June 2020

In March, just as the COVID-19 crisis was emerging, and as we began to isolate at home, we felt it was important for HV entrepreneurs to come together to help each other through the difficult economic times. The HV Venture Hub launched a series of eight weekly online HV Entrepreneur Collaboration Huddles covering a variety of important topics, led by local entrepreneurs. The series was completed on May 28. 

Thank you to the hundreds of people who collectively participated across the eight weeks. Valuable insights were shared, new connections were made, and hope for a brighter future was kept alive. To see the recordings of the most recent sessions, see the Events section below. 

 

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Entrepreneurs

Hudson Valley Harvest (“HVH”), a HVSF portfolio company, has managed to increase sales as it helped families in the Hudson Valley put food on their tables. HVH services wholesale customers, such as retail stores, restaurants and school cafeterias, as well as individual consumers through its affiliated Field Goods business. 

HVH is not only weathering the pandemic storm despite the lockdowns enacted in March that erased a third of their customer base in restaurants and school cafeterias, but were able to nearly double their wholesale business as the shelter-in-place orders first took effect. This doubling was due to a surge in demand from their loyal local retail store customers and the strength of its retail store catalog. Since those early weeks, this wholesale business has normalized to about 40% above pre-pandemic levels.

Its direct-to-consumer business, Field Goods, has grown fourfold as it entirely transformed its business from delivering to consumers through common community pick-up locations, which have since closed, to delivering direct to home. This growth is a testament to Field Goods’ ability to convert its entire business and technology system to service home delivery. In order for Field Goods to accomplish its home delivery conversion, they had to convert both its website to enable direct to home delivery, as well as its warehouse flow to handle the increased volume and customized orders. They managed this conversion in just three days!

More changes are on the horizon as the shelter-in-place orders are eased and lifted. More dining out will likely help restaurant sales while at the same time lowering demand for at-home delivery. But as community pick up sites reopen, Field Goods will continue to deliver to those locations as well.

Throughout this crisis, even as HVH staff worked ever harder to meet demand, the cleaning protocol that HVH implemented early on –– which included sanitizer hand-pumps at every doorway, Lysol wipes in each vehicle, and gloves and masks for every employee –– has helped keep the entire HVH team safe and healthy. Not one employee has tested positive for COVID-19, and HVH continues to take all necessary precautions to protect its team, its customers, and its business. 

 

For more information, contact info@hv-harvest.com or 1-800-811-3795

Investors 


Conditions remain challenging for both investors and entrepreneurs in and around the Hudson Valley, even as prospects have improved for some industries. As difficult as conditions are, we’re heartened to see the resilience shown not just by the front-line health care professionals and other essential workers, but by entrepreneurs across all industries. 

An excellent example of that resilience is ViaHero, a firm focused on helping adventurous travelers connect with locals across the globe to create customized vacation itineraries.

With travel restrictions in place across much of the world, ViaHero’s business largely ground to a halt. Recognizing that these restrictions would not necessarily be lifted quickly –– and that the public’s appetite for travel may not return to previous levels in the short term –– ViaHero has worked feverishly to safeguard their business. 

In addition to contingency planning for staffing and expenses, as well as exploring the full range of government-backed support programs, ViaHero began work on an alternative to its main service. 

The new offering, called ViaHero Bucket List, is a lightweight version of ViaHero’s primary service. ViaHero Bucket List gives travelers a list of 10 personalized recommendations as well as 3 at-home experiences. Travelers can experience a portion of their travel plan virtually, even as most of their plans remain on hold until travel restrictions are eased. 

It remains to be seen what results this approach will yield for ViaHero, but it’s just one example of many startup firms who are working hard –– and creatively –– to help secure their future. 

Though it’s simply not acceptable to talk of silver linings for a crisis that has caused so much loss of life, the pressurized conditions startups are currently operating under do provide investors with a glimpse of a management team’s ability to handle and address unexpected market changes, think creatively, and tackle adversity.

HV Startup Fund encourages investors to resist the knee-jerk pessimism surrounding current economic uncertainty. And we encourage startup founders and their advisors to reach out to HVSF. We still seek strong, high-growth startup businesses to invest in, and we’re still bullish on opportunities going forward.

 

Entrepreneurs and investors seeking more information on the HV Startup Fund can contact Andrew Schulkind, Managing Member, at info@hvstartupfund.com. 

Leaders

Hudson Valley Women in Business (HVWiB) is the largest community of women business owners north of NYC. With nearly 3,000 members in the five years since its inception, HVWiB offers vibrant online connection, monthly speakers, quarterly Weekday Retreats and weekly informal Coffees that allow growth-oriented owners to lean on and learn from one another.  


And it’s working! Half of HVWiB members are now more than five years in business, and One in Four are six- to seven-figure businesses.  

Learn more and join at http://hvwib.com/membership.     

 Entrepreneurs are a driving force in our local economy and no organization is more important to women in business in the Hudson Valley than HVWiB. Women are key decision makers in their businesses, households and communities, and unlike other networks, HVWiB is the only one founded specifically for business owners.  

 Only other owners understand what it’s like to build, grow and sustain with everything riding on your decisions. It makes the discussions richer, and the mentorship more impactful.  

 Among the topics discussed online and in-person are business valuation, bookkeeping, marketing and sales, finance, funding, hiring and managing employees, getting started, growing into the next stage, exit strategies, and more. 

 About HVWiB Membership: 

  • “Starting Up” (free) members have access to the vibrant online HVWiB community with daily posts and opportunities to promote their businesses on Fridays, and  
  • “In It Together” (paid) members can attend monthly meetings for free and are listed in the public Business Directory at http://hvwib.com/directory. 

Seasoned & aspiring business owners are welcome to join Hudson Valley Women in Business and all women and people of gender minorities who want to learn about business, expand what they’ve already built, and be part of a growth-minded community. 

 

Learn more and join at http://hvwib.com/membership.                

 

Service Providers

 

Most nonprofit leaders aren’t sure how to get their organizations thriving, so we created a framework that helps them get organized, build effective teams, and make an impact. PivotGround offers consulting services for nonprofit organizations looking to make a big impact with getting overwhelmed or burning out.

 Most nonprofits are in survival mode. They’ve lost focus, they’re under pressure from their board, there’s too much on their plate, and their strategic plans, if they even have them, are stashed away in a “someday” pile. Thriving nonprofits have a plan that accommodates them as they grow and change. Our solution for this need is The Impact Method™.

The Impact Method™ is a system of tools and processes that helps you get an amazing organized strategy, optimize your capacity, and thrive with a process of continual improvement. 

With The Impact Method™, strategic plans are meaningful, powerful, and always up to date. Nonprofits learn a roadmap to build their team and a system to continually improve. Their teams are agile and focused and their brand is clearly defined.  

Founder of PivotGround and creator of The Impact Method™ Sarah Olivieri is a nonprofit business strategist, #1 international best selling author, and former Executive Director.

Sarah received her BA from the University of Chicago with a focus on globalization and its effect on marginalized cultures, and holds a master's degree in Humanistic and Multicultural Education from SUNY New Paltz.

Sarah has over 17 years of nonprofit leadership experience, was the co-founder of the Open Center for Autism, the Executive Director of the Helping of War Foundation, and co-author of Lesson Plan a la Carte: Integrated Planning for Students with Special Needs.

As the founder and heart behind PivotGround, Sarah helps nonprofits make a big impact with relative ease.

 

For more information, please visit https://www.pivotground.com/ or email team@pivotground.com

Before Silicon Valley, The HV

By Donald J. Delaney

Gertrude Ford Tea / Harney & Son 

And the winner is the runner-up 

First Mover vs Second Mover

Tea’s entrepreneurial History (1400 – 2020)

  • 1400 tea becomes popular in Japan
  • 1660 tea appears in New Amsterdam (Manhattan)
  • 1743 tea goes ‘revolutionary’ in Boston Harbor
  • 1908 tea merchant Sullivan’s tea samples wrapped in silk accidentally boiled by clients. The first tea bag was invented.
  • 1909 Gertrude Ford introduces individually wrapped and tied tea balls in NYC

 

Gertrude Ford – Tea Entrepreneur (1879 – 1965) was a first mover, on the move. She moved as a single woman from Simcoe, Canada to New York City to start up a business. On her first day in NYC, a confident Gertrude baked and sold her tea cakes to the Vanderbilt Hotel. Then, as a solopreneur, she followed that order by acquiring 350 new accounts. Her best move was inventing the single-serve tea ball, disrupting 500 years of tea brewing history; and, inventing the machinery to produce single-serve tea bags. 

Serving Gertrude Ford Tea at Vassar College moved her and led her to relocate her company to Poughkeepsie. From a garage space on ‘Brickyard Hill’, she pioneered a premier national brand built on purple tins filled with gourmet teas bags. Gertrude was a self-propelled dynamo building Ford Tea Co. from seed to success. And then decline.


John Harney – Tea Evangelist (1930 – 2013) “Second wind” careers often appear unannounced. In the 1970’s John Harney had built an enviable life: Ivy League educated, a country inn proprietor, devoted husband and father of five children, a civic leader, and devoted coffee drinker. Stanley Mason, a newly retired tea merchant introduced John to fine teas and tea culture. The spark of a second wind career was set.

John went all in, step-by-step. Step one - putting tea on the White Hart Inn menu. Step two - buy Mason Tea Co. Step three - become a tea evangelist at notable hotels and inns. Step four - sell his share in the inn and start up Harney & Sons Tea in Salisbury, Ct. Step five - hustle to fill customer demand unfulfilled by Ford Tea Co. Step six - scale a sustainable business. 2020 results: $40+ million revenue, 400 employees, global distribution. Second mover Harney & Sons is the #1 gourmet tea brand.

Entrepreneurship is a game where the customer chooses the winner and they vote every day.

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

Don Delaney

Contact welcome: Donald J. Delaney, HV Entrepreneurship Historian & Blog Writer for the HV Venture Hub at SUNY New Paltz. You can reach Don at don@dondelaney.com

 

© Donald J. Delaney 2019

Events

Recent weekly HV Entrepreneur Collaboration Huddle recordings:

Job Opportunities

Ulster County is seeking a Deputy Director of Economic Development to help lead the economic recovery from COVID-19 and build a stronger, more resilient and equitable economy in Ulster County. Applications may be directed to Lisa Berger, Director of Economic Development at oed@co.ulster.ny.us

Comments? Email Tony DiMarco at dimarcoa@newpaltz.edu