Entrepreneurs can take advantage of multiple resources to achieve success, leaders say

State, chamber and city leaders highlighted the various resources available to small businesses and entrepreneurs. They also discussed success stories that have been achieved.

The leaders participated in a policymaker panel Wednesday (Oct. 22) in Fayetteville as part of Right to Start’s Celebration of Entrepreneurship. The day-long event comprised 200 entrepreneurs, policymakers, and representatives from entrepreneur support organizations, as well as conversations to identify and find solutions to barriers to starting and growing a business.

Esperanza Massana-Crane, director of Small Business and Entrepreneurship Development, said she started leading this division of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission (AEDC) about two years ago and has been with the AEDC for 12 years.

When she started in the position two years ago, Massana-Crane said she didn’t know the depth of “the world of small business and entrepreneurship…even though I had been in economic development for so long. … Many times when I think of economic development, it’s usually around those large sexy announcements of Amazon coming in, Hytrol expanding, Google – and those are great because they always generate jobs. But small business entrepreneurship is also a very powerful economic development tool to propel the state, communities and so forth.”

Massana-Crane said AEDC has been investing in expanding the resources and the work that it does for small businesses and entrepreneurs. This includes hiring more staff, adding new programs and initiatives.

ADDING VALUE
Brandom Gengelbach, president and CEO of the Bentonville Area Chamber of Commerce, said its goal is to “grow and develop the economy, and we primarily do that through an association membership that we have. If you join the chamber of commerce, it is a business association… Our role is to work with our members to be able to create value. And to do that we really spend a lot of time just listening and understanding what are your needs and what are your concerns, and then how can we add value to be successful.”

The chamber hosts events allowing businesses “to be in the know and hear what’s going on. I think the most basic and the best ROI for a chamber membership is connections. So I tell people all the time when you join the chamber, just come and join and tell us who you need to meet.”

In the past four years as mayor of Pea Ridge, Nathan See said the city’s population has doubled, but the nearest population sign shows 6,559. Over the past year, the city has added 25 businesses. The daily traffic count along two-lane Arkansas Highway 72 is nearly 25,000 vehicles.

“My role is to grow the local economy,” See said. “We want people to come and invest to be a part of our community.”

He also noted the wastewater challenges in the area.

“One thing we have is…sewer. You know the story about Northwest Arkansas, but you can flush your toilet if you do an investment and develop in Pea Ridge.”

He said his role has been to create a network of people to connect with and tell the story of Pea Ridge. He’s worked for the city for 23 years. Before that, he started an embroidery business in Pea Ridge when he was a junior in high school. He sold the company in 2003 when he began working for the city.

AVAILABLE RESOURCES
Pea Ridge recently invested in an artificial intelligence (AI) system and has a new geographic information system (GIS) director. The city’s website has GIS features that allow users to view properties and show where the water and sewer infrastructure is located and how to connect with the services in a specific area.

“There’s an economic development piece in there that you can click on, and it shows you our trade area, shows you data about Pea Ridge,” See said. “That was a new tool that we did about two years ago. And I’m passionate about economic development because we have to have it.”

See noted the importance of quickly answering questions and the missed opportunities that result from waiting too long to respond.

Massana-Crane said the resources available in the state “that are completely free are amazing… The resources that are available in terms of technical assistance and support are large.”

She encouraged entrepreneurs to visit the nearest Small Business and Technology Development Center “because they will be able to provide you with technical assistance.” She also cited the website for the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Development division that provides “a number of resources that you can – if you’re bored at midnight – feel free to navigate as much as possible.”

The division invested two years ago in a partnership with the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Arkansas to launch the Arkansas Business Resource Hub, which is also on the website.

“It’s a directory of resources in the state for whatever your need is,” she said. “If you’re looking for funding for tech businesses or funding for women-owned businesses… you’ll type it up, and it’ll pull all the contact information and…all the organizations that are involved within that subject.”

The website also has a tab that lists entrepreneurship events across the state, including one next week.

“You get out what you put in,” she said. “If you want to dive into financing there’s so many tools, so many responses, so many trainings that are offered by a variety of organizations. But the tool…is designed to make the life of entrepreneurs easier and have all this information more accessible to all of you.”

Gengelbach discussed connecting entrepreneurs to resources that they might not be aware of but are already available. He said the organizations with the resources didn’t have the marketing budget to promote them.

“What we’ve realized at the chamber is our role, similar to the state’s, is to just be a clearinghouse for this,” he said. “How can we just bring everything together to help answer your questions.”

The chamber offers a small business toolkit that’s updated quarterly, which it gives “to those individuals that are wanting all the different resources,” Gengelbach said. It includes answers to questions from starting a business to getting a certificate of occupancy or business license.

SUCCESS STORIES
See said he worked with a site selector to find a property for Tractor Supply Co. After selecting a 5-acre site, the company began dirt work for a new store on the property within 90 days. The store is expected to open in late November.

“That’s a great success story for us because we could have lost that opportunity had we not had connections with people in the community that I knew personally were looking to sell but only wanted to sell for commercial property and not for residential,” See said.

Massana-Crane said ARise (Arkansas Innovators, Startups and Entrepreneurs), an AEDC-funded program for startups, brought in a decoy manufacturer to the Paragould area and connected the company with resources in northeast Arkansas. The state provided incentives to attract about 75 jobs to the area.

Another program is 75Strong that aims to train economic development leaders, community development leaders and chamber leaders in entrepreneurial development. Nearly 70 people from across the state are enrolled in the program.

Gengelbach said success for the chamber is “being able to get our small businesses and entrepreneurs in front of the individuals that they want to meet to be able to help grow and develop their companies.” The chamber staff meet with cohorts of the accelerators, such as an ongoing Fuel Accelerator. He said one startup in the accelerator is trying to transform the towing industry through technology.

“And it was as simple as connecting them with the Bentonville Police Department and also with the Benton County Sheriff’s Office,” Gengelbach said.

The startup still needs to get their business, but this was an opportunity to pitch.

Massana-Crane said the state invests $2 million annually in accelerators for various industries, including AI and machine learning, health tech, agricultural technology, lithium, maternal health tech, and cycling. She added the importance of continuing to tell the story of entrepreneurship and small businesses in the state. She also emphasized the importance of ensuring that entrepreneurship programs and initiatives support the entire state, noting the expansion of Onward FX to central Arkansas.