Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 24, 1993 TAG: 9301260390
SECTION: NEW RIVER VALLEY ECONOMY PAGE: 22 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
ONE ANSWER: OWN YOUR OWN BUSINESS
Thinking of starting a business? Consider the gloomy statistics:As many as half of all new businesses will close within four years. Eighty-five percent won't reach their 10th birthday.
A brochure from the New River Valley Small Business Development Center in Blacksburg has that to say about starting up a business. The center, which opened last January, provides small-business counseling free of charge:
"Many new small businesses never really succeed," the brochure reads. "It often means the loss of a lifetime of savings and many months of agony watching a new venture fail."
What the facts fail to mention, of course, is that many businesses do succeed.
And David Shanks, director of the year-old center, believes that in current hard times opening a business is an answer - for some people, at least.
"People who are getting laid off, this is a very viable alternative," said Shanks, who has run a half-dozen small businesses himself.
Shanks said those most likely to succeed are people with expertise in a particular field or general experience in business.
"It helps if you've had a business, have been a manager or have the technical skills," he said. "If you've only been a shopper, the chances for success are slim."
Shanks also said successful businessmen and women tend to share certain character traits - including a willingness to work very long hours and to take risks.
No one can say with certainty how many former factory workers in the New River Valley have gone into business for themselves. The total number of retail establishments in the valley, in fact, dropped from about 2,800 in 1989 to about 2,500 in 1991, according to state sales tax figures.
Shanks has worked with about 80 people at the small-business center, which is publicly funded and operated through Virginia Tech.
Some of those people came for help with existing businesses, Shanks noted. About half - 40 or so - were interested in starting a new business.
Of those, only 12 or 15 went on to do so, he said.
Shanks knows first-hand about failure.
A printing business he went into without the needed expertise went belly up, he said. Shanks blamed part of the problem on having to hire someone to handle the press he couldn't operate himself.
Still, Shanks noted, there is more than one kind of experience. People sometimes turn a beloved pastime into a money-making business, even without business experience.
"I think it's quite possible to turn a hobby into retail success," he said.
Michelle and Shane Hensley seem to be doing just that.
The Hensleys loved games when they both were students at Virginia Tech. Now they sell them on College Avenue across the street from the Tech campus.
The Hensleys, along with friends Angela McCoy and David Wilson, are the young proprietors of Fun-N-Games Inc. in downtown Blacksburg. The store opened April Fool's Day - by design, said Shane Hensley, 24.
"Our mascot's a jester," he said.
In stock at Fun-N-Games are old standards such as Rook and Cribbage, alongside newer ones such as Dungeons and Dragons.
Also sold are war games, card games, backgammon and chess sets, in addition to rows of computer games.
Selling games, the young proprietors of Fun-N-Games have found, is not always a picnic. Three of the four hold down other jobs and must manage to keep the store open every day without any permanent employees.
But the Hensleys also said they are learning as they go - and their prospects are far from gloomy. Shane Hensley envisions a chain of stores.
Soon.
"We're looking to expand in about a year," Hensley said.
David Shanks, director of the New River Valley Small Business Development Center, may be reached at 231-4004.