The Small Business Journalist of the Year for Maine and New England describes producing and hosting “Back to Business” on radio and directing the University of Maine’s Target Technology Incubator.Small business - Maine ; Small business - New England

Deborah Neuman

English

Research Papers in Economics

4    Fall 007
How long have you been an 
entrepreneur?
DN: I think I have always been one. As 
a  child,  I  played  store  and  gathered  ev-
erything  I  could  and  put  on  price  tags. 
I  sold  everything.  I  found  out  that  sell-
ing  my  sibling’s  toys  went  too  far.  The 
lesson:  Know  if  your  inventory  is  legal.   
  I  was  born  in  California,  grew  up  in 
Pennsylvania, and spent summers in Maine. 
Shortly after college in California, I decided 
to quit my job in a retail corporation and 
move  to  Maine  permanently.  I  had  a  U-
Haul and no idea what I was going to do. I 
just wanted to be in Maine. 
  I got a hotel job in Bar Harbor, was pro-
moted to manager, and ended up running 
the place year-round for a couple years. Be-
fore long, I wanted to my own inn. I was 
25 and didn’t have any money. I found a lo-
cal inn for sale, created a business plan, and 
worked out financing with the seller and the 
bank. It’s great to be an entrepreneur when 
you have the energy and enthusiasm and 
nothing to lose. Young people haven’t ac-
quired much. They’re used to eating Ramen 
noodles every night.
When did you begin advising 
other entrepreneurs?
DN: In the early 1990s while I was still 
operating a tour boat company, I took an 
additional job with the Washington Han-
cock  Community  Agency  in  Milbridge. 
Washington Hancock had started a micro-
loan program for low- to moderate-income 
folks who couldn’t access financing through 
conventional means. These were microbusi-
nesses with five or fewer employees. 
  Washington County residents are natu-
ral entrepreneurs, although they don’t call 
themselves that. They just want to live here, 
so they find ways to make it work—piecing 
together jobs like lobster fishing, blueberry 
raking, and craft-making. 
  The agency helped with creating business 
plans, finding financing, and getting techni-
cal assistance for people. Then in 1993, I 
sold my businesses and took a job with the 
Eastern Maine Development Corporation, 
a  regional  economic  development  agency 
that  serves  six  counties.  EMDC  had  just 
been awarded the SBA microloan program, 
which was something new for them, and 
they hired me to manage it. 
  While there, I partnered with Washing-
ton Hancock and other community action   
agencies to create Incubator without Walls. 
That  initiative  brings  together  very  rural 
small businesses on a monthly basis, provides 
business education, and helps people connect 
to resources. 
  Five years ago, I was hired by the Uni-
versity of Maine, Orono, to run its Target 
Technology Center. The center is one of the 
incubators Maine created to assist early-stage 
technology companies. We work with tech-
based businesses and entrepreneurs statewide. 
Sometimes I help students who want to stay 
here and work after graduation. Or I may as-
sist faculty and other researchers who are try-
ing to commercialize their innovations. 
  Certain challenges are sector-related, but 
many are the same whether you’re starting a 
plumbing service or a high-tech company. 
You still have to figure out who your cus-
tomers are, how you are going to make your 
offering known, what the competitive envi-
ronment is. I spend much of my time con-
necting entrepreneurs to the resources they 
need at different stages—advice on patents, 
raising capital, and so on.
first person 
Deborah Neuman
Director, University of Maine Target Technology Incubator
Young Entrepreneurs Are the Future
Deb Neuman bought an inn in Bar Harbor, Maine, when she was 25. 
Then she bought a tour-boat company. After running numerous small 
businesses, she began sharing her expertise with Maine organizations: 
Washington  Hancock  Community  Agency,  Eastern  Maine  Develop-
ment Corporation, and now the University of Maine’s Target Technol-
ogy Incubator. She also is a counselor with the Maine Small Business 
& Technology Development Centers, a columnist for www.themain-
eedge.com, and the producer and host of a weekly radio show for and 
about small businesses, “Back to Business.” This year, the U.S. Small 
Business Administration recognized Neuman with the Small Business 
Journalist of the Year award for both Maine and New England.
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What  businesses  are  people  inter-
ested in starting?
DN:  We’re seeing a lot of young people 
interested in new media. They not only do 
web  design,  but  new-media-based  trade-
show displays and films that companies use 
for promotion. 
  One  young  entrepreneur  used  GPS  to 
create a patented device that when held up 
to a building merges location information 
with public data. A voice then talks about 
the building. Another guy created a con-
trolled lab for raising saltwater tropical fish 
indoors. He sells fish to retailers across the 
country. Unlike sellers who harvest fish in 
the wild, he doesn’t impact any reefs, and 
his fish are healthier. 
It is said that workers in Maine miss 
the large mills and don’t want to go 
into business. How do you develop 
an entrepreneurial spirit?
DN:  There  is  some  large-company  bias   
in Maine, but not everywhere. Most com-
munities have small businesses. Millinocket 
was  heavily  dependent  on  paper-making 
mills. But today it promotes ecotourism and 
its proximity to Mt. Katahdin and white 
water rafting.
  We do encourage self-assessment for po-
tential entrepreneurs. If they want their 9 to 
5 and their weekends and their two weeks’ 
paid  vacation,  being  an  entrepreneur  is 
probably not a good idea. It’s going to be 
a generational shift—developing a commu-
nity’s entrepreneurial spirit starts with the 
young. Young people in Maine love to cre-
ate their own opportunities. 
Tell me about your radio show, “Back 
to Business.”
DN: About two years ago, I met with Clear 
Channel  management  to  develop  a  radio 
program that would educate entrepreneurs 
about business-related topics and resources. 
We thought a radio program with a posi-
tive tone that also addressed the challenges 
would be great. We would let the entrepre-
neurs themselves talk about the challenges. 
Today I produce and host a two-hour weekly 
talk radio program on 103.9 FM, which is 
heard north of Augusta and up through Pis-
cataquis and Washington counties. Experts 
come from Maine and around the nation. 
And we have entrepreneurs telling their sto-
ries and offering advice and lessons learned. 
A woman e-mailed me that the show made 
her aware of opportunities she never knew 
about. She often thought of starting a busi-
ness but had been afraid. Hearing entrepre-
neurs on the radio made her feel hopeful, 
and she said, “If they can do it, I can, too.” 
That felt good. 
  I reach even more people with my one-
minute  daily  small-business  tip—aired 
throughout  the  day  on  all  eight  stations 
that  the  company  owns—very  different   
audiences.
Expand  on  what  you  meant  about 
positive messages.
DN: Too often the talk about going into 
business  is  negative—costs,  taxes,  insur-
ance. We do need to have those discussions 
and work to improve the business climate. 
But what about the stories of the people 
who  are  making  it?  Positive  stories  make 
positive things happen. For example, even 
if young people are leaving, a lot are staying 
and others are coming back. We showcase 
what is working. 
How do people get started in busi-
ness?
DN: When anybody comes to me in my 
role as a counselor with Maine’s Small Busi-
ness Technology Development Center, we 
brainstorm first. I never tell anybody they 
have a bad idea. I get them to start think-
ing about the questions they should ask. I 
get them working on the business plan. The 
woman who contacted me at the radio show 
wanted to produce and sell baklava.   
  The group Women Work and Commu-
nity helped her investigate the viability of 
the idea. She found out there weren’t enough 
local people who would pay what she would 
have to charge to make a profit. So she went 
back to the drawing board. She had always 
made bread, and with a large family of will-
ing  workers,  she  started  a  bread  business 
that has taken off.
What happens when entrepreneurs 
have gaps in their abilities?
DN:  We do a lot of matchmaking. For 
example, we often pair up the person who 
has technical expertise with someone who 
has expertise in commercialization, market-
ing, and sales. I’m currently working with 
a  company  that  is  making  a  composite   
product by hand in a basement. Customers 
want to buy it, but it’s taking too long to 
manufacture. The company has now part-
nered with a successful serial entrepreneur. 
He will connect them with people in indus-
try and share what he knows about manu-
facturing processes. 
What are the chances that the start-
ups will stay in Maine?
DN:  People I work with want to stay. I 
had  a  web  designer  who  tried  New York 
but  came  back.  Now  he  flies  down  once 
a month to see clients, but his business is 
based here in Orono. 
  There’s always a chance companies will 
leave, but the state has strong programs to 
encourage folks to stay. The Maine legisla-
ture realized the state lacked the right type 
of financing for a tech-based economy, so it 
created the Maine Technology Institute to 
encourage commercialization of innovation 
(www.MaineTechnology.org).  It  can  take 
years to move an innovation from the lab to 
the market. So the Technology Institute set 
up the SEED Grant program. A company 
can get up to $25,000 in grants to move an 
idea forward through market research, filing 
a  patent,  or  perhaps  developing  and  test-
ing a prototype—whatever is needed. Later 
the company can apply for a development 
loan of up to $500,000 that doesn’t need to   
be repaid until the offering is fully commer-
cialized.
  There  are  many  exciting  entrepreneur-
ial things happening in Maine. Individuals 
are starting tech companies, universities are 
spinning off research, people who have left 
are coming back because now they can work 
from anywhere. Mainers are supportive of 
any effort to strengthen the state’s economy.
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Young entrepreneurs are the future

http://www.bostonfed.org/commdev/c&b/2007/fall/First_Person_Neuman_Maine_incubator.pdf

Young entrepreneurs are the future

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