Entrepreneurs learn how to start up in Clarkson class

POTSDAM — Ronald L. McGregor’s small business dream is multifaceted.

The 39-year-old Massena resident wants to start a health club. He wants it to cater especially to the community’s disadvantaged youth. He hopes to set up in a building he will share with the hairdressing business run elsewhere by his wife, Janet F.

Standing outside a classroom Sunday at Clarkson University School of Business’s Reh Center for Entrepreneurship, Mr. McGregor gave his plans a self-effacing qualifier.

“It’s a pipe dream,” he said.

Maybe not. It is certainly not what Reh Center Director Marc S. Compeau wants to hear. Later in the classroom, he told Mr. McGregor and 18 other students in his four-part “My Small Business 101” class that believing it can be done in the first place is a pivotal first step in going into business.

“It’s all about building confidence,” said Mr. Compeau, who has taught the class to more than 650 fledgling entrepreneurs since it started in 2004.

He also insisted that there is no reason to shy away from staking a claim in the small-business world — not even the current traumatized economy. There is no such thing as the right time.

“If you wait for right time to do anything, it’ll never happen,” Mr. Compeau said. “It’s a great time.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s survey of business owners in 2007 — the most current year available — there are 4.5 million businesses that qualify as small with 10 employees or fewer. They are part of an estimated 5.7 million businesses that have payrolls. That means about 1.2 million businesses employ 10 or more workers. And a whopping 21.3 million businesses are run by people working for themselves.

Mr. Compeau said it is no myth that small businesses make up the foundation of the communities in which they are located and fuel their economies.

“It’s true,” he said. “That’s what we’re here for.”

Mr. Compeau’s class — which will continue next Sunday, Oct. 30 and Nov. 6, offers marketing, planning and financial advice. He boasts an 85 percent survival rate among his students’ businesses after checking up on them after five years.

“It’s very high,” Mr. Compeau said. “The national average is 4.5 percent.”

Mr. McGregor said he wants to make a difference for area youths with his enterprise.

“There are kids who have no place to go,” he said before heading back into the classroom to learn “how to get it off the ground.”

Ashli M. Lalonde, 25, Canton, is pretty sure she can get her six-year-old photography business beyond its status as a side vocation to her full-time job in a supermarket produce department. In fact, she is giving her two-weeks’ notice.

“I’m confident,” Miss Lalonde said.

Would-be partners Rob K. Cook and Dan Stockwell, both of Potsdam, figure that the area can use an all-purpose reception hall. It can be used for conferences, meetings and a certain weekend social staple, the wedding reception.

Most of all, the desire for “something better” has Mr. Cook, 34, attending Mr. Compeau’s classes.

“I’m tired of living from paycheck to paycheck,” he said.