what can you do to protect your small business from hackers? and a cooking school uses recent immigrants as instructors to teach their native cuisines to aspiring chefs. we've got that and more coming up next on "your business." >> small businesses are revitalizing the economy and american express open is here to help. that's why we are proud to present "your business" on msnbc.

hi everyone i'm j.j. ramberg and welcome to "your business." if you are looking for an international culinary adventure without a passport look no further than new york city's league of kitchens. it's the brainchild of social entrepreneur lisa gross. the company's mission was simple, to be a cooking school where immigrants could share their country's and family's culinary traditions. >> it's a saturday afternoon in kew gardens, new york and four eager students are traveling to queens for an afternoon of immersive study in a new culture, cuisine and neighborhood. >> hi. >> welcome.

>> if this doesn't look like a typical cooking class, it's because this isn't your ordinary cooking school. >> you are welcome, and you belong to me now. and i belong to you. >> born out of reyet, lisa gross had an idea for a business that was simple and very personal. a product of half korean and half russian jewish heritage lisa loved to cook. but failed to learn and fully appreciate her korean grandmother's rescipes before she died. >> i started to try to teach myself from books, from recipes online. but something was always a little bit off or missing. and so that became this fantasy of oh, wouldn't it be great if there was a korean grandmother i could learn from and go in to her own kitchen and cook with her and learn her family recipes and then that became this idea of wouldn't it be great if you could do that with people from all over the world. >> tapping an underutilized and abundant resource in new york city lisa sought out recent immigrants from places like

greece lebanon, afghanistan, india, trinidad and korea, who were talented home cooks, to share their unique ethnic cuisine with a small group of students in the comfort of their own home. >> new york city right now is actually the most diverse place on the planet. but, for so many people your only interactions with immigrants are in service positions. in the league of kitchens workshop the instructor who is an immigrant, is really the host. the expert. they're the ones who are sharing their story and their expertise, and so often, the immigrant is the one who is being taught to or the one who is in a position of dislocation or disorientation and that conventional power dynamic is really switched in a league of kitchens workshop. >> and that's a welcome change for these mostly middle-aged recent emigres who have found finding meaningful, well-paid jobs ins united states to be a challenge. especially with newly learned english skills and little prior work experience. >> but i think what really unites them is they're all very

passionate about cooking. and feeding people, and sharing their knowledge. and hosting people. and that's where they find kind their happiness is in doing those things. >> how do you make this? >> we're going to learn today. >> lisa does more than just hire these recent arrivals. she also helps train them. >> each of our instructors receives about 50 hours of paid training. and about half to two-thirds of that is coaching around teaching. because, you know you can be a great cook but that's very different from being a good teacher of cooking. each instructor teaches a series of practice workshops, and then they get coached afterwards. and we also work with them to create their teaching menus, because each instructor teaches the same menu at every workshop so we design those menus with them so that there's something for a beginner cook. there's something for a professional chef or advanced cook. >> for these women, cooking and running large households was central to their lives back home. >> my mom was primarily a stay at home mom. she was constantly in the

kitchen, that was her main role was making sure that everyone in the family was fed. and it was not just like one meal a day. you're talking about four meals a day, breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, all four have to be fresh meals. >> before meeting lisa many of these women had tried to make a business out of their cooking. but found it difficult to run those kinds of companies in new york city without a website to market their services and a vehicle to help deliver and set up the food. >> one thing that we provide to all of our instructors is the marketing, the sign-up apparatus. we know all the students register through us and pay through us. we organize everything. and so that allows our instructors to really focus on what they're great at which is cooking, teaching, sharing, hosting. so, this is sort of freeing that they can let all of that go and just focus on the things that they really love and are good at. >> now, they have a place to share their skills, and earn some money. but before they get a job they have to go through an audition.

lisa insists that she gets the best cooks around. >> we do an in-home cooking audation with the most compromising candidates. and actually to get our first six instructors we interviewed close to 150 people and did in-home cooking auditions of about 25. because you know there's no staff at these workshops. it's really in the hands of our instructors. i think it's in a really kind of exciting and empowering experience to have these groups of americans come into their homes. especially food professionals, too. and really you know appreciate their cooking, and their skill, and their knowledge. >> the league of kitchens model shows how the immigrant experience can be an integral part in passing on skills and entrepreneurial wisdom to a new audience. that was the case for a chicago artisan who told us he couldn't find a stylish pair of american-made shoes. so, like his immigrant father he decided to make them himself. ♪

>> george blogos grew up working in his family's suburban family cobbler shop. there he watched and learned the old world craft of repairing and rebuilding shoes from his father john, an immigrant from greece. >> it's hard work, you know. kids get dirty you know. it's not easy. >> after college george started a career as a teacher but soon found himself daydreaming about being his own boss and going into the shoe business. just like his dad. >> growing up you know in my family you always had to buy shoes that could be resoled. my dad always wanted you to have shoes that would last. >> george realized in an era where things are disposable, a well-made pair of american shoes was hard to come by. so george set out to assemble a group of artisans to revive the craft of shoemaking in the united states. paying special attention to sourcing all of the materials and labor in america. >> that kind of when the idea was sparked of how could we make a shoe or boots, in america,

make them out of the best components, really in the world, hand craft them the old-fashioned way, and offer them at a price that is attainable. >> he named his company oak street bootmakers and start the his search to find the best materials possible for his uber american shoes. he didn't have to go far to source the most important ingredient, the leather. it just so happens, the last remaining tannery in chicago, the horwein leather company a fourth generation family run business was just a few miles away. >> george is local. he's here. i would say at least once a month. but we talk much more often. he wants to know what the footage is or when is it going to be ready or how is it looking. and that's a service we're here to provide. >> horween is a longtime supplier of leather to company that make high end shoes like allen edmunds. nick, the fifth generation at his family's legendary company, is very interested in making sure the leather that takes up

to six months to tan, is just right. even for a smaller company like oak street. >> making leather is a craft. there's a lot more steps than most people realize. >> with the leather sourced in america, george started working on his design. many of them a rip on the classic boat shoe. the key element in his version, hand sewn seams. so he went searching for a place where he could assemble a small contingent of hand sewers. the only place left in america that still had a few crafts people with that unique skill was maine. once one of the state's biggest employers, the shoe industry has all but disappeared there with the work being done cheaper overseas. adam sutton's factory in bangor is one of only four left in the entire state. >> when george contacted me and wanted to come and see the factory, he sort of fell in love with what we -- what we were doing. and then he started to tell me a story and getting back to the whole, hey, i want to make

products in america. >> the timing was perfect. sutton's factory was not going to make it without an influx of work for its highly skilled hand sewers and crafts people. with the all-american high quality supply chain figured out, george launched his business online. not sure whether anyone would be willing to pay between $250 and $450, for his hand crafted shoes. one mention on a blog called secret forts sealed his fate. >> but that day we sold out of all of our inventory, within 24 hours, we were out. and so the fact that our shoes are handmade presented a problem. because they take about six weeks to make. and we know that that's a long time. but even though we sold out, we immediately went to a six-week preorder system and customers were still ordering. >> now, oak street bootmakers has stoked the artisan economy with his handcrafted shoes. with people still sometimes waiting six weeks for a pair of them.

his hands-on approach has him working side by side with nick horween in chicago on the leather before it ships to adam sutton in maine to be hand sewn. and george frequently visits maine to personally monitor and inspect every pair of shoes before they ship. >> we don't see our factory as just a factory that's making our shoes. it's really a relationship. when i see a shoe i can actually often tell who sewed it. it's almost like their signature. and so going to maine and being a part of that is just -- is part of the dna. cyber crime is a real risk for companies big and small. and even with all of these stories of cyber crime out there, too many small businesses are not updating their security policies and tools. do not start thinking about this once it's too late. i cannot stress that enough. it doesn't have to take a lot of

money. it doesn't have to take a lot of time. but you have to take this seriously. scott schober is the president and ceo of berkeley veritronics systems, a company that designs and manufactures security products. and sean caron is a director at west monroe partners technology infrastructure and operations practice based in chicago they're here to share some security measures that you must take to keep your business safe. thank you so much for coming on the program. >> thank you. >> scott, let's start with you. i mean i think for a lot of people they think i'm just not getting around to this because i'm overwhelmed by it it's going to cost too much money. it's going to take too much time. what can somebody do? >> yeah good point. a lot of times just best practice is sharing within small businesses what the risks are. where the vulnerabilities are. certainly it's important that more organizations back up their data on a regular basis, if not daily at least weekly in case they're hacked as far as a

ransom ware attack where it locks up all your critical information and you're at ransom. so that's critical. but best practice is even to avoid phishing attacks where there's an attachment inside an e-mail. alerting employees not to click on that because that could download malware and cause all kinds of havoc. >> so what kind of advice do you give to people to talk about phishing scams, for instance? how often do you bring it up with your employees? what examples do you give them? >> all the time. a lot of times you have to give the example if it looks convincing, it looks real. that's most of the time what these guys are doing. they have advanced tool kits. the cyber criminals can make it look convincing. i tell them if there's any ounce of suspicion, do not click on the attachment. rather go directly to the url, the website of your bank or whatever else you might be checking. >> yeahened i mean maybe you could say to your employees you don't want to be the one who's responsible for -- >> exactly, good point. >> for cyber crime in our company. just get them to remember it. what are some of the things you

see people fail to do small businesses that get attacked? >> i think the first thing to consider with small business is understanding that the amount of money that they spend to protect their organization is a lot less than the big players are. however today there's a lot more access to tools, through computing and things like that that they can access and deploy to protect the environment in the beginning. so looking at anti-malware and anti-spam ware filtering for their e-mail to protect what scott mentioned around those phishing attacks. to look at the backups so you can backup now to the cloud and have all of your data in a secure environment without having to spend the investment that you would have had to spend years ago. >> one other thing i should point out, one of the most important things and again most neglected, is strong passwords. i say this again and again every single day. a six character password doesn't cut it. you've got to have at least 15 characters, upper case lower case numbers, with symbols, and it shouldn't be a common word in

the dictionary or your wife's name or your pet's name or anything else. it's got to be obscure, something you can't remember but you got to write it down in a secure place. then you minimize the chance that you're the next victim to get hacked. >> and sean also you shouldn't have the same password for more than one site. >> that's correct. the big mistake a lot of people try to do is reutilize their passwords across different technologies. especially sharing those between the business environment and their home environment. that's really where the challenge is. >> somebody told me a really good idea which is create a sentence in your mind. >> sentences are a great idea. also using things like the last book you read or the last movie that you watched. something along those lines that is easy enough for you to remember at the moment but also provides you with the ability to add some of those special characters in. so you mention the at symbol for an "a," 1 for an "i," things like that that allow you to make it more of a difficult sentence for someone to guess using tools, but also something you can remember easily without having to write it down or to store it somewhere else.

>> scott i want to leave us with one last point which is how often should you be doing an audit on your security systems and processes? >> for small businesses on a quarterly basis at minimum. depends upon the nature of your business, if it's financials or other things like that where it's even more sensitive data you probably want to do it more often. at least on a monthly basis. it's nothing wrong with having an outside company even come in periodically to do a vulnerability test or penetration test to test how how secure are your computer networks. >> thanks both of you so much for coming on. i think in a lot of cases we know what we should be doing. people just aren't taking the time to do it and they will regret this if something goes wrong. this whole conversation is just a great reminder. so thanks for coming on. when we come back we'll look at whether a start-up should offer ownership of the company to its staff. and hungry for a digital dessert? today's elevator pitchers say with their product you can text for a tasty treat.

if i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is my philosophy is real simple american express open forum is an on-line community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make smart business decisions. if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone. there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. today's your biz selfie comes to us from the people at the apparel company ciao bella mode today international in wince sore connecticut. send a selfie of you and your

business and add #yourbizselfie. tweet it to us at @msnbcyourbiz or e-mail to your business @msnbc.com. don't forget to tell us your name, your city and the name of your company. ordering food online is fast becoming the go-to way to have your dinner delivered to you. well today's elevator pitchers have come up with a way to make your order via text. let's see if they whet our panel's appetite for their product. heck for barretteo is the former administrator of the small business administration and chairman of the latino coalition and small business expert jim placing game returns as well. he is the host of the small business advocate show. >> he's greg i'm stewart. we're co-founders at eatabit.com. last year $70 billion worth of take-out and delivery food orders were placed at independent restaurants in the u.s. only 3% of those orders were

electronic. most food orders are still placed on the telephone. the reason is nobody's come up with a truly universal way to place electronic food orders. imagine if those phone calls were replaced with today's most popular form of communication, text messages. we patented an intelligent device that automatically takes food orders for restaurants by chatting back and forth with their customers over text message. the device then prints the order inside the restaurant on paper, in standard format. in our hometown of charleston south carolina, we've printed over 10,000 of these orders in the last year. eatabit makes money by leasing these devices directly to the restaurant. stewart and i have spent almost $100,000 of our own money to get where we are today. so we're asking for $500,000 to help take eatabit nationwide. thank you. >> congratulations, you guys. >> thank you. >> i'm going to give you two these. on a scale of one to ten, how well they did with the pitch. it's so funny right you live in your own world. here in new york city i don't know anybody who calls anymore,

right? everybody always just does it digital digitally. but you're right it's still a tiny portion. and you guys are going to capture some of that market. heck for, since you seem toyou, hector. between 1 and 10 -- >> i'm giving them 8.5. >> all right. >> i thought it was a great presentation. they know their market. i would like to hear more what they would do with the 500,000. >> my pen doesn't work. >> okay. >> let me borrow your pen. >> 8.25. >> why? was do you think they could have done better? >> could have done better? my concern is that you might not be -- the only thing worse than asking for too much money is not asking for enough. >> if they have asked for more money, you might have given them a 10? >> might have. >> we'll talk afterwards. >> good response. >> you guys good luck with everything. thank you for coming and pitching to the show.

appreciate it. seems like an interesting product. thank you guys for your feedback. >> if any of you out there have a project or service and you want feedback like that on your chances of getting interested investors, send us an e-mail. the address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. in that, say what your company does, how much money you are trying to raise and what you intend to do with that money. we look forward to reading those pitches. >> there are tons of blogs out there offering free advice and information on the latest industry trends. but which ones are actually worth your time? here are five useful small business blogs you should be reading courtesy of yfs magazine. one, hub spots blog with over 1.2 monthly visitors the site is a trusted industry source for advice to improve your company's inbound marketing strategies.

two, the kissmetrics marketing blog. they focus on testing data for your business. three, the payroll blog. get the latest information on taxes and small business tips and economic trends. four, both sides of the table. a two-time entrepreneur turned eded venture venture capitalist gives firsthand advice. and five 500 startups shares useful insight on lean start-up practices and metrics. it is time to answer tomsome of your business questions. jim and hector are back with us. this first question is about equity. >> i would like to know when and if it's okay for a start up to offer ownership of the company to prospective and current

staff. >> i think this is a great question. she's not alone in having this. let's start with you. >> j.j. she says she's a start up. i don't think it's a gooded were to have employees be owners of the company until down the road. if you're going for venture capital day one, you know you will be divesting of this company in a few years, maybe that's what you need to do. if you're trying to build a main street business you want to make sure any employees you bring in as owners that they are key employees you will keep a long time. that you don't plan to fire. i'm not crazy about equity for employees early on. >> it's different, right? in silicon valley it's expected. in many industries it's not. >> that's the rare exception. >> those are high-growth businesses. i agree with jim. my father used to say you never take on a partner unless they can do something that you can't do. if it's just about financing those employees, there's other ways to do that. >> you can do all kinds of things like profit sharing plans

which are not about giving equity in your company but still allowing people to share in your success. let's move on to the last question from maritza and she writes me husband and i are starting an office cleaning company. he has 25 years of cleaning experience and i have 20 years of customer service experience but together we have no idea how to come up with prissing to charge with jobs. please guide us to know how much to charge for our future clients. is there a formula to follow. jim? >> this is a personal service business. one of the biggest mistakes a company like that makes initially is associating what they charge with wages. what you charge has to be a price that will sustain your company financially. what you take out of the company is unrelated to that. you have to make sure you don't confuse wages with what you have to charge. and you have to charge whatever

you convince your customers you're worth and there are competitive pressures. don't get into the trap of associating your price with wages. >> where do you look to come up with a number? >> you have to do your homework. do some market research. ask perspective customers what they're paying or what pay. you need to know your business what is your competitive advantage advantage? what will it cost to run that operation? do your homework sharpen that pencil and make sure you have a viable business. >> you both mentioned this go to competitors. if they're charging $5 are you offering anything better that gets you up there? >> that's right. either you're providing more services for the same amount of money or you're able to lower that cost. then somebody will pay attention to you. all things being equal, why should they change? >> thank you guys for all this advice. very, very helpful. so good to see you guys. if any of you have a question for our experts, go on over to

our website. the address is openforum.com/yourbusiness. once there, hit the ask the show link to submit a question for the panel. if you would rather e-mail us your questions, e-mail them to yourbusiness@msnbc.com. actually i'm not letting you guys leave yet, you have to participate in this with me. this is week three, this starts week three of the jj challenge. for all of you out there, you know this. we're challenging ourselves to pick up some of the habits of really successful entrepreneurs. last week came from jack dorsey of twitter and square that was to get your day going before sunrise. do you do that? >> absolutely. >> i'm on the air at 6:00. the week before came from tony share to clean out your inbox, i failed. randy dell says i am up before 3:00 a.m. without the alarm and

have been since i opened my business in 1992. the early morning is best you are rested your mind is fresh and the phone is not ringing. you can get a lot of work done without interruption. jill said as hard as it may seem to get to the gym before sunrise, it's worth it. i get a jump on my day by working through and getting rid of thoughts in my head i wake up with that can suck energy. and neil vogel wrote if my kid is up and i'm up too does that count? i don't think so. it does not count, neil. you have to get up earlier. this week's challenge is from the founder of indiegogo, one of the largest and fastest growing crowd sites, it has hosted more than 250,000 campaigns and is active in more than 200 countries. here is her challenge. ask one of your employees to give you a review. have you guys done that? >> i haven't.

but i think it's a good idea and it's brave, because you don't know what will come back on the other side. it's a good idea. >> the corporate cause is 360 review, where you get more -- you get ear people telling you what you need to be doing. yeah. i've never said rate me. i've said rate our company, how do we do. but that's a good idea. >> here you go. this is going to be hard. i think it will be hard for a lot of people. one thing i have to stress is you have to make sure you create an environment where people feel that they can be honest with you, because if not, this is a wasted exercise. you have to listen. do not get defensive. i suspect we will all learn a lot from this. let me know how it goes on twitter or facebook using the the #jjchallenge. i will do it as well. good luck everyone. to learn more about today's show head over to our website, openforum.com/yourbusiness. once you get there, you will

find more about today's segments and web exclusive content to help your business grow. you can also follow us on twitter, @msncyourbiz. next week how the company vita health is maintaining focus while diversifying their outreach. until then i'm jj ramberg, remember, we make your business our business. if i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is my philosophy is real simple american express open forum is an on-line community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make smart business decisions. if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone.

there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. it begins. all right. good morning. thanks for getting up with us today. one week and counting before super bowl sunday morning, speaking of the super bowl in the news this morning, bill belichick dramatically changing the course of conversation or trying to about those underinflated footballs with a surprise press conference yesterday afternoon. lots of sound from that lots of details, lots of reaction still to come in the show. and steve king's summit in iowa