Free Business Mentoring
Members of the business community have access to free on-site business mentoring services through the Sierra Small Business Development Center at Sierra Business Council. A network of SBDC consultants who have owned or managed their own businesses provide one-on-one consulting to start-ups, growing companies, and mature businesses. The consultants can help businesses improve and expand their companies, solve problems, strengthen management, develop new ideas for products or services, and investigate new business opportunities.
Robert X Trent
Tim Yamauchi
Robert X Trent - Strategy and Marketing
Robert has been consulting with Nevada County businesses for twenty years. His for-profit marketing communication company Velocity7 assisted local “mom and pop” businesses, corporations, government organizations, and NGO’s with planning, outreach, marketing, and public relations. As the founder of Nevada City’s non-profit business incubator Sierra Commons, Robert has consulted with and taught hundreds of entrepreneurs - helping them plan, launch, grow, and sell their businesses. Robert was also Executive Director of the Nevada County Economic Resource Council, Development Director for an agricultural non-profit, and has launched several businesses of his own. With a broad understanding of what it takes for businesses to survive and thrive, Robert brings his expertise to SBDC clients who are inspired to take their businesses to the next level.
Tim Yamauchi
Tim is the Principal for Inside the Mountain Consulting. Inside the Mountain is a management consulting practice focused on assisting growth companies and organizations who are catalyzing change and innovation in their industries.
Tim has 30+ years of experience in Strategy Development, Business Innovation Initiatives and Capital sourcing. He has taken a leading role in several successful high growth start-ups and early stage companies among those are: Stockpoint, a provider of online financial applications (now News Corp, NYSE NWS), Total
Pharmaceutical Care, a home health care service company, (now Apria Health Group, NYSE: AHG) and Health Data Insights, a provider of healthcare data analytics solutions (now HMS Holdings NASDAQ: HMSY) Tim also has been involved in a number of Social Enterprises in both “C-Level” roles and Board
of Directors capacities.
Tim is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive) and holds an MBA from Harvard University.
Ean Price Murphy - Finance
Ean Price Murphy founded Moxie Bookkeeping & Coaching Inc to make small-business financial information accessible and actionable, even for those who don’t think of themselves as good with numbers. Ean is a certified Mastery level Profit First Professional, Xero Platinum partner, Quickbooks ProAdvisor, and a certified business coach.
