Thomas Moviel is the CEO of 50 USA Markets headquartered in Orlando, Florida and has a background in economic research and business consulting. His company has strategic alliances with trade consultants, international trade offices, economic development commissions, marketing channels, manufacturers and researchers throughout the USA, which gives clients a full-breadth of market entry services. Here's their website: http://www.50usamarkets.com
The Interview Transcript
Nonprofit Chat with Thomas Moviel
Russell Dennis: This is Russ Dennis with the Nonprofit Chat for Tuesday, May 2. We have Thomas Moviel, CEO of 50 USA Markets, headquartered in Orlando, Florida. How is the weather down there, Thomas?
Thomas Moviel: We are finally getting some rain today. We have been in a drought for the past month, which is very unlike Florida. For once, we are happy to see some rain.
Russell: A drought is a way some nonprofits actually describe their funding. A big piece of that revolves around the fact that people don’t know they are there or what it is they are trying to do. When we talk about marketing in a business sense, a lot of people cringe. But communicating what you’re doing is pretty important. I know that you do a lot with all sorts of market research and helping people position themselves. Why would it be important for a nonprofit or people who are thinking about starting a nonprofit to do market research?
Thomas: Know if there is a real need out there for their nonprofit and services and mission. There are tens of thousands of nonprofits out there already. Often people have a good idea and see a need and think it would be a great idea for a nonprofit. But maybe there are nonprofits out there doing that already. Maybe they are not serving your community or your school system or whatever it may be that you are focusing on. There might be that nonprofit out there doing very similar things to what you want to do who are already getting funding from somewhere. As all nonprofits know, funding is a scarce resource. I think when you are going to get up and get a nonprofit going, as the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun, but there are many ways of doing things. New strategies. But I think it’s important to do your market research because you want to know is funding even viable? If there are dozens of nonprofits out there who you haven’t heard of, or one huge mammoth of a nonprofit that has a monopoly on an entire area, maybe your chances of getting funding are going to be slim, or maybe instead your opportunity instead is going—I don’t know how often they do this—to them and working as a subcontractor or talking to them about partnering. What are the areas they are focusing on and not focusing on? Market research is not just secondary research of pulling data. There will be a fair amount of data out there. But also doing primary research and not just on the Internet, but picking up the phone and making a lot of calls. That was a very long-winded answer, but I can talk about this for days. That is a start.
Russell: There are lots of reasons to do that. When you came up with your concept of 50 USA Markets, when you were putting your business together, you did a lot of research. Talk about what that looked like and how your background played into that, how you built your team to fill in those areas you needed a bit of extra support in and so forth.
Thomas: I hate to disappoint, but my business started overnight, and work fell into my lap. Once I got started, because I worked for more and more domestic companies and organizations nowadays, but I focus solely on the U.S. I started off working for foreign companies who were looking to enter the U.S. market. I have a strong international background that goes back to working in international development. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Carpathian Mountains for a couple years doing economic development work. Very grassroots stuff and working with a lot of nonprofits over there an