Urban Martial Arts Featured In Center For An Urban Future’s Successful Small Businesses Report
Many congratulations to Serge and Carmen Sognonvi and the whole team at Urban Martial Arts (965 Coney Island Avenue) for being featured in a new report about successful small businesses in the city!
Urban Martial Arts was one of 21 thriving businesses from throughout the five boroughs to be written about in the report from the Center for an Urban Future, a think tank that focuses on growing the city’s economy, and the document details the crucial contributions mom-and-pop shops make in the city – as well as urges for greater support for such sites.
While the think tank said small businesses (those with five or fewer employees) grew by 82.1 percent between 2000 and 2013, few of them were able to expand into moderate or large businesses – and such growth could have added tens of thousands of jobs to our economy, the report said.
From the Center for an Urban Future:
New York City has no shortage of amazing small businesses. But interviews with a number of small business experts underscores what our data suggests: relatively few of the city’s restaurants or retail businesses ever open a second location; most vendors never give up their pushcart in favor of becoming a store owner; and many manufacturers don’t expand into markets outside of New York.
The good news is that, as this report details, numerous small businesses across the five boroughs have managed to expand. Their individual successes provide some clear lessons for what the de Blasio administration could do in the months and years ahead to support the expansion of more of the city’s small businesses.
From the Ditmas Park martial arts business to a Staten Island pharmacy and a Chinese restaurant in Queens, business owners shared their secrets to success, including deciding to invest in new technology and landing peer-to-peer advice on, for example, preparing for a loan or making managerial hires.
For Urban Martial Arts, the owners said it was their ability to expand that has made much of the difference.
When the husband and wife entrepreneurs Serge Sognonvi and Carmen Sognonvi opened their Urban Martial Arts academy in March 2008, the Ditmas Park business did well almost from the get-go. In just the first six months, they signed up 100 students, a level that some martial arts schools don’t reach for several years. But the company has achieved additional growth in recent years, and the owners give much of their credit to their risky but rewarding decision to expand into an empty storefront next door.
In 2012, the medical office next door to Urban Martial Arts went out of business. The sudden vacancy provided the Sognonvis with a golden opportunity to knock down the walls and expand their company. But it was something they hadn’t planned for, and a gamble they had to decide on fairly quickly.
“It was a big leap of faith,” said Carmen Sognonvi. “To be honest, when we expanded, we were not really in a financial position to do it. But we knew if we didn’t jump on the opportunity, someone else would take that space next door, and it’d be leased for five to ten years.”
The decision proved to be a wise one, and, after more than doubling their space, they were able to create a dedicated classroom for their popular after school martial arts program, as well as grow other activities. And, in large part because of the expansion, they now have 300 members and three employees, in addition to the two owners.
As part of the report, the Center for an Urban Future urges Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration to increasingly support already-existing small businesses, instead of focusing much of its efforts on entrepreneurs launching new businesses.
While many of [the city’s] programs provide valuable services to small businesses, a disproportionate share of them are geared toward entrepreneurs starting new businesses. “If you divided technical assistance providers into pre-startup and post-startup, there is far more at startup,” says Paul Quintero, CEO of the microfinance lender Accion East. “But the biggest bang for the buck is from existing businesses. They hire more people and pay more in taxes as opposed to the dreamers, where one in 100 might make it.”
While it undoubtedly makes sense to have programs that support new enterprises, especially at a time when a growing number of New Yorkers are turning to entrepreneurship, this report concludes that the de Blasio administration should refocus its toolkit of small business programs to include more initiatives that help existing businesses to grow.
You can find out more about the report here – and read the entire document here.
And, again, many congratulations to Urban Martial Arts!
Photo via Urban Martial Arts.