"Why Aren't You Your Own Boss?" By Paul and Sarah Edwards, with Peter Economy Prima Publishing, March, 2003. ISBN 0761515372 (Excerpt from)

Costa Mesa California's SEED Institute was founded in 1996 by Andy leaf and Julie Damon. At the time Andy (who is a quadriplegic) and Julie (who is legally blind) felt there were no opportunities for disabled people to better learn how to start and run a business. Says Andy "The quality of instruction in the junior-college system was pretty bad. The SBA library was antiquated - they had one computer and it was broken-it was very poorly organized. So we thought, maybe there were other people like ourselves who had similar problems that would like to be independent. We had our first seminar at Irvine Valley College in 1995, and it was a sellout. We were amazed that there were that many people who wanted to come. So, we thought if there were that many people, we should put together a nonprofit. A couple of years after that, we developed our programs, put on seminars, and published a newsletter." The SEED Institute offers complete programs in starting and running a small-business, tailored to meet the specific needs of people with disabilities. According to Andy, "People come to us with their ideas, we help them develop them. We help them with their market research to see if it's a viable business in the marketplace, and we help them develop their business plan. About 120 students have gone through our program - it takes about 60 hours staff and student time together to put together a good business plan. There's a lot of hands-on with our students." Of this group of students, approximate 47 percent are still running their own small businesses in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas, while the majority of the rest are still awaiting funding to finance their startups. A wide variety of people with disabilities - and a wide variety of different business ideas - have found their way to the SEED Institute. According to Andy, "We had one guy with chronic pain - couldn't sit for more than 15 minutes at a time - who started a computer repair business. He couldn't work in a regular office environment, but now he can work at his own pace. He is doing quite well. There's one guy we helped who invented a heart valve. Another guy you has a high-performance auto-parts business - he's blind - and he's doing very well. And we helped a blind photographer. He was a photographer when he became ill, the medication he took caused him to become legally blind. He can no longer do high fashion photography, but now he's doing shots of pets and their owners." The instructors at SEED make no illusions about the challenges that students will face when starting their own businesses. Says Andy Leaf, "Our coursework is really difficult, and me make our students work very hard. We make it clear that this is not something that's going to be easy - you're going to have to work at it - if you want it, then that's great. A lot of our students come in already motivated because they've always had an idea that they wanted to do something, we've showed them opportunities to do that."