By DON DODSON
©2003 The News-Gazette
CHAMPAIGN – Growing up in Bombay, India, Dinesh Ahluwalia had to make money however he could.
He sold banks pens with their names on them as a form of advertising. He bought and resold hi-fi equipment to friends when he realized there was a demand for it. He even put together mediation sessions for people who found themselves in legal binds.
"I came from a family that was struggling economically, that had money and lost it," Ahluwalia said. "I used to work two jobs in addition to going to school."
Now he's helping other prospective business people as interim director of the Illini Entrepreneurship Center at the University of Illinois. It's one of two such centers Gov. Rod Blagojevich has established so far in hopes of perking up the state economy.
"It's a great time to be an entrepreneur in Champaign County. There are a lot of resources. You can really shop your wares," said Ahluwalia, 36, of Champaign.
Ahluwalia's office is in Room 228 of the new EnterpriseWorks building at 60 Hazelwood Drive in the UI Research Park. But most of his contacts with clients tend to be by phone (351-4326) or by e-mail (for now, dinesh@uiuc.edu).
He is more or less the air traffic controller for inquiries, directing entrepreneurs to one of more than a dozen service providers in Champaign County.
One of his inquiries came from Ron Hitch, whose sons recently established a business, Puttin' On The Dog Disposable Collars. Its product: decorative, disposable dog collars that veterinarians, boarders and groomers can attach to the animal when it's ready to go home.
Hitch said the collars have proved popular, but he thinks there's a bigger market for the product.
"But to go big-time, it needs funding and people who know how to market these things," he said. "Who really knows how to get us funded to get us to the next level?"
Ahluwalia directed Hitch to Tom Monahan at the local Small Business Development Center. That center, which has an office in the Champaign County Alliance suite at 1817 S. Neil St., C, provides counseling and training for prospective small-business owners in need of advice.
Ahluwalia said it makes no sense for the entrepreneurship center to duplicate services that are already offered by the agencies working with it.
"I wouldn't want to do something if someone is already doing them," he said.
Besides routing people to the right places, the Illini Entrepreneurship Center will also make "service awards" of up to $5,000 to businesses with high growth potential. Those awards, which must be matched dollar-for-dollar by the recipient, must be used to pay for business services, such as legal work, business consulting, patent or trademark costs and Web services.
There's one requirement: The company must demonstrate 10 percent annual growth in revenue or employment over three years, or the potential to do that.
And Ahluwalia doesn't want to limit the field to new companies. If an existing business wants to rethink its business model and come up with a plan for high growth, he would be willing to consider an award for them.
The new entrepreneurship center is sponsored locally by the Champaign County Alliance and the University of Illinois, and is financially supported by the state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
Exactly how much it will receive from the state is still a question mark. The state is still trying to determine what de-mand will be for the new entrepreneurship center network.
Ahluwalia is no stranger to Champaign-Urbana's entrepreneurial community. Since September, he has been director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Development at the UI's College of Business. He was recruited by business Dean Avijit Ghosh for that job. He'll now spend half his time with that center, and the other half with the new entrepreneurship center.
As director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Development, Ahluwalia worked with business students to help them understand entrepreneurship and apply what they learned.
The center formed an Advisory Services Group, in which teams of students work with companies to provide assessment reports, business plan reviews, market feasibility studies and financial modeling.
Ahluwalia also arranged to bring in successful entrepreneurs as speakers – among them Tom Lord-Alge, whose mixing studio in Florida has done work for Grammy-winning recording artists.
Ahluwalia came to the United States in 1987 after receiving his bachelor's degree from the University of Bombay. He quickly embarked on a business career, first with a small company where he specialized in options, then joined Paine Webber in 1989 as a stockbroker.
Eventually, he began selling some of the firm's other services. He got involved in the private equity side of the business and originated several investment banking deals, most of them in South Asia, before leaving Paine Webber in 1995.
In 1994, he enrolled in the Executive MBA program at New York University's Stern School of Business, where he met Ghosh, who was director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies there before becoming the UI's business dean in 2001.
In 1995, without venture capital funding, Ahluwalia started his first Internet venture, Indiaserver.com, a portal geared to the Indian-American community in the United States. He later merged that into Tribeca Internet Initiatives and served as its president. He closed that venture in 2001, after the dot-com bubble burst.
Ahluwalia was operating a consulting business helping entrepreneurs when Ghosh recruited him for the UI job. He said he considered heading the Center for Entrepreneurial Development an "incredible opportunity."
Ahluwalia emphasized that Ghosh was responsible for establishing that center.
"I executed on his vision," he said. "It's his vision and not mine."
You can reach Don Dodson at (217) 351-5227 or via e-mail at ddodson@news-gazette.com.
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