Collins Keen on Advancing Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

December 2004 was a big month for Jeannette Balleza Collins, who concurrently purchased her first home and — amid an onrush of freelance projects — started her first business.

It might seem like a lot for a single, 25 year old to have taken on, but her family history suggests that the will to accept significant risk for potential gain is in her blood.

Also while in their 20s, Collins’ parents moved from their native country, the Philippines, to the United States.

“[They gave] up all that was familiar for the promise of returns on new opportunities,” Collins said.

And, like her parents’ relocation to the U.S., once Collins entered the entrepreneurial world, she stayed there.

Ten years after she started that first company, Scribe Marketing Inc., of which she is still creative-in-chief, Collins is a fixture on the local startup scene, at the helm of key supportive programs, on several committees, and with her hand in many projects that promote a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem in Northwest Arkansas and the state as a whole.

Collins became involved in training entrepreneurs in 2006 when she joined the CEO Forum, led by Tim McFarland, and immediately felt a connection to the mentoring process, as she said she loves “working with really bright people and helping them define and also achieve success.”

Along the same vein, Collins, who lives and works in Fayetteville, co-founded in 2012 the ARK Challenge, the state’s first mentorship-driven tech startup incubator/accelerator, which she directs each year.

Collins also is a member of the Strategic Leadership Committee for the Northwest Arkansas Council and facilitator for the Professional Women’s Network Washington County since 2002, in addition to serving as program director for Startup Junkie Consulting, where she works with Northwest Arkansas startup guru Jeff Amerine, founding principal.

Since Collins was featured in the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class of 2008, a few things have changed. Collins got married May 11, 2013, and is pregnant with the couple’s first child, a boy, due in March.

And, professionally, both the breadth of the people whom she manages and the scope of her work have broadened significantly.

Whereas she once was focused on professional development to foster the success of individuals and single companies, she is now focused on strategic economic development of the area, achieved through the establishment of a fruitful entrepreneurial infrastructure.

“It’s really about taking a step back and looking at Arkansas as a startup, which is a completely different lens,” Collins said. “It’s something that will hopefully span generations, rather than from [financial] quarter to [financial] quarter.”

She has a hand in every level of the entrepreneurial system, from developing talent to placing funding sources — many times via angel investors.

Through her work with Startup Junkie and The ARK Challenge, Collins often connects startups to suitable angels, depending on the company’s fundraising status and the appetite of investor groups.

And she also invests in startups herself. She regularly attends meetings of the Natural State Angel Association, founded by Amerine; is a founding managing member of Tonic NWA Funds LLC; and is an investor with Bentonville-based NewRoad Ventures, with investments across 25 startups. 

“That has been a big deal,” Collins said, referring to her involvement with angel investing.

And it’s only the beginning.

“We’re still in the early stages of establishing an entrepreneurial ecosystem,” she said, and moving into the next stage will require working out some difficult problems.

Right now, Arkansas has a weak financial services network for entrepreneurs and a limited technical talent pool in the workforce.

Although retention of talent and access to funds have improved in recent years, there is still progress to be made.

Collins is working to increase corporate engagement, and also to improve the state’s reputation, which she says can help both attract venture capital and attract and retain talent in the area.

“I think we’ll make big strides in the perception of Arkansas, not only from outside but also from within Arkansas,” Collins said.