April 2019 

Entrepreneurs 

Orto Foods is focused on popularizing food products made from the Jicama root vegetable grown in Mexico. Their “Jica” (pronounced “hica”) products are derived from this root vegetable. Orto Foods is pleased to announce the launch of its JicaFresh brand of products including JicaSticks and JicaTortilla. With JicaTortilla you now have a fresh vegetable, non-processed based taco alternative that is just 8 calories and 2 carbs! JicaChips®, the first product offered by OrtoFoods, are healthy alternatives to mainstream snack foods.

Jicama is the next superfood! Besides being delicious, this amazing root veggie is

  • 50% of the Calories & Carbs of a Potato. Low Glycemic
  • 3 times the fiber of oatmeal (per gram)
  • Natural source of inulin, a prebiotic, which helps maintain "good" bacteria in your colon
  • Packed with vitamin C, potassium, iron, folate, magnesium, and manganese

Karen Caplan, president, and CEO of Frieda’s noted that more retailers are offering fresh-cut jicama sticks than ever before. “It has only taken 45 years for jicama to become a household name since Frieda’s introduced it to produce retailers in 1972!”

Orto Foods was founded in 2015 by the husband & wife team of Xin Wang and Melissa Colella Wang. They are based in Congers, NY (Rockland County) and produce their products in Mexico. HV Startup Fund invested $250,000 in Orto Foods Series Seed Round in January 2019.

 

 Investors

 

SUNY New Paltz School of Business is proud to induct Noa Simons into its Hall of Fame on April 24. Noa has been instrumental in creating a network of investors that support HV entrepreneurs. As Executive Director of Upstate Capital, Noa focuses on increasing access to capital across upstate NY. Noa is also a founding manager of the Hudson Valley Startup Fund, a local member-managed seed capital fund comprised of 62 angel investors.

The Dean's Award for Excellence honors individuals with a personal commitment to excellence, a desire to foster positive change within their communities and a meaningful connection to the School of Business.

Noa Simons possesses these characteristics and more. Noa has assisted the School of Business as we have developed our entrepreneurship program by connecting us with the people in the Hudson Valley who could help us make a difference. Noa is one of our founding leaders of the Hudson Valley Venture Hub, and her ongoing involvement has been instrumental in our initial success.

Noa is a tireless proponent of entrepreneurship in New York State. Noa has served for the past three years as Executive Director of Upstate Capital Association of New York, a professional membership association that connects the investment community to increase access to capital and deal flow, and attracts more venture capital to the region. Noa recently took on managing the statewide intercollegiate business plan competition (NYBPC) and brought a collaborative, regional ecosystem building approach in establishing the Capital Foundation of New York to advance. The NYBPC is an opportunity for students from all colleges and universities, including SUNY New Paltz, to compete for cash and recognition for student-led ventures. In her at the HV Startup Fund role, Noa's attention is more sharply focused on the Hudson Valley region, working together with her co-founders to attract high growth potential businesses to our area. Noa is an entrepreneur herself, having co-founded Community Compost Company in 2014.

 

 

 

Leaders

Danny Potocki has launched Accel7 (A7), an early-stage technology accelerator partnering with startups to develop Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) solutions that impact the Greater HV Region. In a six-month cohort, A7 embeds with startups to provide operations and business development support across product development, business modeling, client acquisition, and fundraising engagement. A7 works with schools, corporations, nonprofits, and government departments to execute pilots and projects to advance startup capabilities in the region.

 

Contact Danny Potocki at 914-512-4479 or danny@accel7.org

  • Accel7 is partnered with KOI Creative Space and has co-working space at 169 Mamaroneck Ave., Suite 12, White Plains, NY 1060.

Accel7 is also partnered with CO. and has community space at 6571 Spring Brook Ave., Rhinebeck, NY 12572.

 

 

 

Service Providers

 

Judelson, Giordano & Siegal, CPA, PC

JGS, CPA, PC At JGS, we are more than just a Hudson Valley accounting firm, we're business advisors. Our philosophy is one of a collaborative effort, as we work alongside you to solve the problems and address the needs of your specific business. With this team approach, JGS has become an expert in reaching beyond the numbers to address core business concepts and operational matters that impact the growth and protection of one's business and assets.

Coming into Compliance with State Taxes in the Wake of Wayfair

Impact of Wayfair decision

On June 21, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its widely anticipated decision in Wayfair. The Court held that states may require businesses to collect and remit sales and use taxes even if the business has no in-state physical presence.

The Wayfair decision means that states are now free to subject companies to state taxes based on an “economic” presence within their state. Overnight, remote sellers, licensors of software, and other businesses that provide services or deliver their products to customers from a remote location will have to start complying with state and local taxes.

Left unchecked, these state and local tax obligations, and the corresponding potential liability from tax, interest, and penalties, will grow over time. Moreover, neglecting your sales and use tax obligations may result in a lost opportunity to pass the sales and use tax burden to customers as intended by state tax laws.

For the entire article and a step-by-step approach to strategically address state tax compliance matters resulting from the Wayfair decision visit our website: http://www.jgspc.com/coming-into-compliance-with-state-taxes-in-the-wake-of-wayfair/

JGS has offices in Poughkeepsie and Middletown.

 

 

Before Silicon Valley, the HV

 Don Delaney

Inventing the first startup - Entrepreneurship

1626 - 7 Principles of Entrepreneurship

Before 1626 and the Manhattan Company, entrepreneurship and startups as we recognize them today did not exist. For hundreds of year, commerce was the purview of kings and popes. An iPhone in 1600 would display a royal ‘warrant’, not an Apple logo.

The Dutch East India Company, which owned, sponsored, funded and managed the Manhattan Company ushered in a new invention - entrepreneurship, which displaced royalty as the arbiter of business. The Dutch secular values of tolerance, openness, and acceptance were an early disruptor. On May 24, 1626, Colonial Governor, Peter Minuit, purchased Manhattan Island for $24 and the next day, Manhattan was open for business under the following framework of the Seven Principles of Dutch Entrepreneurship.

  1. Discover a big problem that scales. Round trip sailing time, at four miles an hour, from Holland to Asia took too much time.
  2. Design an effective, innovative solution, and a business model. The solution, a direct route from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
  1. Raise startup funding. The Dutch VOC Public (VC) Fund invented direct investment in startups.
  2. Assemble a talented and experienced team. They funded Henry Hudson and all the business on Manhattan.
  1. Launch, iterate, leverage failure into knowledge.  Henry Hudson explored every East Coast waterway between New York and the Arctic.
  2. Manage margins.  Buy fur pelts low from the Indian and sell high in Holland - 10X margins.
  1. Make Money - Manhattan Company averaged an 18% year-over-year return. VOC grew to be worth $9.7 Trillion dollars.

This Before the Silicon Valley, the Hudson Valley blog offers a 400-year narrative journey honoring the Icons of Entrepreneurship and their impact on the invention, innovation, and commercialization in the Hudson Valley.

 

For more information, contact Donald J. Delaney, HV Entrepreneurship Historian & Blog Writer for the HV Venture Hub. You can reach Don at don@dondelaney.com

 

© Donald J. Delaney 2019

 


Events

 

  • April 3 (Tarrytown) - All Access Healthcare - key issues that impact the region’s hospital and healthcare system, and impacts on the local business community
  • April 10 (Purchase) - Should I Get Off the Sidelines? Deciding When to Start a New Company - for Physician Entrepreneurs
  • April 10 (Rhinebeck) - free “Co-Working Day” at CO  
  • April 12 (Poughkeepsie) - MHV Regional Business Plan Competition - a competition among college entrepreneurs across the HV
  • April 23 - Virtual Roundtable - Translating Data Science, Data Ownership and Security - Medtech, Software, and App Developers (Westchester Biotech Project)
  • April 24 (New Paltz) - Hall of Fame - 2019 inductees of the SUNY New Paltz School of Business Hall of Fame will be honored. You are cordially invited.
  • April 25-26 (Albany) - E^3 and NYBPC - largest expo in NY featuring: “office hours” with investors and advisors, the NYS intercollegiate business plan competition finals, angel investor development, and incubator advancement education
  • May 1 - Virtual Roundtable - To Share, or Not to Share? That is the Question - for Researchers, Inventors, and Entrepreneurs (Westchester Biotech Project)
  • May 2 (White Plains) - 3rd Annual Hudson Valley Affordable Housing Summit - the current state of affairs in housing and present strategies for increasing affordable housing
  • May 14 (White Plains) - 3rd Annual Real Estate Summit - annual breakfast event with the region’s top leaders in commercial and residential real estate