Episode 8: Guiding Entrepreneurs: A Conversation with Bill Horwitz

Join us for Mentor Conversations from SCORE Houston as we talk with Bill Horwitz, a mentor with over 40 years of experience. Bill shares his journey from family business to mentoring entrepreneurs, offering practical advice and insights for small business owners. Discover how SCORE Houston supports local entrepreneurs and why mentorship is key to business success. Tune in for real-world wisdom and encouragement to help you thrive!

Give your comments at https://scorehoustonpodcast.blogspot.com or write to pv.bala@scorevolunteer.org. Let us know what you like of this episode and suggest subjects on which you wish to know more. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Mentor Conversations at Score Houston, where we bring you insights and stories from our mentors. You'll hear from senior executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals who volunteer their time to guide small businesses. SCORE is America's largest network of volunteer business mentors and is supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration. In Houston, we provide free, confidential mentoring and education to help entrepreneurs start, grow, and succeed. Now, let's dive into today's mentor conversation.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Welcome to this podcast from SCORE. My name is Murali, and I'm going to be talking to Bill Horvitz today, who has been mentoring a number of clients for the last seven years with SCORE. Bill has over 40 years of experience in industry, in various roles in organizations like Otto Anderson, Houston Natural Gas, Amazon, EM Tech LLC, Randall and Doey, and SAMSCA. He's got wide experience in the areas of construction and asset management. And he's been volunteering since 2018 with both SCORE and AARP Foundation, and has been mentoring entrepreneurs and guiding them to achieve the right outcomes. Bill does provide mentoring both in English and Spanish. Thanks, Bill, for joining today. When you reflect on your career, what stands out most for you?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

I grew up in a family business. My parents had a shop where I grew up. And me and my other three siblings, we started as an early age helping out in their business. I think for me, that's been a theme throughout my career, is I always understood business from the standpoint of the owners and had the perspective of thinking not only what we did day to day, but how are we going to get to next week and next month and so forth. And taking care of your employees and customers and all that was part of that. As I did my career, and my career involved working for both large companies and international companies as well as some startup companies. I just had the perspective, I think, that I grew up with, which was think like an owner, think about where you're headed and why you're doing it. And along the way, of course, learned a lot of lessons by making plenty of mistakes. But I'm still learning. So that's part of the fun of it.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Great. Great, Bill. And what kind of advice would you give to young members in your family and others who are starting out?

SPEAKER_01 2:55

I always think it's business is one up having your own business is one option to many for going through your career and your life. And I think there's always hard decisions you need to make, and sometimes trade-offs, and how do you find balance? I think since any endeavor worth the effort you put in, commitment you make, it takes a lot of time and commitment. And so be sure that this is something you really want to do. Being an entrepreneur, I think is true in my case. It's not for everybody. But if that's what you want to do, then work hard at it. Expect to make some mistakes along the way. Look for help wherever you can, like with score and other resources. Do it as best you can and work as hard as you can on it.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Thanks a lot, Bill. What drew you to SCORE? What was your motivation to start mentoring?

SPEAKER_01 3:54

So it's interesting that actually I was a SCORE client, some twenty, almost 20 years before I became a SCORE volunteer. And it was with a startup company that I was involved with. And SCORE gave me some insight into things back then. And then when I had the chance later on in my career to when I was retiring and I was looking at other ways to give back to the community, uh score naturally was one of those things that popped up and I decided to see if see if they would take me in.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Excellent. Excellent. And what was the moment that you felt that this is why I joined SCORE? And what involved you when you joined SCORE?

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Well, one thing about it is just the other SCORE volunteers, the variety of their experiences, their backgrounds, the different cultures they come from, different professions and expertise that they have. For me, I consider myself not a specialist, but a generalist and look at sort of the big picture when I'm looking at business. But we have among our volunteers some specialists, subject matter experts, we call them, who just are know those subjects very deeply and from whom I'm constantly learning new things and wanting to learn new things and wanting to offer to the community that we're trying to help both my perspective and the perspective of my many colleagues in SCOR who have the depth in their subjects that can help our clients in the moment.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Okay. Thank you. Moving on, what are your observations about small businesses in Houston or Texas today? And how SCORE can actually help them.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

I think the rules and hurdles one has to go through, permeating, licensing, etc., are relatively set fair attainably in the Texas market. And for that reason, there's a it's a huge, there's a lot of small businesses in in Texas, and especially in Houston. And what's interesting about that is Houston is known for some very big industries, the energy sector, for example, high-tech, the hospital system, NASA. Yet amongst all those big companies, there's room for a variety of services and products that can be supplied by small business owners. Everything from food services to cleaning services to transportation, you name it. And as a result, there's lots of demand for small businesses that have have the ability to serve these industries and opportunity to find a niche and find an audience for whatever it is that you specialize in. And so I think it's an environment that's I don't know if it's unique, but it's very attractive. And so we see a lot of startups in Houston, and we at Score, I guess, have the pleasure of being, in some some cases, a participant in helping those startups gain gain the information they need to have a chance of succeeding.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Okay. In 2025, where do you see the big opportunities in our area?

SPEAKER_01 7:38

That's probably not my best area to comment on because I'm not necessarily following industry trends. I would say I'd leave that to my clients to tell me what it is that they see as an opportunity. I do ask them what drives them and what are the opportunities they see and why they think that'll be successful. And if they're convinced of it, and they think that our services and the insights we can provide them are useful to them, then we're certainly willing to help if we can.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Thank you, Bill. You've worked with a number of clients in the past. What has been your experience like so far working with these clients? And I mean, how do they take this mentoring and how do they benefit from it?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

We know we're a free service, which is very attractive, of course, to a business that's trying to get started and doesn't have a lot of resources. But the clients are the drivers of their project, their mission. We're just one of many resources that hopefully they'll take advantage of. And I guess what we'll try to do is see where they are in their journey, what it is that organizations like ours can help them with, with like mentoring or workshops that we offer, or the resources that we have on our website, for example. But then there's other resources in the community that I try to stay aware of to be able to guide my clients to also pursue other sources that could help them in what they're trying to do. And that could be associated with the government, that could be associated with different organizations like chambers of commerce that exist and that create opportunities for the small business community to increase their networks, increase their reach, learn who their competition is, learn what else is out there. Then in our case, it's just see if we can continue to support them, not only at the beginning, but as they move along that journey in their business from the beginning to whenever they decide to exit that business. In which case we can also help them with how do you go about exiting, passing that on to someone, say in your family or someone else in the community.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Thanks, Bill. As part of your mentoring experience, you've had any memorable cases or learnings that you would like to share.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Sure. I feel like I learned something new from almost every client. Sometimes it's a revelation I'm really pleased with. Sometimes I'm not so happy with what I didn't know. I don't have any particular examples to give you. I've been involved, grateful for the opportunity to see businesses get come up from no from just an idea to actually be put into existence to those who can who are growing, to those who then decide they want to go on and say, sell the business or merge with another business. And given the background I've had in in my own business career, it's gratifying to be able to pass along some tips that we have learned along the way that will help these individual clients case by case get to the next step and wherever they're trying to go.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

Thanks, Beth. What do you think makes a mentoring relationship successful?

SPEAKER_01 11:15

My approach is to try to be ask a lot of questions, find out what it is that the clients where they are, what they've learned themselves, where they feel they have gaps that we can provide support, be open to the ideas and the changes that are going on. We're in a business world that's constantly evolving and changing. Both our clients and ourselves as mentors, we need to try to keep up. And so that's a joint effort. I think while we're doing that, we're learning from our clients, as I said, almost every day, things that they're encountering that we need to know more about as well, and we can help research and support them.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Thanks, Bill. In terms of advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, is if someone is thinking to starting a business in Houston, what would you tell them? How do they take ownership for this and run with it and make it successful?

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, so first I think it's take advantage of organizations like SCORE. Get yourself a mentor as early as you're thinking about it. Because I think the earlier that the mentor gets involved, it's not that we they will avoid making mistakes, but hopefully we'll be able to guide them to the at least the best practices that we're aware of and the information available to them for the place they are in starting that business. So having a mentor is a good step. As I said, there's other resources around that can can provide that, but score is certainly one. Don't hesitate to talk to friends and family, particularly those who've had other experiences in that industry or in that type of a business. So get help wherever you can, and then also take time to do the homework, do the studies. Try to understand as best you can where you are, where the customers are, where the competition is, so that when you get started and you because it's it's a large, as we talked about earlier, it's a large commitment, huge commitment of time and and potentially lots of money of your of your funds and those of your family committed to this, you want to want to get as thorough an understanding as you can to be able to confront with preparation and confidence those those challenges that will be coming your way. And uh and so, yes, that's to be aware of those challenges and to beware of potential risks and to understand what some ways to confront those, be prepared for those, is is obviously very helpful. And that's why a mentor with who's down the road, perhaps in your shoes, gives you the best chance of taking that on, the best chance of success.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Thank you. Uh any watch out or words of encouragement for the burning entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Well, always give it a hundred percent. Always be humble that you are gonna be learning, you're gonna make mistakes, and and but and don't be afraid to to ask for help along the way. And if it's your passion, then you've got the energy, you'll have the energy to go through some of those challenges and get to the other side. If it's if it's not a passion, then it's time to perhaps reconsider whether that's the the direction you really want to go. And I I think we try to be honest with our clients in in that discussion as well, a self-discovery of whether where they're going and what they're trying to do is really what they want and need to do. And perhaps not a role to help make that decision, but at least ask those questions and be sure that they're thinking about them.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Excellent. How has mentoring enriched your own life or professional journey?

SPEAKER_01 15:34

So, as as you mentioned in the front end, I I was in my career for over 40 years. And I feel like I started my career somewhat late because I was seemed to be a perpetual student before I became in business. I was a working student because I always had jobs along the way. But so at this stage of life, I'm I'm retired and I'm doing the volunteer activities I have, like score, basically to give back somewhat from what I received over my career, the help I'd received along the way, give back to that same community that helped me, and to help others along the way. And and with that, as I said, I'm I'm constantly learning new things, and to me that's that's very valuable. It's it's it's what I really enjoy about doing this.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Thanks a lot, thanks for listening to Mentor Conversations at Score Houston. If you're an entrepreneur or small business owner, we'd love to support your journey. You can reach us at 713-487-6565, or visit us at 8701-South Gestner Suite 1200, Houston, Texas, 77074. Our office is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., except for federal holidays. Walk-ins are always welcome. To learn more, to request free mentoring, or to register for workshops, visit us online at score.orgslash Tuesday. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and remember, at Score, we're here to help you thrive.