AskRecy Response:

Your question is one that is asked quite frequency, especially from frustrated blacks confronted with obstacles and roadblocks desiring to become entrepreneurs in this fast pace business environment. You also used the words e-commerce, Internet and telecommunications in describing your dilemma. Let’s define what is e-commerce for our reading audience? Then also define telecommunications. It is important to understand these three closely intertwine often used words and how they will affect consumers, especially African-Americans, today and in the near future.

E-Commerce is a general concept covering any business transaction such as the trading of goods and services that is executed electronically between business-to-business, consumers to business, consumers to consumers, business to the public sector, and between consumers and the public sector. E-commerce can either be indirect such as the electronic ordering of tangible goods, (physical asset, car, television, etc) or direct e-commerce, which involves the electronic ordering and delivery of intangible goods (software, games, video, etc.) Before the Internet e-commerce, these types of transactions were mostly business-to-business and handled in different forms of closed networks. For the average consumer today and most importantly in the future, the importance of e-commerce offer great advantages especially when you can shop in the comfort of your home and not face the crowds in the shopping malls. A recent report from BizRate.com showed that shoppers spent more than US$6 billion online during the past year’s holiday season, up 60 percent from last year.

Telecommunication is the science and technology of transmitting information such as words, sounds and images over great distances. Presently, the United States is the most technologically advanced country in the area of telecommunications with over 126++ million phone lines, 7.5++ million cellular phone users, 5+ thousand AM radio broadcast stations, 5+ thousand FM radio stations, 1+ thousand television broadcast stations, 9+ thousand cable television systems, 530+ million radios, 193+ million television sets, 24+ ocean cables, and scores of satellite facilities. In addition, the wireless communications system use has exploded, with dramatic growth in Cellular voice and data technologies.

When you use the Internet to bring awareness to African-Americans through the e-commerce transactions and telecommunication services, you have the potential of a hot potato waiting to explore. How this can be accomplished is a difficult question to answer.

To "organize" the black dollar buying power is a greater hurdle to climb. However, it’s not out of reach. You indicated your lack of success with the NAACP and the National Urban League. It doesn’t surprise me if your initial contact was at the local and state level since The NAACP's principal objective is to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of minority group citizens of United States and eliminate race prejudice. Another mission of the NAACP is to seek and remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes. Their mission is accomplished by seeking the enactment and enforcement of federal, state and local laws securing civil rights, and by informing the public of the adverse effects of racial discrimination.

Have you tried going straight to the source by contacting Kweisi Mfume (pronounced Kwah-EE-see Oom-FOO-may) president and chief executive officer of the NAACP to explain your concept and business idea to see if he believes that it has any merit to warrant pursing? On the other hand, did you contact the NAACP Board of Directors, Julian Bond - Chairman and Bishop William H. Graves - Vice Chairman?

On the other hand, the mission of the Urban League movement is to enable African Americans to secure economic self-reliance, parity and power and civil rights. And their three-pronged strategy for pursuing the mission is: Ensuring that our children are well-educated and equipped for economic self-reliance in the 21st century; Helping adults attain economic self-sufficiency through good jobs, homeownership, entrepreneurship and wealth accumulation; and Ensuring our civil rights by eradicating all barriers to equal participation in the economic and social mainstream of America.

Did you contact Hugh B. Price, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Urban League? Alternatively, contact anyone of the board of trustees, Chairman Jonathan S. Linen, Senior Vice Chairman -Charles M. Collins, Vice Chairman - Reginald K. Brack, Jr.?

Another suggestion is to not try to conquer the world overnight - try using the systemic approach. Start by and organizing and developing a small effective audience of African-Americans with buying power in a local market. Build upon that concept, develop a record of accomplishment and bring in others as you become more successful. Then you may have a program that works and others can buy into. Present your program to local African-American Chambers of Commerce, neighborhood community center, churches and community associations.

There are numerous programs and people with an idea on how to capitalized on the black buying power and some major companies have been quite successful in obtaining those dollars. AskRecy’s recommendation on what you need to do to get your message across to help blacks become successful with Internet businesses idea. If you wish to travel a direction that no one has previous considered or venture, you may have to plow that road yourself until others catch on and follow your lead.

It does not matter where you live, you will find a market for catering services. There are tens of thousands premises and off-premises caterers in the United States, and the industry is growing by 7 to 10 percent annually, says Michael Roman, president of CaterSource, a Chicago consulting and training firm.

The entrepreneurial sprit is alive in the majority of most people, retailing trends come and go, but one constant remains, every human being is looking for a way to leave his or her mark on the world. In today’s high-tech society and yes even yesterday, people have and had a desire to put their personal touches on business environment which has sparked a surge in crafts shops, stamp stores, paint-your-own-pottery studios and other businesses that let customers unleash their creative urges.

Have you considered home catering as one method to start and grow your business idea? It doesn’t take much startup capital. What about inquiring with some of your potential suppliers on the possibility of inventory consignment?

The SBA Women's Prequalification Loan Program that exist in some states. These prequalified organizations works with Women Entrepreneurs and is dedicated to expanding economic opportunities for women by advancing entrepreneurship and providing resources to assist in successful business start-ups, maintenance of growth, and exploration of new business opportunities. One such program is Columbia College Center for Women Entrepreneurs. For more information, call at (803) 786-3582. Also, try calling your local SBA. Although, they typically worked with existing business, SBA have been known to finance start-up business with a well prepared business plan that shows potential and demonstrates the business ability to repay the loan. Some banks with the SBA backing, may take a chance with new businesses. In addition, these banks may need to improve their Community Reinvestment Resource (CRR) with minority businesses.

Another program is the Women's Business Ownership Assistance and they exist to fund nonprofit economic development organizations to assist, through training and counseling, small business concerns owned and controlled by women, and to remove, in so far as possible, the discriminatory barriers that are encountered by women in accessing capital and promoting their businesses. They may be able to provide some leads and assistance in the area of your field. Their email address can be found at their website  

Can you help?
AskRecy response:

First, you are living in a great market area. Houston, soon to become the fourth largest city in the United States offer great potential for any one seeking to start a business. However, it is difficult to offer any specific advice since you did not share your ideas, regarding starting a business. The first thing you can do is to prepare a business plan. The SBA has a program call The Business Plan - Road Map to Success. It is a tutorial and self-paced activity that can be downloaded or viewed as a text version. You can use this model as a guide when developing your very own business plan for your beauty supply store. Go to the SBA Online Starting a Business Plan site.

You can also increase your business knowledge and idea by reading magazine articles or books on the subject matter of interest. Go to the local library for ideas for starting a business. You will fine useful advice for creative business people, also marketing, sales and other business ideas for the consultant, small business owner and entrepreneur. Some suggested reading materials are The Inventor's Desktop Companion: The Guide to Successfully Marketing and Protecting Your Ideas, by Richard C. Levy; Turning Your Great Idea into a Great Success by Judy Ryder; and Putting Marketing Ideas into Action by Keith Hart. You should find one of these books in the library, if not there should be a complete shelf of similar books.

Both inquires are good questions because there is a tendency by some people confuse patents trademarks and copyrights. There may be some similarities, however, each is unique and serve different purposes.

Generally speaking, a patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of a new patent is 20 years or in some special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed. US patent grants are effective only within the US, US territories, and US possessions.

The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling" the invention in the United States or "importing" the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention.

A trademark is a word, name, symbol or device that is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others.

Trademark rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark, but not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same goods or services under a clearly different mark. Trademarks, which are used in interstate or foreign commerce, may be registered with the Patent and Trademark Office.

Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of "original works of authorship" including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.

The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine.

AskRecy recommends for your protection, if you are serious considering selling your properly registered patent to hire a patent attorney. The telephone directories of most large cities have, in the classified section, a heading for patent attorneys under which those in that area are listed and some cities have associations of patent attorneys.

To copyright or not is a dilemma both new and experience writers face regarding putting the copyright symbol and their names on the recently completed manuscript. According to the Writer’s Market, one of the official source for new writers and publishers, writer and editors have different views on this subject, some editors think nothing of the copyright symbol; other view the symbol indicates a certain amount of distrust of them as professionals. However, if someone did infringe on your work, they could claim innocent infringement and lack of knowledge that you had a copyright.

AskRecy’s advice - when in doubt, do the obvious.