NCET Expo

February 19, 2010 – 11 am > 6 pm

South Point Hotel

Sign up today to exhibit at NCET’s 3rd Annual Entrepreneur and Small Business Expo, Nevada’s only expo exclusively targeting Nevada’s new and small businesses.

• Over 1,200 – 1,500 small and new businesses expected to attend
  100 – 125 exhibitors
  Educational seminars on a wide variety of topics
  Open to the public and free to attend

Who should exhibit?

• Financial institutions
  Professional services including attorneys and accountants
  Consultants, including marketing, management, IT, finance and PR
  Printers, designers and graphic artists
  Educational institutions with programs designed for small businesses
  Federal, state, county and local agencies serving small businesses
  Agencies offering advice and training to small businesses
  And anyone whose customers include small businesses!

8’ x 10’ exhibit booths only $350
($100 for non-profits and governmental agencies)

Download Exhibitor and Sponsorship Application Here

For more information visit www.NCETexpo.com or contact 
Emily Somerville at (702) 944-9722 or Emily@NCET.org

As we start planning for the NCET’s 2010 Entrepreneur Expos, we want to hear about YOUR experience at our previous Expos. Whether you attended or exhibited, please let us know about:

• The connections you made
• The help you received
• The new customers you found
• That great new supplier you discovered

Please send a couple of paragraphs to Emily Somerville at Emily@NCET.org. We’ll publish the best stories on our website and in our email newsletters, and if selected, you’ll receive a $50 Office Deport gift card.

We’re pleased to announce that the 2010 NCET Entrepreneur and Small Business Expo will be held on Friday, February 19, 2010 at the South Point Hotel Casino and Spa.

The Entrepreneur and Small Business Expo is designed to provide small businesses — and aspiring business owners — with the advice, resources, contacts and information needed to start or grow a successful business. For 2010, the Expo will feature over 100 exhibitors and a series of 45-minute educational seminars.

However, people told us that they sometimes had to choose between attending the educational sessions and visiting the exhibits. This year, we’re looking for new ways to offer additional seminars at times and days that won’t conflict with the exhibit floor hours.

We’d like your help in selecting the educational seminar topics and how best to offer them to you. Please take this brief survey and let us know your what you’d like.

Take Survey Now

Thank you for your help. We appreciate it.

NCET is pleased to announce the dates and locations for the 2010 NCET Entrepreneur Expos.  Over 1,000 people will attend each Expo, and each will feature over 100 exhibitors.

Las Vegas	Reno
South Point Hotel Casino Spa Friday, February 19, 2010 11 am – 7 pm .	Atlantis Casino Resort Spa Friday, March 12, 2010 11 am – 7 pm .
Reserve your Las Vegas Exhibitor Booth Now! .	Reserve your Reno Exhibitor Booth Now! .
2009 Photos . 2009 Exhibitors	2009 Photos . 2009 Exhibitors

……

Leslie Medeiro spent years working in cargo sales for a major airline.

Three years ago, Medeiro and her husband Dennis, took a passion and turned it into a business.

Carson City’s The Solar Store has experienced a steady success with each passing year. Gross sales tipped from $50,000 to over $100,000 the first year.

Then came the economic tumble of 2008.

And last fall, the business lost five major clients due to economic conditions. As a result, they’re focusing on reaching commercial clients more than residential, in a business push to keep them afloat.

"We’re shooting for a half million this year," said co-owner Dennis Medeiro. "I don’t know if that’s gonna happen but we’ve grown, almost doubled, every year of those three years."

In the company’s 2009 plan, the Medeiro’s are following through with lessons learned at an entrepreneur expo that its members attended in 2008.

The annual event hosted by Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (NCET) is designed exclusively for small and new businesses. The free day-long event features nearly 100 exhibits and over a dozen education sessions to help new and small businesses during current economic conditions.

Read entire story here

…

More photos here

Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology will host the 2009 NCET Entrepreneur Expo, which will feature about 100 exhibitors and more than a 1,000 small-business owners.

The event runs from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in the second floor Grand Ballroom.

The expo is free to attend and designed exclusively for small businesses and for people planning to start small businesses. The expo will feature speakers and panels, in English and Spanish, that provide the resources and expert advice needed to successfully start or grow a business.

From 8 to 11 a.m., there will be a condensed English-language session combining marketing finance and a guide to resources to help small- or aspiring business owners.

Dave Archer, CEO of NCET, said about three or four of the workshop sessions would be held in Spanish, because "I thought it would be a good idea."

"As I watched the merger of the Sparks and Hispanic chambers, I realized I didn’t know how many Hispanic businesses there were out there," Archer said. "It made me appreciate the depth of the Hispanic business community."

He said three or four sessions will be presented entirely in Spanish.

It will probably be the core issues, such as developing a business plan, raising money and how to market, he said.

Getting back to basics is what all small businesses face in the current economic challenges, including branding and networking.

The NCET touched on similar topics at its second expo in Las Vegas in late February, which was attended by about 1,000 people.

"What we learned there was what we expect to see here: that because of the economy there will perhaps be more people attending because of the economy who are unemployed or underemployed and looking for ways they can launch a new business," Archer said.

Exhibitors will include professional services such as attorneys and accountants, federal, state and local agencies that assist small businesses, funding sources, agencies offering advice and training to small businesses, educational institutions with programs designed for small businesses and consultants who address marketing, management, IT and other critical areas.

Expo helps people seeking to start their own business in shrinking job market

By JENNIFER ROBISON - LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

People stroll the aisles at the Small Business and Entrepreneur Expo on Friday at South Point. The expo is projected to nearly triple its attendance from last year, an official said.

Local civil engineer Bill Bolduc has lost his job twice in the last year.

Rather than fret about his fate, though, Bolduc decided it might be the perfect time to launch his own company. Bolduc said he’s eyeing an engineering niche that few others serve, and working for himself could be his best opportunity to jump back into the labor force.

"I’ve never owned a business. I’ve thought about it often, but I’ve always had someone offer me a great job," Bolduc said. "Why take the risk and not make any money for that first year if someone’s offering you a job? But no one is offering me anything right now, so I have to make business for myself."

His interest in opening a startup led Bolduc to the Small Business and Entrepreneur Expo on Friday at South Point. Bolduc had plenty of company: The free show, a production of Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology, was set to nearly triple 2008’s expo attendance through Friday night, said Dave Archer, chief executive officer of the center. Early registration numbers indicated that as many as 1,500 visitors might attend the expo, which also featured educational sessions on raising capital, marketing, networking and writing business plans. That’s up from 600 in 2008. The number of exhibitors jumped from 62 a year ago to 100 Friday.

Read entire story here