991 Jane Veron:

Wings of Inspired Business Podcast EP991 – Host Melinda Wittstock Interviews Jane Veron

Melinda Wittstock:

Coming up on Wings of Inspired Business:

Jane Veron:

You’re starting your business because you’re a restaurateur and you want to share your great food with people or you, you know, have a product that you want to, you know, disseminate. But knowing your financials makes you understand what is my available cash, how can I invest that cash, how can I invest it to grow? How do I know when to hire people? Because you as a founder, you’re awesome and you can do everything, but it’s not smart always to do everything. You need to find your secret sauce. And very often as a founder, you’re like the salesperson, you’re the spokesperson and you need to then hire other people to complement what you do. And women more often are used to just juggling everything, doing everything, not asking for help and we see then not asking for as much capital. All of those things I think inhibit the ability to hit the million plus mark.

Melinda Wittstock:

Less than 3% of women-led businesses make it to $1 million in annual revenue, even though women are now founding the lion’s share of new businesses. For almost a thousand episodes now on Wings for nearly a decade, we’ve talked at length about all the structural and societal obstacles that stand in the way of women founders, and Jane Veron is on a mission to do something about that.  She’s the co-founder and CEO of the non-profit, The Acceleration Project, empowering small business owners and accelerating their growth and wealth creation with bespoke advisory services. Listen on for practical advice, especially if you feel stuck and your business is plateaued.

Melinda Wittstock:

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m all about paying it forward as a five-time serial entrepreneur, so I started this podcast to catalyze an ecosystem where women entrepreneurs mentor, promote, buy from, and invest in each other. Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together and lift as we climb.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we meet an inspiring former mayor of Scarsdale New York and a former executive at American Express and Bain & Company who made it her mission to help small businesses scale and create generational wealth. Jane Veron is the co-founder and CEO of The Acceleration Project (TAP), which provides under-resourced small business owners high-caliber, customized pro bono consulting in strategy, finance, operations, and marketing so they can build assets, income, jobs, and wealth. TAP has helped over 11,300 small businesses in the past 14 years. Jane’s success speaks for itself: An analysis by The Bridgespan Group last year determined that TAP delivers a 10-to-1 social return on investment – meaning every dollar invested in TAP generates ten dollars in economic value through revenue growth, job creation, and local economic recirculation.

Melinda Wittstock:

Jane, who also serves on the Investment Capital Advisory Committee (ICAC) of the U.S. Small Business Administration as well as chairing the Congressional Task Force on Jobs & the Economy, is particularly focused on helping women founders build resilience. She says, “mindset creates momentum; resilience requires asking for help; data and discipline turn effort into results; innovation keeps resilience alive; compassion transforms listening into action.”

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we discuss the challenges and triumphs of small business owners—especially women and under-resourced entrepreneurs. In particular, how to thrive through uncertainty and disruption, from inflation and tariffs to AI, plus how to harness the untapped expertise of women professionals re-entering the workforce. TAP offers everything from financial education to deep-dive consulting—empowering small businesses to build economic independence and scale past the million-dollar mark. Jane shares practical tips on how to harness networks and resources, navigate pricing and predatory loans, and why embracing imperfection and relationships is key to success. 

Melinda Wittstock:

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Jane Veron.

[INTERVIEW]

Melinda Wittstock:

Jane, welcome to Wings.

Jane Veron:

It is fabulous to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, I love the whole idea of acceleration. I think every business owner does. So, tell me, what spurred you to launch the acceleration project?

Jane Veron:

So, I’ll take you back. It was 14 years ago, and at that moment, small business owners were facing a seismic shift in the way buyers bought and their kind of perceptions. It was when the Internet was just coming to life with delivery at your doorstep and when there was so much more price discovery through big box stores. So, at the time, there were all these small business owners really paralyzed with fear that they weren’t going to be able to make it in this new competitive landscape. And I built the acceleration project to solve two problems. One, I wanted to make sure that we provided the support, access, networks, insights to small business owners to enable them to not only survive, but thrive. And then two, I was very interested in harnessing talent and infusing it back into the economy. At the time, there were so many women professionals who had left the workforce to care for their children or aging parents, and yet they were super accomplished.

Jane Veron:

It was hard to find a pathway back. And I wanted to mobilize them, to take their talents, their skills to work with these small business owners. The next thing we knew, it became such a powerful combination. We’re now from hyperlocal, we’re now national, and we serve thousands of businesses every year.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s incredible. So, when you define small business, people have different definitions of small business. So, tell me, when you say small business, what do you mean?

Jane Veron:

We work with the smallest of the small. I think everyone knows 36 million small businesses out there. Most of them actually are solopreneurs. We work with business owners who generate anything from a few hundred thousand up to a million and a half. We like to push business owners to pass that million-dollar revenue threshold because I constantly remind business owners to build an asset outside themselves. And we work primarily with women under resourced entrepreneurs, immigrant populations, people who are first gen coming to this country to make a life for themselves and their families and build out their communities. So, our definition is small. Think Main street, think construction workers, childcare, health, beauty, fitness, a lot of service providers. And it’s really the essence of our country and it’s the people who provide the jobs and the income to their families.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, it’s huge. And particularly for women. You mentioned that getting to a million dollars. I read not long ago that only 3% of women, small business owners and entrepreneurs make it to that million-dollar mark. What is the biggest barrier you think of? Just that, just getting past the six figures.

Jane Veron:

I’m glad you asked about it because it’s so critically important. My goal is to build economic independence in our business owners so that they take income and they build an entity that outlives them and then they actually can harvest the kind of fruits of their labor. I think I see over and over women don’t, this is a generalization, but don’t necessarily dream is big, even though I wish they would. And they’re certainly capable of delivering on that. They think very much in the day. Today they’re juggling a million things. And so, it’s like what can I deliver today? As opposed to necessarily stepping back and thinking about like what could I potentially be delivering tomorrow? There’s so much focus on immediate income because you have to, you have to pay your bills, you have to put food on the table. And so, thinking about how, you know, what are your, what are your financials? Is it, there’s a 75% of our business owners don’t have a great understanding of their financials.

Jane Veron:

And I understand that like you’re, you’re starting your business because you’re a restaurateur and you want to share your great food with people or you, you know, have a product that you want to, you know, disseminate. But knowing your financials makes you understand what is my available cash, how can I invest that cash, how can I invest it to grow? Which is something we just spoke about. How do I know when to hire people? Because you as a founder, you’re awesome and you can do everything, but it’s not smart always to do everything. You need to find your secret sauce. And very often as a founder, you’re like the salesperson, you’re the spokesperson and you need to then hire other people to complement what you do. And women more often are used to just juggling everything, doing everything, not asking for help and we see then not asking for as much capital. All of those things I think inhibit the ability to hit the million plus mark.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. And it’s a whole bunch of things. It’s having access to the tools, knowing your numbers, just having that financial education. But it’s also a mindset thing. Like I can’t tell you how many people that I’ve met over the years when I’ve built five businesses myself, two of them venture backed. And even in that realm, it’s amazing how many people either ignore or don’t know their numbers. Like it’s like this mental block, like not wanting to follow their sales numbers or not wanting to understand what’s their churn or like, you know, these sorts of things, right?

Jane Veron:

It’s so typical, it’s so common. I was just speaking at a conference, and I said there is no shame in not knowing. And, and I think are the language we use is sometimes exclusionary language. It’s like, you know, I went to business school, so I know what the terms mean, but we don’t like, we’re not born knowing the terms. But I can explain this to you in very layman terms about what, what cash flow, margins, what that all is. And what we do at The Acceleration Project (TAP) is we take, you know, we train Wall Street to work with Main Street, but we spend a tremendous amount of time teaching our consultants to speak in language that’s very accessible. You know, it’s like, what’s the money you’re getting? What’s the money you’re spending? Who are you paying?

Melinda Wittstock:

Like, oh yeah, exactly. I wish people would do that because I don’t know what it is, is whether people just think they, they want to look their sound smarter, so they use these terms to elevate themselves. 

Jane Veron:

I talk to women undergrads, and they’ll take themselves out of the mix for certain jobs because they feel like they don’t have that language. And it’s not something that should exclude you. You’ll learn it, you’re smart. And so, what we’re really, really good at at TAP is taking all of those concepts and making them accessible. We can walk in a business owner’s shoes. We know. What do you know how impressive these business owners are? It is no easy task to be able to bring something to market and grow and manage all of these pieces. So, you know what’s an income statement? All the pieces of it.

Jane Veron:

We’ll help you, we’ll show you. And then once you master your numbers, then you make such informed decisions and you feel very confident and empowered and it’s just, it’s a life changer. And so, we actually just got funding from the Citi Foundation to, we, we built this four-step program to help small business owners understand both their personal and business financials. Build their personal credit rating. Because so often a small business owner’s ability to borrow at favorable rates is dependent upon their personal credit rating. And we have these very clear tactical steps to take. And we hold your hand, we don’t just give you information, we make sure that information is relevant to you and that you use it. And there’s so much help out there, but it’s great to get information.

Jane Veron:

But if you can’t try to take that information and make it relevant and useful to your own business, it could become just dizzying. And so, we focus on the outcome of everything we’re telling you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. I think it’s particularly interesting for women too because we’re more likely to rule ourselves out of something if we don’t think we’ve already mastered it. Whereas men just start things like they, that doesn’t stop them at all.

Jane Veron:

Right? We are, we are, over and over. And I’ve worked with like, I don’t know, probably at this point well over a thousand women and my team, we’ve worked with like at this point my team has worked with probably 12,000 plus, 90% of whom are women. And we feel like we have to master everything before we can move to the next step. And that is just not true. And we don’t have to get it all right? We just have to get it close enough. And we have to be really good at getting feedback and pivoting and adjusting. And if we wait for perfection, we never get going.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wow, that’s so true. Perfection. There should be an AA for perfectionism.

Jane Veron:

Yes, agreed. Let’s start that.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think that’s actually the, the most significant thing that holds people back. Because business is all about seizing opportunity. And massive action is always better than perfection. Like, you just have to be out in the world asking for sales, being fine with getting no’s, using the nose as feedback. Like, I mean, like imperfect action beats perfection every step of the way in business. And so too does relationship, right?

Jane Veron:

Oh, I’m so glad you mentioned that, because when I talk about this. So, when I go to, I went to Business School, 25% of us were women, and I spent a lot of my career in the private sector, and I really wanted to do well in school. And I focused on like, my studies and my technical proficiency. And I had a classmate say to me, Jane, like, why are you doing that? Why are you doing all the cases? Like, go out and meet people? I’m like, but I have to do well in school. And he was right and I was wrong because he built this entire network, has so many relationships. They, in these relationships, everyone helps one another, put each other on boards, all of those kinds of things. And I now know, having been in charge of multiple organizations that people lend to people, people follow people. It’s so much less about precisely what it is you do, although I love that my people who work with me are so mission driven and care enormously about how we’re making a difference for the world.

Jane Veron:

But it’s really human. It’s the, the human is who people are attracted to 100%.

Melinda Wittstock:

And especially in tough times, like even in the best of times, it’s hard to launch a business. But if you add all this, say tariff uncertainty, which I’m sure a lot of the people have gone through, you know, especially small businesses with physical product or, I mean, you know, gosh, it’s been crazy. And then now just the uncertain of what’s happening even politically or like rising prices, just all these things and how that’s affecting the people who would buy from you as a business, right? So, walking through all of that and then add to all of that AI and the implications of AI and how to use AI in your business and not be left behind. You mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, when you started this, there was a lot, there were a lot of businesses like, how do I, you know, really leverage the Internet? Right. So now with AI, that’s even more, you know, existential and exponential, in fact.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, what are some of the things that, that, that, that all the business owners you’re working with are most worried about right now? And what are some of the things that they’re dealing with in terms of all of those changes?

Jane Veron:

You’re spot on in listing all of the external forces that are coming to play. And I’ve lived now through, you know, the advent of online shopping. I’ve lived through Covid; I’ve lived through now this kind of multi-pronged set of stressors between tariffs and energy prices and the labor shortages and interest rates. It is anybody who has like the desire and commitment and passion to start a small business needs to be able to be resilient and weather storms that you just don’t anticipate. So, when you talked about what small business owners are worrying about now, it is all of those things because all of those things impact their cost structure as well as the customer demand. So, when I just recently did a panel on impact of tariffs and we, we surveyed our small business owners and the biggest issue isn’t the fact that there are tariffs, it’s the uncertainty of what’s going to stay, what’s not going to stay. There’s like the inability to have visibility into the future is what makes it so hard. Do I buy inventory? Do I reformulate my, my, the ingredients of my baked good because chocolate is so expensive? Like what, what, what do I, can I hire or can I not? Can I get a loan to expand space? Well, is there going to be foot traffic? All of those questions are people don’t know how to act because of the pressures they face across the board in all of the different areas that impact their costs.

Jane Veron:

What we really like to work on is helping small business owners understand their cost structure and then have pricing options depending upon which way that goes. So back to our earlier conversation. Your numbers are your friends. It’s not just your top line revenue. You need to understand your margins, which is basically how much money are you going to make after you pay for all of the things that we talked about, the tariffs and the energy costs and the labor costs and so forth.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s hard to know if you can’t predict, that’s, that’s the hardest thing. So, say for instance, if you’re modeling and you’re making decisions like should I hire people right now? How many people should I hire? Should I invest in the growth of my business in this particular area? And if you don’t know if the whole everything is uncertain around you, it’s so hard to make those decisions, especially ones that are longer term, like longer term contracts and things like that. So how do you advise people, people to, to right.

Jane Veron:

When I’m Listening to you, I’m thinking about think. Most of our business owners are on their own. Like, they may have a few employees, but they’re the ones who are staying up at night worrying about these things. So, the first thing I want to tell everybody is you don’t have to go it alone. You should assemble a board of directors. You should come to us, the acceleration project, tap. We will be your advisors and help you think that, 360.

Jane Veron:

Because it’s so hard when you are working in your business to also work on your business. And one of the things you and I spoke about with respect to why don’t women always grow as quickly; is they want to master it all and do it all. But you still need to have the time and space to be able to do the things like you asked. How do you think about this? The way you think about it is like, let’s, let’s project out now. Project. That doesn’t mean you have to be facile with Excel. In fact, AI now. And we could help you.

Jane Veron:

AI can do this for you. We can help you learn how to use AI responsibly and carefully and comfortably. But you don’t have to know it all yourself. You should lean on other people. This is a lonely journey and it’s a stressful journey, and you do not need to have all the answers. You just need to ask the questions and find people to help.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, I 100% agree. I mean, and this, again, this is all about knowing people and, and having access to tools and resources, being able to commiserate. Like, like we go back to relationship and, and understanding how other businesses are. Like, there’s going to be another business that’s dealing with the same problem as you.

Jane Veron:

Yeah, we, we built a community across the nation so that, you know, it’s harder to ask your, you know, your competitor in your local market, you know, how are you faring? Although very often you actually can because, like, in the end, like, you know, rising tide lifts all boats. So, if you’re in a particular market, like your local restaurateurs, like, they, you’re all facing the same problems. That said, we have a community across the nation, so you could ask somebody, you know, if you live in New York and you want to find out how Tennessee, how they’re, how those restaurants are doing, then you’re not competitors and you can have those open and honest dialogue. So, we really facilitate, like, we call it small group coaching. And we have a community where we connect people because, you know, we, we all face very Similar challenges. And so, let’s share and let’s help each other 100%.

Melinda Wittstock:

I like what you said about community. I think as what I remember launching my first business and I didn’t know anything about business. I mean, you know, my, my background was as a journalist and you know, and, and you know, Times of London, Financial Times. I entrepreneur within a lot of organizations, creating Financial Times Television for instance, or creating a show for the BBC. So, I was sort of always entrepreneurial. But then I launched my business which was a news agency on Capitol Hill and, and grew that. But I launched that without any business expertise at all, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

I had been a financial correspondent at one time. But I didn’t really like know what I was doing. So, it was a completely intuitive and I wasn’t plugged into any, any business network. So that there’s probably so many mistakes I made in the early days, but, I don’t know, beginner’s luck, I don’t really know because I had no support network.

Jane Veron:

That’s more typical than not. Most, most business owners, most of these incredible entrepreneurs, they don’t have any sense for the underpinning we provide. Like the scaffolding, the underpinning. What makes you great is that, you know, the thing you’re selling or the service you’re providing and the rest like lean on others. Like that’s. I built TAP because I provided, you know, I was a management consultant at a big firm, very well-known and I provided excellent advice to Fortune 500 companies and they could pay the firm to be able to deliver, you know, great analysis and insights. And I said, well, this doesn’t seem right that our small businesses who line all of our main streets, they don’t get that kind of same, they don’t get the same support. Let’s change that.

[PROMO CREDIT]

Wings of Inspired Business is brought to you by the podcast, Zero Limits Business Growth Secrets where Steve Little – serial entrepreneur, investor and mergers & acquisitions maestro – shares the little-known 24 value drivers that spell the difference between a $5m business, and a $50mm even $500 mm business. It always pays to understand what’s driving the underlying enterprise value of your business. So, check out Zero Limits Business Growth Secrets at zerolimitsradio.com – that’s zerolimitsradio.com and available wherever you get your podcasts. More information about valuation growth at Zero Limits Ventures.com.

Melinda Wittstock:

And we’re back with Jane Veron, co-founder and CEO of the Acceleration Project.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]

Jane Veron:

Let’s take that high caliber talent and infuse that back into our local economies. That’s how our nation is going to be great. And so, I was hell bent on providing the knowledge, the access, the networks to our small business community and it changes lives. But it’s not just, you’re not just helping the business, you are helping the family, you are helping the community and then you ultimately help the country. And I can tell you, you know, it’s a very human experience. We just honored one of our small business owners. She was a nurse practitioner 20 years delivering, you know, Caring for patients. Really wanted to build an at home medical aesthetics and wellness program.

Jane Veron:

She kind of wanted to uplift people. She did this in her home. She finally gets off; she finally gets retail space and then 30 days in, she’s told that she’s got to leave because they’re going to redevelop her building. So, it’s a crisis. And so, we actually come and we help her figure out how to grow her revenue, we help her figure out how to manage her costs, we help her figure out who to hire. And she hugged us and said to me, you saved me. And her mother and her daughter were watching her and she’s the role model for her daughter. And her mother, she’s an immigrant to this country.

Jane Veron:

Her mother, through her strong character, taught her daughter, who is now this business owner, about resilience and strength and determination. So, you see how this impacts an entire family and then the community in which they work.

Melinda Wittstock:

Big companies can afford things like really good employment lawyers, so they don’t make a mistake with like fast changing employment laws in states and whatnot. I’ve seen so many companies just, you know, hire somebody but then, you know, not really have enough money and, and, and do deferred compensation and then get like, and then get like a lawsuit or something like that.

Jane Veron:

Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

And, and like, because they didn’t even know what the law was, for instance. There’s so many disadvantages that small businesses have. Like staying on top of all, for instance, staying on, knowing what the best practices are, knowing the best way to, if you are going to implement AI in your business, what is the best way to do it? Just all these things and you’re so busy in the doing. Right. That you don’t really have time. So, like the big Fortune 500, they, they’ve got all of that covered. Right? But you as a small business like you, you really, really don’t.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, tell me a little bit about how, how TAP actually works for people. Is it like one-on-one consulting? Is it? You mentioned you had a community; do you have courses? Tell me a little bit about how

Jane Veron:

we, we meet a business owner, where that business owner is. And so, when I first launched it, I was Trying to provide major case teams to a business. But you know, not every business owner is ready to have a six-month long project of looking at your finances and marketing and ops. And also, so we have like any startup, we listen to our market, and we deliver service across an entire spectrum. So, we provide very short burst learning where you could work one on one with a consultant. We provide small group coaching where you can work in teams. We provide what we call the deep dive, which is a longer project with we bring several consultants in, we advise along all functional areas, finance, marketing, ops, strategy, labor, all that. We also have industry expertise.

Jane Veron:

So, we’ve gotten really smart at advising food and construction and childcare because like there are different regulations, there are different ways of thinking about your cost of goods sold and then along the entirety of the capital life cycle from getting you ready for capital to how to deploy it, to how do you plan for exit and everything in between. And one of the things that I’m very proud of is that we have been able to move from a transactional model where we deliver service to you and then you leave to that we keep you in relationships so you can come to. Because think about it, you ran your business. It’s not like you have only one challenge and that’s that you are constantly facing new and different challenges. So, we at tap, we are a nonprofit, we provide this service for free, and it is excellent. And so, we are there for you no matter your challenge. And I of course have to fundraise to be able to underwrite the cost of all this, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

And so, you’re organized as a nonprofit, so how does that all work?

Jane Veron:

I didn’t set out to run to build a nonprofit at all. I set out to solve a problem. I wanted to bring highest caliber customized support to under resourced small businesses. The only way to do that was to be able to, was to set it up as a 501C3. And I have a leveraged business model because the only way I could deliver this high caliber service at a reasonable, reasonable cost to my funders is I recruit talent across the country. People volunteer their time. So, they are basically taking their skills that they learn on Wall Street.

Jane Veron:

Investment banking, entrepreneurs, we train them to work with the small business, we oversee that delivery. We have all of the IP and the content, and I have a paid team that then unlocks multiples of that in talent. Interestingly, when I started out, we sat at my kitchen table and I said it’s going to be a privilege to quote, volunteer your time, donate your time to us to help small business because it’s going to be competitive and hard to get into. And of course, when you’re starting a business, you know what it’s like. Like you’re begging and pleading people to like to follow and do what you want. You know what you’re hoping to achieve. And at the beginning I gave, I was the one providing all the advice and asking every friend I knew to help me who used to work in, you know, who worked in business.

Jane Veron:

Now we have a very extensive process where people have to apply, and they get interviewed and they get extensively trained and overseen. And so, we take two thirds of the people who apply who want to donate their time. And they’re working professionals and they’re amazing working professionals. But not only are they so smart, they are so compassionate. We teach cultural competence; we teach people to. We speak in 21 languages in 21 states. We worked in every state but two in the United States. 

Jane Veron:

But I built it as a non-profit because that was the, again, the only way to be able to have this expertise in the hands of our under resourced small businesses.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, that’s amazing. I understand that you’ve delivered something like 66,000 pro bono hours. 

Melinda Wittstock:

And this is, this is valued at about $15 million. That’s incredible. I mean that that is leverage.

Jane Veron:

And we had… The Bridge Bank Group is a premier nonprofit consulting firm and we know that, that the value where we are, we’re building capacity, capability. It’s not a one and done. And we know that by providing that advice and guidance we’re than enabling our small businesses to accelerate. The Bridgespan Group validated what we know. But with the academic rigor and taking all of our data and proving that for every dollar a funder invests in tap, we delivered 10 times that of economic impact. That is a huge return on investment.

Jane Veron:

They call it the social return on investment. And that was done by an outside firm and in nonprofit space. That’s like an extraordinary return. And it’s because of the leverage that we’re able to create with the incredible team that we have built.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s amazing. So just in terms, and that’s measured in terms of for every dollar, you know, a non pro, you know, for every dollar, say a foundation or… 

Jane Veron:

Correct.

Melinda Wittstock:

Major donor. Right. Invests in TAP, you generate $10 in economic value.

Jane Veron:

Correct.

Melinda Wittstock:

Okay. It’s revenue growth or whatever. So, you’re essentially 10xing the growth of all these.

Jane Veron:

Yeah, well, no, that’s not, it’s not every. Because it varies.. It’s not always revenue. It could be jobs created. It’s like there are all sorts of ways of you measuring like the, the impact to the community, but revenue is, is huge. And like the woman, the woman I described to, we, we grew her revenue 40% and we, you know, we didn’t do it.

Jane Veron:

She did it. But we helped her figure out how to build her capacity, how to get more customers, like all of those, how to price appropriately. The other thing you asked about with women, women don’t they undervalue so often it’s generalization. But they don’t always price. Right? They don’t, they don’t price their time in like so many of those kinds of pitfalls we see.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know, I’m almost 1,000 episodes into this podcast so far over the past decade, and that comes up all the time, like underpricing and over delivering and service businesses also hiring too late, like trying to do it all yourself. And it becomes this, that you create this glass ceiling for yourself.

Jane Veron:

We actually help businesses. We force the founder, the owner to see what it would be like if they were able to get the leverage. Like hiring those people and you could hire them. You don’t have to go and hire a full FTE. You could hire somebody part time, you could figure it out until you’re ready. But you can’t wait forever. You really got a plan for the future because it takes. And I teach my team this.

Jane Veron:

Look, I fundraise all the time and so does we have a group. And by the way, we are underwritten by the best financial institutions and corporations and generous family offices in the country or in the world in many respects. You know, we have JPMorgan Chase, we have the Aries Foundation, the Apollo Foundation, eBay, Citi Foundation, like Truist, the list goes on and on. Because I see, like this is such a leverage use of dollars, but it is just as time consuming for me to Fundraise for a $10,000 grant as it would be for me to fundraise for a million-dollar grant. And that’s like the minds that you need to have as owner. You dream big, seek big it takes as time to do the big as it does to do the small.

Jane Veron:

So why not go big?

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, I 100% agree. I, I, I think almost like the bigger, you know, some of the kind of, you know, I had a company, it was sort of an enterprise software company, and it really only started to succeed once I just went for big contracts, and then the bigger contracts were actually easier to sell. It was really strange.

Jane Veron:

It was, you’re right. And, you know, size begets size. Like for the small businesses, one shared a million. It’s so much easier to go to from a million to 2 million than it is to go from like a few hundred thousand up there. It just, it’s you, you get scale, you, you get, you have systems. It, you also should always build outside yourself. You have to build systems in that.

Melinda Wittstock:

Don’t.

Jane Veron:

You don’t want everything to reside in people’s brains because if you lose those employees or then you can’t, then you don’t have an entity. And the reason I encourage businesses to grow bigger is because when you’re about to retire, you want to be able to reap the rewards of all of your hard work. You want to have this asset, and you want to be able to build wealth for yourself and your family and for the next generation. And second to home ownership, small business ownership is that pathway, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s so true. Oh, my goodness. And so, what are some of your biggest success stories? Are there any kind of named businesses? You can say, okay, they started with us and they were struggling and now they’re here.

Jane Veron:

I mean, there are many. There are many, many, many. I would say that one of the great things to quote or to cite is that businesses, 20% of businesses fail within the first year, and 50% of these small businesses fail within five years. Our businesses, and we say thousands, our businesses, 92% are in, are still operating a year later. That’s like enormous. Think about the churn when, think of, you remember, Covid, when there were empty storefronts? And think about that. How the what the spiral, Negative spiraling for the communities.

Jane Veron:

No foot traffic, no employees, no. And so, think about the importance of keeping these businesses open. So, if I’m able to do that, what a powerful improvement to our social fabric. We have, I mean, I have amazing businesses that went from, you know, selling in their kitchens to being able to become a national brand. I have fabulous, like, bakeries that have been expanded, ice cream shops that have expanded. I adore my business owners and, you know, businesses that started at Home and when were ended up in Whole Foods, like the, you know, so they, they get national recognition and it’s in every, in, in so many of the industries that you would expect to see them in.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, amazing, amazing, amazing statistics of, of what you’ve been able to achieve. So where do you go from here? What’s next?

Jane Veron:

When I sat around my kitchen table and we were hyper local and I started this with only volunteers, I’m like, okay, we’re going to be national. And you know, people think you’re crazy. And I’m like, oh, everyone always tells you you’re crazy.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s when you know that you’re onto something.

Jane Veron:

Exactly. And like everyone told me it would fail. Like I want everyone who’s listening to know that people will always tell you why things are going to fail. And it’s good to know why people think they might. But all you have to do is just make adjustments and fix and change and listen to the market. Like I was held. I knew that we had, we, we were onto something and I knew that I needed this to work because I knew I needed to help those small business owners. So, so all those naysayers out there were going strong, and you asked me where I want to go.

Jane Veron:

I want to blanket the country with our services. We know how to do this; we know how to scale this. We, we are, we are. I constantly am looking to drive down my costs of, of delivery. So, if I can continue to automate and use AI to do all the things that you that don’t require the human connection, then I’m going to be able to deliver that service more and more at a more cost, more and more cost effectively and then blanket the United States of America. I want TAP for America. That is what I believe we can deliver. And I think.

Jane Veron:

And then once we’re done with TAP for America, we’re going to be TAP for the world.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s amazing. One thing I wanted to ask you too is just access to capital for women because that’s always been a really big issue. So, for TAP, you have access to family offices and big major donors and foundations and such. But for a for profit business trying to raise capital, we talked a little bit about, you know, your credit rating and these kinds of things, but it’s, it’s, it’s a very difficult environment and especially for women. So, do you help at that end of things as well?

Jane Veron:

Yes, we Are that is like our, our secret sauce is helping you get yourself in a position where you would be loan ready. And it’s not always a loan that you might need. First of all, there are grants out there. There are also, you know, lines of credit and other types of lending opportunities. We partner with many, many lenders. So, a lot of small business owners aren’t aware that there are community development financial institutions. They’re called CDFIs where if you are not yet bankable, we can help you get favorable loans with the relationship with the CDFIs we can take what to you might look like kind of a mess. I’ve had businesses come with me to me with like literally like a little plastic bag of receipts and statements and we can help you figure out how to put together your own.

Jane Veron:

I wouldn’t say this to the business P & L but the P & L like your income statement. I would help them to explain where their money, you know, what they’re bringing in and what they’re, what they’re spending and then we can tell show them what is the responsible amount of debt they can carry that they can service. One of the things we spend a lot of time on is teaching small business owners how to avoid predatory lenders where they’re, you know, maybe you defer payment and then all of a sudden they come after you.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s one of the biggest spam industries at the moment. I can’t tell you like I’m barraged by text messages from all these people trying to lend money… 

Jane Veron:

And what you see is business owners are get into crises where they have to pay their, their people or they have to pay their vendor and so it looks great at the moment and then digging yourself out of that, it can sink your business. So, it might feel okay today. And, and invariably that is the, you know, that is one of the most significant negative impacts to a business is, is finding your getting yourself into that situation.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, it’s, I mean it’s, it’s, it’s everywhere. It’s everywhere. We haven’t really talked specifically about AI I’ve mentioned it a couple of times. But, but, but how are you helping businesses with the leveraging AI?

Jane Veron:

So, we have actually that has become amongst as you would imagine, the hottest topic. What we have done now is because there’s such enormous demand, we have built webinars and we’ve been sponsored by a lot of our partner organizations. But when we deliver information by webinar. We offer backend support as well, because there’s so much information out there that that’s not. The issue isn’t getting access to information. The issue is using that information for your business. So, we’re very good at walking in the shoes of a business owner. So, when we provide information on, like, what we give, like the landscape, these are the AI tools.

Jane Veron:

This is what they cost. This is how you worry about privacy. This is how you turn on and off, you know, the toggle, so that your competitors may don’t have access to things. And we teach the business owners these things. But then we provide use cases because you don’t realize the power of AI until you say, oh, wow, I didn’t know that AI could actually take my financial statements and tell me what my cost structure is going to look like. Or, wow, I didn’t know that AI could actually. You could take a picture of your inventory and AI can then help. You know, how many.

Jane Veron:

If you’re a hair salon, how many bottles of shampoo and conditioner and whatever you have on your shelf, what’s moving, what’s not. It is like such an enormous, you know, well, we all know how amazing AI can be, but we give the use cases so that business owners keep getting the, the understanding of, wow, I could use it for this and for this and for this. We share a tremendous amount of information. And I will say one more thing to you. We of our 200 consultants, 107, I believe, are what we called AI power users. So, they’re not just advising you, they’re using it. 

Jane Veron:

They actually engage with AI themselves. So, the people with whom you work, they know their stuff. Which is what makes us so special is like, we get, like, we get excellent, excellent advisors, and we train them and screen them and make sure that the best are there to service you.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, Jane, I want to make sure that anyone listening to this that really needs your help, and I, I can imagine a lot of listeners of wings could really, really benefit from what you’re doing. What’s the best way to find you and work with you. Tell me a little bit about what that process looks like…

Jane Veron:

So, we welcome you to apply for services. Actually, we welcome the small business owners to apply for services. We welcome the volunteers to apply to become part of our consultant team. Go to theaccelerationproject.org online and you’ll be able to find that. So theaccelerationproject.org we’re also on LinkedIn and we’re on Instagram, so we use the acronym TAP, but the full. The full name, the accelerationproject.org people can write to me. Janetheaccelerationproject.org we are here to help. We believe this will create economic independence for so many small business owners across the country.

Jane Veron:

And I’m so happy that you and I had a chance to talk about it.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Amazing. Well, thank you for doing the work you’re doing. It’s so important. I mean, I really think business has the opportunity and business owners have the opportunity to really create the future, the society actually, that we want to live in, right?

Jane Veron:

You know, and I agree with you, Melinda, and there’s so much discussion about how capital is going to solve the problem. Capital is essential, but capital alone will not solve the problem. You need the advisor. You need to have a team of people who are helping you through every challenge because we don’t know all the answers. And we need to learn from each other. And that’s why we’re here 100%.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today, Jane.

Jane Veron:

It was such a pleasure. I hope we can talk again soon.

[INTERVIEW ENDS]

Melinda Wittstock:

Jane Veron is the co-founder and CEO of The Acceleration Project (TAP), a nonprofit that empowers small business owners and accelerates their growth through bespoke advisory services, generating a ripple effect that unlocks pathways to wealth creation and economic mobility.

Melinda Wittstock:

Please take a moment to give us a five-star rating and review the podcast on Apple and Spotify—it helps more entrepreneurs like you find the secret sauce to support and grow their businesses.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s it for today’s episode. Head on over to WingsPodcast.com – and subscribe to the show. When you subscribe, you’ll instantly get my special gift, the WINGS Success Formula. Women … Innovating … Networking … Growing …Scaling … IS the WINGS of Inspired Business Formula …for daily success in your business and life. Miss a Wings episode? We’ve got hundreds in the vault, all with actionable advice and epiphanies. Check them out at MelindaWittstock.com or wingspodcast.com. You can also catch me on LinkedIn or Instagram @MelindaAnneWittstock. We also love it when you share your feedback with a 5-star rating and review on Apple, Spotify or wherever else you listen, including Podopolo where you can interact with me and share your favorite clips.