‘THE PLAY’S THE THING’
Doing a little improv to get some perspective on business problems
Denise Zellous has a problem. She finds it tough to delegate.
Since 2011 she’s been managing her small nonprofit, Zellous Hope Project, out of her home in a McKees Rocks high-rise apartment.
Zellous Hope provides assistance such as clothing and housing referrals to people seeking jobs and stability after incarceration or substance-abuse rehabilitation. Often she is overwhelmed with phone calls and tasks.
But until she finds a place outside her home to operate the nonprofit, Ms. Zellous is reluctant to bring in someone to assist her.
“I don’t have the space for help,” she told fellow members of the Launch Sto-Rox business incubator at their monthly meeting in August.
Ms. Zellous’s organization is one of nine firms participating in the initiative created to help firms and services with a social mission, as well as boost economic activity in the low-income communities of McKees Rocks and Stowe.
Besides receiving business expertise from professionals, the incubator members are encouraged
to nurture each other. At last month’s session, they changed things up a bit by acting out the many start-up challenges they’ve faced in short, improvisational skits.
If any of them had performance jitters, it wasn’t evident as they role-played in the auditorium of the Ryan Arts & Culture Center on Chartiers Avenue.
First, the entrepreneurs split
into pairs and shared their problems. Then each had 20 minutes to write a three-minute script involving the other partner’s business dilemma.
The issues that received the improv treatment ranged from locating affordable space to attracting customers in high-crime neighborhoods to finding ways to ensure customers show up for yoga classes — rather than facing a sea
of empty mats.
While a digital learning expert, Connie Capiotis, played moving company owner Tino Brockington in a skit about employee shortages and angry customers, Mr. Brockington took notes.
The audience — the other entrepreneurs — shouted ways to resolve the problem such as beefing up staff in the peak summer moving season, tapping agencies for temporary workers and offering gift cards to clients when movers show up late.
“My issue is I don’t want too many employees and no work for them,” Mr. Brockington said.
In a skit about Zellous Hope, Ms. Zellous’s character — played by Quaishawn Whitlock, an artist who is developing a creative studio for teens in McKees Rocks — was frazzled by phone calls and people making demands on her time.
“If you are building out a triage
service, you can’t be the first stop for everything,” observed Scott Wolovich, executive director of New Sun Rising, a nonprofit economic development agency that sponsors the incubator.
Even when Ms. Zellous lands a physical space for Zellous Hope, he said, “That in itself won’t resolve the need to delegate.”
The audience advised her to get help, possibly recruiting a volunteer if she can’t afford yet to pay someone who could handle tasks offsite until the agency has its own office.
“We are trying to take the tasks and pressure off you,” said Lashawn Reed, whose firm, Strong Ambitious Women, mentors girls in the Sto-Rox and Pittsburgh Public Schools districts.
Though Ms. Zellous initially resisted suggestions to get an assistant, she admitted that seeing others act out the harried pace at her home office confirmed for her she needed to look for another space.
‘Getting outside of our heads’
Coming at the midpoint of the year-long incubator, Mr. Wolovich called the August session a “remixer” — a time when members could loosen up and tap each other. Or as he put it, use “creative techniques to break through the challenges.”
Before their improvs, the entrepreneurs warmed up with breathing and stretching exercises led by Leigh Garbo-Minniefield and Jacques Minniefield, a husband-wife team who operate Dub Yoga, one of the incubator firms.
Dinner was served from a catered taco bar and a DJ provided music.
It wasn’t just about the non-Tony-award-winning performances, the organizers said.
“Tonight is about getting outside of our heads,” Mr. Wolovich said. “Being entrepreneurial can be very lonely and we can get inside our own heads too much.”
Being a passionate, driven entrepreneur can often lead to burnout, according to research published in April in the Harvard Business Review.
According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20 percent to 30 percent of startups fail in their first year of operation. Half fail within five years.
Jack Mason, director of the entrepreneurship program at Duquesne University’s Palumbo Donahue School of Business, said burnout can be reduced if entrepreneurs test their product in real-world settings early on. The point is to find out if customers really want or need it.
“Don’t do surveys; they’ll tell you what you want to hear,” Mr. Mason said.
Students in his entrepreneurship courses at Duquesne have launched small businesses on campus, including a firm that custom-designed cell phone cases and a late-night food vendor.
“If there’s going to be a fatal flaw in the business model, it’s really important to find that out early … and avoid going down a dead end,” he said.
‘You can bring change’
By sharing their problems and acting them out in a theater format, the Launch Sto-Rox incubator firms received fresh perspectives, Mr. Wolovich said.
The incubator launched in March. By now, all of the participants should have a framework for their business plans, he said. Previous sessions focused on basics like pitching ideas to potential customers and funders, marketing, branding and productivity.
Over the next six months, entrepreneurs should be searching for physical spaces for their ventures and focusing on connecting with financing sources, Mr. Wolovich said.
June Fleming has worked for months on a plan to open a retail space in Stowe for her business, Peddler’s Paradise, where artisans and craft makers can sell their wares.
Connecting with the right building owners, developers and community officials who know locations with steady foot traffic and reasonable rent is one of the biggest challenges, she said when the Dub Yoga partners acted out her space search.
Jeb Feldman, who works for the McKees Rocks Community Development Corp. and who is trying to create a co-working and production center in the town, agreed space is critical.
In a skit about Mr. Feldman’s coworking center, Ms. Reed played a potential tenant alarmed by the high poverty and crime rates, and by the lack of retail and restaurants in the McKees Rocks and Stowe communities.
“Why would I want to locate here?” her character asked.
Ms. Zellous wasn’t in that skit but jumped to the stage to respond.
“Because you would be excellent in helping us change,” she said. “[McKees Rocks] has few resources and opportunity. You can bring change.”