Page 8 - BusinessWest September 28, 2020

pivoting and changing directions when needed, and we’re doing the same,” he said, adding that the pandemic and other forces are compel- ling the agency to look inward and find new and perhaps different ways to provide value
to entrepreneurs while also providing support to other agencies and initiatives within the ecosystem.
As VVM resets and reinvents, though, work within the ecosystem goes on during these try- ing times — despite COVID, and in many cases in an effort to help business owners survive it.
People like Juan and Elsie Vasquez. They operate 413 Family Fitness in Holyoke, a busi- ness that, like most all gyms, was devastated by the pandemic. With help from those at EforAll Holyoke, the couple has pivoted to everything from outdoor classes to staging quinceañeras, or sweet-15 birthdays (a tradition among His- panics), and leasing out their space to third par- ties (more on that later).
Meanwhile, another initiative within the ecosystem, WIT — Women Innovators and Trail- blazers — is continuing its mentoring program despite COVID, and is preparing to embark on its third cohort of matches.
The second cohort, featuring 45 teams, up from 20 in the first, was started just before the pandemic shut things down, noted Ann Burke, vice president of the the Economic Develop- ment Council of Western Massachusetts and
“It gives people a place to come and brainstorm as a group and impose that accountability that can sometimes be missing when you’re running your own venture.”
one of the architects of the program, adding that she had some concerns about whether those matches could withstand COVID and its highly disruptive nature.
But for the most part, the partnerships perse- vered, and many have the legs to continue even after the formal program is over.
“We were really trying to see what would happen with the cohort and how they would respond with all that was happening,” said Burke. “I thought most of them would just throw up their hands and say, ‘we can’t do this’ amid all the business issues, personal issues, and issues at home. But for the most part, that’s
not what happened.”
For this issue, BusinessWest
takes an in-depth look at the local entrepreneurship ecosys- tem and how it is carrying on through the pandemic, provid- ing more evidence of its impor- tance to the region.
Keep on Trucking
Flashing back several months and then fast-forward- ing to today, Ortiz described the process of opening with a single word — ‘crazy.’
That sentiment applied to everything from getting her truck outfitted for the road — meaning wrapped with her logo and fully equipped — to buy- ing all the supplies she needed (which meant going to the gro- cery store a number of times), to getting those aforementioned permits and approvals. Work started later than she wanted, and everything was made more difficult by the pandemic.
“Most of March and half of April, I called a halt to every-
thing,” she said, noting that
she bought the truck in Feb-
ruary, but, because of the
pandemic — and also the
fact that she was still in school, which was also more complicated — she wasn’t able
to advance her plans. “And then I started to feel more comfortable, and by the end of the April, I was going full speed.”
Or at least the speed at which City Hall would allow her to travel.
Now that she’s open, all that craziness seems like a distant memory, and business
is, as she noted, exceeding expectations. “We’ve been busy every day, and we usually sell out by the end of the day,” she said, noting
that Craze features tacos, rice bowls, vegetar- ian and vegan dishes, and more, and uses social media to connect with potential customers. “COVID might actually be helping because peo- ple don’t want to go to restaurants.”
She credits EforAll — she was the first-place winner in its recent winter accelerator — with helping her get the doors open, especially with such matters as insurance and accounting, but also focusing on the model she wanted and the service she wanted to provide.
Leah Kent says the mentor she’s been matched with through the WIT program, Melissa Paciulli, has helped her set firm goals for her business and move out of her comfort zone.
And such work is carrying on in the COVID- 19 era, although it’s somewhat different and also in some ways more challenging, said Tessa Mur- phy-Romboletti, executive director of EforAll.
“We’ve been really fortunate that we can continue to offer a lot of the services that we provided before the pandemic in a virtual for- mat,” she explained. “And we made that pivot very quickly, out of necessity.”
Elaborating, she said the agency was in the final stages of its winter cohort when the pan- demic hit, and quickly shifted to not only a vir- tual platform, but a somewhat different purpose as it helped both those cohort members and other small businesses cope with everything that was happening.
“For a while there, it really felt like we were kind of providing therapy to small-business owners,” she explained. “We felt like there were
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