September 5, 2023 • 15 mins
The Entrepreneur Space is a food & business incubator in Long Island City that has been helping people build and develop their new businesses for over 20 years. Managing Consultant of Entrepreneur Space, Katherine Gregory, talks about trends in today's emerging small businesses. For more, visit entrepreneurspace.org.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina delRio, a weekly conversation about fitness,
health and happenings in our community onone oh six point seven Light FM.
Good morning, and thanks for beingwith us on Get Connected. As so
many people are changing careers or thinkingabout changing careers, I put out a
call to the Entrepreneur Space, afood and business incubator in Long Island City
(00:24):
that has been helping people build anddevelop their new businesses for over twenty years.
Our guest is managing consultant of theEntrepreneur Space, Katherine Gregory. Katherine,
thank you for being on the show. Well, thank you for having
me. I love talking about theincubator and I love talking about the new
businesses. The entrepreneurs Space is aprogram of the Queen's Economic Development Corporation,
(00:47):
assisting growing businesses and queens for overforty five years. The entrepreneur Space provides
a home to emerging businesses and organizationsseeking a commercial kitchen, small office space
and classrooms. In fact, theentrepreneur Space is Catherine, has evolved over
time, so I'm going to backtracka little bit. The building you're in
was actually a workforce training facility andthe entrepreneurs Space began about twenty ten.
(01:11):
Something like that is an incubator concept. Twenty ten is an incubator concept,
and an incubator is really not onlythe kitchen space or the office space,
but it has the consulting component,that business advisory. What I call that
older sister who you know and fiveyears old walks you to school holding your
(01:36):
hand, and at six years oldtakes you to school, but she doesn't
hold your hand except when you crossthe street. And at seven years old
she just walks with you. Andat eight years old she says, fly
on your own, girl, goahead. So I'm gathering this is your
role managing consultant. This is whatyou do. You hold people's hands along
the way we do. We spenda lot of time because you know,
(02:00):
for you were saying people changing careers. There's two things that went on in
two thousand and one with the nineto eleven we had a lot of people
reevaluating their lives and do they wantto do what they were doing? Is
it that they you know, youcould have been in the wrong place at
(02:22):
the wrong time. COVID forced thesame thing because now we were stuck in
the house or they were stuck inthe house. I was not stuck in
the heaven. Entrepreneur space was upand growing, constant, going constantly,
but it forced you to re evaluatewhat is important. How is the balance
(02:44):
of life and work? Are youdoing what you're passionate about? Have you
lost that focus? And many peoplechanging careers or just starting a food business
have no clue as to what isinvolved, from the legal to the insurance,
to the licensing, to the marketingto the production. You know,
(03:07):
can you use a big mixer?Can you use a small mixer? How
do you get out there and sell? So you're covering all those things from
the kitchen to pasteurization to everything theymight need or want, an insurance,
all that, all of that,we advise them. We give them the
tools to go forward. We givethem the tools to do the right research
(03:30):
because again, like a good oldersister, you don't do it, you
show them how to do it.And that's very, very important because you
know, then you they learn exactlywhat they need to do and they will
be able to leave us. Ioften say when people leave us, we've
(03:51):
got a big smile on our facewhile the tears are running down our CHEA
are cheap we're sad to see themgo, but we're really so happy to
see them go. How do youknow when a business is ready to go
or do they know when they're readyto go. Most of the time it's
us telling them. Nobody really wantsto leave because it's a really secure environment.
(04:16):
You know, everything's there, thefamily is there. Most of the
time, it's when they've outgrown us. We don't have enough storage space for
them, we don't have enough shifts, we don't have the right equipment they
need, you know, a tenhour day and we only do eight hour
(04:38):
shifts. So you know, there'sa balance, and it's kind of what
we look at and we evaluate allthe time to see at a certain point,
if somebody can't buy five hundred poundsof flour and storage at a cost
effective price, then they're being stey. They're production action is being stemy.
(05:00):
Their ability to make a profit asbeing stemy. So that's when we know
it's time for them to go.Our guest is Katherine Gregory. She's managing
consultant of the entrepreneur Space. Theyprovide a home to emerging businesses and organizations
seeking a commercial kitchen, small officespace and classrooms. Based in Long Island
City. You're listening to get connectedon one oh six point seven light FM.
(05:24):
I'm Nina del Rio and you've justlaunched a new website, entrepreneur space
dot org. One thing that youmentioned just a moment ago about there's a
community there. There's lots of supportswhen people are in the space. As
someone who is close to some smallbusiness owners in my family who have been
successful, the one thing I wouldsay they lament when things are good,
(05:47):
end when they're questions over their headis there's no one to bounce anything off
of. They have people that workfor them, but peers are hard to
find. And I'm wondering, doyour owner all work together, your business
entrepreneurs or they work together or kindof chat together and find a bit of
a community there. Yeah, wedon't have the you know, lunches or
(06:11):
coffee clotches or anything else like that, but we foster partnerships. You know,
we have a new spice blend companywho's coming in and we're going to
be introducing her to a lot ofthe caterers. We have somebody who makes
tempe and we've introduced this company intoa couple of our natural food or vegan
(06:33):
food producers. So it's always tryingto partner within the kitchen. And then
you know, as they're working.Our kitchen is an open plan kitchen,
so everybody can see everybody else.Of course, you've got your head down
and you're really working fast and furious, but you look up, you stop,
(06:55):
you say, you know, you'rewalking through the kitchen to get to
the working on and you stop andlook at somebody's baked goods and you make
a comment. And you know,when somebody's got a little extra something,
they turn around, they say,who wants some cookies? Who wants this?
Who wants that? So it's reallya family. We try to make
it a family as much as possible. Since you mentioned Tempe, it makes
(07:17):
me think about the trends you musthave seen over the last twenty years.
What are you seeing now as thenew thing that everybody's interested in. There's
several new things. It's cuisine,okay, So now everybody wants different types
of cuisine that they haven't had before, or they may have had. You
(07:40):
know, their local restaurant was doinga Southern Thai cuisine versus a Northern Thai
cuisine, and they'd like to getmore of it. Vegan is a very
big plant. The whole plant basedmovement is very big. Health is important,
so we're looking at food that isnot only tasty, but it's good
(08:03):
for you. And I would saythose are the three big trends that I
see. Quality is important, nopreservatives, no other ingredients that should not
be there. So that's a verybig focus this year when you're advising someone
(08:24):
is there putting their business plan togetherand getting started, and especially in areas
like this that are popular at themoment, do you talk about saturation?
Is there enough of those right now? In New York? For instance?
You know how many chocolate chip cookiesare there in the world, forget about
New York City. I don't thinkit really matters. I think matters is
(08:48):
the passion that you have for thebusiness, the intelligence you bring to running
the business and getting out there andselling. Can you say what's different about
your chocolate chip cookies. So inthe kitchen, we currently have three people
making chocolate chip cookies. All ofthem are doing well. So I don't
(09:13):
think there's ever a point to saythere's too many chocolate chip cookies, chocolate
chip cookies and pizza. I thinkyou can always make more of those for
sure. Yeah, yes, I'veheard it said that you can people overestimate
what they might be able to accomplishin a year, but underestimate what they
might be able to accomplish in fiveyears. How does stamina or persistence come
(09:35):
into play with people who are startingup a business. There's a lot of
nos in the beginning, and youhave to be aware that you're going to
get a know. You have tothink about what do I do when I
do get a no? Do Iapproach them again six months later? Do
I forget them and go on tosomebody else? But also to analyze when
(09:58):
you got the If you go toa shopwrite and your product is well beyond
their price point and they sent yougave you a no, take that as
a learning experience. You shouldn't beselling in shop write. Your product may
be too expensive for the clientele there, So turn around and look and see
(10:18):
where you would sell it. Shouldyou be in a goattan Valentina or Citarella
or you know, whole foods.So and stamming is a big part.
People don't realize It is a longday in the kitchen, eight hours on
your feet, walking back and forth, or just standing or picking up a
(10:41):
twenty five pound bag of flour orthis or that. You know, so
I hope you're ready for it.And you know those things we call lunch
breaks, they don't really exist.You know, you stop for five minutes
to take a drink or maybe tenminute it's to sit down and you know,
(11:01):
get a cup of coffee or somethinglike that. That's about the extent
of it. Most people just donot have the time to you know.
So you've got to pace yourself.You've got to understand, you've got to
be healthy, You've got to takecare of yourself. There is definitely a
work life balance. You will gohome and spend an hour or two working
(11:24):
on your business. What else?Who else do I reach out to?
If I go to this market,am I prepare whatever? But you still
have to be able to take,you know, a couple of hours and
rest and relax some stupid television orlisten to iHeart radio. Yeah. Yeah.
We also you also talked about overtime. Perhaps what some people might
(11:50):
consider a failure. Perhaps if you'renot in this world, is you know,
you make a pivot, maybe youdiscover something else about the business you
want to go into the plan andchanges along the way. Oh. Absolutely.
The COVID, the entire pandemic forceda lot of food businesses to actually
pivot. So restaurants who subtly changedtheir menu to be more delivery friendly and
(12:18):
with the alcohol to go program suddenlystarted pairing certain dishes with certain glasses of
wine which they were now able tosell. Well, that's fabulous for this
food products that were only being soldin certain foods. Now the gourmet stores,
(12:39):
all of those stores were open.They needed to get out there.
If you were always selling in thestreet markets like Schmoorgesburg or Queen's Night Market,
well they weren't doing that. Wheredid you go elsewhere? How did
you get into it? Many peoplebeefed up their website and online delivery,
(13:00):
joined Etsy all of these other placesto get sales out to the consumer.
A lot of them beefed up theirwebsite too, which was great. Yeah,
how did your businesses you think fairedduring COVID? In general, we
had a lot of very successful turnaroundsand people changing direction a little bit and
(13:26):
continuing and going strong. We hadsome people who got sick and just weren't
able to continue, and for themwe know our hearts went out to them
and we just said, when you'reready, you'll come back to us.
Anything else you want to add aboutthe space or working there, or getting
in the program, it's easy toget in there. We never turn anybody
(13:52):
away. We may not allow youto join us at that time if we
don't feel you're ready. We've gotthe counselors. We recommend that you use
the counselors. We accept applications yearround. We're tough on you, but
we also want to make you.We want to have you succeed, and
(14:13):
we'll work with you to have yousucceed. So we look forward to seeing
everybody and go on to that website. We did a lot of work on
it. It's really filled with greatinformation. The new website is entrepreneurspace dot
org. Katherine Gregory is manage aconsultant, the big sister who will hold
(14:35):
your hand as you get started.Thank you for joining me, I get
connected, Thank you, Nina,Thank everybody for inviting me. I had
a blast. This has been Getconnected with Nina del Rio on one of
six point seven LIGHTFM. The viewsand opinions of our guests do not necessarily
reflect the views of the station.If you missed any part of our show
(14:56):
or want to share it, visitour website. We're downloads and pod casts
at one oh six seven lightfm dotcom. Thanks for listening, m
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina delRio, a weekly conversation about fitness,
health and happenings in our community onone oh six point seven Light FM.
Good morning, and thanks for beingwith us on Get Connected. As so
many people are changing careers or thinkingabout changing careers, I put out a
call to the Entrepreneur Space, afood and business incubator in Long Island City
(00:24):
that has been helping people build anddevelop their new businesses for over twenty years.
Our guest is managing consultant of theEntrepreneur Space, Katherine Gregory. Katherine,
thank you for being on the show. Well, thank you for having
me. I love talking about theincubator and I love talking about the new
businesses. The entrepreneurs Space is aprogram of the Queen's Economic Development Corporation,
(00:47):
assisting growing businesses and queens for overforty five years. The entrepreneur Space provides
a home to emerging businesses and organizationsseeking a commercial kitchen, small office space
and classrooms. In fact, theentrepreneur Space is Catherine, has evolved over
time, so I'm going to backtracka little bit. The building you're in
was actually a workforce training facility andthe entrepreneurs Space began about twenty ten.
(01:11):
Something like that is an incubator concept. Twenty ten is an incubator concept,
and an incubator is really not onlythe kitchen space or the office space,
but it has the consulting component,that business advisory. What I call that
older sister who you know and fiveyears old walks you to school holding your
(01:36):
hand, and at six years oldtakes you to school, but she doesn't
hold your hand except when you crossthe street. And at seven years old
she just walks with you. Andat eight years old she says, fly
on your own, girl, goahead. So I'm gathering this is your
role managing consultant. This is whatyou do. You hold people's hands along
the way we do. We spenda lot of time because you know,
(02:00):
for you were saying people changing careers. There's two things that went on in
two thousand and one with the nineto eleven we had a lot of people
reevaluating their lives and do they wantto do what they were doing? Is
it that they you know, youcould have been in the wrong place at
(02:22):
the wrong time. COVID forced thesame thing because now we were stuck in
the house or they were stuck inthe house. I was not stuck in
the heaven. Entrepreneur space was upand growing, constant, going constantly,
but it forced you to re evaluatewhat is important. How is the balance
(02:44):
of life and work? Are youdoing what you're passionate about? Have you
lost that focus? And many peoplechanging careers or just starting a food business
have no clue as to what isinvolved, from the legal to the insurance,
to the licensing, to the marketingto the production. You know,
(03:07):
can you use a big mixer?Can you use a small mixer? How
do you get out there and sell? So you're covering all those things from
the kitchen to pasteurization to everything theymight need or want, an insurance,
all that, all of that,we advise them. We give them the
tools to go forward. We givethem the tools to do the right research
(03:30):
because again, like a good oldersister, you don't do it, you
show them how to do it.And that's very, very important because you
know, then you they learn exactlywhat they need to do and they will
be able to leave us. Ioften say when people leave us, we've
(03:51):
got a big smile on our facewhile the tears are running down our CHEA
are cheap we're sad to see themgo, but we're really so happy to
see them go. How do youknow when a business is ready to go
or do they know when they're readyto go. Most of the time it's
us telling them. Nobody really wantsto leave because it's a really secure environment.
(04:16):
You know, everything's there, thefamily is there. Most of the
time, it's when they've outgrown us. We don't have enough storage space for
them, we don't have enough shifts, we don't have the right equipment they
need, you know, a tenhour day and we only do eight hour
(04:38):
shifts. So you know, there'sa balance, and it's kind of what
we look at and we evaluate allthe time to see at a certain point,
if somebody can't buy five hundred poundsof flour and storage at a cost
effective price, then they're being stey. They're production action is being stemy.
(05:00):
Their ability to make a profit asbeing stemy. So that's when we know
it's time for them to go.Our guest is Katherine Gregory. She's managing
consultant of the entrepreneur Space. Theyprovide a home to emerging businesses and organizations
seeking a commercial kitchen, small officespace and classrooms. Based in Long Island
City. You're listening to get connectedon one oh six point seven light FM.
(05:24):
I'm Nina del Rio and you've justlaunched a new website, entrepreneur space
dot org. One thing that youmentioned just a moment ago about there's a
community there. There's lots of supportswhen people are in the space. As
someone who is close to some smallbusiness owners in my family who have been
successful, the one thing I wouldsay they lament when things are good,
(05:47):
end when they're questions over their headis there's no one to bounce anything off
of. They have people that workfor them, but peers are hard to
find. And I'm wondering, doyour owner all work together, your business
entrepreneurs or they work together or kindof chat together and find a bit of
a community there. Yeah, wedon't have the you know, lunches or
(06:11):
coffee clotches or anything else like that, but we foster partnerships. You know,
we have a new spice blend companywho's coming in and we're going to
be introducing her to a lot ofthe caterers. We have somebody who makes
tempe and we've introduced this company intoa couple of our natural food or vegan
(06:33):
food producers. So it's always tryingto partner within the kitchen. And then
you know, as they're working.Our kitchen is an open plan kitchen,
so everybody can see everybody else.Of course, you've got your head down
and you're really working fast and furious, but you look up, you stop,
(06:55):
you say, you know, you'rewalking through the kitchen to get to
the working on and you stop andlook at somebody's baked goods and you make
a comment. And you know,when somebody's got a little extra something,
they turn around, they say,who wants some cookies? Who wants this?
Who wants that? So it's reallya family. We try to make
it a family as much as possible. Since you mentioned Tempe, it makes
(07:17):
me think about the trends you musthave seen over the last twenty years.
What are you seeing now as thenew thing that everybody's interested in. There's
several new things. It's cuisine,okay, So now everybody wants different types
of cuisine that they haven't had before, or they may have had. You
(07:40):
know, their local restaurant was doinga Southern Thai cuisine versus a Northern Thai
cuisine, and they'd like to getmore of it. Vegan is a very
big plant. The whole plant basedmovement is very big. Health is important,
so we're looking at food that isnot only tasty, but it's good
(08:03):
for you. And I would saythose are the three big trends that I
see. Quality is important, nopreservatives, no other ingredients that should not
be there. So that's a verybig focus this year when you're advising someone
(08:24):
is there putting their business plan togetherand getting started, and especially in areas
like this that are popular at themoment, do you talk about saturation?
Is there enough of those right now? In New York? For instance?
You know how many chocolate chip cookiesare there in the world, forget about
New York City. I don't thinkit really matters. I think matters is
(08:48):
the passion that you have for thebusiness, the intelligence you bring to running
the business and getting out there andselling. Can you say what's different about
your chocolate chip cookies. So inthe kitchen, we currently have three people
making chocolate chip cookies. All ofthem are doing well. So I don't
(09:13):
think there's ever a point to saythere's too many chocolate chip cookies, chocolate
chip cookies and pizza. I thinkyou can always make more of those for
sure. Yeah, yes, I'veheard it said that you can people overestimate
what they might be able to accomplishin a year, but underestimate what they
might be able to accomplish in fiveyears. How does stamina or persistence come
(09:35):
into play with people who are startingup a business. There's a lot of
nos in the beginning, and youhave to be aware that you're going to
get a know. You have tothink about what do I do when I
do get a no? Do Iapproach them again six months later? Do
I forget them and go on tosomebody else? But also to analyze when
(09:58):
you got the If you go toa shopwrite and your product is well beyond
their price point and they sent yougave you a no, take that as
a learning experience. You shouldn't beselling in shop write. Your product may
be too expensive for the clientele there, So turn around and look and see
(10:18):
where you would sell it. Shouldyou be in a goattan Valentina or Citarella
or you know, whole foods.So and stamming is a big part.
People don't realize It is a longday in the kitchen, eight hours on
your feet, walking back and forth, or just standing or picking up a
(10:41):
twenty five pound bag of flour orthis or that. You know, so
I hope you're ready for it.And you know those things we call lunch
breaks, they don't really exist.You know, you stop for five minutes
to take a drink or maybe tenminute it's to sit down and you know,
(11:01):
get a cup of coffee or somethinglike that. That's about the extent
of it. Most people just donot have the time to you know.
So you've got to pace yourself.You've got to understand, you've got to
be healthy, You've got to takecare of yourself. There is definitely a
work life balance. You will gohome and spend an hour or two working
(11:24):
on your business. What else?Who else do I reach out to?
If I go to this market,am I prepare whatever? But you still
have to be able to take,you know, a couple of hours and
rest and relax some stupid television orlisten to iHeart radio. Yeah. Yeah.
We also you also talked about overtime. Perhaps what some people might
(11:50):
consider a failure. Perhaps if you'renot in this world, is you know,
you make a pivot, maybe youdiscover something else about the business you
want to go into the plan andchanges along the way. Oh. Absolutely.
The COVID, the entire pandemic forceda lot of food businesses to actually
pivot. So restaurants who subtly changedtheir menu to be more delivery friendly and
(12:18):
with the alcohol to go program suddenlystarted pairing certain dishes with certain glasses of
wine which they were now able tosell. Well, that's fabulous for this
food products that were only being soldin certain foods. Now the gourmet stores,
(12:39):
all of those stores were open.They needed to get out there.
If you were always selling in thestreet markets like Schmoorgesburg or Queen's Night Market,
well they weren't doing that. Wheredid you go elsewhere? How did
you get into it? Many peoplebeefed up their website and online delivery,
(13:00):
joined Etsy all of these other placesto get sales out to the consumer.
A lot of them beefed up theirwebsite too, which was great. Yeah,
how did your businesses you think fairedduring COVID? In general, we
had a lot of very successful turnaroundsand people changing direction a little bit and
(13:26):
continuing and going strong. We hadsome people who got sick and just weren't
able to continue, and for themwe know our hearts went out to them
and we just said, when you'reready, you'll come back to us.
Anything else you want to add aboutthe space or working there, or getting
in the program, it's easy toget in there. We never turn anybody
(13:52):
away. We may not allow youto join us at that time if we
don't feel you're ready. We've gotthe counselors. We recommend that you use
the counselors. We accept applications yearround. We're tough on you, but
we also want to make you.We want to have you succeed, and
(14:13):
we'll work with you to have yousucceed. So we look forward to seeing
everybody and go on to that website. We did a lot of work on
it. It's really filled with greatinformation. The new website is entrepreneurspace dot
org. Katherine Gregory is manage aconsultant, the big sister who will hold
(14:35):
your hand as you get started.Thank you for joining me, I get
connected, Thank you, Nina,Thank everybody for inviting me. I had
a blast. This has been Getconnected with Nina del Rio on one of
six point seven LIGHTFM. The viewsand opinions of our guests do not necessarily
reflect the views of the station.If you missed any part of our show
(14:56):
or want to share it, visitour website. We're downloads and pod casts
at one oh six seven lightfm dotcom. Thanks for listening, m
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