what can you do to protect your small business from hackers. and a cooking school teching their native cue seen to their aspiring chefs. we've got that and more coming up on "your business." ♪ small businesses revitalizing the economy. american express open here to help. we're proud to present your business on msnbc.

♪ hi everyone. welcome to "your business." if you're looking fn ar international culinary adventure without a passport look no further than new york city's league of kitchens the brainchild of lisa gross. the company's mission was simple. to be a cooking school with immigrants could share their countries culinary traditions. ♪ it's a saturday afternoon in new york and four eager students are traveling to queens for an afternoon of immersive stud ki in a new culture, cue seen and neighborhood. >> hi.

>> welcome. welcome to my home. >> if this doesn't look like a typical cooking class, it's because this isn't your ordinary cooking school. >> so you are welcome. and you belong to me now and i belong to you. >> born out of regret lisa gross had an idea for an business that was simple and very personal. a product of half korean and half russian jewish heritage lisa loved to cook but failed to appreciate her korean grandmother's recipes before she died. >> i tried to keech myself from books and recipes online. but something was a little off or missing. that became this fantasy of wouldn't there be great if there was a korean grandmother i could learn from and then that became this idea of wouldn't it be great in you could do this with people all over the world?

>> lisa sought out recent immigrants from greece, lebanon, afghanistan and korea who were talented home cook to share their unique ethnic cue seen with a small group of students in the comfort of their home. >> new york city is the most diverse place on the planet. but for some people, the only interaction with the immigrants is in the restaurants. the instructor is the host, the expert they're sharing their story and expertise. the immigrant is the one who's being taught to or in a position of dislocation or disorientation. that two-dimensional power is switched in the kitchen. >> that these immigrants found meaningful well paid jobs in the united states a challenge with little english skills and prior

working experience. >> they're all passionate about cooking and sharing their knowledge and hosting people. and that's where they find their happiness in doing those things nks how do you make this in. >> we're going to learn today. >> lisa does more than just hire the recent arrivals. she also helps train them. >> each of our instructors receives about 50 hours of paid training 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 cook teacher of cooking. they teach a series of practice workshops and get coached afterwards and we work with them to create their teching worksheets. we design the menus with them so there's something for a beginninger cook a nofgs nal chef or advanced cook. >> for these women, cooking and running large house holds was

central to back home. >> my mom was constantly in the kitchen. that was her main role making sure that everyone in the family was fed. we'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 tried to make a business out of their cooking but found it hard to run their business in new york city. >> one thing we provide to all of our instructors is the marketing, the signup apparatus, all of the students register through us and pay through us. we organize everything. so that allows the instructor to focus on what they're great on which is cooking wir teaching sharing and hosting. they can let all of that go and focus on the thing 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 with the instructors. we interviewed close to 150 people and did in-home cooking auditions for 25. there's in staff at the workshops. it's in the hands of the instructors. it's been an exciting and empowering experience to have these groups of americans come into their homes. actually food professionals, too, and really appreciate their cooking and their skill and their knowledge. ♪ >> the league of kitchen model shows how the immigrant experience can be an integral part in passing on skills and entrepreneurial was.com to a new artist. that was the case for a chicago man who couldn't mind a stylish pair of shoes so like his

immigrant father he decided to make them himself. ♪ >> george grew up working in his family's suburban chicago cobbler shop. there he learned the craft of repairing and rebuilding shoes from his father john, an immigrant from greece. >> it's hard to work. 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. >> you always had to buy shoes that could be resoled. >> george realized in an area where things are disposable a pair of shoes. he paid special attention to sourcing all of the materials and labor in america. >> that's kind of when the idea was sparked of how could we make

a shoe or boots in america, make them out of the best come poe nepts really in the world, hand craft them the old-fashioned way and offer them at a price that's attainable attainable. >> he named his company oak street boot makers and started his search to find the best materials possible for his uber american shoes. he didn't have to go far to source the leather. it just 0 happened the last remaining tannery in chicago a fourth generation family owned business was just a few miles away. >> he's here i would say at least once a month. but we talk much more often. we wants to know what the footage is or when it's going to be ready, how is it looking. >> this is the long time supplier of leather to companies that make high end shoes. he's the fifth generation at the family's legendary company is

interested in making sure that the leather that takes up to six month to fan is just right. >> 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 designs, many of them a rift on the classic boat shoe. the key element in his version, hand sewn seams. he went searching for hand sewers. the shoe industry has all but disappeared in maine with the work being done cheaper overseas. adam's factory is one of the last left in the united states. >> he sort of fell in love with what we were doing and then she started to tell me his story in getting back to the whole, hey,

i want to make products in america. >> the timing was perfect. the factory was not going to make it without an unflux of work for its highly skilled hand sewers and craft people. 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 ports sealed his fate. >> that day we sold out of our inventory. within 24 hours we were out. and so the fact that our shoes are hand made presented a problem. because they take about six weeks to make. and we know that's a long time. but even though we sold out, we immediately went to a six-week preorder system and customer were still ordering. >> now oak street boot makers have stoked the artisan company with his hand crafted shoes with

people still sometimes waiting six weeks for a pair of them. his hands on approach has hi working side by side on the leather before it ships to maine to be hand sewn. and he visited maine to personally monitor and inspect every pair of shoes before they ship. >> we don't see the factory as just a factory that's making our shoes. it's really a relationship. when i see a shoe i can often tell who sewed it. it's often their signature. going to maine and being a part of that is just 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 theircies policies

and tools. it doesn't have to take a lot of money or time but you have to take this seriously. scott is the president and ceo of berkeley securities. and sean karen is a director at west monroe technology infrastructure and operations practice here to share some security measures that you must take to make your business safe. thank you for coming on the program. >> thank you. >> scott, let's start with you. i think for a lot of people they think i'm just not getting around to this because i'm overwhelmed by it going to cost too much money or take too much time. what can somebody do? >> a lot of time just best practices sharing where the risks and vulnerabilities are. it's important that they back up on a daily basis.

if not daily, at least weekly in case they're hacked. but best practice is even to avoid avoid avoid phishing attacks. alerts employees not to click on the attachment because it could download malware and cause all kinds of havoc. >> how often do you bring this up with your employees? what examples do you have to give them. >> if it looks convincing, it's real. i tell them if there's any sounds of suspicion, do not click on the attachment, rather go directly to the url, the website of your bank or whatever else you may be checking. >> you can say, look you don't want to be the one who's response, for cyber crime in our company. >> good point. >> just get them to remember it.

sean, what are some of the things that you see people fail to do you know small businesses that get attack snd. >> i think the first thing to consider with small business is understanding that the amount of money they spend to protect their organization is a lot less than the big players. however today there's a lot more access to tools through cloud computing and things like that that they can access and deploy to protect the environment. so looking at anti-malware anti-spam ware. to look at the backups so you can back up to the cloud and have all of our data in a secure environment and not have to spend the investment that you would have to have spent years ago. >> wouchb the most important things and most neglected is strong passwords. i say this again and again every day. a six character password doesn't cut it. 15 characters, upper case lower

case numbers and symbols. it shouldn't be a common word in the dictionary your wife's name or pet's name. it's got to be on secure. >> i think the big mistake a lot 0 people do is try to reutilize their passwords across different technology, sharing their passwords between the business environment and the home environment. that's where the challenge is. >> somebody told me, create a sentence in your mind. >> sentences are a great idea, using things like the last book you read the last movie you watched. something that's easy to remember but provides you with the ability to add the special characters in the at symbol for an a. make it a difficult sentence for someone to guess using tools but

also something you can remember easily without having to write it down. >> scott, i want to leave us with one last point which is how often should you be doing an audit? >> small businesses something they should be doing on a quarterly basis. if it's financials and more sensitive data you probably want to do it more often, a monthly basis. and have an outside company come in to do a vulnerability test or penetration test to test how secure are your computer networks. >> i think in a lot of cases we know what we should be doing but people aren't taking to time to do it. thanks a lot for coming on. when we come back, we'll look at whether a startup should offer ownership of the company to its staff. hungry for a digital dessert? today with their product you can text for a tasty treat.

american express for travel and entertainment worldwide. just show them this - the american express card. don't leave home without it! and someday, i may even use it on the moon. it's a marvelous thing! oh! haha! so you can replace plane tickets, traveler's cheques, a lost card. really? that worked? american express' timeless safety and security are now available on apple pay. the next evolution of membership is here. today's your biz selfie comes from ciao bella moda

international. send a selfie of you and your business and add the #yourbisselfie. please don't forget to tell us your name city and the name of your company. ordering food online is fast becoming the go-to way to have your dinner delivered to you. today's elevator pitchers have come up with a way to make your order via text. hector is the former administrator of the small business administration and small business expert jim returns as well. the host of the small business advocate show. >> he's greg i'm stewart. we're cofounders at ooet a bit.com. last year $70 billion of takeout and delivery food orders were

placed at independent restaurants in the u.s. only 3% were electronic. most food orders are still placed on the telephone. the reason is nobody has come up with a truly universal way to place electronic food orders. imagine if those phone calls for replaced with text messages. >> we've patented an intelligent device that automatically takes food orders. the device prints the order inside the restaurant on paper. in our hometown of charleston, south carolina we've printed over 10,000 of the orders each year. we lease the devices directly to the restaurant. we've spent 100,000 of our own money to get where we are today. we're asking for $500,000 to help take it nationwide. >> congratulations. i'm going to give you two these. on a scale of 1 to 10 how well they did with the pitch. it's so funny, right?

you live in your own wormed. here in new york city i don't know anybody who calls. everybody does it digitally. but it's still a tiny portion. so hopefully you guys are going to capture some of the market. did they do? >> 8.5. great presentation. they definitely know their market. i would like to hear a little more what they were going to do with the $500,000 and if they were going for debt or equity. >> our pen doesn't work. >> okay. just tell us. >> 8.25. >> all right. you're getting specific. >> yeah. >> why? what 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. that would be the concern. >> if they had asked for more money you might have given them a ten? >> might have. >> all right. >> we'll talk afterwards. >> good response. good luck with everything. thank you for coming and pitching to the show. really appreciate t seems like

an interesting product. thank you for your feedback on that pitch. if any of you out there have a product or service and want feedback like that in getting interested investors, send us an e-mail. your business @msnbc.com. in that e-mail please include a short summary of what your company does how much money you're trying to raise and what you intend to do with that money. we look forward to reading those pitches and seeing some of you here on the show. there are tons of blogs offering free advice and information on the latest industry trends. which ones are actually worth your time? here now are five useful small business blogs you should be reading courtesy of wfs magazine. one, hubspot's blog. improve your company's inbound marketing strategies. two, the @kissmetrics marketing

blog. it publishes content focused on testing and evaluating necessary data for your small business. three, the payroll blog. get the latest information on taxes as well as small business tips and economic trends. four both sides of the table by mark schuster two. -time entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. he gives first-hand advice. 500 startups shares useful insight on align startup practices and metrics. it is time now to answer some of your business questions. let's get our board of directors in here to help. jim and hector with back with us. this first question is about equity. >> i would like to know when and if it's okay for a startup to offer ownership of the company to perspective and current staff. >> this is a great question.

i think she's not alone in having this. let's start with you. >> j.j. she says she's a startup. i don't think it's a good idea to have employees be owners of the company until down the road. if you're going for venture capital day one and you know you're going to be divesting in this company maybe that's what you need to do. any employees you bring in as owners, you want to make sure they are key employees you want to keep a long time that you don't ever want to fire. i'm not crazy about equity for employees early on. >> it's different, right? in silicon valley it is expected. >> that's right. >> in many it is not expected. >> that's the exception, though in mainstream. >> my father used to say you never take on a partner unless they can do something you can't do. >> you can do all kinds of things like profit-sharing plans

which aren't about giving equity in your company but allowing people to share in your success and be motivated by your success. let's move on to the last question from maritza. my 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 do not know how to come up with pricing to charge for the job. please guide us to know how much to charge our future clients. is there a formula to follow? i'm going to start with you, jim. your latest book is age of the customer and price something all about this as well. >> that's right. the thing is this is a personal service business. and apparently it's a start-up. 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 that you don't confuse wages with what you have to charge. you have to charge whatever you can convince your customers you're worth.

there's also good competitive pressures. don't get in the trap of associating your price with wages. >> where do you even look to start to come up with a number? >> you have to do your homework. market research. you have to ask prospective customers what they're paying or what they would pay. you need to know your business. what is your distinct competitive advantage? what will it cost you to run that operation? what is the profit you intend to make? do your homework. sharpen your pencil and make sure you have a viable business. >> go to your competitors. if they're charging $5 right, 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? >> great. thank you, guys for all of this advice. very, very helpful. really good to see you guys. >> you, too. >> if you have a question for our experts go over to

openforum.com/slashyourbusiness. hit the ask the show link to submit a question for our panel or e-mail our questions and comments. your business @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 j.j. challenge. for all of you out there, you know this. this is a new segment where we're challenging ourselves to pick up some of the habits of really successful entrepreneurs. last week's came from jack dorsey founder of twitter and square. it was to get your day going before sunrise. do you do that? >> absolutely. >> this one was so easy for me. >> here at 6:00. >> i failed. week before came from tony shea to clean out your inbox. failed. this one was simple for me. viewer randy dell wrote i'm up before 3:00 am with the alarm and have been since i opened my

business in 99. early morning is best. your mind is fresh, the phone is not ringing. jill san philip abbott wrote as hard as it may seem to get to the gym before sunrise, it's worth it. i get a jump on the day by working through and getting rid of thoughts in my head i wake up with that can suck energy. and neilvogel tweeted if my kid is up so i am too, does that count? i don't think so. any how, it does not count, neil. it does mean you have to get up earlier, i'm sorry to say. founder. indy go-go, one of the largest crowd funding site ss, hosting more than 250,000 campaigns and active in more than 200 countries. here is her challenge. ask one of your employees to give you a review. have you done that? >> i haven't. i think it's a good idea.

it's pretty brave. you don't know what will come back on the other side. >> i do too. >> 360 review corporate calls it. you get other people asking you -- or telling you what you need to be doing. and, yeah i've never said rate me. i've said rate our company. how do we do? that's a good idea. >> 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 they can be honest with you. if not, this is a wasted exercise. you have to listen. do not get defensive. i suspect we'll all learn a lot from this which will make us better leaders. let me know how it goes on twitter or facebook using the #the jj challenge. i'm going to be looking out for these and i'm going to do it as well. to learn more about today's show head over to our website, openforum.com/slashyourbusiness. once you get there, you'll find all of today's segments and web

exclusive content to help your information grow. follow us on twitter @msnbc your biz. we are on facebook and instagram as well. creator of the you app, which provides health coaches, is going after customers any way she can. how vida health is maintaining focus while diversifying their outreach. till then i'm j.j. ramberg. remember, we make your business our business. american express for travel and entertainment worldwide. just show them this - the american express card. don't leave home without it! and someday, i may even use it on the moon. it's a marvelous thing! oh! haha! so you can replace plane tickets, traveler's cheques, a lost card. really? that worked?

american express' timeless safety and security are now available on apple pay. the next evolution of membership is here. right now on msnbc, two injured critically as a deck collapses as a family marks the fourth. people of greece are deciding their own financial future today. is it possible the feelings of a little girl are stomping out massive dinosaurs at the weekend box office? good morning to you this sunday july 5th. it is 8:00 am on the east 5:00 am in the west. i'm dara brown. keeping the fourth of july festivities safe. the night passing without incident. authorities say there are no