Part of our Global Entrepreneurship Week celebration Nov 13-19, 2023. Speaking about small businesses, entrepreneurship and sharing rural stories Story and photos by Deb Brown I was invited to speak in Portugal by my friend and business associate Frederico Lucas. My first night in Lisbon I spoke at this event hosted at the coworking space NOW…
Part of our Global Entrepreneurship Week celebration Nov 13-19, 2023. Rural business people are trying a variety of different business models today, including pop-ups, shared buildings, businesses inside of other businesses and more. Entrepreneurs are using these smaller-scale experiments and tests to learn what works before making a huge investments. Learn how these Innovative Rural…
Part of our Global Entrepreneurship Week celebration Nov 13-19, 2023. Starting a business the old way is hard On an Idea Friendly visit to Jackson County, Kentucky, I visited with a group of artists/entrepreneurs. This group had created a loose organization called the Jackson County KY Creative Community. They wanted to start businesses, but were…
I attended the Chamber Dinner in Gowrie, Iowa and talked about small town ideas they could use. It was my pleasure to spend a couple of days there. This article talks about small town ideas for the community and by the community. Got empty buildings? Every small town has empty buildings and empty lots. Gowrie…
By Deb Brown The old way of doing business is one building, one business. What if you could test an idea and have a business inside a business? Anyone of us either knows or can find someone who is making things from their home and selling it. What if you encouraged already existing home-based businesses…
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…
by Deb Brown At least, the old way of doing them Writing a business plan is an intense project that takes up a lot of your time. You spend weeks and weeks on it, and you’re not even sure everything in it is correct. Your financial projections are just wild guesses. You’re not even open…
By Deb Brown When I was Chamber of Commerce Director in Webster City, Iowa, one of our big events was Junquefest, a three day event where vendors come to town and sell all kinds of junque. We wanted to close the streets and let the vendors park their trailers by their booths. That was…
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