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  Over 4000 enterprises fail every day in America. This is an unnecessary social plague that devastates individuals and families while contributing to social turmoil and economic challenge.
MENtrepreneurs™ and MOMtrepreneurs™ Founders
Daniel & Angelina Musik-Comp
We help the entrepreneur, before addressing their business plan, so that they don't 'go it alone'. They can then leverage existing programs far more effectively, which reverses their odds of failing, and tremendously helps the solo-preneurs responsible for creating 87% of all new jobs in America. Our entrepreneurship system helps build stronger families and communities, and reduces the devastating damage done through the chronic stress on enterprising men and women. Ours is a bottom up entrepreneurship system which focuses on personal awareness, transformation, team development and sustainable practices using face-to-face small groups and online training and networking tools.
MENtrepreneurs™ and MOMtrepreneurs™
are self-funded for‐profit enterprises created by Intelligent Netware, LLC
Founders: Daniel & Angelina Musik-Comp have been recognized by Texas Governor Rick Perry by citation and by the Small Business Administration with two 'Champion of the Year' Awards. Website linkshttp://www.MENtrepreneurs.com
http://www.facebook.com/MENtrepreneurs
http://www.RideForAChange.com
http://www.DanielComp.com
http://www.IntelligentNetware.com
http://www.MOMtrepreneurs.com
http://www.twitter.com/momtrepreneurs
http://www.TheRedDressSociety.com
http://www.AngelinaMusik.com
Physical AddressPO Box 171, 32 Mosier Creek Place,
Mosier, Oregon, 97040
Wasco County, Oregon, United States
210.557.4779 (Daniel)
210.557.4780 (Angelina)
Q: Where is this project creating social impact? A: The United States and Canada, and with other English speaking people in Europe, Australia, India, South Africa, etc.
How long has your organization been operating? MOMtrepreneurs™: 9 years - since 2002
MENtrepreneurs™: 7 years - since 2004
What change do you want to bring to the world? Small business failure isn't simply an economic issue. It's an unnecessary social plague that devastates the individual, their family and community, and leads to social turmoil and economic frustration.
By preparing the entrepreneur, before the business plan, they can leverage existing programs more effectively.
By drastically reducing the 'acceptable' churn of 1.44 million small businesses each year, we can create far more new jobs, build stronger communities, families and individuals, and reduce the devastating damage done through micro-enterprise failure.
Ours is a bottom up entrepreneurship system which focuses on personal awareness, transformation, teaming and best practices, using face-to-face small groups and online training and social media tools. What are the primary activities of your project? Picture small groups of enterprising persons meeting in private once a week to help each other discover blind-spots, to express frustrations, to transform fears, and to support each other while going through a step-by-step curriculum designed for personal and professional awareness and transformation. (like Alcoholics Anonymous). Facilitate the individuals and groups with an online social network (like Facebook) which connects them with complimentary partners (like Match.com) so they can form stable management teams and share resources, opportunities and best practices globally. We have the training program, the online platform, and transformational testimonials. Now is the time to expand our entrepreneurship system. What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field? Traditional entrepreneurship systems work at developing the business plan. We work at developing the entrepreneur before focusing on the plan. We are using the Jewish social model of a minyan or a quarum to surround entrepreneurs with experts and resource connections. (like LinkedIn) In local small groups and online, we teach the entrepreneur about personality disorders, personal transformation and how to match their 'strengths' with others that fill in the core functions of a sustainable enterprise: product, marketing and finance. (like Alcoholics Anonymous) We then mentor the clients in online personal sessions to prepare them for the existing programs and resources, which reduces the discouragement and failures of the 'business planning' programs. Traditional entrepreneurship programs are run 'top-down' coaching the client through the business planning and loan process, and then 'release' them to execute the plan. Unfortunately, 56% of the recipients default by year five, largely due to personal and interpersonal issues and challenges within their management team. By better preparing the candidates before launch, and connecting them with complimentary partners, we have seen over 10 year sustainability periods with less than 7% failure rates and job creation costs less than $4000. Reversing business mortality rates isn't difficult once the entrepreneur can deal with change and challenge and can work within a team. What stage is your project in? Operating for more than 5 years Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts. 87% of all NEW jobs in America are created by solo-preneurs, not employers. 71% of all businesses in America are solo-preneurs, working alone, without employees and rarely without peer support or a 'resource' board or 'master-mind' as Napoleon Hill strongly suggests. Entrepreneurs asking traditional agencies for support and funding are under-prepared and over-challenged in the fundamentals of business sustainability and in their own beliefs. Much of the resources of agencies is used in 'filtering' out the 'tire-kickers' and rarely understand the personal issues that pre-dispose people to become enterprising and entrepreneurial. Thus, traditional business planning fails to help the new enterprise endure, as is found with the 56% failure of SBA loan recipients by year five, and the 1.44 million closed establishments each year. Share the story of the founder and what inspired you to start this project Angelina and I grew up without our biological fathers. We became over-achievers as our coping mechanisms to challenged childhoods. Our dis-function has been perfected for decades and sold in the market-place as 'expertise' and 'performance'. Our personal heart-ache and transformation are at the core of our work to make a difference for others. Daniel first experienced poverty while in the US Navy during the Vietnam conflict. Later, through a miraculous healing from a tragic glacier fall, Daniel committed to make a difference with his life and spent 20 years working with international development and social projects, and as an employer of 17 men as a general contractor. Angelina grew up in Germany and moved to the United States with her step-father, a military man, and Guamanian. She practiced compassion with helpless animals, and with children in her day-care. As an entrepreneur, she cleaned homes and eventually escaped her own abusive domestic situation with her two young children. Daniel and Angelina met online in 1999 in one of the first-ever match-making sites. After 500 emails and a cross-country move, they started over - living in a warehouse and server location as an early technology couple bent on the mission of helping others not face the same hardships by using online and personal growth tools. As a technology provider to personal and economic development enterprises we practiced our craft. We founded MOMtrepreneurs and MENtrepreneurs, won two SBA Awards and have self-funded an entrepreneurship system based on personal awareness and transformation. Describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured We have developed our system by working closely with solo-preneurs since 2000. An exceptional example is Ron White. We started working with him in 2001. He was living in his car, 35k dollars in debt, with a memory product he created after failing at college. He has since become the Guinness world record holder for memory, the world-champion memory competition winner, and now commands over $50,000 a day for his international training seminars. We contributed our work to the Central Oregon Micro-enterprise project, which created 17 jobs in the city of Maupin, OR. whose population is only 414. We have assisted hundreds of women to launch or expand their enterprises over the past seven years, while incrementally improving their lives. We are currently working with ~125 men, some of which are transforming their lives from convictions, financial and personal failures, career government positions recently lost, etc. Each person's situation is unique, however, all have similar experiences of personality disorders, arrested development and challenges yet to overcome, all while attempting to balance life and business. As each of them become more self-aware, more self-managed and part of a team, their enterprises reflect this health, and grow in a sustainable manner - even without going into debt. How many people have been impacted by your project? 1,001- 10,000 How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years? More than 10,000 How will your project evolve over the next three years? We are launching the marketing phase with this years' Trans-America Expedition, a 5000 mile cycling effort, supported by sales of our program. The Enterprising Cycle, Chapters 1 & 2 DVD contains 15 hours of the 60 hour course. It is the entry into the MENtrepreneurs netork online, and to the mentoring and online quorum. We are expecting our efforts to ramp up participation (2000-5000), while pursuing contracts from agencies like the Veterans Entrepreneurship programs at SBDCs and individual economic development counsels. Angelina is leading the PR and marketing efforts, so once we figure our the early adopters and community champions, we expect to change the funding source from ourselves selling website services, to a subscription base for value added services like 1-on-1 mentoring. What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them? The first barrier continues to be our self-funding to the point of scaling. We have been selling our technology services for the past 15 years, incorporating our ideas into systems used by RiteAid, Starbucks, UPS, Sirolli Institute, and many, many more. Each time we sell our work, we return to developing our passion. So, we work twice as much as we should and feel like we make half as much progress as possible. It would be advantageous for us to provide technology and marketing services to agencies like Ashoka, so we could earn and develop more closely aligned to our goal. We have been challenged by the traditional 'top-down' economic development thinking which tends to ignore the human capital in a community in favor of infrastructure development. Nearly all economic development programs are non-profit enterprises, looking for grants to sustain themselves. Ours is self-sustaining. We are sending our DVD to hundreds of these agencies and potential partners that have funding, and making presentations to those that have interest, like hospitals and veteran services, asking them to purchase our services and/or program to better achieve their goals. Rural communities are skeptical of 'outside' help from 'unknown' sources. We've worked hard at establishing relationships with mayors, representatives and RC&D coordinators to bridge the relationship gaps. The entrepreneurs that most need our help are blind to their issues, and so we must educate them and get referrals from friends and family, much as AA has done. Tell us about your partnerships We provided technologies to the Sirolli Institute, and participated in half a dozen regional economic development initiatives, contributing over $400,000 in services. Aside from our individual clients, we have no other commitments or partnerships in place. Current annual budget of project, in US dollars $10,001‐50,000 Explain your selections We have self-funded our research and development for the past 11 years. Thus, our progress has been slower that we'd like, as we must find a technology customer to pay our bills, and buy us time to move forward on our passion. The work we get paid for by our customers includes the mentoring and tech and economic development models, so in a sense it has been 'paid' R&D. How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years? The single most important objective is to grow our service base from 125 by 12-20 fold. This will provide the sustainability and focus because we'll convert 5-7% of the new customers into subscribers, from which we can grow both the management and marketing teams. Which barriers to employment does your innovation address? PRIMARY Lack of efficiency SECONDARY Lack of skills/training TERTIARY Underemployment Please describe how your innovation specifically tackles the barriers listed above. 71% of businesses in the US are solo-preneurs, and yet 87% of all new jobs are created by these individuals. The programs in place are mostly 'top-down' recruiting and loan approval processors, sorting through prospects to find qualified loan recipients. The stats show that the outcomes are poor - 56% of SBA loan recipients default by year 5. The issue isn't the loan program. The problem is that the 21 million owners are 'going it alone' and ill-prepared for the programs, and even if they get the money, they are unable to sustain growth because of personal issues. Our work lowers the personal barriers and facilitates the critical team building that creates sustainable growth, and new jobs - at less than $4000 per job. Are you trying to scale your organization or initiative? PRIMARY Grown geographic reach: Multi-country SECONDARY Influenced other organizations and institutions through the spread of best practices TERTIARY Repurposed your model for other sectors/development needs Describe which of your growth activities are current or planned for the immediate future. Scaling of our work, moving us into full-time focus and development. We have a product rather than just a service, and with help marketing, we expect to find partnering agencies which will refer clients to our network to improve they efficiency and to better accomplish their funded programs. Do you collaborate with any of the following: NGOs/Nonprofits, For profit companies. How have these collaborations helped your innovation to succeed? By contributing and contracting our services to a number of economic and personal development enterprises, both NGOs/Non-profits and for-profit, we have self-funded our solution, while determining the 'best' practices, and advancing the program online and through growing relationships. The feedback we have gained has helped us avoid wasted effort and unintended setbacks to clients
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The Enterprising Cycle™ and other resources
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