Beyond a Dream: Starting Your Own Small or Home-Based Business

Why Teach Home-Based Business Education?

Starting a small or home-based business might be rewarding, both personally and financially. In fact, there are more than 15 million home-based businesses in the United States. Over the past few years, businesses with fewer than 50 employees have accounted for almost two-thirds of new jobs according to Dun & Bradstreet surveys. A home-based business can provide an opportunity to expand a hobby or pursue an idea under consideration, or it can be a disaster.

Although small business development can be a successful economic development strategy because of the potential positive ramifications, research has documented that close to 60% of new businesses fail in the first 5 years of existence. First-time entrepreneurs seldom know every aspect about business management techniques, marketing, government regulations, and/or business plans.

As part of issues programming and the Revitalizing Rural America National Initiative, Extension Agents, Family & Consumer Sciences and Community Development with Ohio State University Extension in Perry, Morgan, Muskingum, and Guernsey Counties have developed, the "Beyond a Dream: Starting Your Own Small or Home-Based Business" series. This series of specialized workshops included such topics as:

• Sewing for Profit,
• Food Creations from the Home,
• Marketing Crafts, and
• Food Concession Trailers.

The series was designed to help individuals develop their business "dreams into realities" by providing them with practical information on the fundamentals of starting their own business.

Approach to Home-Based Business Education

Our overlying objective was to provide research-based information about home-based businesses and realistic income expectations in an effort to assist entrepreneurs in establishing and maintaining a profitable home-based business to supplement their family income. Additional objectives were to educate and inform participants about opportunities and limitations of a home-based business, including types of existing businesses, while encouraging them to make decisions appropriate to their situations; to encourage innovative business ideas complementing the workers' own experiences; and to identify and discuss the stresses and compromises required by working at home due to the fuzzy and unclear boundaries between home, family, and work.

The series provided an intense, 2-hour, general entrepreneurial workshop, including practical information on the following six topics:

• How Entrepreneurial are You?;
• The Legal Aspects of Owning a Small or Home-Based Business;
• Pricing Your Product;
• Marketing and Advertising;
• Records and Record Keeping; and
• The Business Plan.

We concluded with a panel discussion of small business owners sharing about their respective businesses. Workshop participation ranged from a low of five individuals from Eastern Ohio (Elder Care) to more than 50 (Arts and Crafts) during the past 5 years of programming efforts. The workshops drew together local, county, and district resource people for various aspects of the small business development programming efforts.

Results of Home-Based Business Education

The evaluations of the program were positive. Using a scale of 1 - 5, with 1 being none, not at all, or poor, and 5 being much, very, and excellent, respectively, program participants rated each program based on Knowledge Gained, Usefulness of Information, and Quality of Presentation. An accumulation of evaluations from several workshops revealed an average rating of 4.2 for Knowledge Gained, a 4.2 for Usefulness of Information, and a 4.3 for Quality of Presentation. Some written comments included, "very informative, well planned," "panel members well selected, I enjoyed them very much," and "I was concerned about where we were going to collect this information for starting a small or home-based business." Verbally, participants cited contact with resource people, gaining new insights, and support from others as the greatest impact of our programming efforts.

Program participation demographics revealed a 35% to 65% male to female ratio, a 90% participation of individuals age 20 - 44; a 10% participation of individuals 45 and over; a 40% participation of rural, non-farm residents; a 30% participation of small farm residents; and a 30% participation of individuals living in a city (over 5,000 population).

The entrepreneurial spirit that has made American dreams become a reality should be nurtured at all levels of our Extension system. Effective Extension entrepreneurship programs can assist individuals to explore business ownership opportunities and acquire skills to enable them to start a business of their choice.