4 Ways to Borrow from Ecosystem Building to Help Small Business in 2022

I am speaking this week in Southern California about the pandemic and small business. It appears I will need more than a little luck to avoid having my flight cancelled or have a run-in with an unruly passenger while simultaneously dodging Omicron during my four-hour flight from Florida’s gulf coast. I cannot believe I had the audacity to complain about flying before all this.

1M Cups at the University of Northern Iowa

In the urban center of Riverside County where I am headed, nearly 13,000 businesses have closed and more than 30,000 jobs have been lost during the pandemic. We are seeing even greater proportional impact in rural regions. In Sweetwater County, Wyoming – which only has a population of 42,000 people – more than 425 businesses and 4,100 jobs were lost in 2020 alone. Nearly two years into this pandemic, these disruptions are happening everywhere in the United States. In many regions (especially rural), this is just the beginning. The need for small business support is urgent.

The magnitude of these events requires us to think creatively to save locally-owned businesses while continuing to learn how to foster startup/scaleup activity. A lot of the good work already underway in entrepreneurial ecosystem building around the country can jumpstart our efforts to address the needs of pandemic-affected small businesses. Here are four ways we can borrow from ecosystem building to help our small business community.

1- Launch, grow or incent the creation of a cowork

Coworking has proven successful in providing startup/scaleup entrepreneurs flexible, communal workspace and infrastructure while promoting social and business networking. The rise of pandemic-related remote workers, increasing numbers of sole proprietor (necessity) business owners and small business owners who lack the resources or capital to invest in ongoing office space makes coworking appealing for a wide array of businesses and workers. If you don’t have a coworking space in your community, you need one. If your organization cannot open a coworking space, consider incentivizing an entrepreneur or community builder to do so.

2- Improve access to capital and industry resources

From pitch competitions to TechBrews, BarCamps to Hackathons, Jellys to Ghost Kitchens, the array of novel capital and industry resources developed specifically for startups over the past decade can have equally broad  applications for pandemic-affected small businesses. Everyone is familiar with pitch competitions, for example - but what if we redirected a pitch contest to help existing, traditional industries (manufacturing, processing, retail or construction, for example) re-imagine their use of technology and automation to exploit new markets, introduce new products or leapfrog their competition?

3- Rethink, re-envision technical assistance

Nationwide, SBDCs serve over 500,000 business owners each year, and we rely upon them as a key technical assistance provider to small businesses. But who is helping the other 98% of companies who cannot or won’t use these services?  In ecosystems across the country, entrepreneurs help each other solve common business problems through programs like 1 Million Cups (1MC), a weekly open meetup between business peers to share and solve business problems in a non-competitive forum. Launched by the Kauffman Foundation as an alternative to competitive pitch events, the motto of 1MC is, ‘what can the community do for you?’

4- Streamline access to resources and services

The average community with a population of 100,000 will have more than 150 resource providers dedicated to supporting small business owners, but connecting with the right resource at the right time is difficult. Many ecosystem builders use software like USSourcelink, to collect and make searchable the resources in a community. Online navigators like USSourcelink, directories and concierge services common to startup communities should have a place in pandemic recovery for all businesses.

To learn more about these resources, plus coming economic trends and pandemic recovery best practices, join me for the online Entrepreneurship Course at OUEDI. Accredited by the International Economic Development Council (IEDC). For more information, check out OUEDI here or reach out to me at Mo@MoCollins.com. Happy New Year!

The Cedar Valley Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: The Makers, Doers and Dreamers

The Cedar Valley region of eastern Iowa is a long way from Boulder, Austin, Miami or other celebrated entrepreneurial ecosystems in the United States. Yet this small region in the heart of the Midwest represents an emerging movement among small and midsize cities for building community around entrepreneurs.

In 2019, Danny Laudick of the nonprofit Red Cedar organization and Andy Stoll of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation began a conversation about telling the story of the Cedar Valley ecosystem. “We did not want an academic case study nor a ‘congratulations, our work here is complete’ report,” Laudick notes. “Instead, we wanted to pause, capture, and reflect upon the community, connections, place and people that make up this ecosystem.” The stars in this story are the entrepreneurs who have created startups and scale-ups in this region and who live and dream this work. They, in tandem with a cast of visionary community leaders from both public and private sectors, have created a special kind of place in the Cedar Valley.

Here the energy is palpable—and for many, it is magic. This project uses a generative lens to discover where the life is in this ecosystem. It strives to be as close to those moments as possible through individual accounts, then connect those stories in a useful way to seed new possibilities in building community and connections. A special thank you to Andy Stoll, senior program officer for entrepreneurship at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, for supporting this project and for his guidance in how best to share this story.

To read the full report, click here

Women-Owned Businesses Building New Models for Post-Pandemic Life

Are you in a state that is opening back up in coming days and weeks? North Carolina? Florida? Tennessee? I am in Iowa right now, where the calls to increase— not reduce—social distancing are growing as COVID-19 cases are still rising. We have mixed policy across the country, and a lot of impassioned podium-pundits are making tough decisions around what is best for the economy in tandem with our health and safety.

Really though, it comes back to us. What we do as individual businesses and community members to model new COVID-19 principles and practices will ultimately balance our local economies with community health. We women can lead on this and some of us already are.

One industry hit early and hit hard, has been the hotel and lodging sector. In early April, hotel occupancy was down a whopping 80%. The American Hotel and Lodging Association predicts it is possible that half of American hotels could go under in the coming year. For small operators I would think the numbers could be even worse. 

Enter Angela Harrington.

I met Angela in 2013 when she was an intrapreneurial chamber of commerce director. I remember thinking it was only a matter of time before she would likely join those she served at the chamber.

In 2014, Angela launched Catalyst Development, a novel property redevelopment company. She purchased and renovated a 1921 junior high building into one of the country’s most amazing boutique hotels.

Hotel Grinnell is an experience like no other. Check out the pictures on her website at www.hotelgrinnell.com We held our very first #RosieWasRight weekend retreat there in 2018.

Enter COVID-19.

If you do an environmental scan of Angela’s situation in this pandemic, it isn’t pretty. Hotel Grinnell is located in a rural Midwestern community in Iowa. Don’t get me wrong Iowa is cool —but Iowa is small and Grinnell, population 9,300 is even smaller. Her business is highly dependent upon the lovely and affluent Grinnell College, now paused, perhaps until fall or later. 

 On the other side of the ledger, Hotel Grinnell is just off the iconic Interstate 80, within driving distance of the capital city (about 40 minutes). I have to believe that less population density could also be an asset right now (think crowded subways in NYC). But how to make the Hotel Grinnell experience safe? 

Angela walked through her guest’s experiences from arrival to departure and reconfigured all of it for COVID-19. She introduced remote check-in and check-out with a comfortable number of staff available on site by text, phone or email 24/7. Sanitized rooms, personal room-favors (you know, like party-favors, but for a hotel room in a pandemic) including hand sanitizer and custom face masks. She offers daily food delivery from any of the amazing (and they are amazing) restaurants in the community.

Angela added portable bars (including the recipes!) for in-room bar tending, and her signature fat-tire, vintage bicycles outside your door to explore the trail system; an authentic quarantine benefit to living in a rural place. You can go several miles on trails without seeing very many people- but you will see woodpeckers, lots of woodpeckers. Downies, Red-Bellied and sometimes a Pileated. Yes, I like woodpeckers.

Finally, perhaps most importantly, if you need a new hide-out spot (yes, you there in Michigan, Florida, Louisiana and NYC) she’s got you safely pampered at the Hotel Grinnell for about $450 a week, including your dog. Amazing. This approach may get the Hotel Grinnell through this crisis and also serve as a glimpse of what is to come as we Renew, Re-imagine and Re-build our businesses and communities in 2020. Bravo Angela and all the other small companies out there taking the initiative in these uncertain times.

We host a small group of women-owned business having these and similar conversations at #RosieWasRight You can get there from www.mocollins.com  If you are an economic developer in my circle, I hope you will share this free resource with the women in business in your life. If you are a woman-owned business, I hope you will join us. 

The Very First Question Every Woman-Owned Business Should Ask Herself

The majority of America’s startups, scaleups and small businesses have shuttered in the past 30 days. The women I mentor are all asking the same thing: how do I navigate this; what are the steps I need to take to get through this and, will I be able to save my company? The honest answer is; it depends.

It depends upon how long the external factors will keep the economy shuttered. It depends upon how much money you have in reserve if any, and your burn rate over the next few months. It depends upon how rapidly you will be able to ramp back up when this is over.

But most of all, it depends upon whether your heart and head, your grit and stamina are aligned to do this next thing. There are known moments in every business life where we are given a key to exit. Those doorways present themselves every so often; a fire, a theft, a downturn, or in this case a virus. It is at these times we are provided an opportunity- a key of sorts- to exit.

The 3:00 am question we should be asking first is, ‘Do I want to navigate this?’

This question demands honesty, even if only a response into the darkness of your bedroom ceiling. You have a set of keys in your hand and one of them opens a door to something different from the life you currently lead as a startup founder, a business owner or a growth company president. You are sanctioned by this crisis to choose and it is one of the few times when your choice will be viewed as wholly legitimate. In or Out.

You won’t find too many entrepreneurial support organizations (ESO’s) willing to have these conversations. We don’t talk about it or bring it up but we should. If you aren’t ‘all in’ during the next few months, it is far more likely that you will struggle and fail. There is very little middle ground.

I believe this because I have seen it first- hand. I served as the University Of Northern Iowa’s disaster recovery liaison to small business in Iowa in 2008. Over the course of 24 months, we had a front row seat to the recovery or closure of thousands of small companies. Those companies who took the crisis head-on were the ones who remained in business and subsequently thrived. These companies had founders who, on the outside, showed great confidence; inspired their customers, their employees and their investors in ways that accelerated their brand- and their recovery. I was honored to be a part of the uncertainly, fear and doubt that lived behind the curtain. Here at #Rosie, we have a backstage for you if you need it. Bring passion for your business and together, we will help you bring it back.

If you cannot bring that passion, know it now and take the door. We can help you with that too.

Over the course of the next few months, there will be scores of strategies floated, financial assistance offered and ideas generated for how startups, scaleups and small businesses can make it through the Covid19 crisis. One or more of those strategies, sources of capital and alternative business models will likely be useful to you. One might save you. But it is going to be hard work and your passion matters.

I will be at #RosieWasRight on Facebook for anyone who wants to continue the conversation over the next few weeks.

Getting To The Next Normal and Beyond for Women-Owned Business

As lockdowns are lifted in coming months, I think we all recognize at some level that there is no going to back to what was. McKinsey Global Institute calls what is coming in the next few months the “next” normal, suggesting that the coming year is going to be fluid and chaotic, repeatedly shifting, before we have something we can point to as normal long term.

If that is the case, and I think it is, what does that mean for women-owned business? I think we need to acknowledge and carefully prepare our businesses and ourselves for the next 18-24 months as we continue through this phase of Pause and Restart.

Right now we are still on Pause; individually, professionally and in our communities. All eyes are on the door labeled Restart. That door is likely to open and shut multiple times in the near future as we try different keys- like treatments, testing, a vaccine or push for herd immunity. In the meantime, some folks want to rush the door, others think we should paint it or oil the hinges before we open it. The vast majority of us are waiting for the right key, as we should.

Getting through the current Pause requires us to take care of our businesses and ourselves; things we do have control over. On the business side of things, we need to conserve our cash, learn about and take advantage of as many assistance programs as we can, negotiate lower expenses wherever possible and explore short-term and alternative financial models to get us to the Restart door.

On the personal side (and this is important), we need to hold self-care much higher than we normally do. We already struggle with this. Let’s be very honest, the Pause has been really stressful and we are only 60 days in. The Restart is going to require a high level of energy- similar to that which we needed when we first launched our companies. We can’t go through the Restart door exhausted or depleted and expect to make it.

Self-care will make the difference. Peer networks, journaling, meditation, exercise, eating well, yoga or even regular Zooming with friends and family are forms of self-care. The first step, however, is making the conscious decision to do these things for ourselves to preserve our joy, our passion, our purpose and our energy.

We have a small group of women-owned business having these and similar conversations at #RosieWasRight on FaceBook If you are an economic developer in my circle, I hope you will share this free resource with the women in business in your life. If you are a woman-owned business, I hope you will join us and contribute your experience, ideas and passion.

Merry Christmas: We Hope You Like Your Automation

It’s been like Christmas around here. Americans have created so many shiny things. New technology networks like social media. New processes such as 3D printing. We have even developed entirely new business models like UBER and Airbnb. We have unwrapped an enormous bounty of presents and now those gifts are changing our communities, our jobs and our lives. We spent the first 20 years of this new economy ramping up innovation. We will spend the next 20 years rolling it out.

Take automation. We’ve been seeing glimpses of automation at our favorite spots for several years: AmazonGo stores, McDonald’s self-ordering kiosks, Venmo’s banking services- even Uber’s AV experiments come to mind. Personally, Hyatt’s smart-mirror concierge ranks right up there for me. But behind these customer-facing automations, massive shifts are underway across the whole spectrum of American industry-fundamental changes that will profoundly impact how, where and when we work over the next few years.

At the same time, many of our communities are still sitting on the sofa waiting for Santa (you there, in economic development) to bring back old-economy manufacturing, coal, or you-fill-in-the-blank jobs.

This year, what our communities need for Christmas is a candid conversation about what’s coming. We know with certainty that automation is going to eliminate a portion of traditional jobs, reconfigure millions more and create new positions that require advanced technology adaptive skills. It is incumbent upon each of us in economic development to understand how these changes will likely roll-out in our respective regions, then get out the microphone to share with our constituents what’s coming what we are doing to soften, guide and make the most of the transition.

It is a difficult conversation, in part because a fair number of our community leaders still think these shifts are somewhere down the line. They are not. Timing, according to McKinsey Global, will vary based upon an array of factors but is already underway in industries we all have in our regions, like hospitality, healthcare, transportation, retail and finance. Most researchers agree that before 2030 we will be knee deep in this shift.

Across the country, innovative best practices are emerging which will provide opportunities for everyone in the workforce to have a lifeline, but first we have to deliver the news that Santa isn’t coming- or at the very least he will be soon be delivering gifts via Amazon and not those labor intensive reindeer.