Nikki Toth Photography The Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center at the U of A, a unit of the U of A Division of Economic Development, wrapped up 2022 with a banner year of new clients, new business starts and capital acquisition. With customer satisfaction scores of over 94%, the Center’s eight-person team provided 2,031 consultant hours for 905 new clients and their respective projects. ASBTDC, UAF consultants also assisted clients in obtaining $17.5 million in capital and positioned 48 new business starts for success in the thriving NWA small business community. "We are a small, but mighty, team, and I could not be prouder of our accomplishments this year and our impact in 2022," said Mary Beth Brooks, director of the center. "We look forward to 2023 with new clients, new ideas and new opportunities for economic impact in the small business community," Brooks added. Serving current and prospective business owners in six counties , the team at the U of A Small Business and Technology Development Center provides guidance and expertise in starting and growing a small business, finance, marketing, innovation and technology commercialization. All services are provided at no cost to the client. The center […]

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Some people make six and seven figures annually from their vending-machine businesses. Vending machines have become a popular side hustle, thanks to entrepreneurs on Instagram and TikTok. Vending-machine businesses require minimal investments and are low-maintenance to operate. Eventually, they can generate passive income if you outsource the daily upkeep. Sign up for our weekday newsletter, packed with original analysis, news, and trends — delivered right to your inbox. Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you’re on the go. Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . Vending machines have become a popular side hustle, thanks to entrepreneurs on Instagram and TikTok who claim they’ve made between six and seven figures in annual sales. Vending-machine businesses are widely appealing because they require a minimal investment to get started, are low-maintenance to operate, and can eventually generate passive income if you outsource the daily upkeep. One business owner on TikTok said he bought his vending machine for $600 on the marketplace OfferUp and booked $318 in revenue in three […]

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After snow showers move through the area, closings and delays have been announced by some area businesses and schools. Access closings, delays, anytime, anywhere, on any device, 5 different ways: For information on how to enroll your school, church, or business in the free School Watch Program, click here.

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We all grew up learning knowledge is power. That’s true. Knowledge is at the very center of everything we do for our clients and is the engine driving all of our business processes, allowing us to maximize our value to our clients. By “knowledge,” we’re not describing our business acumen or clever strategies behind our approach. At the center of our business processes is a literal storehouse of knowledge that’s constantly being updated and refined. It contains details of how our clients and their products and services function and what needs to happen when they don’t. We don’t consider ourselves to be what many call “knowledge workers” because we don’t actually create knowledge. Instead, we document the knowledge other people and organizations have developed, and deliver that knowledge as their customers need it. By amassing and sharing knowledge, we help our clients and their highly skilled teams focus on what creates the greatest value for their time, by handling issues that would otherwise compete for their attention. Take a technology startup that manufactures a device. In the company’s early stages, support calls for the device tend to be referred to the engineering team. Those calls interrupt the work performed […]

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Seven years ago, when Darrin Redus took over as director of Cincinnati’s nationally renowned Minority Business Accelerator, he knew someday there would be a gap between the accelerator’s capabilities and its members’ ambitions. Indeed, while the accelerator had helped businesses owned by Blacks, Hispanics and other minorities get off the ground, many of them eventually ran into specific headwinds: a lack of personal net worth and a shortage of investors. In 2019, Redus teamed with Jill Meyer, CEO of the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, to focus more intently on the problem. “We’ve got to do it ourselves,” Redus told Meyer. “There’s got to be a better model,” Meyer said. The accelerator is now raising a $100 million fund to help minority-owned companies in the Midwest supercharge growth. It wants to take advantage of the “silver tsunami” – the nearly $5 trillion in business assets whose founders lack a succession plan and will come to the end of their working life by 2030. The fund hopes to help companies make at least three or four transactions by the end of 2023, with a stretch goal of six. “If we can, in three to five years, create 15 to 20 high-scale […]

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U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen meets with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He in Zurich, Switzerland, … [+] Lian Yi/Xinhua via Getty Images The frenetic flurry of diplomatic activity between America and China signals that far from decoupling, the world’s two largest economies are actively figuring out ways to reset their troubled economic relationship. Let’s call this process recoupling, which will cheer the business community in both countries and disappoint hard-liners advocating for tougher measures. The latest manifestation of the renewed U.S.-China diplomatic push came in Zurich last week when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sat down with Liu He, the soon-to-be-departing Vice Minister who has been the point person on economic relations. Diplomacy is all about atmospherics as much as it is about substance. Compared with the acrimonious atmospherics of the March 2021 Alaska meeting, which descended into a shouting match between the two delegations, the Zurich meeting was a love-fest. The official readout from the Treasury was that the meeting was “candid, substantive, and constructive,” with both sides agreeing that it was important for the “functioning of the global economy” to further enhance communication around macroeconomic and financial issues. In good measure, Liu He was also eager to convey […]

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A Beijing outlet of an educational-services provider owned by TAL Education Group, pictured when China clamped down on for-profit academic tutoring. A year and a half after Beijing’s crackdown on after-school tutoring businesses , the American depositary receipts of Chinese education companies have recouped some of their heavy losses, thanks to business revamps that include selling king prawns and vegetables online. The partial recovery has taken place as the companies have found new sources of revenue—such as e-commerce—and made further inroads into college-test preparation, adult-education programs and nonacademic courses such as robotics and art. That has enabled some of them to grow again from a new low base. Continue reading your article with a WSJ membership

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After graduating from high school, Gabi Angelini had a tough time finding a job because of Down syndrome. “They just kept denying her – even a smoothie bar at a fitness center,” said her mother, Mary. “They were like, ‘No, she’d be too slow.’ “She wasn’t understanding – what’s the deal here?” Mary Angelini planned to open a coffee shop where her daughter could work but then the pandemic hit. Already committed to some storage space at the Loading Dock in Raleigh, she thought, Now what? But Murphy’s Naturals was growing and needed help with packaging and labeling, and Gabi Angelini and others with disabilities were soon at work. Mary Angelini, who earlier spent 12 years as an accountant at IBM (NYSE: IBM) and has six children, left her job at a local Catholic school to devote her time to the effort. Now their company, Gabi’s – Powered By Special Abilities , has 45 employees and has added clients such as Peter Millar, the Duke University Divinity School and more. “Autistic people are perfectionists,” said Mary Angelini. The company had $500,000 in revenue and might hit $750,000 this year. Mary Angelini said her daughter “is excited” by the success […]

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Legislators and local dignitaries typically account for the bulk of the attendees at a State of the State address. But the broad message and specific policy vision shared during this annual speech is intended to have the biggest impact on normal Michiganders. So we reached out to a few Michigan residents who potentially have the most at stake in terms of some of the governor’s policy proposals and broader ideas outlined in her fifth State of the State address this week. Aubrey Greenfield, Allison Beers and Cathy Moore watched Whitmer’s speech and provided their thoughts on her words. All agreed the governor can be a dynamic speaker, but they did share some criticism on what she proposed during the speech. Their responses have been edited for length and clarity. More: Buttressed by Democratic majorities, Whitmer lays out vision in State of the State speech Aubrey Greenfield Greenfield, 17, is a senior at Oxford High School. She was a sophomore at the school in 2021, when a fellow student killed four students while injuring six peers and a teacher in a mass shooting. Freep: What did you think of the governor’s speech? Did you think it was inspirational and moving, […]

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Chief Technology Officer at Tangoe , responsible for the global corporate technology strategy and research and development (R&D). getty It seems that just as we learn about a new business trend, another one follows quickly, nipping at its heels. Take, for example, the “ Great Resignation ,” discovered when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January that a record 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in November 2021. This was a phenomenon that we had not seen before, a societal symptom of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led more people to reevaluate what they want from their jobs and their lifestyles. This led to the Great Renegotiation , where employees felt empowered to leave existing roles for higher-paying jobs or leave traditional roles for nontraditional ones. In July, McKinsey & Company reported, “For certain categories of workers, the barriers to switching employers have dropped dramatically. In the United States alone, there were 11.3 million open jobs at the end of May—up substantially from 9.3 million open jobs in April 2021. Even as employers scramble to fill these positions, the voluntary quit rate is 25% higher than pre-pandemic levels.” Cue Quiet Quitting . As reported by CNBC in September, “Now, […]

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