Class Helps Sell Entrepreneurs on High-Tech Skills

MOORPARK — Eleven men wrapped in cardigans and coats squint at a computer screen in a drafty meeting room inside Moorpark’s City Hall, hoping for a glimpse of their futures.

The men, owners of local businesses that sell everything from trophies to auto parts, are students in a new class designed to teach entrepreneurs how to use computer programs and the Internet to their own ends.

The students meet twice each week in their decidedly low-tech classroom, sharing tips on technology, studying bookkeeping programs and, at the same time, ironing out the kinks in a curriculum that instructor Ray Cobel hopes will eventually help many local businesses grow.

“There’s an amazing amount of business information on the Internet, and if you learn to use some fairly simple tools, you can find it,” Cobel said. “That’s a technology every business should be up to speed on.”

Cobel’s class is the latest offering from the Ventura County Entrepreneur Academy, a publicly funded program that teaches management and marketing skills to local business owners. Students pay $200--refundable once they complete the course--for a survey of technologies that could help their businesses thrive.

Cobel, a marketing consultant in Thousand Oaks, dreamed up the class while teaching one of the Entrepreneur Academy’s basic courses. As he ran through such topics as accounting and sales management, he kept thinking of all the new technologies his students could use to simplify those tasks.

The curriculum he designed doesn’t attempt to teach any single program or subject in depth. Instead, during 100 hours of class time, Cobel hopes to introduce his students to about 30 computer programs and show how to find potential customers through electronic mail.

Mike O’Beirne’s interest was piqued by the prospect of creating an electronic catalog for his plaque and trophy business, Conejo Awards. Because traditional paper catalogs are too expensive for most small companies, O’Beirne has to market his goods in person.

“It’s hard for me to grab 20 plaques off the wall, sit down with you, and have you tell me, ‘Well, I wasn’t really thinking about plaques, I’d rather see crystal,’ ” he said.

Using programs covered in the class, O’Beirne can design a full-color catalog showing all his company’s awards, then store that catalog on a standard floppy disk or transmit it on the Internet.

“I can put together that kind of catalog right here for a very low cost,” he said. “That’s very exciting to me.”

Scott Dempster, owner of Karmann GhiaParts and Restoration in Moorpark, sees the technology as a way to locate potential customers. His mail-order business sells parts for Volkswagen’s classic Karmann Ghia cars, and he has already found that Internet news groups--people with similar interests who share information--can connect him with the cars’ devotees.

He has hooked up with several potential customers by answering their car questions. “I go in there and I give as much help and information as I can,” he said. “And people ask, ‘Where can I get that [part]?’ and I say, ‘Well, I have a mail-order company.’ ”

Cobel said of these new technologies, “It’s making it easier for a small, tech-savvy business to compete.”