Business Plan

Batteries may have drained Roy Abbate's savings, but they recharged his career and his life, too. "There's no age limit to when you can learn something new," says Abbate, who was over 50 and unemployed when he sank his entire 401(k) into a Batteries Plus store in Mount Laurel. "I had about $500,000. It was everything," he recalls. "I was scared. But my kids were grown, and I thought, 'If it doesn't pan out, the only person I would hurt is myself.' " Two-and-a-half years later, the affable Cherry Hill resident is charged up and ready to go, just like everything else on the sales floor of his Route 73 store.

WHEN I saw the subject line on the e-mail from Ann Cohen, my stomach sank. "All good things," it read - as in, "All good things must come to an end. " I clicked the note open and read the crushing news: The West Philly Hybrid X Team had gotten knocked out of the Progressive Automotive X Prize. Five days into what they'd hoped would be a 10-day road test and a rigorous evaluation of the technical systems of their cars, they learned that their vehicles - a smart, four-door model and a hot, two-door sports car - didn't meet the exacting standards of the $10 million contest.

The ideas were innovative. The presentations were sharp. The financial projections were almost certainly optimistic. The region's 12th annual Angel Venture Fair drew about 240 people Monday and Tuesday to Philadelphia's tony Union League - a fitting setting for those who dream of striking it big with the next New New Thing, or at least being one of the Thing's early investors. Owners of 125 companies applied for the chance to promote their ideas to 150 of the so-called angel investors - people with the means to help a new company get off the ground, often because they have themselves cashed in on successful entrepreneurial efforts.

European culture bankrupt, doomed One has to admire Trudy Rubin's near-religious faith in liberalism ("Health-care lessons from Europe, Asia," Sunday). Somehow, despite the clear evidence that the societies she most admires (Germany, France, and Japan) are financially bankrupt and doomed to extinction, she clings to the social welfare state creeds that brought them to this end. Not only are they fiscal wrecks, as clearly illustrated in the Currents article by Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.

IF YOU WERE on tiny Hanson Street in West Philly on Tuesday, you would've heard a roar loud enough to shake the garage it came from. A nanosecond later came another roar - the cheers of West Philly High School's Hybrid X Team, because the Harley Davidson 1450 engine they'd placed inside their self-built hybrid car had successfully burst to life for the very first time. "It was utterly amazing!" says Sowande Jay, a junior in the school's Academy of Automotive and Mechanical Engineering, thrilled by the un-mufflered sound that ricocheted off the walls.

Jennifer Zoga and Liz Bales tried to follow all the right steps when they started their new business in Chestnut Hill. They put together a business plan, found a location on a busy street, and lined up the necessary financing. But they didn't count on getting kneecapped by petty Philadelphia politics. Their story is a cautionary tale for anyone who wants to start a small business in this city. Zoga and Bales, two smart moms who live in Chestnut Hill, spent a couple of years planning Good Food Market, an upscale shop that sells prepared foods and caters to other busy neighborhood families.

Jennifer Zoga and Liz Bales tried to follow all the right steps when they started their new business in Chestnut Hill. They put together a business plan, found a location on a busy street, and lined up the necessary financing. But they didn't count on getting kneecapped by petty Philadelphia politics. Their story is a cautionary tale for anyone who wants to start a small business in this city. Zoga and Bales, two smart moms who live in Chestnut Hill, spent a couple of years planning Good Food Market, an upscale shop that sells prepared foods and caters to other busy neighborhood families.

In a city rife with government agencies that specialize in patronage, waste, and inefficiency, the Philadelphia Parking Authority has long stood out among the crowd. It would be hard to find anyone among its 1,000 employees who wasn't hired because of his political connections rather than professional qualifications. With a workforce and organizational chart built mainly on political agendas, it's easy to see why the day-to-day mission is obscured. So it comes as no surprise that a recent audit by City Controller Alan Butkovitz's office found that the Parking Authority is top-heavy with managers, lacks cost controls, operates without a long-range business plan, and has apparently evaded state law on bidding out large contracts.

When the economy hands you lemons, make lemonade. And if a college professor hands you plastic foam, pipe cleaners, felt, and glue, you might make, say, a prototype of a table that sets itself or shoes that walk on water or a Prettifyer 3000 - a revolutionary device that takes care of all grooming needs. Then you sell it. Brian Nieves, 17, of Pennsauken, was on the Prettifyer detail. Nieves, an entrepreneur-in-the-making who will be a senior this year, said he did not plan to let the recession deter him. "There are still jobs," said Nieves, who attends LEAP Academy Charter High School in Camden.

"I believe that our membership understands. They get it. " - Ray Wood, union president at a Toledo, Ohio, transmission factory, on contract concessions at General Motors Corp. "Major deficit spending, inflationary pressures with the weak dollar, no signs anyone wants to stop spending, on top of the greatest financial crises in modern history. " - Brian Edmonds, head of interest rates in New York at Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., on reasons U.S. bond yields rose "The worst of it is probably coming to an end. " - Stephen King, chief economist at HSBC Holdings P.L.C.