It’s time to get started, America

Editor’s note: Michelle Stockman is an independent consultant with her company, Fort Smith-based Msaada Group. Stockman earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University-Chicago in communications and fine arts, and earned a master’s in entrepreneurship from Western Carolina University. Her thoughts on business success appear each week on The City Wire.

On Jan. 31, the White House in conjunction with several private partnerships launched a new initiative, Start-Up America.

The goal of this new organization is to foster the birth and growth of high growth entrepreneurial companies. The partnership includes the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Case Foundation, Intel, HP, IBM, Facebook as well as several other notable contributors. The collaborative efforts will launch supporting programs, create new equity capital pools and provide new networking opportunities.

This is seemingly great news for entrepreneurship, especially if the entrepreneur lives in an area that already fosters innovation, provides research to turn ideas into reality and has the support system to turn the reality into a growing business. However, what resources are available to the entrepreneur who lives outside those start-up hubs, particularly in Arkansas?

The first step all entrepreneurs need to take is to get educated before starting the new company. Educate yourself on your product, market place, industry, regulatory laws, labor laws, accounting and more. Despite all the new start-up assistance for small businesses, many of the laws passed to protect the people from the large companies also apply to small ones too, leaving the entrepreneur to understand more information. Business owners need to understand, from every angle, what it means to open and run the business.

One of the first places to arm yourself with knowledge comes through the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Centers (ASBTDC). There are multiple locations of the ASBTDC throughout the state that offer quick seminars to one-on-one business assistance. Additionally, the ASBTDC has access to great marketing database tools to help you with learning more about your market place.

Innovate Arkansas is available to technology centered high-growth start-up businesses. Assistance is available in navigating equity fund raising issues, developing management teams, intellectual property protection and much more. Innovate Arkansas works with qualifying businesses throughout the state.

Additional resources within Arkansas include: Chambers of Commerce, community colleges, economic development organizations, as well as several community specific entrepreneurship centers. If you go beyond in-person resources, the internet has a wealth of excellent websites, blogs and advisors. Guy Kawasaki, American Express Start-up Nation, Start-up Weekend and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation are excellent internet resources to utilize.

Lastly, another great resource for business owners includes other business owners. While it may not be easy finding the right mentor for you, you can utilize the knowledge and experiences of other business owners in a number of ways. From casually talking with other business owners while standing in line at Sam’s Club to networking at business events or even seeking out a business mentor, a business owner can learn a lot by talking with others. Entrepreneurs are even encouraged to create a small advisory board with other business owners to help them learn and grow as a business leader through other’s experiences.

Learning in business is constant and evolving. It is neither a onetime event nor a static experience. Learning for your business is challenging, exhausting and never ending. It is no secret that starting, growing or maintaining any business is the hardest job you will undertake. It is much like having sextuplets even before adding the first employee. The amount of information to effectively run a small business is enormous even if you have a great accountant, lawyer and banker to help keep the business out of trouble.

Claiming ignorance is no longer a viable excuse in business ownership, because if you “don’t know” then no one else in the business will either.

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Stockman can be reached at [email protected]