Norfolk County, Ontario, is home to dozens of real businesses started by kids in grades 6 through 12, part of their Student Start Up project. Kids can apply with a simple “business plan” template and may receive $200 in start up funds to kick them off. This year (2018), they funded 39 student entrepreneurs….
Rural areas and small towns can tap the rising tourism trend of vacations from our phones. And new research shows ways to take advantage of the trend. Lots of rural areas already have poor cell phone reception and slow broadband, so we might as well take advantage of it, right? Philip Lovell Pearce and Li…
Any rural business owner can offer an apprenticeship Kevin Rubash is now the owner and designer at Interior Spaces which is a interior home design business in Webster City, Iowa (population 8,000). Kevin designs interiors for homes and business and sells everything from bedding to furniture to flooring and curtains. He got his first chance…
It’s the essential entrepreneurial skill that is under appreciated: knowing what not to do. In small towns, entrepreneurs tend to have more than one line of business. Some have seasonal businesses, and some just have different lines of income within their business. Where we have fewer people in our local market, it makes sense…
Recently I was reviewing the different Income Producing Activities we do at SaveYour.Town, and divided them into these three buckets. I thought the same structure might help you in reviewing your own business. The Big 3 IPA’s: Discovering, Nurturing and Delivering The 3 key income-producing areas of your business are discovering, nurturing and delivering….
Want to add a new level of interest to your downtown? Take advantage of your rooftop spaces. I was on a walk-though of the small town of Kendrick, Idaho, and a young man pointed up to the top of a one-story building and said, “I bet we could make a cool hangout spot up…
Going to conferences and events can have huge benefits for small town business people. When we’re working in our business, we feel isolated because there are so few businesses like ours. It can feel like there is no one to talk to, no one who understands what we go through. That’s why industry conferences,…
On a recent call, Janet Soto from Oregon picked out 6 themes from what I’ve written about lately that she felt were exactly what Oregon small towns most needed to hear as they work on entrepreneurship. There are positive trends for small towns. It doesn’t matter what the numbers say about us, what negative…
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