or a process that is intangible. It’s virtual,” Brigham said. The center connects them with venture firms that are open to this new arena. Partnering with other service providers, the SBDC can also provide entrepreneurs with a forum in which to present their ideas to several venture capitalists at once.

The web site for Farm Direct Distribution is part of a larger start-up proposal for which Farm Direct is seeking $5 million in grant money from the New York State Legislature, according to Ed Orminski, chairman of Farm Direct.

“The SBDC helped us to refine our business plan to make it more attractive to state legislators, many of whom have been very receptive to the idea and are committed to getting the plan into action,” said Orminski, who raises high-quality pork and Black Angus beef on his farm in Greenwich, N.Y. Orminski, who also has an extensive background in marketing, estimates Farm Direct could eventually create up to 23,000 new jobs, most of them filled by farmers, through its Internet plan.

Agricultural marketing, Orminski explained, is typically handled by brokers who represent larger farms. “In New York State, we have mostly small farms that have difficulty competing with the big farmers in other areas of the country,” he said.

UAlbany’s Small Business Development Center has provided assistance to more than 6,400 entrepreneurs since it was founded in 1984 to promote economic development in the region. The program, which is free, is part of the School of Business and is funded by the University, the federal government’s Small Business Administration, and New York State. There are 23 centers statewide.