The Triangle

Issue date: 5/2/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Helana Nosratbakhsh

Starting a small business is very much like baking the perfect cake.

Begin with an outstanding recipe using just the right amount of ingredients, bake at the right temperature, cool it down, and then let the finished product do the rest, all thanks to the master chef.

An increasing amount of Drexel University students, old and new, have decided to venture upon the entrepreneurial path early and build businesses on their own. Seeing the full potential of starting a business endeavor early in life, they've experienced what it's like to try and survive in the hectic, competitive, small-business world.

Taste testing is something Drexel alumna Diana Harman does a lot of. Owner and baker of Cupcakes & More, she has sought to cater to veganism, an emerging trend in Philadelphia.

"My idea spurred from when I had a good friend over for dinner only to find out he is a vegan and everything I had made for him he couldn't eat," Harman said. "I found a cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero called 'Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World' and used their idea as a basis for my own vegan recipes."

After whipping up a batch, Diana shared her cupcakes with other Drexel students. With the positive input she received on her vegan baking, she decided to start a MySpace for her cupcakes and partnered up with the Viva Las Vegans lunch truck on 33rd and Market streets to get her name out.

"Right now I am not showing much profit because most of the money I spend goes right back to the vegan ingredients," Harman said. "But once my name is really out there I hope to eventually open up my own shop."

Harman said she believes small-business profits are not necessarily the basis of a booming business. Promotion is the first and hardest step, but is essential in order to gain a committed customer base. She noticed that once this is accomplished, stability of profits is less of a worry and, depending on the business, how one is going to get the product out on time or if there is enough product to distribute to each customer becomes a much larger worry.

Kevin Feinberg, Drexel alumnus, is an example of the "no profits, no problem" state of mind. He started his business while still attending the University due to the fact that there wasn't a resource he could use to see what was happening in the Philadelphia ska music scene.

Finding out that many Philadelphians were facing the same crisis, Feinberg used his computer skills to start the web site PhillySka.com. He makes no profits off of his business, which he said he would label more of an "organization." However, Feinberg said his passion for the ska scene keeps him heavily involved in his web site. To truly be successful in any type of business, he said, you always need to keep your original goal in mind.

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