Ascentium Capital Blog

Fewer and fewer of us nowadays are enjoying the experience of washing our car in our own driveway on a Saturday morning. It was a first car owner's ritual; soaping up the car with a big sponge and rinsing it off with the garden hose. Before we all assume it's the youth of today not wanting to put in a little hard work and elbow grease, we should realize . . . that's only part of the problem. The main issue is the waste water run-off from these seemingly harmless chores. That sudsy water running off your driveway into the street is called nonpoint runoff and it is the leading cause of fresh water nonpoint source (NPS) pollution in the United States. And, it is causing many states and communities to ban the once typical suburban activity. (Read More...)

When Robert Powell left the banking industry to fulfill an entrepreneurial dream, he looked for a business that would be a good fit and would grow. When Tower Car Wash & Detail Center came on the market in 2005, Powell could see it was not only a match for his small business dreams, but with the right service, offerings, and customer experience for those who frequented his Batavia, Illinois location . . . he could clean up. (Read More...)

It used to be that the most high-tech piece of equipment on a construction or building site might have been the back hoe or front-end loader. As Bob Dylan once sang, the times they are a changin' . . . today's residential and non-residential construction sites are employing innovative new technologies and ideas to make projects stronger, safer and smarter. (Read More...)

As we go about our lives, we have our financial discipline monitored by the three big consumer bureaus – Equifax®, Transunion®, and Experian™ – and your FICO Score is built using this consumer bureau data. Even the best of us have experienced that moment of fear when we hear that we need to have our credit pulled . . . and we don't know where our number will land. Not all credit pulls are created equal, however; there are important distinctions between hard and soft credit pulls, or credit checks, and the Fair Reporting Credit Act dictates when and why credit reports may be pulled. The two forms of credit inquiries have different effects on your credit report and FICO credit score across the reporting agencies. (Read More...)

Central Consulting Group (CCG) provides customized software solutions for Architectural and Engineering (A&E) firms large and small. They have the motto, “You dream it. We can do it” on their website . . . and they clearly believe in that vision. Since 2002, CCG has been helping customers get more out of their software investment by customizing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. (Read More...)

In the face of big box stores, Amazon taking over retail online, and national chain restaurants in every community, local companies have mounted a campaign to revitalize community businesses. The “shop small” approach has taken America by storm and the hospitality industry has sat up, fluffed their pillows and taken notice. (Read More...)

Nason Kassab grew up in hotels. Not in the literal sense, but fairly close. Nason’s family was in the hotel business in the mid-west, and after working in the family business and learning what it takes to build a business, he branched out on his own 15 years ago. His first project was an ambitious one – a distressed national economy hotel that he and his team remodeled and sold, and the rest has been a whirlwind of hospitality growth and expansion. (Read More...)

Entrepreneurs are idea people, and every day they grow business concepts into great small to medium sized businesses (SMBs). Often this starts on a small scale and once the business plan is proven and some traction takes hold, these same entrepreneurs are already thinking: What can I do better? How can I broaden my reach? How can my business grow and flourish? And, many times the answer is simply: money. (Read More...)