Bedford, Massachusetts: In this show we follow Vicki Bondoc for a day. She is a mathematics wizard and an MIT graduate. She started her high-tech services business in 1986 when she was just 25 years old.

She named it Gemini Industries.

Within ten years she had 50 employees and nearly $10 million in annual revenues. Her distinquished customer list included (and still includes) the Air Force and the US Department of Transportation.

Vicki is a first-generation American who knows how to work the good old boy system of defense contracting; she markets her uniqueness. In 1995 her business was cited by Inc. Magazine as one of fastest-growing companies in the USA. In 2000, Vicki (and her people of Gemini) received the US Small Business Administration's 2000 Small Business Prime Contractor of the Year Award for New England. Then in the next five years, Vickie proudly tells us that they have grown 300%, but only had to double her number of employees (100 people generate $30 million in revenues).

It is hard to imagine that Vicki has achieved so much especially given that she was diagnosed as legally blind at the age of three.

Business Basics:
Also, in this program there is a segment that focuses on the question, "Should I buy a franchise? You can study some who have been successful turning their ideas into national companies by using the franchising method. Here are just a few:

• Anne Beiler of Auntie Anne's Pretzels,
• Gary Salomon of FastSigns,
• Ron Olsen of GrowBiz and
• Anthony DeLucia of Del's Leomonade.

• If you really believe that you can do something better than someone else, do it.
• Your personal disadvantages can be your company's greatest advantages.
• Doing business with the government is difficult but can be very rewarding.
• The single most important thing you can do to build your business is to develop a customer database.

• READ THE TRANSCRIPT: All the words of this episode of the show.
• GO TO SCHOOL: If you enroll in Small Business School, you can watch over 130 other entrepreneurs. It is all online. It requires DSL or cable connection. If you answer the questions in the teaching notes and study guide, you may qualify:
  • to get listed within your business type and within your state's listings,
  • to be profiled on a show (local or national),
  • to generate automatically a business plan for debt financing and/or a SCOR for equity financing,
  • to be listed within a Small Business index, and

• OTHER SEGMENTS IN THE SHOW. We turned to several other small business owners who have become leaders in their field; they give us some tips in these segments:
  • Deliver the Message,
  • You're Wired,
  • Streetfighter Marketing, and
  • Law Talk.

• LOOK AT STEP 1: INITIAL IDEAS. Where do people get their initial ideas for a business. The best source -- your experience. What do you know well? What fulfills you? Vicki has degrees in mathematics and computer science. Her business is in complete alignment with her interests and her education.

• CASE STUDIES BY BUSINESS TYPE.

• WATCH TV! To find out what is airing in your market, usually on your local PBS-member station, click here

• CONTACT: Gemini Industries, Inc
  6 Fortune Drive
  Billerica, MA 01821
  Tel : 978-663-2260
  Fax: 978-663-2785
  Email: Click here
  URL: http://www.gemini-ind.biz

• COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS. We invite your comments and questions. Was the show inpsirational and/or educational? We hope this show is both!