Business Tips

WHAT WE KNOW NOW

The bagel boss, an interior architect and a serial entrepreneur share valuable business tips and wisdom

By Rabbi yehoshua werde

The K-Factor is a podcast that I have the honor to host on behalf of CHYE (Crown Heights Young Entrepreneurs) in partnership with community news website COLlive.com. The K-Factor offers business wisdom that can help future business leaders to make the ”Keli” (vessel) so that they can grow their business aspirations. We picked three questions that would most benefit potential business owners, and collected answers from 3 interviews. If you are looking for advice, this is a great place to start! As you will read, there are very similar themes, which include pushing limits and going beyond your comfort zone. Many of the successful business owners interviewed in this series once had little to no experience in their current fields. This should inspire anyone to attempt to achieve their dreams! Berry Horowitz is the founder and proprietor of ”Bunch O Bagels,” an iconic bagel shop in Crown Heights. He also owned the now-defunct ”Fish Fish and Cannoli” on Empire Blvd.

WHAT DO YOU WISH SOMEONE TOLD YOU WHEN YOU WERE STARTING UP?

”Many people gave me a lot of advice when I started. If I had listened to all the general advice I got, I wouldn't be here today. For instance, many questioned our decision to be located on Troy Avenue. I would suggest making sure you have a specific person you trust and listen to them. The advice I got from the right people was a key factor. ”Another thing to remember is that once you venture into something new, you can't invest your entire life into it. You can't put your yiddishkeit or family on the shelf while you build your business. You need to continue to invest in all the areas of your life. I was grateful to be able to benefit from the investments I made in my life to my yiddishkeit and family, and that helped me balance it.”

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST BIG CHALLENGE?

”We were already heavily invested before we even had a bagel recipe. My father-in-law was in the recording industry for 17 years. When I suggested the idea, he said, ”we can try this, why not?” We started jotting down some ideas. We then consulted with my father, who was in the mortgage business, and he gave some pointers because you need a good business plan and money. You need loans. There are programs out there that will help you prepare for what's ahead. ”We were introduced to David Bernstein, an old-school baker who was 3 generations deep in the bagel bakery world. He was about 85, and he was done teaching people how to make bagels. We were able to convince him, and he helped us develop our recipe. Finding the right plan and the right product is the hardest challenge. It’s important to know what you need to do, to do it right. For instance, David told us what equipment we needed to even start. Once we had what we needed he came in and worked with us. You can’t rush these things.”

WHAT ARE SOME FEARS THAT YOU HAD TO OVERCOME?

”Making sure your product is

good. When we first opened our doors, we were giving away whatever we baked, just to know what people thought. Once we got it right, we were really in business. ”The location played a lot into this because at the time no one was on Troy Avenue. Many people were surprised by this decision, and we didn’t know what would happen. However, we got a good price on the location, and we felt that if we have a good product and treat our customers with respect they will come.” Yisroel Dolnikov is an Interior Architect (UNSW) and the founder and CEO of Binyan Studios 3D Visualization, a leading Architectural 3D Rendering and Animation Studio with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and New York.

WHAT DO YOU WISH SOMEONE TOLD YOU WHEN YOU WERE STARTING UP?

”It’s important that the first person that you hire is someone to help set up meetings with clients. I hired someone to make sure that every week there were 5 potential projects and then I would go and try to make the pitch. It’s not just about spamming people, sending an email or a text. It’s really about getting in front of people, face to face.”

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST BIG CHALLENGE?

”Once I started, I was looking for ways to get my name out there. Someone gave me the advice that you have to talk to people. This was a fascinating idea because of its simplicity, to just go out and meet people and ask for work. When I would see places building or working on projects, I would just simply go out there and ask them. You can’t wait for work to come to you.”

WHAT ARE SOME FEARS THAT YOU HAD TO OVERCOME?

”There can be a lot of shady people in this industry, and I wanted to set a certain level of integrity. When people would see me, they see a frum Yid, and that means I am held to that level of integrity. My other fear was maintaining balance in my life, but I make sure to steal time from my work, not from my family time. This is how I find time to exercise or learn and do the other things that are needed outside of family life so I can be dedicated to my family.” Yochanan Polter is the CEO of PawnGuru, a marketplace that interfaces between consumers and pawnshops. Active in alternative financial services for the last 10 years, he founded Polter Financial Group, an asset manager for life settlement portfolios, and is a managing partner of Accelerated Life Solutions, a national life settlement brokerage firm with offices in Michigan and Florida.

WHAT DO YOU WISH SOMEONE TOLD YOU WHEN YOU WERE STARTING UP?

”Don’t focus on your level of education. Often, my brother and I will joke around that we are the smartest people in the room. We didn’t say that to be crass, but because neither of us have any formal training or education, and yet we are in the same room as people with the most advanced level of education and training. Don’t feel intimidated, everyone can achieve their goals.”

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST BIG CHALLENGE?

”The first thing you have to do is test the market. For some reason, people are convinced you need to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to prove your concept. At the very begining, we created a landing page on Google AdWords, and started advertising in Atlanta. We just typed in certain keywords. Right away, we had people who needed to sell something in pawn shops. We didn’t have that, so we manually called local pawn shops and then from there we built out a very basic version of our platform. Once we had enough liquidity, which means products that pawnshops would be willing to use our platform for, we pieced together both sides - the merchants and the sellers.”

WHAT ARE SOME FEARS THAT YOU HAD TO OVERCOME?

”I don't know that there is a real calculation of the risk. It’s a matter of just overcoming your fear. Some people have it in them, and some don’t. I was always someone who viewed business ownership as a challenge, that didn't chase me away. I make a calculated risk and figure that even if I’m not making the same amount of money, at least I'm working for myself. I think the biggest thing that holds us back is ourselves.”