Talk Business & Politics Daily: The John James is starting something in Fayetteville edition

Thursday’s Talk Business & Politics Daily features interviews with serial entrepreneur John James of Fayetteville and Arkansas Economic Development Commission director Mike Preston.

James, whose Hayseed Ventures is working with a number of startups and early stage companies, says he’s been busy over the last year and a half.

“We have 12 companies in 15 months. We started off by moving a couple of companies. We moved a tuxedo rental company, Menguin, from Atlanta and Dallas to here, and then we did another partnership with a group out of Little Rock. And for the most part, the next 10 deals we’ve done have all been helping companies get off the ground and starting them from scratch internally in the Old Post Office [on the Fayetteville Square].”

James says he’s not finding any shortage of people wanting to come his way for advice.

“No problem in that all,” he grins. “A lot of intelligent people walk through the doors here and we just hope to have time to, you know, to pursue all the really good opportunities that have come in here. The only thing we are missing is some capital to work these things in the state today.”

You can read more about John James’ incredible journey in this feature story from Talk Business & Politics earlier this year.

OFF TO CHINA
AEDC director Mike Preston, Gov. Asa Hutchinson and other leaders from Arkansas are heading back to China next month. What are Preston’s expectations?

“China is a huge country,” he said. “If you’re not there then you are not going to progress or bring the jobs over here, bring the investments, so it’s important for us to go back.”

“It was about a year ago last year when we went and worked on the deal with Sun Paper. We are looking forward to going back this year and working with more companies,” Preston added. “Ever since the Sun Paper announcement, we have had a lot of interest in Arkansas. So we are getting ready to go back and see if we can work some of these deals, bring more investment back with us, bring some more jobs back to Arkansas.”

Catch today’s daily digital edition as well as our Top Stories of the day and a recap of the Presidential poll numbers from the latest TB&P-Hendrix College poll.