The City of Oakley’s 2014/15 Economic Development Work Plan established the Oakley Entrepreneur Development Program to develop and strengthen Oakley’s small business and entrepreneur community.
Oakley has over 700 small businesses, and the growth and sustainability of these businesses will lead to future local jobs and future occupation of Oakley’s buildings and shopping centers. Nationally, small businesses make up 99% of all companies, yet only 50% survive past five years.
The Entrepreneur Training Program is working to provide Oakley businesses with the tools they need to lead to long‐term success.
The eleven‐week class is available for either existing Oakley businesses or those individuals serious about starting up a new business. The class is designed to walk students through the creation of a business plan, in order to help them gain the tools needed to successfully establish or grow a business. Training scholarships of $1,000 per student are being provided by the City for Oakley residents and/or business owners. Scholarships do not include a $200 fee for registration and training materials.
The classes will be held at City Hall (3231 Main St, Oakley) on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00 a.m. till noon. The classes run from January 12th through March 24th. Interested individuals are encouraged to attend one of two informational sessions, held on November 18th and December 15th from 10:00 – 11:30 am at the Oakley City Hall.
Class size is purposely limited to allow for collaboration between the students and the instructor during the process of putting together the business plan for each business. The previous class contained existing businesses as well as individuals in the process of starting up a business. The participants from this class gave the following positive reviews for their experience:
- “The Entrepreneur Program helped me develop a realistic plan, enabling me to actually start a company.” – Benjamin Plung
- “The Entrepreneur Training class was the perfect opportunity and the smartest thing we have done for our business.” … “We were shown tools to better understand how to reach our target market and to map out a smarter plan for the future of our company.” – Sasha Rossberg
- “This class forces you to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and individually evaluate the integral parts of what goes into making your business successful…” – Gerry Graner
For more information, please visit the Economic Development page of the City of Oakley website (www.ci.oakley.ca.us) or contact Dwayne Dalman, Economic Development Manager, at (925) 625‐7006 or by email at [email protected].
