Comet Skateboards - Innovative Entrepreneurships Term Paper

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In recent article in the magazine Grist, Comet's co-owner (with Salfi) Shaffer mentioned that he is the executive director of "Business Alliance for Local Living Economies" (BALLE). Shaffer explained that BALLE - which is interconnected with Comet's entrepreneurship processes - is an alliance of more than 5,400 entrepreneurs in the U.S. And in Canada who are "...dedicated to building "Local Living Economies" (LLE). These economies are committed to "the long-term health of a particular place," Shaffer went on, "whether it is a big city like Philadelphia, medium-sized town like Grand Rapids, Michigan, or a rural area like the Rogue River Valley" in Oregon.

Several of the principles of BALLE include promoting the "decentralized ownership of businesses," "fair wages," promoting news media stories that are "independent of corporate control," and promoting the idea that BALLE members buy from other BALLE members and BALLE entrepreneurs treat customers with dignity and respect, in order to foster good will.

Imagine for a moment a young growing company that is marketing its wares and its brand by helping other young companies; that is another way of describing Comet's outreach. Shaffer and Salfi are creating a "local stock exchange" (LSE) for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area market that, Shaffer explains, will support "...small, community-based triple-bottom-line companies." Triple bottom line (TBL or 3BL) companies point towards "people, planet, and profit" - pursuing an economic profitability in concert with the environment and what is best for society. The local stock exchange is by way of creating a new model for communities to open the door of opportunities for small, locally owned companies. "Instead of the 20th Century model of throwing tax breaks and subsidies to large corporations," Shaffer continued, small, local entrepreneurships are nurtured into successful businesses that hire and train people in socially and environmentally responsible methods.

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How did Comet Skateboards get the financial support to move their business from a couple idealists putting out twenty boards a month to a national, high-visibility company? An article in the Christian Science Monitor (Terry, 2003) explains how "microlending" works for "microentrepreneurs" in the U.S., and how it worked for Comet. By 2001, Comet was putting out around 300 boards per month for other manufacturers, and about 50 to their own customers. They were ready to expand, but didn't have the capital. Salfi learned that the City of Oakland was offering microlending opportunities; thanks to a $40,000 loan (achieved in less than 90 days) from the nonprofit Oakland Business Development Corporation (OBDC), Comet moved its operations out of an expensive 2,000-sq-ft. San Francisco location and into a more reasonably-priced 7,000-sq-ft warehouse in Oakland.

I don't think we'd still be in business without [OBDC]," Salfi told reporter Terry. "They were an asset in advising us, and in providing us with the capital." Soon, as Comet's production increased and its links with the hitherto-mentioned organizations began to bloom, Comet leveraged the first $40,000 loan into a $225,000 loan through another City of Oakland funding source, and $675,000 from private investors.

Salfi told the reporter that he "...hadn't planned it would turn out like this...But I always had the dream to pull something like this together." What he has today is a far cry from the single long board skateboard he built by hand in Sausalito in 1996; he was just trying to replace the 1970s model he had been riding, which he recalled was "...just a big oak plank."

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