Small Firms on Fast Track Teaching Lessons to Visa.

A greeting card company, a pharmaceutical consulting business and a specialty foods company won a package of prizes, including $25,000, in the "Visa Start-Up 2000" awards program announced earlier this month.

The national competition, sponsored by Visa U.S.A. Inc., selected three start-up businesses to assist for a year.

"We want to be very involved in the growth of these businesses," said Kris Castagno, director of San Francisco-based Visa Business. "Our goal is to learn how these (types of) companies work."

The three lucky winners were offered a $25,000 credit line on a Visa Business card, or they could opt for a check. The winners also received $10,000 worth of products and services from Bigstep.com, Compaq, E-Stamp, Office Depot and Symantec. All were also offered a year's worth of mentoring and training from SCORE, the Service Corps of Retired Executives.

"We can be a long-term adviser for these businesses, or we can be nothing more than a casual observer," said Kenneth Yancey Jr., SCORE's executive director. Yancey said SCORE counselors will send advisers from their branch offices to the winner's offices.

All three companies opened their doors in 1999. The winners said they hope the publicity surrounding the competition will boost sales.

Instant recognition

"This gives my company national credibility," said Joe Polo, president of Original Juan Specialty Foods Inc., based in Kansas City, Kan. Original Juan makes a line of gourmet salsas, hot sauces, barbecue sauces and an award-winning sauce called "Da Bomb -- The Final Answer."

Polo may be a novice entrepreneur, but he's been in the food and retail business for 25 years, doing product and menu development for TGI Friday's.

"This prize is like an added crown jewel," said Polo. "Every month, we've been profitable, so this prize money will last me for the rest of the year."

Original Juan products are sold in small specialty food boutiques and in gourmet stores like Dean & DeLuca and Williams-Sonoma.

The man who developed a novel, pre-stamped greeting card said his $25,000 prize money is already spent.

"It's gone," joked Aaron Souza, president of Ready Notes, a greeting card company based in Davis, Calif. that makes greeting cards with a unique pre-stamped envelope. Souza is waiting for the patent on his envelope's design to be issued.

He plans to use the money to replenish his company bank account, pay his three employees and 60 independent sales representatives, and to cover general business expenses.

"The money is just a springboard to attract more people," said Souza. "After this, I'm going to have to attract the next major level of funding."

When his business does attract the big bucks, Souza intends to pay back the sponsors of this program.

"We're going to remember SCORE and the sponsors," said Souza. "We have been given a golden opportunity."

Before starting this company, Souza was a business analyst for Stuart Anderson's Black Angus Restaurants, and a founding partner of a California restaurant chain called Green Planet Juicery.

Financial shot in arm

For the pharmaceutical consultants who won, the five-month prescreening process forced their business to get into shape.

"It actually forced us to write our business plan," said Brent Lambert, principal independent consultant at Millennium 3 Clinical Consulting Inc., a firm for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, based in Cornelius, N.C. "Up until now, we were just carrying around the plan in our heads, it wasn't on paper.

Lambert and his two partners contract with research scientists to monitor and audit studies done by universities, private physicians and large pharmaceutical companies, like Johnson & Johnson. Lambert has had 10 years of experience working for pharmaceutical companies and managing studies in women's health, epilepsy, infectious disease and diabetes.

According to Lambert, the prize money will help supplement his travel expenses and the business he does overseas in China.

"It's $100 for a 10-minute phone call abroad," said Lambert. "I can't even list all of the expenses this money will pay for."

To be considered for the Visa program, all entrepreneurs had to be at least 18 years old, have 20 or fewer employees in the company, and have been in business for up to two years. Each entrepreneur had to submit an entry form along with a 500-word essay on why their business should be chosen, plus a business plan.

"We have to think that if these guys approved of our business plan, they think our idea can work," said Polo, the specialty foods entrepreneur.

Even if these businesses don't succeed, Castagno says, Visa will still have learned something.

"We're aware of the high failure rate of startups," said Castagno. "But we think there are ways we can help reduce that risk."

Reporting by Julie Neal. Jane Applegate is the author of "201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business," and is founder of Applegate Way.com, a multimedia Web site for busy entrepreneurs.