December 2017
SCORE Indianapolis mentors Bill Petrovic (retired vice president and treasurer, Roche Diagnostics) and Steve Click (retired national sales manager and DigiNet manager, WTHR) dazzled us with a description of all that SCORE (Service Corps Of Retired Executives, a nonprofit organization supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration) provides. Entrepreneurs and small businesses with all levels of business experience benefit from expert advice given through confidential individual mentoring, group workshops, and a well‑stocked, vetted library—for free or low cost. The 45 mentors at SCORE Indianapolis (including a retired patent attorney) point a variety of people in the right direction. Someone thinking about starting a business is shown how to focus on the appropriate sequence of essentials, how to develop a successful business model, how to find customers, how to raise startup money, and how to develop an exit strategy (based on a positive brand, loyal employees, a