Business Sentinel: Young entrepreneurs pursue a
dream
By Seth Nidever
snidever@HanfordSentinel.com
Starting a business is one of America's great high-wire acts.
There is the borrowing up front to spend money on an idea with no
guarantee of success.
There are times when nothing is selling, and just staying open
requires a major act of faith.
And then there are the inevitable mistakes: Trusting someone who
later takes advantage of you, spending money on a
product line that goes bust, or not going with a gut instinct that
proved to be right.
For Joey Perez, Corey Hoover and Kelly Cordero, take those
difficulties and factor in another one: They all started
Hanford businesses while in their 20s or younger.
All three have faced the inevitable challenges, with the additional
obstacle of having to be taken seriously at a young
age.
Perez, at age 22, has established J-Live Entertainment as a
profitable promoter and host of concerts, singers, talent
shows and other live events.
For Hoover, now 32, Boo Boo's boardshop has become the local hotspot
for skateboarders, surfers and the clothing
fashions that go with those two iconic California pastimes.
For 20-year-old Cordero, now six months into owning Irwin Street
Salon, it's still touch and go.
The next big thing?
One day, $1,000 earned.
Joey Perez was 16, and in one day of producing music at Adventure
Park, that's how much cash he and some of the
bands he got together hauled in.
"It was like, 'Wow!' That was big stuff for us, we'd never made 100
bucks," Perez said.
J-Live Entertainment was born.
Fast forward to 2007. J-Live is having its most profitable year
ever, Perez said.
And he's only 22 years old.
Perez has big dreams for his company, but it's taken time to build
up a good reputation.
It's also taken a lot of inspiration from mentors.
First on the list would be his father.
Perez said his dad came from Mexico at age 23 with nothing. He
almost immediately got a job at Warner Brothers
doing voice-overs for English movies, turning them into Spanish
movies for a Hispanic market.
Now, his dad has a video and photo company in Fresno and operates
his own Hispanic newspaper -- all this after a
20-year career in bilingual radio.
Perez has also been inspired by none other than Donald Trump, who
has gone bankrupt a few times but keeps
reinventing himself and his business to become profitable again.
Oh, and don't forget to mention the guy who wrote "Rich Dad, Poor
Dad," Robert T. Kiyosaki.
"That was a big influence, because anybody that can come from
nothing and become something, I really admire
someone like that," Perez said.
Perez has pursued his own version of coming from nothing.
He started at that original Adventure Park gig with a CD player and
one speaker.
In April this year, he produced a show for leading hip-hop artist
Pretty Ricky that packed 1,100 delirious fans into the
Hanford Fox Theatre.
"That was definitely my biggest achievement this year," Perez said.
But it didn't come easily.
Without the ability to sell tickets online, Perez had to hoof it
around the Valley to find vendors who would sell tickets.
Meanwhile, Pretty Ricky's agents were calling him every day to find
out how ticket sales were going.
Then there was the contract -- a mammoth 40-page document that
spelled out exactly how Pretty Ricky's people
wanted him promoted.
Perez didn't read the fine print. He went ahead and printed his own
posters without first clearing them with the artist's
agents.
They weren't too happy about it.
"I smoothed things over, it was OK," Perez said.
Perez has learned from his mistakes to establish J-Live as a local
business increasingly known for its ability to produce
events.
He wants to expand around the Valley, maybe even around California.
But he recognizes he has a long way to go.
His day job -- to which he remains devoted -- is coordinating events
at the Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino. He's studying
his boss, Christian Printup, who he refers to as "the man."
"I kinda envision myself as one day following in his footsteps, or
getting as much as I can to learn from him," Perez
said.
Now, Perez is himself a mentor to high school kids who help out with
J-Live.
"They think it's going to be easy to be rich. They want to have big
wheels and all that crap. They just need
guidance," Perez said.
"I don't preach leaving school to anyone, but if you have a true
passion for something, and you want to run with it,
just go for it," he said.
California dreamin'
Corey Hoover's first foray into the board shop business was less
than successful.
In fact, it never got off the ground.
At age 19, he went to a local bank seeking a loan. He had labored
hard to create a business plan and was hopeful
that the bank would see it the same way.
The loan officer turned him down.
"I had a really hard time being taken seriously," he said.
A self-proclaimed "horrible student" who wasn't interested in
college, Hoover worked for a steel business, the People's
Ditch Company and other manual labor jobs.
All the while, he plotted to try again.
He worked for Surf Shop/Board Shop, then one of the biggest
surf/skateboard shops in the Valley. He got some
experience working as a purchaser.
But as time rolled on, the vision started to fade. He got married.
He had a kid. He began to wonder if he should give
up on the whole idea.
Then he got a couple of hernias from one of his manual labor jobs,
and his wife told him to go for it.
He opened Boo Boo's Boardshop at age 27.
Now, at age 32, he has shops in Hanford and Porterville.
"Business is a mirror of life. You have good days and bad days. It's
important to take each day in stride," he said.
Hoover's passion for skateboarding dates back to his junior high
days, as do his business instincts.
When other kids were just skating, he was thinking about making
money with it.
He built ramps, tinkered with other people's boards. Neighborhood
kids would come to him for parts and advice.
At age 11, he started delivering The Sentinel. He learned that
little things like making sure the paper was always on
somebody's porch earned him more money in tips.
Customer service is now his mantra.
"You have to have respect for the customer. You have to look at the
customer as a potential friend," he said.
Teens are his main customers, and Hoover has learned a lot from
dealing with them.
He doesn't judge by appearance. He makes a point of dealing with
kids on a personal level that they may not be used
to.
These days, he's struggling to maintain a small business ethic in an
industry that is becoming more and more
corporate.
He's running into the problem of people increasingly wanting
immediate gratification.
One day, a teen came into the store asking about a particular
skateboard. Hoover told him he didn't have it, but could
get it in three days.
Two days later, the kid came in with the same board. Hoover asked
how he got it. The kid told him he ordered it
online.
Hoover said he's learned not to take things personally. If he
doesn't have something in stock, and somebody else
does, he'll refer a customer to the place that has it.
He said that was a hard thing for him to adjust to.
"You've got to adapt and learn to survive," he said.
Hoover believes passionately that he will survive or fail based on
customer service.
"I'd like to expand, but only if we're able to keep the same
small-town feel of our shop," he said. "If I can't do that, I
don't want to grow."
His advice to a young business owner searching for the key to
success?
"(It takes) perseverance, passion and, above all, ... you have to
have a respect for your customer," he said.
Seeking her own style
It's been two months since Kelly Cordero first felt the full weight
of running a business.
That's when her parents -- co-signers on the loan to buy the Irwin
Street Salon six months ago -- told her she was on
her own.
That's when Cordero threw herself into it 24/7.
"You have to step out and take a chance, or else it's not going to
happen," said the 20-year-old, who is embarking on
her first serious business venture.
It's in the blood.
Cordero's father runs a gardening/landscaping business. Cordero said
she opened several lemonade stands as a kid.
"It just kind of comes natural to me," she said.
But she's been challenged by several aspects of the salon business.
One is simply being responsible for everything that happens. Cordero
is on call all the time. About a month ago, she
quit a second job at Kay Jewelers to devote herself to the salon.
Up until a couple of months ago, Mom and Dad were there to bail her
out if she couldn't pay the electricity or the
water.
Now, Cordero says, she will rise or fall on her own.
"I wanted results (immediately), but I didn't see how much
responsibility was involved," she said.
There are at least a dozen other salons in Hanford to compete with.
Cordero has her stylists sign a "no-gossip" policy to keep
conversations from turning into negative commentary on
people's lives.
She believes that's a big turnoff at many salons.
"You have to have something to stand out," she said.
Cordero stands out among her friends, none of whom own their own
businesses. Some went to college, but Cordero
decided to go to beauty and massage school.
The hairstyling and the massage sessions she calls "fun."
The bookkeeping and the advertising have been a challenge.
Cordero said she's thinking about going to night school to get
better at those aspects of the business.
Like all entrepreneurs, Cordero has made her share of mistakes. She
invested in a $3,000 product line that didn't pan
out.
It turned out the line was readily available in several retail
stores.
Cordero said that she's looking at getting a line that is sold
exclusively in salons.
Business has been slow so far, but Cordero hopes that things will
pick up as word of mouth gets out.
For several reasons, she's confident of success.
One is simply a natural optimism.
If she really wants something, Cordero said, she gets it.
"I kind of just don't think about 'This is not going to happen,'"
she said.
Another is the no-gossip policy Cordero believes will set her apart
from other salons in town.
Still another reason is the big Cordero clan, all born and raised in
the area.
Her family is supportive, they have business contacts and they have
helped to get the word out to potential
customers, she said.
Cordero doesn't think she could make it without all those
connections.
Her advice to other twentysomethings thinking about opening their
own businesses?
"Think about what you really want, if you truly have a desire to do
this versus just wanting to start your own business.
Do a lot of research. Don't jump into anything," she said.
Some expert advice
The key for young entrepreneurs is to get their concept out of the
dream stage and put it into practice.
That's according to Brian Acord, executive director of Young
Entrepreneurs of America, a non-profit that works
primarily with high school students.
Acord requires his students to have at least one paying customer
within seven days.
To counter against discouragement, Acord teaches students not to
freak out when failures come. He trains them to
start small, so that the consequences of failure aren't
catastrophic.
"They need to fail early and they need to fail often," he said.
Ability to learn from failure is significant, Acord said. Students
who learn from failures early, when the stakes aren't so
high, are less likely to do so down the road.
Failing early at business ventures during the high school years
helps show kids whether or not entrepreneurship is
really their thing, Acord said.
Another key to success is whether the young businessperson already
has some connection to somebody who is an
entrepreneur.
Company starters also need to have a sales mentality, he added.
"Someone who continually takes no for an answer doesn't make it very
far," he said.
Acord said there are some advantages to starting young.
One is simply naivete. Young business owners don't know what they
can't do, so they go out and do it anyway, Acord
said.
Another advantage is sympathetic buyers. Customers are often willing
to give a young owner a chance, whereas they
would be tougher on an older business owner, Acord said.
And then there is that intangible but important component of sheer
optimism that youth often have.
"What young entrepreneurs lack in experience, they make up for in
enthusiasm," Acord said.
The reporter can be reached at 583-2432
(Jan. 9, 2008)
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