New Mexico Business Weekly              TOP
February 2002
Brett Hills – Guest Columnist

Wide World of Entreprenuership

       Have you ever dreamed of being Picabo Street? The pressure climaxing as you are in the starting gate at the winter Olympics. As entrepreneurs we are continually challenged and can relate to the anxiety/exhilaration (risk/reward) of an Olympic skier. Will we win the gold or will we crash violently?  Will we experience “the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat”? The events of 9/11 have triggered an economic decline and decrease in tourism magnifying the level of risk for entrepreneurs. Thus, 2002 poses new challenges, requires new strategies and creates new opportunities for the New Mexico entrepreneur.

       Entrepreneur is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as, “One who organizes, operates and especially assumes the risk of a business venture.” After two years of running NMBars.com and NMRestaurants.com, risk has become an intimate part of my existence. Risk, the danger of possible loss (time, money and value) in part defines the life of an entrepreneur.

        Were the subsequent economic effects of 9/11 a tidal wave of risk? Would it cause the entrepreneurial vessel I have been tirelessly navigating to capsize? It was evident on September 18th with the decline of the stock market, and even more evident now, an economic downturn would ripple into the Land of Enchantment.

       The New Mexico entrepreneur is now faced with a heightened level of risk. For instance, erratic climate, sparse population and low per capita income are now compounded with a potential reduction of tourism – the lifeblood of New Mexico’s economy.

       The cards have now been dealt. Are you ready to ante up?  The following recommendations must be adhered to by the entrepreneur in order to develop an evolving business model that will ameliorate the new level of risk.

       Create a vision. What are the goals and objectives of your venture? By defining your goals you will be creating a vision – a bull’s eye across the room. The path of the arrow must be set in order to benchmark success. Is your business achieving its objectives on its path to realizing the vision? If your vision is to be a national company you must act like a national company. Your business will grow simply by the act of defining the business vision.

       Business is based on relationships. Hear the needs of your clients, strategic partners, employees and suppliers. The entrepreneur is the lubricant among all these moving parts of business. Listen carefully and respond accordingly. It takes more energy to create a new relationship than to maintain an existing relationship.

       Establish and sustain a high level of value. Continuously examine potential avenues that serve to amplify your value proposition over your competitors. Embrace change. What new opportunities have been created? Do you have the courage to execute a new approach? Change will forge opportunity.  Now, more than ever, as entrepreneurs we must FOCUS on new angles that will provide value to our customers. By doing so, we will mitigate the emerging escalation of risk. For example, NMRestaurants – a marketing firm that promotes restaurants – now encourages its clients to pay in trade. The trade is then in turn sold on www.nmrestaurants.com at a discount to customers. This flexible payment option has allowed NMRestaurants to increase its client base and ultimately its revenues since 9/11.

       Cash is king. Generating revenue and raising capital are two quintessential entrepreneurial challenges. The dot.com demise in the spring of 2000 followed by 9/11 have all but slammed shut the vault doors. However, there are opportunities that can be realized from this economic climate.

       First, create a business that has a clear path to profitability. Due diligence is mandatory. “Preparing a business plan will take too long” is a common excuse from entrepreneur wannabe’s. In the late 1990s investors were throwing money at ideas.  Now, only the strongest revenue driven business models will receive funding. Therefore, your business will undergo heightened investor scrutiny, which ultimately increases the probability of success.

       Secondly, entrepreneurs who are successful in raising money are likely to face less competition now than in the late 1990s because far fewer companies can raise enough money to get off the ground. The market for IPOs clearly illustrates this point. The number of IPOs dropped from 486 in 1999, to 406 in 2000 to 83 in 2001, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

       Although the climate in New Mexico poses new and inherent challenges to the entrepreneur there are always emerging opportunities. In years to come, we may look back at this period as a great time to start a business venture. Like Picabo Street, are you willing to endure the agony of defeat in hope of realizing the thrill of victory? If so, welcome to entrepreneurship. 

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NM Business Weekly                   TOP
June 18-24, 2001
Eileen Garvin

NM dot-coms- What's Cookin??

Keeping the Sunnyside Up
Company Name: NMBars.com, LLC
Web sites: NMBars.com & NMRestaurants.com
Founder: Brett Hills
Location: Albuquerque
Number of Employees: 3 part time and 2 full time
Date of Origin: February 2000
Mission: To expose the best bars and restaurants in New Mexico and to increase their client base.

Brett Hills says, 'We are a marketing firm that specializes in integrated marketing programs for bars and restaurants. We use television, radio and print in conjunction with online presence to promote establishments in New Mexico.' Hills says the tow sites work to develop a cyclical relationship between restaurants establishments and customers. The company provides Web development and exposure to restaurants in exchange for food and beverage credits. Customers can purchase those credits as gift certificates on the site at a 30 percent discounts.

How did you fare in 2000?
Hills says 2000 was a good year. "We are growing rapidly," he says. "We had nine restaurants when we started and now we have 36. 2000 made us wiser. We are thinking big, but acting small, refocusing our efforts."

What are your plans for the future?
Hills says he wants to finish proving the business model here in New Mexico and move on to other cities like Denver and Las Vegas, Nev.

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The Santa Fe New Mexican               TOP
December 5, 2000
Bob Quick

N.M. Eateries Find a Home on the Web

First it was NMBars.com, a Web site featuring night spots in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

Now comes NMRestaurants.com, an interactive online restaurant directory, which kicks off Thursday featuring restaurants in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos.

"These are completely different sites," said Brett Hills, the president and chief executive officer of both sites. "NMBars has a dark feel to it. It's about night life. Whereas NMRestaurants is light, airy and with lots of digital images of food."

The vice president of the venture is Chad Cooper and the art director is Grant Price. The strategic adviser is Santa Fe businessman Ken Dettelbach.

Santa Fe computer programmer Ruth Andrews "is the brain child behind the data base of the site," Hills said. "She's also responsible for making NMRestaurants a wireless technology. And we're converting NMBars (to wireless) right now."

As a wireless technology, "NMRestaurants and NMBars will be accessible through (wireless) PDAs," Hills said. "We are a business of tomorrow, and we have to anticipate where people's needs and technology are going to meet."

(PDAs, or personal digital assistants, are hand-held devices that combine computing, telephone/fax and networking features. Used widely in Japan, they are slowly gathering popularity in the United States.)

In addition to the eight client restaurants, including the Blue Corn Café in Santa Fe and Tim's Stray Dog Cantina in Taos Ski Valley, NMRestaurants will list 850 restaurants in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos with addresses, type of food served and other information. Customers also will have a chance to rate all the restaurants on a scale from average to excellent in a variety of categories.

"It will create great awareness for tourists and conventioneers coming into the state," Hills said.

Client restaurants, which will pay a $250 monthly fee to be on the site, will have a "hot button" to a special section of the site that will give in-depth information about the eatery, including an image of the special.

In addition, NMRestaurants will "heavily market" those restaurants in traditional forms of media, including television, radio and ads in such publications as Local Flavor and La Cocinita, Hills said.

Diners won't be able to make reservations at the featured restaurants, at least not yet.

"Not enough of our clients have it together on their end to set that up," Hills said. 

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New Mexico Business Weekly              TOP   
December 4-10, 2000
Karen Jarnagin

NMBars.com Adds Cuisine

Just eight months ago, University of New Mexico MBA students Brett Hills and Chad Cooper were banking that their idea for a Web site featuring New Mexico nightlife would be a success (NMBW May 1-7).

Today, their site, NMBars.com, has not only tripled in size, but has spawned a sister site: NMRestaurants.com, which launches Thursday.

"We've been well-received by the restaurants," Hills explained last week over coffee at Starbucks on Rio Grande Boulevard, which serves as a convenient meeting place for the telecommuting company president. "I firmly believe it's a great value, the amount of exposure restaurants can receive by being a part of our network."

For $250 a month (which requires signing a one-year contract), a restaurant gets five custom-designed Web pages that include a history of the establishment; a description of the décor and cuisine style; location; photographs of both the meals and the business's interior; a listing of daily specials; and a biography of the chef. The restaurant also gets listed on a page where viewers can compare establishments based on price and quality.

The overall site's homepage features a "Restaurant of the Day," "Special of the Day," and "Chef du Jour" listing, all of which rotate among the clients. So far, nine restaurants in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos - including Rio Grande Yacht Club, Artichoke Café, Monte Vista Fire Station and Sauce/Liquid Lounge - have signed contracts with NMBars LLC, the parent company for both Web sites. In addition, some 800 restaurants in those three cities are included in a 'yellow pages' type of listing.

The site is organized to easily allow visitors to fine restaurants by either city, restaurant name, price or cuisine. They can even post reviews on their dining experience, and eventually may be able to make reservations online.

But the site's coolest feature, say Hills and Cooper, both 28, is its remote access capabilities. Unlike NMBars.com, NMRestaurants is accessible via wireless web devices, like Palm Pilots. That may be a boon when pitching Web contracts to restaurant owners, who will hopefully realize that a mobile consumer with access to dining information on the fly is an excellent target audience, the pair say.

For example, "If someone's already out, they can log on to our Web site to get the specials at the Blue Corn Café," Cooper says. "We definitely want to be on the forefront of that kind of technology."

"We have to be building a business for tomorrow," adds Hills. "Things happen so quickly with the Web that we need to think a year ahead." Wireless access will eventually also be available on NMBars.com.

The pair, who run the company with help from database manager Ruth Andrews and art director Grant Price, are also looking to the future with their NMBars site. The team has expanded the site's listings from nine bars to 27, and recently launched a new "Bar Bucks" coupon card that users can print out at home and use for discounts at participating member bars. They're also publishing an email newsletter to subscribers listing upcoming events and specials.

Hills and Cooper say they intend to license their product to other cities, like Denver or Las Vegas, once both sides of the business have market recognition.

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