Hi everyone. Im j. J. Ramberg, and welcome to your business. If youre looking for an International Culinary adventure without a passport then look no further than new york citys league of kitchens. Its the brain child of social entrepreneur lisa gross. The companys mission was simple. To be a Cooking School beforewhere immigrants could share their countrys culinary traditions. Its a saturday afternoon in cue gardens, new york and four earring students are traveling for an afternoon of emessive stud any a new culture, cuisine and neighborhood. Hi. Welcome. This is welcome to my home. Reporter if this doesnt look like a typical cooking class, its because this isnt your ordinary Cooking School. So you are welcome here and you belong to me now and i belong to you. Reporter born out of regret lisa gross had an idea for a business that was simple and very personal. A product of half korean and half russian jewish heritage lisa loved to cook but failed to learn and fully appreciate her grandmothers recipes before she died. I starteded to try to teach myself from books, you know from recipes online but something was always a little bit off or missing, and so that became this fantasy of oh wouldnt it be great if there was a korean grandmother i could learn from go into her own kitchen, and learn from her and family recipes and that came to the idea wouldnt that be great if you could do that from all over the world . Reporter lisa ought out ofsought out recent immigrants from many places who were talented home cooks to share their unique epic cuisine with a small group of students in the comfort of their own home. New york city right now is actually statistically the most diverse place on the planet, but for so many people your only interactions with immigrants are in service positions, in the league of kitchens workshop the instruct. Whos the immigrant, is really the host the expert. Theyre the ones who are sharing their story and their expertise, and so often the immigrant is the one whos being taught, too, or the one whos in a position of dislocation or disorientation and so that conventions power dynamic is really switched in a league of kitchens workshop. Reporter and thats a Welcome Change for these mostly middle age recent emigres who found meaningful wellpaid jobs in the United States to be a challenge. Especially with newly learned english skills and little prior work experience. But i think what really unites them is theyre all very passionate about cooking and teeding people and sharing their knowledge, and hosting people and thats where they find kind of their happiness is in doing those things. How do you make this . We going to learn today. Ah, yes reporter lisa does more than just hire these recent arrivals. She also helps train them. Each of our instructors receives about 50 hours of paid training, and about half to twothirds of that is coaching around teaching, because you know, you can be a great cook but thats very different from being a good teacher of cooking. Each instructor teaches a series of practice workshops, then they get coached afterwards and we also work with them to create their teaching menus. Each instructor teaches the same menu at every workshop. We design the menus for them so theres something for a beginning chef an advanced chef. Reporter this was central to their living back home. My mom was primarily a stay at home home. She was constantly in the kitchen. That was her main role was making sure that everyone in the family was fed. And it was not just like one meal a day. Were talking about four meal as day. Breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner. All four have to be fresh meals. Reporter before meeting lisa, many of these women had tried to make a business out of they are cooking, but found it difficult to run those type in new york stip without marketing and delivering setting up the food. One things we provide to all of our instructors is the marketing, the signup apparatus where all the students register through us and pay through us. We organize everything, and so that allows our instructors to really focus on what theyre great at which is cooking, teaching sharing, hosting. So this is sort of freeing, that they can just let all of that go and just focus on the thing that they really love and are good at. Reporter now they have a place to sharp their skille their skills and earn some money. Before they get a job they have to go through an audition. Lisa insists she gets the best aroundants actually to get our first six instructors we interviewed close to 150 people and did inhome cooking auditions with about 25 because theres no staff at these workshops. Its really in the hands of our instructors. I think its been a really kind of exciting and em poub powering experience to have these groups come into their homes especially food professionals, too, and really appreciate their cooking and their skill and their knowledge. The league of kitchens model shows how the immigrant experience can be an integral part in passing on skills and entrepreneurial wisdom to a new audience. That was the case for an chicago artist who couldnt find a pair of shoes. Like an immigrant father, he decided to make them himself. George blogos grew up working in a suburban cobbler shop. There he watched and learned the old world craft of repairing and building shoes from his father john, an immigrant from greece. Its hard work you know . Kids get dirty, you know and its not easy. Reporter after college, george started a career as a teacher, but soon found himself day dreaming about being his own boss and going into the shoe business just like his dad. Growing up you know in my family, you always had to buy shoes that could be resoled. My dad always wanted you to have shoes that would last. Reporter george realized in an era where things are disposable, a wellmade pair of american shoes was hard to come by, so george set out to assemble a group of artisans to revive the craft of shoemaking in the United States paying special attention to sourcing all of the materials and labor in america. Thats kind of when the idea was sparked of how could we make a shoe or boots in america, make them out of the best components. Really in the world. Hand craft them the oldfashioned way, and offer them at a price that thats attainable. Reporter he named his company oak street boot makers and started his search to find the best materials possible for his uber american shoes. He didnt have to go far to source the most important ingredient. The leather. It just so happened the last remaining tannery in chicago, this leather company, a fourth generation familyrun business was just a few miles away. Hes here i would say at least once a month, but we talk much more often. He wants to know what the footage is when is it going to be ready . How. Looking, and thats a service were here to provide. Reporter the longtime supplier of leather to companies that make highend shoes like alan edmonds. Nick, the fifth generation at his familys legendary company, is very interested in making sure the leather that takes up to six months to tan is just right. Even for a Smaller Company like oak street. Making leather is a craft. Theres a lot more steps than most people realize. Reporter with the leather sourced in america, george started working on his designs. Many of them a riff on the classic boat shoe. The key element in his version, handsown seams. He went searching for a place to assemble a small con tingant of sewers pap few craft people with that unique skill was maine. Once one of the states biggest employer, the shoe industry has all but disappeared there with the work being done cheaper overseas. Adam suttons factory from bangor is one of only four left in the entire state whrchlts george contacted me and wanted to come and see the factory, he sort of fell in love with what we were doing, and then he started to tell me his story and getting back to the whole, hey, i want to make product in america. Reporter the timing was perfect. Sunts factory was not going to make it without an influx of work for its highly skilled hand sewers and crafts people with the allamerican highquality supply chain figured out george launched his business online. Not sure whether anyone would be willing to pay between 250 and 450 for his handcrafted shoes. One mention on a blog called secret port sealed his fate. But that day we sold out of all of our inventory, within 24 hours, we were out. And so the fact our shoes are handmade present add problem. Presented a problem, because they take about six weeks to make, and we know that thats a long time but even though we sold out, we immediately went to a sixweek preorder system and customers were still ordering. Reporter now oak street boot makers has stoked the artisan economy with handcrafted shoes with people still waiting sometimes six weeks for a pair of him. His handson approach has him working sidebyside with nick on the leather before it ships to adam sutton in maine to be hand sohnzone sown and he personally monitors and inspects every pair of shoes before they ship. We dont see our factory as just a factory thats making our shoes. Its really a relationship. When i see a shoe i can actually often tell who sewed it. Its almost like their signature. And so going to maine and being a part of that is just, its part of the dna. Cyber crime is a real risk for Companies Big and small, and even with all of these stories of cyber crime out there, too many Small Businesses are not updating their Security Policies and tools. Do not start thinking about this once its too late. I cannot stress enough. It doesnt have to take a lot of money. It doesnt have to take a lot of time, but you have to take this seriously. Scott schober is the president and cbo of berkeley Electronics Systems a company that designs and manufactures security products, and shawn cairn is a director at west Monroe PartnersTechnology Infrastructure and operations practice based in chicago. Theyre here to share some security measures that you must take to keep your business safe. Thank you so much for coming on the program. Thank you. Thank you. Scott, lets start with you. I mean i think for a lot of people, they think im just not getting around to this because im overwhelmed by it its going to cost too much money, take too much time. What can somebody do . Yeah good point. A lot of times just best practices. Sharing within Small Businesses what the risks are, where the vulnerabilities are. Certainly its important that all organizations back up their data on a regular basis. If not daily, at least weekly in case theyre hacked as far as a ransom ware attack where it locks up all your critical information and youre at ransom. Thats critical. But best practice is even to avoid phishing attacks, an attachment inside an email alerting employees no the to click on that because that could then down load malware and cause all kinds of havoc. What kind of advice do you give to people to talk about phishing scams, for instance . How often do you bring it up . What examples do you give them . All the tile. A lot of times give the example if it looks convincing looks real thats most of the time what these guy, doing. They have advanced tools to make it look convincing like its from your bank or Something Like that. If theres any ounce of suspicion do not click on the attachment. Rather go directly to the url, the website of your bank or whatever else you might be checking. Maybe say to employees look you dont want to be the one whos responsible for exactly. Good point. For cyber crime in our company, right . Just get them to remember it. Shawn, what are some of the things that you see people fail to do you know Small Businesses that get attacked . I think the first thing to consider with Small Business is understanding that the amount of money that they spend to protect their organization is a lot less than the big players are. However, today theres a lot more access to tools through computing and things like that they can access and deploy to protect the environment in the beginning. So looking at antiemail ware and antispam ware for email to blaect scott mentioned around those phishing attacks. Look at the backups to back up now to the cloud and have all your data in a severecure environment. One of the most important things and most neglected is strong passwords. I say this again and again every single day. A sixcharacter password doesnt dut. You got to have at least 15 characters upper case lower case numbers with symbols, and it shouldnt be a common word in the dictionary, or your wifes name or pets name or anything else. Obscure. Something you cant remember, but got to write it down in a secure place. Then you minimize the chance youre the next victim to get hacked. Very important. And shawn, shouldnt have the same password for more than one site . Thats correct. A big mistake, utilize passwords across different technologies. Especially sharing them between the Business Environment and home environment. Thats really where the challenge is. Right. Somebody told me a real good idea, which is create a sentence in your mind right . Sentences are a great idea. Also using things like the last book you read or the last movie that you watched. Something along those lines that is easy enough for you to remember at the moment but also provides you with the ability to add some of those special characters in. So mentioned the symbol, 1 for an i, making it a more difficult sentence for someone to guess using tools but also something you can remember easily without having to write it down or store it somewhere else. Scott, leave us with one last point which is how often should you be doing an audit on your Security Systems and processes . For Small Businesses this is really something they should be doing on a quarterly basis as minimum. Depending upon the nature of your business financial, things like that more Sensitive Data you probably want to do it more often. At least on a month will basis and nothing wrong with having an outside company even come in periodically to do a you haver in 5b89 or penetration test to test how secure are your computer net wroshgs. Great. Thank you to both of you for coming on. In a lot of cases we know what we should be doing. People just arent taking the time to do it and they will regret this if something goes wrong. This whole conversation is is a great reminder. Thanks a lot for coming on. When we come back beal look at whether a startup should offer ownership to its staff. And hung grip for dessert . With their product, you can text for a tasty treat. If i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing ive learned is my philosophy is real simple American Express open forum is an online community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make Smart Business decisions. If you mess up, fess up. Be your partners best partner. We built it for our members, but its open for everyone. Theres not one way to do something. No details too small. American express open forum. This is what membership is. This is what membership does. Todays your biz selfie comes to us from the fun people at the Apparel Company ciao bella moda international. Send a selfie and add the harb your biz selfie. Tweet it to us or email it to your business msnbc. Com. Please dont forget to tell us your name city and name of your company. Ordering food online is fast becoming the goto way to have your dinner delivered to you. Todays elevator pitchers have come um with way to make your order via text. Lets see if they whet our panels appetite for their product. The Small Business administration and chairman of the Latino Coalition and Small Business expert jim returns as well, the host of the Small Business advocate show. Hes greg. Im stewart. Were cofounders at eat a bit dotcom. Last year 70 billion dollars worth of takeout and delivery food orders were placed at independent restaurants in the u. S. Only 3 of those orders were electronic. Most food orders are still placed on the telephone. The reason is nobodys come up with a truly universal way to place electronic food orders. Imagine if those phone call was replaced with todays most popular form of communication, text messages. Weve patented an intelligence device that automatically takes food orders for restaurants chatting oefker text message. The device then prints the order inside the restaurant, on paper, in standard format. In our hometown of Charleston South Carolina weve printed over 10,000 of these orders in the last year. Making money leasing these devices directly to the restaurant. Stewart and i spend almost 100,000 of our money to get where we are today. Were asking for 500,000 to take it nationwide. Congratulations. Give you these to you. On a scale of one to ten how well they did with the pitch. So funny, you live in your own world. In new york city i dont know anybody that calls. Everybody does it digitally. Youre right. Its a tiny portion. Yes. So hopefully you guys will capture some of that market. Okay. Start with you hector since you seem to be done between one and ten . How did they do . 8. 5. A great presentation. They definitely know their market. I would like to hear more what they would do whip the 500,000 and going for debt or equity. Got it. Okay. Jim . My pen doesnt work. Oh. It doesnt . Just tell us. 8. 25. All right, getting specific. Yes. Why . What do you think they could have done better . Done better . Uhhuh. My concern is that you might not be the only thing worse for asking for too much money is not asking for enough. Got it. That would be the concern. If they had asked for more money, you might have given them a 10 . Might have. Might have. Well talk afterwards. Good response. You guys good luck with everything. Thank you for coming and pitching to the show. Appreciate it. Seems like a really interesting product and thank you guys for your feedback on that pitch. If any of you have a product or service and want feedback like in from our elevator pitch panel on your chances of getting interested investors, please send us an email. Your business msnbc. Com. Include a short summary of what your company does how many money youre trying to raise and what you intend to do with that money. We look forward to reads some of those pitches and seeing some of you here on the show. There are tons of blogs out there offering free advice and information on the latest Industry Trends but which ones are actually worth your time . Here now our five useful Small Business blogs you should be reading courtesy of yfs magazine. One hub sub blog. The site is a trusted industry source for advice to improve your kpip the Inbound Marketing strategies. Two the atkiss marketing blog. The Analytics Platform publishing content focusing on testing and valuating necessary data for your Small Business. Three, the pay roll blog by sure pay roll. Get the latest information on tax as well as Small Business tips and economic trends. For both sides of the table, by Mark Schuster a twotime entrepreneur turned vench capitalists giving firsthand advice on raising capital through the lens of a vc and five the blog from 500 startups, an early seed fund and ink cue balloter program sharing useful insight on lean startup practices and metrics. It is time now to answer some of your business questions. So lets get our board of directors in here to help and jim and hector are back with us. This first question is about equity. Id like to know when fannedand if its okay for a startup to offer ownership to prospective and current staff . A great question. Not alone in having this. Start with you. J. J. She says shes a startup. Uhhuh. I dont think its a good idea to have employees be owners of the company until down the road. Now if youre going for Venture Capital day one and you know youre going to be divesting in this company in a few years maybe thats what you need to do. If kbrur trying to build a mainstreet business ease essentially any employees you bring in as owners that they are Key Employees youre going to keep a long time that you dont plan to ever fire. So im not crazy about equity for employees early on. Right. Its different, right, in Silicon Valley it is expected. Thats right. In Many Industries it is not accepted . A rare exception, for main street. Those are highgrowth businesses. Thats more common. I agree with jim. My father used to say, you never take on a partner unless they can do something that you cant do. So if its just about financing those employees, i think theres other ways to do that. The other thing, can you do all kind of thing, profitsharing plans which arent about giving ect get that your Company Still allowing people to share in your success and be motivateed by your success. Thats right. The last question who writes my husband and i are starting an Office Cleaning company. He has 25 years of cleaning experience and i have 20 years of Customer Service experience. But together we do not know how to come up with pricing to charge for the jobs. Please guide us to know how much to charge our future clients. Is there a formula to follow . Im going to start with you, jim. Your latest book age of the customer and pricing is all about this as well. Thats right. The thing is this is a personal Service Business and a startup. One of the biggest mistake as company like that makes initially, associating what they charge with wages. What you charge has to be a flies will sustain your company financially. What you take out of the company is unrelated to that. So you have to make sure you dont confuse wages with what you have to charge and you have to convince charge whatever you can convince your customers youre worth and also competitive pressures. But make sure you dont get in the trap of associating your price with wages. So how do you even come up where do you even look to start to come up with a number . Got to do your homework. Market research. Ask a perspective customer whats theyre paying or would pay. You need to know your business. What is your distinct competitive advantage what will it cost to run that operation and the profit you iran tend to make. Do your homework sharpen the pencil and make sure you have a viable business. You both mentioned go to your competitors. If theyre charges say 5 are you offering anything better that gets you up there . Thats right. Right. Either youre providing more services for the same amount of money or youre able to lower that cost. Then somebodys going to Pay Attention to you. All things being equal, why should they change . Right. Okay great. Thank you guys so much for all of this advice. Very very helpful appreciate it. So good to see you guys. And if any of you have a question for our experts, just go on over to our website. The address is openforum. Com yourbusiness. There just hit the ask the show link to submit a question for our panel or email us your questions or your comments that address is yourbusiness yourbusiness msnbc. Com. Actually, not letting you leave yet. You have to participate in this with me. This is week three, starts week three of the j. J. Challenge. It for all of you out there you know this. A new segment challenging ourselves to pick up some of the habits of really successful entrepreneurs. Last week jack dorsey founder of twitter and square and it was to get your day going before sunrise. Do you guy doss that . Absolutely. So easy for me. I totally im on the air at 6 00. There you go. I failed. The week before came from tony shade, clean out your inbox failed. This one, simple. Wasnt alone. Up before 3 00 a. M. Andofwithout the alarm have been since i opened my business in 1992. Early morning is best mind is fresh, phone isnt ringing. You can get a lot of work done without interruption. Also, as hard as it may seem to gelt to the gym before sunrise, its worth it. I get rid of thoughts in my head i walk up whip that can suck energy, that way rid of distractions by the time i get to work and neil tweeted if my kid is up im up too. Does it count . I dont think so. There you are getting no Productive Work done if youre kid is also up with you at 6 00 in the morning, but you may be having fun. Anyhow it does not count. Get up earlier, sorry to say. This weeks challenge comes from denae ringalman, founder of indiegogo, a large and fast growing site hosted more than 250,000 campaigns and is active in more than 200 countries and here is her challenge. Ask one of your employees to give you a review. Have you guys done that . I havent but i think its a good idea and pretty brave. You dont know whats going to come back on the other side. Really good. I do too. The corporate calls it 360. The 360 review where you get a lot more than just you get other people ask, telling you what you need to be doing, yeah. Ive never said rate me. Ive set rate our company. How did we do . Thats a good idea. Here you go. This is going to be hard. I think hard for a lot of people. One thing i have to stress is you have to make sure you create an environment where people feel that they can be honest with you, because if not, this is a wasted exercise. Do not get defensive. I suspect were all going to learn a lot from this which will make us better leaders. Let me know how it goes on twitter or facebook using the the j. J. Challenge. Ill look for these and im going to do it as well. Good luck everyone. To learn more about todays show just head over to our website. Openfor um. Com yourbusiness. Youll find all of todaying segments and a lot more information to help your business grow. You can also follow us on twitter, its msnbcyourbiz and we are on facebook and instagram as well. Next week the creator of a new app which provides Health Coaches is going after customers any way she can. How the company vita health is maintaining focus while diversifying theirs outreach . Until then im j. J. Ramberg, and remember, we make your business our business. If i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing ive learned is my philosophy is real simple American Express open forum is an online community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make Smart Business decisions. If you mess up, fess up. Be your partners best partner. We built it for our members, but its open for everyone. Theres not one way to do something. No details too small. American express open forum. This is what membership is. This is what membership does. [ applause ] good evening. Im Chris Matthews out here in phoenix, arizona, with