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Test your business idea with small steps: starting a quilt retreat

By Becky McCray

Three quilts on display in early 2020 at Mississippi Cultural Crossroads Port Gibson Mississippi. Photo by Sheila Scarborough.

Uniontown, Washington, (population 300) has a strong base of arts, artisan and craft entrepreneurship. When I toured Uniontown, a woman spoke up who wants to start a quilt retreat, a place for people to come and quilt together. More than a local quilting bee, she’s imagining a full retreat space. She owns a historic home […]

May 7, 2024 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, failure, rural, Small Biz 100 Tagged With: building a business, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, idea friendly, service businesses, small business, startup

Refilling the rural business pipeline

By Becky McCray

Becky McCray and Deb Brown present Refilling the Business Pipeline

This is a short sample from the SaveYour.Town video “Refilling Your Business Pipeline” featuring Deb Brown and me. Small towns and rural communities will need new business startups to revitalize their local economies, but not many people have the resources today to do a startup the way it’s traditionally been done. Part of what holds […]

July 7, 2020 Filed Under: economic development, entrepreneurship, failure, mistakes, rural, success, trends Tagged With: Becky McCray, building a business, Climate, Deb Brown, economic development, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, idea friendly, Idea Friendly Method, Innovative Rural Business Models, recession, rural, SaveYourTown, small business, small business success, starting, startup, startups, take small steps, video

How Parents are Keeping Children from Becoming the Next Generation of Leaders

By Paula Jensen

A girl smiles while eating a meal at Eagle Butte, South Dakota.

  By Paula Jensen It seems I have almost always been interested in leadership.  My parents modeled leadership as I was growing up through their active roles in community, church, and school.  I joined 4-H at the age of eight, was called a “ring-leader” as an elementary student (which I don’t think this was a […]

December 28, 2019 Filed Under: community, failure, rural, youth Tagged With: guest post, kids, leadership, Paula Jensen, rural, youth

Don’t call it a failure just because it stopped

By Becky McCray

Stop sign

  I think it’s time to stop calling things a failure just because they come to an end. This comes up because I asked a friend about a project in her town that rehabbed downtown buildings. “It’s not really active anymore,” she said with more than a note of failure in her voice. Let’s check […]

October 3, 2017 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, failure, rural

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