We are honored to receive Platinum Seal of Transparency for 2024 by Candid. The Platinum Transparency Rating is the highest level a nonprofit can achieve, signifying an exceptional commitment to transparency in sharing, our goals, strategies, financial data, capabilities, achievements, and progress.
The Economic Growth Business Incubator (EGBI) provides training, coaching, and support to aspiring and existing business owners who face barriers to growing a successful business. Barriers include education, finance, and language. We believe that all businesses should be profitable, sustainable, and an asset to the community.
Notes from the nonprofit
Economic Growth Business Incubator (EGBI) is a non-profit organization which provides training, coaching, and support to aspiring and existing business owners who face barriers to growing a successful business. EGBI believes that all businesses should be profitable, sustainable and an asset to the community. To that end, we offer a comprehensive package of business coaching, group workshops, and support services for aspiring and existing businesses. We frequently work with micro and small business owners and a lot of the businesses that we work with are still in the design state and are not active yet; or they have been in business for less than five years. Some of the businesses who partner with E.G.B.I. could be considered informal businesses and the owners are ready to transition into a more structured business entity. Typical businesses that partner with E.G.B.I. are mom & pop businesses and lifestyle businesses.
Executive Director: Larissa Davila
Main address
1144 Airport Blvd Ste 260
Austin, TX 78702 USA
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
The Economic Growth Business Incubator aims to be a better organization and increase our impact in the community while moving towards a more self-sustainable model for funding because we want to… Read more
Our programs
SOURCE: Self-reported by organization
What are the organization’s current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Training, Coaching and Support
EGBI is industry-agnostic, in that we work with aspiring and existing business owners who bring the expertise around their idea; and we bring business practices, strategic thinking, and other resources. Many of our clients come with years of industry experience; but lacking opportunities to advance in their place of employment, choose to start their own business. Their knowledge of the industry gives them the competitive advantage to be successful. However, they often lack the business acumen to manage a successful business. Through our training, coaching, and support services, we assist our clients to understand how to run and manage their business effectively and efficiently.
TRAINING EGBI’s signature program is a two-part, foundational workshop series: Build Your Business PLAN and MANAGE the ABCs of Business. These workshops are geared to help participants focus on their business idea, develop a useful plan, and learn the tools to manage their business.
COACHING EGBI offers private coaching sessions: one-on-one time for clients to explore deeply their business idea and strategy. Coaches help clients develop their business model, create financial projections using spreadsheets, identify specific strategies for marketing their business, and work through next-step action plans with an accountability partner in EGBI. Private coaching often uncovers life issues and barriers in the way of moving forward; and the opportunity to identify experts, resources, tools, and opportunities to resolve these issues.
SERVICES EGBI offers bookkeeping support, helping our clients set up manual systems for very young businesses, and moving to QuickBooks Online as soon as it makes sense. EGBI can offer an hour of questions and answers, set up services, support for payroll through an online partner, and monthly reconciliation services. As part of our monthly service, we review financial statements with our clients, practicing how to use these statements to manage and grow.
La Incubadora Podcast is part of the Economic Growth Business Incubator, a local non profit with the mission to provide training, coaching, and support to aspiring existing business owners who face barriers to growing a successful business. La Incubadora Podcast is born out of the need to put in video and audio a lot of the success stories that we see at the business incubator. We also want to frequently asked questions and connect small business owners with the resources to succeed in business on your own time and wherever you are while you have access to a mobile device. This episode is produced with the support of Raycast media, EGBI sends a big thank you to Raycast media for their partnership. Today we dive into the intricacies of Travis County taxes, assets, and inventory requirements for small business owners featuring insights from EXP experts at Travis county Appraisal District from understanding what constitutes personal property to navigating rendition forms and filing deadlines. We explore essential questions relevant to entrepreneurs, discover exemptions obligations regarding property value, discrepancies and implications of business changes.
The goal of this episode is to equip you with the valuable knowledge to effectively manage your tax responsibilities and asset inventory in Travis. Travis County Appraisal District business personal property department is responsible for maintaining all personal property accounts including reviewing renditions on personal accounts including renditions on personal property and removing accounts for entities that are no longer in business as of January 1st of each year. Our host will be Amy Cobb and we have two guests from TCAD, our first guest is Nancy Wiatrek, who serves as director of the Business and Public policy department and has more than 15 years of experience working on personal property issues with the district. We also have invited Samantha Leija, who currently serves as a senior personal property appraiser and has been with TCAD’s BPP department for more than two years.
What does Travis Central Appraisal District do and what do you all do?
Nancy says,
This mission of the Travis Central Appraisal District, given the coordinate of the Texas Constitution and the laws of the state is to provide accurate appraisal of all property in Travis County at 100% market value that is equally and that in a professional ethical and economical courteous manner. We work to ensure that each taxpayer only pays their fair share of the property tax burden. To keep our current data correct, business personal property appraisers will conduct an annual canvas for each personal property account in Travis County. Additionally visit each address to encourage compliance in reporting by taxpayers and to discover personal property. Typically if you own a business you are required to report personal property that is used in your business to the appraisal district. The appraisal district uses the information to estimate the market value of your business property for annual tax purposes. Texas requires businesses to pay property taxes to each taxing unit based on the market value of the inventory and assets it owns or uses in the production of income. This year we are estimating 35,000 renditions that will be mailed out to Travis Central business owners within the next week that is due April 15th. We have a lot of renditions that we are going to be provided back and all of our appraisers are going to process through
What counts as personal property, and why do I have to fill out a Rendition Form?
Samantha says,
What counts as a personal property is all assets are used in production of income, so that’s going to include your furniture, such as desks, chairs and tables. Machinery equipment such as restaurant equipment or like your heavier machinery like forklifts, Office machines like computer scanners and phones, we also have computers, vehicles, boats, aircraft, raw materials, finished goods. Businesses aren’t required to render intangible personal properties so you’re looking at your cash, accounts receivable, computer software such as your Microsoft Office. Rendition Forms have to be filled out annually by April 15th or by extension May 15th. That extension is automatically granted so long as it’s been requested before April 15. We have a form on our website that can be mailed in but we can also receive emails for those extensions as well.
The extension form at the bottom has an address to mail to as well as our email address is: bpp@tcadcentral.org
Travis County Appraisal District mailing address is: 850 East Anderson Lane Austin, Texas 78752
What happens if I don’t complete a rendition form, and what if I sold my business last year but still received a property tax bill?
Samantha says,
If you sold your business last year, we do need to be notified which can be done a couple different ways so you can do it by email bpp@tcadcentral.org and you could also mail in a not in business affidavit that can be requested directly from the cad. Email is always better because we can print that out directly and send it via email and it just needs to be returned once we do that, the account will be closed for the year.
Are there exemptions available that would exempt me from having to fill out a rendition or pay property tax?
Samantha says,
Yes we do have a couple different exemptions available that would exempt you from having to fill out a rendition or property tax. We have a religious or charitable exemption so those are going to be your nonprofits and of course your churches. If those are granted, property owners don’t have to fill out an annual addition. Once it’s granted then it keeps that exemption for the life of the property. We do have another exemption for a vehicle used both in the production of income and personal use, you’re looking at your realtors. That makes the vehicle exempt from taxes but all other assets are still required to be rendered and they are still subject to taxes. That exemption is per vehicle not per account, so if the vehicle is sold or replaced a new exemption needs to be applied for. All other exemptions we have such as Freeport Exemption and Biomedical Exemption, those are still subject to property taxes in some form. So an annual application and rendition are still required.
A non profit or church can’t just assume if they have their 501c3 through the state, they still have to file an exemption because it has to be at the county level as well.
My notice of Appraised Value was higher than the amount I rendered, why is that, and can TCAD help me complete my rendition form?
Samantha says,
A property owner is required to file a rendition per the Texas property tax code annually. However we at the district aren’t required to accept it typically because we’re seeing assets that are missing. For example, we’re looking at a rental car place and we want to see those cars along with the assets so we do have alternate methods of evaluation.
If you notice something is not right, there are instructions to file the protest on it and we don’t typically help complete rendition forms just because you’re the one who knows the most about your business so if we try to help you we may not have the most accurate information about what you’re reporting. Although we can answer general questions so what can go in what section or if you’re confused on some verbiage we can answer general questions about that rendition.
I disagree with my property value, can TCAD adjust my value without me having to protest?
Nancy says,
No, so once the market value has been set and a notice of appraise Value has been mailed, the only way TCAD can review accounts to make changes or potential changes is with an active protest on file for the year that the value is in question.
How can I find more information?
Nancy says,
The first thing you need to do is visit our website at www.traviscad.org there we have frequently asked questions you can speak to one of our customer service representatives by phone as well as through the agent and/or taxpayer portal. I do want to say that at the end of February 28th, the BPP department will be hosting an informational webinar at 12 pm to provide further detail in regard to business personal property. If you go to our website you may sign up on our web page. We look forward to seeing everyone at the next webinar and that is typically going to go over the rendition process. The webinar will be about an hour long.
Appreciation
Amy says,
It has been a pleasure chatting with Nancy and Samantha today and we hope you find this episode useful to you. If you know someone who could benefit from listening to this episode please share the link to this episode with them. Remember that La Incubadora Podcast is part of the Economic Growth Business Incubator, a business incubator in Central Texas that offers training, coaching, and support to small business owners with barriers to achieving success. If you would like to learn more about the Economic Growth Business Incubator services please visit egbi.org and see you soon!
En este episodio abordamos las diferencias entre LLC (Compañía de Responsabilidad Limitada) y DBA (Haciendo Negocios Como). Un LLC ofrece una entidad legal separada que protege los activos personales del propietario de las responsabilidades comerciales, mientras que un DBA es un nombre comercial registrado que a menudo está vinculado al nombre y activos personales del propietario. Registrar un DBA en Texas implica acudir a la oficina del condado local, mientras que un LLC se puede registrar a nivel estatal a través de una base de datos.
Ambas opciones tienen ventajas y desventajas. Un LLC ofrece una mejor protección de los activos personales, pero puede ser más costoso de establecer, mientras que un DBA es más flexible pero deja al propietario personalmente responsable. Larissa aconseja consultar con profesionales para elegir la opción correcta y destaca la importancia de los contratos y el seguro, independientemente de la elección. Un LLC permite la transferencia del negocio, mientras que un DBA no. Además, presentar un negocio con un DBA a inversores puede ser menos atractivo debido al aumento de los riesgos de responsabilidad. La consideración cuidadosa y la investigación son esenciales antes de decidir entre LLC y DBA para un negocio.
Recordemos que es importante contar con buenos contratos y seguros, sin importar si el negocio es un LLC o un DBA. Es fundamental llevar un control de las finanzas y evitar mezclar los fondos comerciales y personales, ya que esto puede conducir a complicaciones legales y poner en riesgo el negocio.
AUSTIN, Texas (Dec. 14, 2023) – Austin Community Foundation (ACF) announced today $1.5 million in grant funding to organizations working to improve the economic mobility of Central Texans. The Foundation’s three strategic programs—The Black Fund, Hispanic Impact Fund, and Women’s Fund—each awarded $500,000 in unrestricted, general operating support to a total of 53 local nonprofits. This is the highest amount of funding awarded from ACF’s Community Impact programs.
“Austin Community Foundation’s strategic programs are data-driven and community-led, ensuring our efforts are not only well-informed but also deeply connected to the realities of the people we seek to serve,” said Elizabeth Peña, Director of Community Impact, Austin Community Foundation. “Through this grants process, we’re committed to equitable, transparent, and trust-based giving—building real opportunities for everyone who calls Central Texas home.”
The Black Fund granted to 25 Black-led and Black-serving nonprofits working to support the growth, economic mobility and wellness of Black people across five impact areas:
Arts, culture and preservation
Education
Health and wellness
Power building, organizing and advocacy
Wealth building
The Hispanic Impact Fund granted to 16 Latino-led and Latino-serving nonprofits working to support the economic mobility and advancement of Hispanic Central Texans across four impact areas:
Early childhood education
Health and wellness
Job skills and entrepreneurship
Leadership development
The Women’s Fund granted to 15 nonprofits working to support the economic mobility of women and children in Central Texas across five impact areas:
Childcare
Education
Housing
Unplanned pregnancy prevention
Women’s health
The Black Fund, Hispanic Impact Fund and Women’s Fund operate as collective giving networks led by community members who share responsibility for the vision, fundraising, and grantmaking. Approximately 175 individuals, including people with lived experience, participated in the grant selection process and thoughtfully vetted more than 255 applications.
A priority of the 2023 grants cycle was to provide a streamlined process by offering nonprofits the ability to apply to all three funds through one single grant application. Among the nonprofits applying for funding, 30% of organizations were first-time applicants and 38% applied to multiple funds. Among the organizations selected for funding, 62% are led by individuals who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC).
Special thanks to Google, PIMCO, Q2 Holdings, Inc., and St. David’s Foundation for generously supporting ACF’s economic mobility work.
Learn more about the Foundation’s programs at austincf.org.
Full list of 2023 grant partners:
The Black Fund
Austin Legal Access – $40,000* Building Promise USA – $40,000* Delivering Unto You – $40,000 Origin Studio House – $40,000* Round Rock Black Parents Association – $40,000* Alliance for African American Health in Central Texas – $25,000 Ladders for Leaders – $25,000 The Bakari Foundation – $25,000 The Giving Rose Foundation ATX – $25,000 Tomorrow’s Promise Foundation – $25,000 Black Girl Ventures – $15,000 Black Men’s Health Clinic – $15,000 Code2College – $15,000 Little Bit of Good – $15,000 P.E.A.C.E. Program – $15,000 RE-CLAIM – $15,000 Real Queens Fix Each Other’s Crowns – $15,000 SCD Enrichment Program – $15,000 Torch Literary Arts – $15,000 We Can Now – $15,000 Ballet Afrique – $5,000 Frofessionals – $5,000 Hungry Hill Foundation – $5,000 Huston-Tillotson University – $5,000 Black Professional Alliance – $5,000
Hispanic Impact Fund
Amhiga Hispana – $50,000* AVANCE – Austin – $50,000* Luz de Atabey Midwifery Project – $50,000* Todos Juntos Learning Center – $50,000* Austin Achieve Public Schools – $35,000* Economic Growth Business Incubator – $35,000* Explore Austin – $35,000* Manos de Cristo – $35,000* Austin Urban Technology Movement – $20,000 Breakthrough Central Texas – $20,000 El Buen Samaritano – $20,000 Literacy First – $20,000 Mariposa Family Learning Center – $20,000 People’s Community Clinic – $20,000 Seedling – $20,000 Workers Defense Project – $20,000
The Women’s Fund
Any Baby Can of Austin – $55,000* Empowering Women Out of Prison – $55,000* LifeWorks – $55,000* Lilith Fund – $55,000* Todos Juntos Learning Center – $55,000* Asian Family Support Services of Austin – $30,000 AVANCE – Austin – $30,000 Center for Survivors of Torture – $30,000 Jeremiah Program – $30,000 Lirios Pediatrics – $30,000 Andy Roddick Foundation – $15,000 Healthy Futures of Texas – $15,000 Ladies Let’s Talk – $15,000 People’s Community Clinic – $15,000 Saint Louise House – $15,000
*asterisk denotes an organization receiving funding over two years
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About Austin Community Foundation Austin Community Foundation mobilizes ideas and resources to strengthen Central Texas. The Foundation is focused on advancing economic mobility and affordable housing, and it uses varied tools – data, convening and philanthropic dollars – to implement this strategy. In 2022, the Foundation granted nearly $53 million to the community, mostly through donor advised funds. Founded in 1977, the Foundation is the third largest charitable Foundation in Central Texas with $447 million in total assets under management. Learn more at austincf.org.
Kandance Vallejo, the visionary behind Remedios Consulting, shares valuable insights on launching and growing successful businesses with a focus on interpersonal relationships and leadership coaching. Transitioning from business ownership to consulting, Vallejo emphasizes innovative thinking in overcoming challenges.
Kandance’s advice resonates with small businesses and nonprofits, emphasizing coaching in leadership. In contrast, in a podcast, she discusses her entrepreneurial journey, highlighting the importance of interpersonal relationships and coaching.
Addressing scaling challenges, Kandance advocates for early hiring to prevent burnout, collaborates with Tressa Rowland for profitable strategies in 2024, and advises prioritizing business intelligence and realistic planning. She underscores the significance of strong teams and effective leadership hiring, training, and support. Kandance emphasizes responsibility in training employees and suggests seeking operational support for sustainable growth.
Kandace Vallejo is the owner of remedios consulting, she’s the founder and principal of remedios consulting and she’s a serial founder and intersectional organizer who has worked in social movements and philanthropy, she has built LED and scaled multiple efforts and grant making initiatives for racial climate and economic justice. She pairs her two decades of social impact experience with extensive training in the healing arts, her sharp political analysis and strategic mind combined with her keen business sense and highly relational sensibilities to position herself as a unique partner to nonprofit and philanthropic entities, working to align with and strengthen social movements. In 2014 she founded Youth Rise Texas, where she worked alongside young people to build a healing centered movement contesting criminalization and deportation. Miss Vallejo is a co-founder of the Texas Youth Power Alliance and the founding board chair of jolt action.
We share the conversation…
Larissa- What do you enjoy most about your job?
Kandace- Really for me, it’s about helping make other people’s life and their work easier and helping people grow, and helping people who are ready to take that next step in their life and their work. To take things to the next level and help connect people to other people and to other kinds of resources and to help people think outside of the box. Having been a founder I know so often, when you’re in the thick of everything and you’re just trying to get done with the things that you want to get done and you know everytime you get a big project done. I used to always say as a founder “I’m climbing 10 mountains at once and every time I climb one I look over the horizon and I’m like oh God there’s another 10 and you keep going”.
Larissa- Why do you think people/organizations fail to build profitable businesses?
Kandace- I think so often what I see leaders struggling with, whether it’s a business leader or a nonprofit leader, is that we’ve failed and I’ve done this too. I’ve failed to build the necessary foundations, back office and Operational Support that we need to be able to grow a sustainable and profitable business.
Larissa-What do business owners need to do to prepare to have a profitable 2024?
Kandace- One of the things that I would recommend people thinking about is to really focus on the basics of your business, what are your one to three main product, best sellers, what data can you pull about your revenue, your sales, your products, that can help you understand what are those three core products that your delivering to market. The other piece of advice I would give is, to think about your one or two major pain points that you’ve run into in the past year and try to think big picture about those pain points.
Larissa- How important is it to have a team that matches the goals of your business?
Kandace- Yeah I mean I was not aware that the statistics are that businesses will close in eight years, do more to the fact that there isn’t enough leadership support than its dues to revenue closure. I’ve seen it so many times, and i’ve lived it myself in the nonprofit world, working in startup nonprofit, and feeling burnt out and feeling like I just can’t get everything done in the amount of time that I have, and that feeling alone can really drive burnout so I really think team is everything. Think about how to build that core team as early as possible, of other leaders who are going to support your business growth.
Larissa-Why do employees fail?How important is it to have a team that is well trained for success?
I think that the training is of course crucial but I also think that if you are in a scenario where you have employees that you believed when you hired them you made the right choice and it’s still not working for some reason, then I think that’s also on us as owners and business leaders and nonprofit leaders to look at ourselves and to hold that mirror up to ourselves and say okay where did I go wrong to here to be able to identify for ourselves also our own growth edges or our business, to see where perhaps the business may be missing something that employee needed or where we as leaders may be missing something.
Larissa- What would you like people who listen to us to take away today?
Kandace- I think the biggest thing that I hope leaders that I used to talk to and work with, can think about is really how to build more Operational Support for themselves in their business. For some people, that is hiring an external company to do HR. For some people that might be contracting out your bookkeeping and paying someone else to do that piece of work that’s going to take them less time to do it then it will you because maybe you are not a numbers person.
Larissa- What services do you offer at Remedios Consulting?
Kandace- I think the way that I like to work with clients is very hands-on and very boutique so I don’t have specific programs that I put anyone through. What I like to do is have one to two discovery calls with someone to understand where they are at in the stage of their business growth, what are their major pain points, and what are they hoping to achieve in the coming years so that we can design a tailormade set of services for them.
Laura Ramos James is an expert with liability insurance and working with commercial businesses. Attorney Laura Ramos James is the owner of Ramos James law, a legal firm with over 20 years of combined experience in successfully handling hundreds of personal injuries and accident cases representing individuals, workers, and families who suffer from accidents, workplace injuries, product liability, truck accidents, wrongful deaths, and personal injuries. She graduated with honors from St Mary’s University and joined the prestigious Baylor law school program. Laura practiced as an insurance defense lawyer before becoming a planted lawyer and she’s truly knowledgeable of the legal strategies used by her opponents in court. She has won numerous awards during her practice. She and her team have continuously worked to develop their network of professionals to help their clients.
We share the conversation
Larissa- Please tell us a little more about your story and how you got to this career.
Laura- I am actually a dog bite survivor, I was bit by a dog when I was a toddler and I of course experienced trauma and injuries and a lot of the stuff that goes along with that. Growing up I wanted to help people that were in a similar situation but I didn’t quite know that my path would end up taking me to a legal career even though I did want to be a lawyer since I was little. Eventually I went to law school and found a way to be in the courtroom.
Larissa- What do you enjoy most about your job?
Laura-Two things I enjoy the most, I love writing wrongs and if somebody is responsible and refuses to take responsibility I just automatically side with the person that was wronged and it gives me great pleasure to bring justice to that person and make things right. The other thing that I really love is even though I’m an introvert, at the same time I’m a people person, I love people so I really truly love getting to know my clients, working with my team and getting to know people from all walks of life.
Larissa- Do you frequently work with small business owners, or against small business owners?
Laura- I would say a lot with small business owners because small business owners are typically the individual, so we work a lot with individuals and big insurance companies. We represent them as a person that was hurt, we don’t represent the business.
Larissa-Can you give us 3 examples of things that small business owners frequently fail to do and they should do to improve or mitigate risk?
Laura- That is really good I think focused and helpful because like you said it is very easy to think, $200, $300 that I save is gonna help me a lot but if you expose your whole business then it’s pointless to have not invested in protecting it. The three things that small business owners frequently fail to do and they should do to improve and mitigate risk would be to get commercial insurance, the other one would be to create a Limited Liability company (LLC) and to have a liability waiver in place for their company.
Larissa- Why do you think they don’t pay attention to it?
Laura- I think it’s a very easy call to say, I’ve gotten a quote. It’s $200 a month if I get commercial liability insurance or however much, like I would rather just use this money to get more laptops for my business. The majority of people, we don’t think it’s going to happen to us, like it happens to other people but we’re like what are the chances that it’s gonna happen here.
Larissa- What can be the consequences of neglecting to do this?
Laura- The consequences can range from, you having to pay out of your own pocket you know, open your checkbook and write a check to someone who is making a claim or trying to cover their losses, to absolutely losing your business. Losing personal assets if you fail to create an (LLC), so things that you have been working towards and building and trying to create can all get taken away because you neglected to mitigate risk.
Larissa-How can small business owners stay updated with risk management strategies for their business or vehicles?
Laura- I would say there are a lot of resources that are free of cost and some others have limited cost. Obviously staying in touch with organizations like yours and similar organizations can always be sharing those types of strategies with them, there are now in the Advent of the availability of information at our fingertips where we can just research things like that. The Texas department of insurance has put out certain resources like that for people.
Larissa- What would you like people who listen to us to take away today?
Laura- Probably, broader than the specific three things that we discussed, I would say, I would like small business owners to take away that, always stay educated always seek out knowledge and you know don’t bury your hand in the sand and say, you know we’re all busy, we all have homes and we all have businesses and things like that. It’s easy to kind of turn a blind eye or say, I don’t have time, I don’t have money. To seek out education is the best way to save some money in the future for your business and protect it.
The Honors Award portal is Now Open. This is a competitive grant application process, resulting in four grants. Live, Learn, and Lift grants will be $50,000 each, and the STAR grant will be $100,000. The foundation aims to fund small to mid-sized organizations that are creating and implementing innovative, sustainable solutions to serve the greatest needs of communities. Below are the categories for our Honors awards. Applications are due by January 1st. For more information, please visit our Foundation website.
Honor Award Categories:
Live – $50,000 – Access to Nutritious Foods
Learn – $50,000 – Career Readiness Certification Programs
Lift – $50,000 – Supportive Services for women and children
STAR – $100,000 – Support for Veterans and military families
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to Barbra Boeta if you have any questions.
You understand the importance of having your business in Google Maps and submitted all the information, but they are asking you to do a Google Verification video, and you know it is worth it but don’t know how to do it. Follow the steps below and get your business verified right away.
You need to prep with the following:
A friend who drives
A copy of your business formation document which is either a DBA or an LLC
Your photo ID
Your business cards or printed signage and your business uniform if you have one.
It is recommended to have a printed sign on the inside of a window of your house or one sign like the ones that realtors use in your front yard.
If you have car magnets, make sure they are visible in a vehicle parked outside of your house.
Also, if you have T-shirts or uniforms, wear them to record the video.
Leave the papers ready for your recording on the first table after you open the door to your house.
Then have your friend drive you to the nearest intersection in your house where there is street signage and start recording in the Google verification app and say something along these lines:
“Hello, my name is XXX, and I am the owner of XXX company and here is the nearest intersection to my house. We are now going to drive to my house. We don’t have visible signs because this is a residential area… or because my HOA doesn’t allow signage outside of the house.”
Then have your friend drive you to the front of your house while you continue to record and say:
…”this is my house, and here is the car magnet to my vehicle”
Or:
…”this is my house, and here is this the business signage in my front yard.”
If you cannot have signage just mention it in the video. Walk up to your door and open with your key or keypad then walk up to where you have all your documents and show them to the camara an narrate what these are.
…”here is my business formation document where you can clearly see that it was filed with name and address and, … here’s my driver’s license with my current address …. And here are my business cards with my name and my address.”
Finish saying:
“This is all I have right now. Please verify my business with Google.”
End the recording and submit it to the Google verification platform. That’s it, it should be very short, they should approve it with it.
Please let us know if you have any questions, thank you!
EGBI is an organization that helps small businesses grow. Their mission is to eliminate barriers, and train and coach small business owners. They made it accessible to come in contact with EGBI to expand their business to its fullest potential.
What is 501 C3?
501 C3 means that the business has a non profit status. They are not part of the city, but work closely with the city.
What is EGBI’s mission?
They train, coach, and support small businesses, and eliminate barriers so that the business owners that EGBI serves can run successful businesses.
What service does EGBI offer?
They offer training, help with planning, and management. Businesses that have been around for three or more years are offered a plan to get their business to the next level.
How long was EGBI around for?
EGBI has been around for 19 years.
Who are EGBI’s ideal clients?
They support many different types of businesses for example, hair salons, food trucks, restaurants, photographers, ect.
What is the process to work with EGBI?
The process to work with EGBI is simple. There are many ways to come in contact with EGBI.
If EGBI doesn’t charge, then how does EGBI make a profit?
EGBI doesn’t want money to be an issue for someone that wants to work with them, so for now they have a contract with the city of Austin to eliminate financial barriers one might have.
How do I keep in touch with EGBI?
Anyone can sign up to the newsletter, and you can follow them on social media like Instagram, Facebook and youtube.
