Minding Your Business On-Line
Are you looking for new business opportunities? Your computer can help you search.
Franchise It!, a $50 Windows program for IBM-compatible computers from Positive Software Solutions of Playa del Rey ((310) 301-8446), provides details of more than 1,000 franchise opportunities.
Maybe you’d rather blaze your own trail, but it wouldn’t hurt to see if the federal government has a new technology available for licensing. All it takes is a toll call to the National Technology Transfer Center’s electronic bulletin board, Business Gold, in Wheeling, W.Va. You can do it with any PC or Macintosh equipped with a modem and communications software.
The service describes available technologies, which are listed by category and by the federal laboratory where they were developed.
While you’re at it, you might as well take advantage of the toll-free electronic bulletin board maintained by the Small Business Administration in Washington. It provides business advice along with details of SBA programs to assist businesses.
Franchise It! is a simple but nicely done Windows program that lets you search through its list of franchises using several different criteria.
You can select from 44 categories of businesses, seeking companies according to the amount of equity investment required, the number of years the franchiser has been in business, the number of franchisees it has and whether or not the firm is a member of the International Franchise Assn.
The data on each company is skimpy, but you can determine what the business is, how much up-front cash is needed, what kinds of training and other support are provided and whom to contact for further details.
Other information would be helpful, such as the total cost and the actual amount of the franchise fee. Such details are available for some companies but not most. Another limitation: You can’t search by state. There are many local and regional franchises listed along with the national ones.
I did a spot check of the accuracy of information in Franchise It! and found it to be pretty good. Of nine listings examined, one didn’t give a telephone number. Another company had a new telephone number and isn’t accepting new applications for franchises until next spring. Another listing was based on 2-year-old data, but the changes, including a new name, have been slight. Other listings were quite correct, including the name and number of the vice president at Radio Shack, who answered his own telephone.
When you register the program, the publisher promises to send a diskette containing the latest listings.
Business Gold, the electronic bulletin board of the National Technology Transfer Center, contains all the information you need to identify federally developed technologies available for exploitation.
For 300- to 2,400-baud modems, the number is (304) 243-2561. For 9,600 baud, call (304) 243-2560. The bulletin board expects your communications parameters to be set for 7 data bits, 1 stop bit and even parity. Terminal emulation should be VT-100, which is a kind of data terminal that most communication programs can imitate.
If you are an experienced on-line user, you’ll have no trouble calling the system and following the on-screen instructions. You can log on as “guest” to have a look around and then request your own log-on identification, which is free.
Novices ought to call the center by voice at (800) 678-NTTC and request a user’s guide first.
You don’t need to be in a rocket science sort of business to find useful information on this bulletin board. Sure, there are some esoteric technologies described, but others could be put to use in more prosaic businesses.
The SBA’s bulletin board is toll-free, at least through the end of this year, thanks to a donated line from Sprint. The numbers are (800) 859-4636 for 300- to 2,400-baud modems and (800) 697-4636 for 9,600 baud. This one doesn’t use any terminal emulation, which may be a setting indicated as “TTY” or “ANSI-BBS” in your communications software. The parameters should be set for 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity.
The bulletin board is very easy to use, immediately prompting you for identification to create a log-on for future use. You get access to everything on your first call.
This service has been operating for a year and has attracted a strong following, so you may have to call several times to get through. ProComm Plus for Windows, the program I used, redialed again and again for me until I succeeded. Most other communication programs have a similar capability.
As in the Business Gold bulletin board, there are text files you can read on-screen or download to your own computer to print or use as desired.
Both services also have an electronic mail or messaging facility on which you can exchange information with other users.
On the SBA system, I quickly browsed through a section titled “Thirty Most Asked Questions,” a compendium of sound advice for would-be business people. Among the files that can be downloaded, one in particular caught my eye after watching the recent Southern California wildfires. It was “Basic Facts About the SBA Disaster Loan Program.”
