Question:

I was at your seminar in Tennessee last week and you talked about Jellys. I’m still not sure what a Jelly is or why it might be useful to me in rural Tennessee.

Mo:  Think of a Jelly as a pop-up coworking event. They are usually single day events hosted somewhere terrific: in the atrium of a corporate building, in a park, a museum or even in someone’s living room. The organizer generally provides Internet, coffee and food or entertainment. Like regular Coworking, people attend Jellys to conduct work but the day is punctuated with meet and greets, happy hours and introductions between folks who might not otherwise connect.

In economic development, Jellys are often used to take the temperature of the entrepreneurial community in advance of investing in a Coworking space. Mark Nolte, President of the Iowa City Area Development Group (ICAD) hosted a series of Jellys before opening their downtown Merge cowork. 

My favorite Jellys are hosted at corporate spaces; corporate lawns, atriums, lofts and penthouse suites that the average person won’t often see. Corporations tend to like hosting Jellys when asked. They get access to talent they wouldn’t otherwise see and the interaction that happens in a Jelly can support innovative thinking among their own staff. I’d encourage you to give it a try!

Question:

We have a hard time finding those who are interested in scaling their operations. We seem to have lots of businesses who are as busy as they want to be. They aren't interested in cranking things up, they're in it for the lifestyle

Mo:  There are different kinds of entrepreneurs in the entrepreneurial stack and their intentions are different as well. Microenterprises are passion-driven while Small Business owners seek a lifestyle and normal profits. Innovators seek to scale and earn extra-normal profits. It sounds to me as though you’ve been talking to Small Business owners rather than Innovators. Small Business owners tend to cluster in downtown districts, strip malls and commercial complexes. You will need to look elsewhere for those innovators. Check out these places for Innovators in your community:  1M Cups, Coworking spaces, Startup Weekends, Bar Camp or at any pitch event.

Question:

Our main challenge is getting to know entrepreneurs. While we all know each other because we live in a small community, it is difficult to know them in their entrepreneurial lives, and find ways to support them

Mo:  Andy Stoll at the Kauffman Foundation talks about the power of a cup of coffee. He notes that we are all busy and working in our respective spheres but making that small effort to touch even one or two entrepreneurs to ask specifically about their venture and their needs is magical. I think this could apply to you. You already have the relationship, but need to build a new one and well, coffee is a time-honored rural tradition.

Question:

In Austin, our ecosystem is so large!. There are dozens of incubators, accelerators, community lenders, co-working spaces, mentor networks, meetup groups... . This makes it difficult to navigate

Mo: Having so many ecosystem resources is great (!) but you are right, it can be overwhelming to our entrepreneurs, especially startups. We hear this a lot in urban centers like Phoenix and San Jose. USSourcelink at the University of Missouri, Kansas City has a popular online solution to creating order: they map complicated ecosystem resources, then offer entrepreneurs an easy search tool to find the right resource at the right time.

I think no matter the size of your community, intimate connection is important. Some communities organize human ecosystem navigators or concierge services. These volunteers connect entrepreneurs to resources and organizations on the ground. They attend events, distribute their contact info (text Sidney anytime for help…) etc. They can be online too, through embedded livechat software on service partner websites. I am talking human livechats though, not chatbots.

I think too, ecosystem navigation is another reason 1M Cups is a powerful event for newcomers. When meeting with a new entrepreneur, the very first place I recommend they go is 1M Cups. The weekly, non-competitive gathering of entrepreneurs at all stages of business startup/scaleup provides newcomers a friendly gateway to find like-minded individuals and resources within an ecosystem.

Question:

I serve a small rural community in northern Oklahoma (<7,000). I have several champions in the area that would like to find a way to promote and attract artists to the area.

Mo:

It sounds as though you are off to a good start with those local champions. Fostering the creatives is a powerful way to attract entrepreneurs and build community. There is a terrific rural arts project called SMart, Inc. in Stone Mountain, Georgia you might want to look at. Their tiny community offers downtown studios in vacant properties and business training to entrepreneurial artists at a low cost ($50 monthly) who in return host open gallery hours and pay a commission on their sales. 

In St. Paul, Minnesota there is another non-profit with a little different take, called ArtStart. One element of their good work is a creative reuse store of donated, recycled materials: a hub destination for artists to find materials and ideas for visual art projects. What a great draw for your town!

From a ‘placemaking’ perspective, adaptive re-use of traditional spaces in creative ways can set the stage for your efforts. Ann Arbor, Michigan, while much larger than your community, hosts Parking space popup art events to promote art and play in their downtown district.  Temporary or permanent parklets might be an option too.  Good luck!

Question:

In my rural community, lack of access to the Internet stymies startups and new growth companies.

Mo: The number one obstacle to rural economic vitality is lack of bandwidth.

In the short term, consider installing free wireless in your downtown. City or private sector sponsors will often step up to pay for this. Ask them. It is a small thing with a huge impact. I realize it doesn’t address speed issues but it will improve accessibility.

Long term, look at the federal funds available to help rural telecoms upgrade. USDA and EDA both have resources. For inspiration, check out Jackson and Owseld Counties in Kentucky. Between local tenacity, USDA funds and a non-profit training organization called Teleworks USA, they’ve created more than 300 jobs in two counties with a total population of around 6,100.

Question:

You talk a lot about empowering entrepreneurs. What do you mean by that?

Mo: Part of our work as community leaders in supporting entrepreneurs is giving them legitimacy. If you are the Mayor or a city council member for example, you have community credibility and a brand- we want to transfer that support to our entrepreneurs. Empowering them might be a simple as allowing popups so entrepreneurs can ‘try out’ a business idea in a parking lot. It may include participating in pitch events, or providing a direct financial incentive to an entrepreneur to open a coworking space. I think that letting them put a squid on the roof of a downtown building is seriously mandatory.

Photo credit: Justin Torner Photography

Question:

My economic development organization is struggling to identify the entrepreneurs in our region. Do you have any ideas on how I find them?

Mo: Great question and an important early step in building an ecosystem. According to Rob Williams, director at USSourcelink, you can’t serve what you cannot find, right? In the communities where I’ve worked, several effective best practices have emerged. Here are some recommendations:

• Support a Hub: Create a physical hub where entrepreneurs can readily see and access you. We used to call these ‘one stop’ shops, more often it is coworking space today. If you don’t want to run a coworking space, simply incent a local entrepreneur to open one!

• Use Data: If you have an Economic Gardening program nearby, ask them to mine their databases for a list of all the Stage One companies (those with 1-9 employees).

• Host Events: Try hosting a Jelly, BarCamp, Startup Weekend or launch 1M Cups.

• Business Registrations: I recommend this to every community, but we must do it right (low or no cost to the business, online and enforced). Not only can we learn who is doing business but we can those elusive homed-based and remote workers too.

Question:

How do I justify this work with my funders?

Mo: Start with the facts. We have reputable research showcasing the value of entreprenuership economic development on job growth. Jobs are metrics your funders will recognize and value. I would start with the Kauffman Foundations 2015 brief called, “The Importance of Young Firms for Economic Growth”.