By Becky McCray
Major contributors: Deb Brown, Andrew Button

Entrepreneurship has proven to be one of the most effective ways to build prosperity in rural areas. Entrepreneurs and small business owners return more of what they earn to their communities directly and indirectly, and they help to build social capital. 

Programs to support budding entrepreneurs can be extraordinarily effective. They can also be extremely draining to maintain in rural areas. Mashup Lab, SmallBizSurvival.com and SaveYour.Town created this report to share insights into creating and running entrepreneurial programs more easily and effectively. It is based on our own work and programs that we’ve learned about across the US, Canada and Australia. 

This report is for you if you: 

• Are considering starting a program to support rural entrepreneurs
• Currently have a rural entrepreneurship program 
• Influence entrepreneurial programs in many rural communities
• Provide funding or guidance for rural entrepreneurship programs

What you’ll get from this report:

• Practical ideas and takeaways to shape a more effective program
• Specific ways to uncover and meet rural entrepreneurs’ needs 
• Insights to identify and address the shortcomings and issues with existing programs
• Compelling first-hand evidence of what works in rural places right now
• Steps to simplify any existing program to focus on the most effective elements

Who we are

When Andrew Button, Deb Brown and Becky McCray first met in person, we started talking about what rural entrepreneurs really need. Not what most experts say they need like business plans and pitch competitions. And not what the entrepreneurs themselves might say, like asking for help getting a loan when really they have a marketing problem. 

Our conversation wasn’t based on speculation. Andrew has worked with nearly 3,000 aspiring entrepreneurs throughout rural North America since 2016. Deb worked directly with local businesses to revitalize a small town and has since worked with dozens of small communities across the US and Canada. Becky collected and published feedback from almost 1,000 rural and small town business people with a landmark series of surveys and has written about rural entrepreneurship online since 2006. We’re all entrepreneurs ourselves, and we realized we had some important insights to share. 

Here are those insights. 

7 Insights to support and develop more entrepreneurs in rural communities 

• When more people try their business ideas and dreams, rural communities get the most benefits.  
• More people will try their business ideas when they receive more support much earlier 
• Different people need different types of support.
• Seeking funding calls for expert help, and only some businesses need to seek funding. 
• More potential entrepreneurs will be able to take advantage of training or support if it is designed to cut down barriers that keep them out.
• More entrepreneurs will be able to try, start or expand their business ideas when they can grow through multiple small steps.
• Existing businesses and entrepreneurs can best support each other.

Definition of “entrepreneur”

A quick word about wording. We use the terms “entrepreneur” and “startup” in their most local sense. We also use “small business owner” with the same local meaning. Venture entrepreneurship, high-growth launches and scalable startups are not our focus in this report. 

Work in progress

This page is a work in progress. Some parts aren’t as filled out as we would like. We’re not letting that stop us from presenting the useful parts that are ready now.

If you have input, stories, suggestions or corrections, please leave us a comment or use the SaveYour.Town contact form to share with us.

Insight: When more people start or try their business ideas, rural communities get the most benefits 

If our goal is to only have successful entrepreneurs and not have any failures, one way to do that is to discourage as many potential entrepreneurs as possible. The more barriers we can put in their way, the more we’ll weed out weaker ideas or people. We would have fewer failures. 

That’s an approach used by more than a few economic development and chamber of commerce people we know. They actively discourage people from trying their businesses when they think the business will likely fail. 

There are a couple of potential downsides to that approach. First, they risk suppressing potential successes. Not every successful business looked promising at the start. We’re all fallible human beings, and we can be wrong about someone else’s idea. Second, the community will also miss out on the benefits of people trying business ideas even if they don’t succeed. When people try their business ideas, the attempt generates positive ripple effects through the community, regardless of whether they reach any conventional measure of success.

Small steps, small successes, small failures

Rather than try to stop every unpromising attempt, another option is to help make the attempts small so any potential failure will be small. If an entrepreneur invests a few hundred dollars to try their business idea with a booth in a holiday market and fails, that’s a small effect on their finances and motivation. If an entrepreneur invests tens of thousands in startup costs then fails in the first big step, that’s an enormous price to pay.  

Entrepreneurs and their families benefit 

When they try their idea, they learn more about whether it will work, how it might work, and maybe what won’t work at this time. 

Failure can lead towards success

“Entrepreneurs will fail. That’s how entrepreneurs learn,” Betsy Kramer, a Pennsylvania economic developer said. 

As entrepreneurs ourselves, we’ve failed as well as succeeded, and that’s how we’ve learned. Even failures can be a positive thing for the entrepreneur. They learned what didn’t work, and they may be more motivated to succeed another time or with another idea. 

Too much success can be a failure

Natonya’s first love is making food for people she cares about. No one was surprised when that led her to open a restaurant in downtown Gulfport, Mississippi. She hired people she knew well as staff and created an atmosphere of belonging. People loved her restaurant because it felt like eating with family. Her food and the atmosphere was so good that a second location became a possibility. She jumped at the chance, and her workload was doubled. 

Her second love is her community: helping others get started in business, supporting her community by adding more businesses and giving people a chance to follow their dreams. She held workshops on how to start your own business. She then made herself available for the tons of questions her students had. She helped others get started in business with encouragement, answers and funds, when possible. 

One night she realized the workload and helping others meant she had stopped doing the things she loved and was neglecting her family. Her sleep was suffering, as was her health. The finances were not at the place she needed them to be. Natonya had a decision to make.

She closed her restaurant. Then she took some time off to get back to herself again and what she loved to do. Natonya had enough failure to know what it was she wanted to do and how to do it. 

Natonya has a catering business now. She found a love for gardening and using the products in her catering business. She is cooking the things she loves to cook. 

She’s still helping other businesses get started, but now it’s through paid coaching that adds extra revenue to her checking account. Through failure, she found what she was capable of and how to hold people accountable for their actions. It is their business, and they have to take responsibility for it. 

If they succeed, they have a chance to build their prosperity and their family’s well being. 

Entrepreneurs see themselves differently 

Trying a business idea can help someone see themselves in a new way. That’s why Mashup Lab builds their entrepreneur support courses with multiple chances for people to share their ideas with others. They build their “pitch” in small steps throughout the course. They practice saying it out loud. The more times they say, “I’m starting a business that does this,” they redefine their identity. They are growing as people. 

Friends and families see them 

Their families, friends and neighbors are watching, too. They may also be helping in the business. This observation or involvement may change their thinking, sometimes in dramatic ways. 

Tracy Bell, a friend of Andrew’s, owns an innovative tea company. Her son, Lincoln, was watching his mom building her company and decided to give entrepreneurship a try on his own. When he saw a weather news story about the loss of bees around the world, he started learning all about bees. Then he saw a fellow beekeeper just giving away honey, and Lincoln asked if he could sell it. He was thinking entrepreneurially because he was seeing entrepreneurship. It takes several years and cooperative winter weather to keep hives going for a honey harvest in New Brunswick, Canada, so Lincoln started by harvesting the beeswax. He made products like solid perfume and dog paw balm. His love of bees is still growing, and so is his young business. 

Seeing a positive future

“If you don’t think you’ll live very long, you won’t plan for it,” Dr. Dawn Baldwin Gibson said, speaking at the North Carolina Rural Conference in 2022. 

This is one reason it matters when kids can see their parents running a business and planning for their own future. That helps kids start to see themselves in the future, she said.  

This can be hard to understand for people who haven’t had to grow up in a situation that felt like they may not get to grow up at all. But poverty, violence and lack of opportunity are everyday reality for many rural people. It’s astonishing to think of the difference it can make for people to see a possible future for themselves. 

The community mindset benefits 

When multiple entrepreneurs try their ideas, see themselves differently and change how their family and friends think, it adds up. As more people in the community are thinking and acting differently, it starts to create a culture shift. 

Andrew said, “The ripple effects felt in a person’s life and in the rural places they call ‘home’ when we boost their confidence and courage to pursue their hopes and dreams is (in my opinion) where the real, lasting, generational impact happens.”

Commerce builds community mindset

Doing business with each other builds stronger community ties. People build and rebuild social capital while chatting over a purchase in local businesses. Those tiny conversations strengthen community ties. 

On a deeper level, selling something requires entrepreneurs to think about other people and what they will like or might buy. That is thinking about another person’s perspective. That’s empathy, a valuable social skill. 

Shifting from ‘factory jobs’ mindset to entrepreneurship

Up until the 2000s, Webster City, Iowa (population 8,000), considered itself a company town. The local economy was anchored by a manufacturer that had been there for over a century. 

“We knew we could graduate high school, walk across the street to the factory and get hired,” local resident Jeff Pingel told Deb. 

Then new corporate owners announced in 2009 that the factory would be closing in two years. Locals worried where they would get jobs without the factory. Local businesses that relied on the factory couldn’t find new customers. Restaurants no longer had a lunch crowd. Downtown buildings started going up for sale, with no buyers in sight. 

Deb Brown was hired as the new Chamber of Commerce director in 2013. As an outsider, she saw possibilities for the people and buildings of Webster City. One month after she started, the Chamber hosted the Tour of Empty Buildings to showcase 12 potential business locations. 

Sharing possibilities helped to change people’s attitudes. Some people had family members that lived out of town. What if they moved home and started a business? What if former factory workers could be entrepreneurs? What if people started their own businesses? 

In 18 months, 10 of the 12 buildings were filled with new local businesses, businesses that expanded and some that relocated from other towns. To support potential entrepreneurs, building owners Connie and Ron Gilbert offered reduced rent to potential local entrepreneurs. The Chamber and others provided more support with marketing and planning. 

The mindset of local people shifted from relying on the factory to relying on themselves. By 2016, their efforts paid off as employment levels in the county recovered to pre-closure levels.  

Entrepreneurship mindset helps retain young people

In Forest County, Pennsylvania, Becky and Deb noticed the lack of entrepreneurial culture, with many potential business needs going unfilled. An entrepreneurial member of the industrial authority board told Becky and Deb this attitude may go back to the heavy industry jobs that used to be there. The prevailing view was to find a good job, and it would take care of you. As the industry declined and those “good jobs” left, people encouraged their kids to get an education and get out. Probably a lot of towns have had a similar pattern. 

Sending your kids away makes sense if you think your town has no future. 

Forest County is now supporting entrepreneurship training for students in the schools. They also brought Becky and Deb to the county to teach students ways to start their own business ideas with smaller steps. These are just two of many small steps they are taking to change mindsets. 

Entrepreneurial energy

More entrepreneurial activity makes a community more attractive as a place to live and do business. You may have heard people describe a town with “there is just an ‘energy’ here that is really appealing.” This feeling is backed up by research by Charles Tolbert and others linking rural entrepreneurial activity with economic growth, leveraging local resources and improving social capital.

Starting an entrepreneur support program won’t change that energy right away, Andrew said. Sometimes it can take years for it to show up.

Andrew offered Lunenburg, Nova Scotia (pop. 2,200), as an example of a place with strong entrepreneurial energy. Lunenburg mixes its history and tradition with entrepreneurship and innovation. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, where Bluenose (the schooner that is on the Canadian dime) was built. It is also home to innovators like HB Studios, where they create video games for EA Sports, and the Veer Group, where they are designing wind plus hydrogen-powered container ships.

Takeaway: Design for tries. 

Design programs to maximize the number of people who take small steps toward their business idea without trying to judge business ideas or discourage some people. 

One way to encourage people to try is to offer small places to make a first step. There are several examples of small spaces under the sixth Insight: More entrepreneurs will be able to try, start or expand their business ideas when they can grow through multiple small steps. 

Avoid: Pitch or plan competitions reward people who are good at pitching or planning. 

Competitions feel like an efficient way to support potential entrepreneurs because they focus all the benefits on the one or few people most likely to succeed. But how do you really know who will succeed? For all their caution, well-trained loan officers will admit they sometimes back businesses that fail even with extensive documentation. Venture capitalists back businesses that fail almost a third of the time. 

If you must hold a competition, instead of aiming for efficiency, shoot for effectiveness with these suggestions: 

Take the judging from a few selected judges and turn it over to the crowd. Add a pop-up event where all the entrepreneur contestants can test out their ideas for a short try. Let the people vote with their money. The ultimate judgment of whether a business will succeed belongs to the customers. 

Spread the prizes out to a lot more than just one winner. Have a year’s worth of free rent? Don’t award the full year to one winner. Award two months each to 6 contestants. Split up your big prize package of services, too.

Have judges match up each person with the resources, opportunities to test, and services that will best help them succeed. Divide the prizes and awards among the entrepreneurs. Give the marketing help to the one who has a promising start but just needs to reach more people. Give the prize of business counseling to the one who has never been in business before and is likely to have more problems that they aren’t sure how to deal with. 

A reimagined competition like this will be more effective by backing all the competitors rather than backing only one. It will also be more effective by matching the services to the startups that need them. 

Insight: More people will try their business ideas when they receive more support much earlier. 

There are a lot of people on the sidelines in rural places, people who could start a business but don’t or haven’t yet. 

Starting a business used to be harder

“Everyone knows” it takes a lot of time, money and work just to get into business. Entrepreneurs need to have all their ducks in a row. They need to have great credit, plentiful financial resources, good social connections, be clean and sober, have strong business skills, no criminal record and a solid support network. 

Think about rural communities; how many people really have all those qualifications? Only a few people have a fair chance at success.  

Today there are many more options than the way “everyone knows” how to go into business. Rural people can now start with a tiny experiment, a temporary business at an event, working together in a shared space like coworking, or traveling with a business in a truck or trailer. Technology lets them access services that were never available to small businesses before. Automation and smart apps let people leverage technology to eliminate a lot of the drudge work and supplement their skills.

These small steps don’t require all those qualifications. Each small step only requires a few. Instead of getting all their ducks in a row, today if someone can get one proverbial duck, then they can get started with small steps.

Easier business starts means more potential entrepreneurs

When you cut the amount of time and money needed to get started, you’re spreading economic opportunity to more people. You’ll put people in a much better position to succeed or to fail in a manageable way. 

The really messy part is BEFORE the start of a business. This is also the part that needs the most attention if you’re looking for a successful start for the entrepreneur. There’s not a lot out there for them. 

The pre-start process for building a business looks like: 

• Curiosity
• Passion
• Idea generation
• Idea exploration – now actually approaching maybe just about getting started 
• Idea validation may send you right back to the beginning
• Then viability, then launch, growth, scale, and all the rest of the well-documented and well-supported processes

Disconnect between potential entrepreneurs and existing entrepreneur support 

Many people won’t take advantage of current entrepreneur support because they think they aren’t “a real business.” 

They say or think things like “I’m not a real business; they aren’t talking about me.” 

They even say it when they are making some sales already.

Look at how one potential entrepreneur training in rural Oklahoma was described. The topics focused on business plan writing and legal entity formation. The outline was full of jargon like “Owner’s Equity” and “Calculating Revenue to Break-Even.” 

That’s not the language that will attract everyday people with small business dreams. Those topics are not what people are looking for until they are well past the idea stage, and maybe not even then. No wonder people don’t identify themselves as “qualified” for that training and then miss out on opportunities. 

Takeaway: 

Tailor support to start earlier in the process, well before forming an entity, opening a business or even asking for help. 

The Dream Business Program from Mashup Lab is designed to take prospective rural entrepreneurs off the sidelines by helping participants figure out which pieces are necessary for their businesses to succeed and grow.

Like more traditional programs, sessions run for a defined time: 1.5 hours, once a week, over six weeks. Unlike other programs, it’s not a series of predefined lectures. It combines expert guidance, mentorship, tailored resources and networking opportunities to provide a holistic approach to entrepreneurship development.

To start with, Mashup Lab intentionally has no specific requirements or credentials to join. Anyone with a business idea or an early-stage startup is welcomed. 

The program also stands out with a comprehensive support system. Through the Mashup Community, participants can connect with like-minded individuals, share experiences, seek advice, collaborate on projects, and expand their professional network.

The program mentors tailor resources, toolkits, and educational materials to enhance business knowledge and skills. They provide personalized feedback and guidance on  business ideas and plans to help participants refine and strengthen them.

Beyond business skills, the program also focuses on personal growth, fostering confidence, resilience, and a growth mindset. For rural residents who may not be raised with these personal attributes, this training can be highly valuable. 

Support continues after the program ends, with access to alumni resources and continued networking opportunities with previous participants.

While that’s a lot more work than adopting a pre-written outline, the results are worth it, Andrew said. 

Cut down barriers to receiving support

Think through the entire process of receiving support from your program. Make it approachable and simple. 

How much information do you really need up front? Make the application short. Maybe it’s enough to get a name and contact phone or email before the program. More information can be collected in person, if it’s needed. 

Make it easy for people to qualify. Remove as many pre-qualification rules as possible. Don’t ask for people to do a lot of work before they even find out if the program is actually helpful. 

Reach out to people before the startup stage.

Use broad terms to describe this “before the start” support. 

Position your program as open to people who haven’t started yet. Every part of your program’s positioning, language, invitation and messaging either attracts people or pushes them away. Calling something “dream stage” or “potential business” draws more pre-startup people than words like incubator, accelerator, startup or entrepreneur. 

“Before the start” includes people with talents they aren’t using in their primary jobs, who want to go into business “someday” and who are thinking of starting a retirement business. 

Where to find more potential entrepreneurs in person 

Start by looking around in person in the community. 

• Look at the booths at events. Who seems to be new, or trying a new idea?
• Look in the beauty salons. Lots of budding arts entrepreneurs or craftspeople display merchandise on the counter.
• Look in other stores in town for locally-made items. Who has a few items for sale, maybe handmade? 
• Look in the hands-on classes in high school and technical schools. Do they weld porch swings in welding class? Are ag students selling baby chicks or bedding plants? Those students are potential entrepreneurs.
• Look in youth education groups with entrepreneurship components, including DECA and 4 H Clubs. Others have all kinds of names, including SSUP (Student Start Up), TREP$ (The Real Entrepreneurial Project$), CEO (Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities) and Lemonade Day. That means you have to ask more questions of more people and watch for mentions of programs with unusual names. 

In rural communities, networking and word of mouth often beat flyers and ads. Networking just means asking around. Ask the librarians. Ask faith leaders. Ask the chamber. Ask stylists and barbers. Rural people tell their entrepreneurial dreams to all sorts of people.

Meet Mary and her informal local events email. Mashup Lab once received 12 applications from potential entrepreneurs from the small pool of 100 year-round residents of Meat Cove, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. That’s an astounding number. When asked how they heard about it, they all said, “I saw it in Mary’s email.” Turns out that Mary is a 70+ year old resident who sends out a regular email that she fills with local events. Mary didn’t have a title or position in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. She didn’t show up on any official resource map. What she had was the trust and attention of the people in the community.

The only way to find these local resources is by starting a lot of conversations with local people. 

Where to find more potential entrepreneurs online 

Networking also includes starting conversations online. People already doing business online likely know more people just getting started or with the potential to start. It can be as simple as posting on Facebook and asking questions related to the target group for the program. 

• Who has an online side gig?
• Who knows of artists, artisans or crafters? 
• Where can I buy local produce, eggs, and so on?  

Facebook local “swap” or “buy/sell” groups can be a great place to look and ask about other potential entrepreneurs. They often include makers, resellers and personal services. 

Online commerce sites let you search for online sellers. Some even let you search by location. Try searching Etsy with the common keyword “gift” and then filter by location. Try neighboring communities as well. 

While the specific sites are always changing, here are some broad examples. 

• Any type of local business may use online stores like Amazon, eBay and Shopify.
• Handmade items, makers and tiny manufacturers may be on Etsy, IndieCart, Artisans Cooperative or Handmade by Amazon. 
• Artists use Cafe Press, Deviant Art and Society6 for art prints and other custom printed items. Even more options include platforms like Redbubble, Printful, and Teespring
• Freelance professionals are listed on Upwork, Fiverr and crowdSPRING.  
• Independent local authors and photographers may sell in the bookstores from Lulu and Blurb. 
• Check for local makers on Kickstarter and Indiegogo.  
• Any business may crowdfund on sites like Kiva and The Local Crowd.

Insight: Different people need different types of support.

Traditional entrepreneur training takes all different kinds of people and assumes they all need the same basic knowledge in the same format at the same time. 

Programs don’t have to squash a bunch of people with widely different needs into a single training curriculum.

One small city in West Virginia had trouble finding enough entrepreneurs to fill their quarterly entrepreneur pitch event. The organizers spoke to lots of local entrepreneurs, but most said they weren’t ready to pitch. 

To find out what was holding people back, they ran a survey and found that the potential entrepreneurs mentioned lots of different things they needed to know in order to move forward. Some were unsure about legal filings, others about banking, others about marketing, and some about managing their cash. To address these needs, the group chose to offer a standardized 10-week entrepreneurship course. None of the potential entrepreneurs needed all of the course, but the course covered most of the topics that were mentioned in the survey. 

Since the potential entrepreneurs all had different learning needs, is it possible that they would have been better served with short-term individual coaching rather than all being put through the same standardized multi-week course? How many people are not able to commit the time to complete a multi-week course? Or don’t learn well in classroom settings? 

Groups can be customized

When training is done in a group, that doesn’t mean the same information and support have to be offered to the whole group. Mashup Lab entrepreneurship trainers are taught how to choose the right information to present and make it relevant to each person, their situation and understanding. 

Picking only high-potential entrepreneurs misses rural opportunities

Organizations that serve large territories with multiple rural communities sometimes select only the highest-growth potential businesses to assist. Some state- or territory-wide programs will look across their region to find the most promising investments in innovation-led businesses and second stage startups. That seems like the most efficient opportunity for the outside group, the one that maximizes return on the expense invested. 

In Becky’s experience, organizations are eager to assist these few chosen businesses because of their potential for growth. These entrepreneurs benefit from all the assistance and the continuing referrals to additional organizations. 

For small groups assisting their local rural community, this approach of focusing on the high potential businesses is inefficient because each small town may only have a few high-potential businesses, or none. But every small town has crafters, artisans, tinkerers, and so many more potential low-growth entrepreneurs. It’s more efficient for local programs not to spend time judging each startup’s potential. The efficient local choice is to pull down barriers so more people can try their idea. Rather than focusing their resources on the judging, they can focus their resources on the people and the barriers that keep people from even trying. 

Takeaway: Offer entrepreneurs choices and let them pick the support they need. 

Reflecting on experience teaches more than listening to lectures

Research shows that adults learn by reflecting on their experiences. 

The experience of trying their business ideas in pop ups, tiny tests and temporary booths can give those entrepreneurs something meaningful to reflect on and learn from. 

Some programs combine hands-on experience with in-person learning. It can be a weeks-long course that includes a concluding pop-up business night. Other savvy programs look for people already trying their ideas in group settings, like booths at events, small retail displays or consignments inside of stores, or students at a farmers market. Once they find them, they can have individual conversations to find and fill any gaps in their business skills. 

A good start: Entrepreneur Day presentations 

Becky and her friends pulled down some barriers when they brought experts out to support entrepreneurs in Northwest Oklahoma. They held more than one event in more than one town. They helped people mix across groups, chose locations in physically accessible buildings, and set up informal networking time for entrepreneurs to speak with experts from around the state.

Turnout was pretty good, but that format put a lot of unnecessary barriers in the entrepreneurs’ way. Potential entrepreneurs needed to be available during business hours on a weekday, be physically able to sit through a multi-hour event, understand lectures on business mostly presented in college-level English, and then figure out what information was relevant to them. 

An improvement: Buffet style support 

Rather than one standardized curriculum for all, a better option is to offer people a buffet of support, especially in an informal or lower-pressure setting. 

One low-pressure entrepreneur support event was called EntreBASH. Deb helped with the one held in Webster City, Iowa. They also repeated their event several times in several towns and featured a successful entrepreneur to share their story. They went further to make it flexible and low-pressure. It was designed to provide possible resources for entrepreneurs to select just the ones they needed. 

Round tables were set up with a resource person at each table. Some of the resource people were a lawyer, accountant, and marketer, along with representatives from the Small Business Development Center, state tax agency, and the university. Potential entrepreneurs could visit the tables related to the help they felt they needed. In these individual conversations, they explained their challenge and received help or a referral to a more helpful resource person. 

No one had to listen to a series of lectures that may have very little to do with their idea or challenge. No one had to stay the full time unless they wanted to. 

A young Hispanic couple who wanted to open a greenhouse business attended EntreBASH. Their parents had a produce farm and they wanted to bring that produce into a brick and mortar setting. This couple had already tried some small steps like selling seasonal flowers in pop ups. The representative from the Small Business Development Center was very helpful in getting them ready for their next steps.

By choosing an evening time, far more potential entrepreneurs could attend. It was informal, with no presentations to sit through. For those with language or learning barriers, an individual conversation can be easier to follow.

Create supportive networks for more experienced entrepreneurs

Offer different options to people with dreams than people who have already started a business.

Experienced people need different support: they don’t need that old school 10 week training. They already know how to find those basics. They need practical advice from people who are doing it now. They need a network of people who can answer their questions, bounce their ideas off and even to try their product.

Alena Jennings said people call her The Doodle Lady because she runs The Doodle Academy, an art experience education business in downtown Ponca City, Oklahoma. Alena has connected with several other women who have retail arts- and event-based businesses downtown. They started a text or message group to share with each other about books they’re reading, things they’re learning, events they’re doing, and other ideas they can share. 

Deb was part of an informal group in Hampton, Iowa, that included her as a marketer, several gift shops, a flower shop and a winery owner. They met in person at the winery. They got together quarterly to discuss ideas, marketing strategies and drink wine. They also welcomed anyone who wanted to pop in and owned a business. Their markets were similar enough to create collaborations and make referrals. 

Coming up: Learn more customization tips below

More in the insight: More potential entrepreneurs will be able to take advantage of your training, events or support when you cut down barriers that hold them back.

Takeaway: Offer special support for people with disabilities, youth, Indigenous, Latino or Black entrepreneurs, and other people in your community.

“It’s in everyone’s best interest for the whole community to thrive,” economic development expert Dell Gines said. 

Even in small towns, not everyone has a fair chance to thrive. Not everyone experiences the same barriers to trying their business ideas. Some people have fewer financial resources or face discrimination. 

Tailoring entrepreneurship programs to specific audiences might be labeled as a duplication of effort or inefficient. Quick reminder that efficiency is not the goal. Community prosperity is the goal. 

Every rural community includes diverse people. 

Some rural places have a clearly diverse population, maybe the majority of the people. Other rural people have told Deb something like, “We don’t really have diversity,” thinking only about race or ethnicity. It is true that some rural regions are predominantly or nearly exclusively White. But rural people are different in more ways than race, and different people will need different support. 

Rural people might be dealing with some higher barriers to economic success for various reasons.  

• People who are in poverty, or just on the edge financially
• People who haven’t completed formal education
• People with disabilities, health challenges or addiction issues
• People with neurodiversity, learning disabilities or language challenges
• People with criminal and drug convictions 
• People who served or are serving in the military
• Women
• People of different genders, sexes or sexuality
• People who moved into their current community, especially those who grew up in a different country 
• People who live in remote or hard to access areas
• Older people and younger people 

And yes, rural places have people of diverse race and ethnicity. 

• Hispanic people, Latinos and Latinas
• Native, Aboriginal and Indigenous People, First Nations 
• Black people
• People of Asian heritage or ethnicity
• People of color, the whole spectrum of human colors, races and ethnicity

Thinking of all these different groups–and more that we didn’t name–of course rural communities are diverse. On the Survey of Rural Challenges, rural people said that the makeup of their communities included these types of diversity and more.  

There is no way all these different people with different experiences are going to have the same ability to get a loan, buy a building, or find someone to help them with their business accounting. 

For example, there’s: 

• Having access to loans or even banking services
• Knowing the business culture, all the rules and processes 
• Passing a background check
• Getting a business or professional license 
• Navigating regulatory inspections or reviews
• Finding professional help in a language they speak comfortably
• Having connections, knowing the right people
• Being able to understand and fill out forms
• Having access to fast, reliable internet 

It’s hard to realize what all the barriers could be, because they’re different for different groups of people. 

That’s why the capacity to serve one group in the community doesn’t necessarily translate into effectiveness with other groups, Andrew Dumont from the US Federal Reserve said. 

Youth

In micropolitan Norfolk County, Ontario, they cut down the barriers to entry for young people learning entrepreneurship skills. Rather than ask rural students to drive to town or find a ride to attend training sessions, they support kids to start businesses where they are. During the summer, kids in grades 6 – 12 can apply for a small amount of seed money to start a real business. They submit a very simple explanation of what business they want to start, following an elementary-level “business plan” template. Then kids run their businesses all summer. Instead of a pitch competition, Norfolk County holds a special marketplace event, where the young entrepreneurs can feature their businesses in booths and displays. At the end of the summer, kids can earn a small cash bonus by turning in a final report that looks a lot like a simple profit and loss statement. They’ve cut down barriers to entry around transportation, literacy levels and making pitches.

 In Miller South Dakota, a group of high school kids used our “businesses in sheds” idea for a temporary event, and did pop-up businesses just for the holiday festival and called it Cozy Cabin Christmas. They convinced a storage shed retailer to play host to four temporary businesses during their community’s month-long Christmas on the Prairie celebration. Several of the businesses were started by the students themselves. Three new businesses formed from that first event, including one run by a photographer who was in Seventh Grade. 

Disability 

About one-third of adults in rural communities in the US live with a disability, and many have more than one form of disability. People with disabilities have higher rates of self-employment and entrepreneurship than people without disabilities, according to the National Disability Institute. 

How many rural entrepreneurship support programs consider or adapt to accommodate people with disabilities? 

MashUp Lab ran a special session of their Dream Business Program specifically for Entrepreneurs with Disabilities in cooperation with the Entrepreneurs with Disabilities Program and the Community Futures Network of Alberta.

Takeaway: Business culture and knowledge

When Deb was a Chamber of Commerce director in Webster City, Iowa, (population 8,000) she talked with a wide variety of people who owned businesses and were entrepreneurs. Several times, she found someone that didn’t know the business culture, and it was holding them back from succeeding. The business owner from a beloved Mexican restaurant wanted to buy her building from its owner. She didn’t know if she could talk to him directly or what the process is for buying a building in this town. Deb helped her understand the culture and how to get started. 

Another time, the owners of a new taco place weren’t sure how to do the proper paperwork for federal, state and sales taxes. Before they got into trouble, Deb helped them find a translator who knew the legal ins and outs as well as their language. 

The Chamber of Commerce held many outdoor events, and food pop ups were a big part of them. The Iowa state food department has some lengthy requirements around cooking and serving food in a pop up. The Laotian women who sold egg rolls didn’t know what those regulations were, so the Chamber worked with them to help them get in compliance. The Chamber also talked to the owner of every food pop up, regardless of culture. Turns out, many people didn’t know the regulations! 

Indigenous, First Nations, Native and American Indian entrepreneurs 

When supporting entrepreneurs who are Indigenous, First Nations, Native and American Indian, relationships and respect come first. 

Becky has learned from Native people in Oklahoma that native sovereignty is a key issue. Beyond ensuring tribal self-governance and national status, respecting people’s sovereignty means not making decisions for them or including them in plans they did not have a say in. 

When Deb worked with a multi-county group in southeast Montana, she found over and over that it’s best to ask people, and let them tell you what is important to them. The group was working to build community ties across the area and found out that the historic Bozeman Trail goes through all 5 counties and Crow tribal lands. It seemed like a perfect project to involve everyone. Before the group jumped to the conclusion that the Crow people would agree, they decided to ask, “Does this trail have meaning to you?” Crow historian Howard Boggess said yes, and he shared that although the trail was named for Bozeman, an emigrant from Georgia, it was a travel corridor for centuries for the Native Americans. 

Property ownership and financial barriers

Did you know that some Native, Indigenous and First Nations people can face legal and financial barriers because of property ownership rules? In some places in the US, Native land ownership is completely different from private real estate. That means some Indigenous entrepreneurs have no chance to borrow against land to fund a business. But many entrepreneur funding rules still expect real estate as collateral. 

Adapting entrepreneurship support to better serve the Mi’kmaq

Andrew and Mashup Lab teamed up with Unama’ki College at Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia to present a youth entrepreneurship program. In the spirit of ‘Two Eyed’ seeing, the people of Mashup Lab and Unama’ki College co-designed the project. A local Indigenous entrepreneur co-facilitated the program along with Mashup Lab staff. 

“The format and structure is very similar,” Andrew said, “but the delivery and facilitation is significantly different.” 

The program places more emphasis on verbal storytelling, more local guest speakers and sharing oral history. 

Some Mi’kmaq told Andrew there isn’t a word or concept of entrepreneurship in Mi’kmaq culture, and it may feel wrong to write out a business plan. To adapt, this program used real and local examples, such as people who sell firewood. Other examples focused on people who make traditional arts or who trade with each other. 

Another cultural difference was around values. Accumulating wealth for yourself is considered wrong and not aligned with Mi’kmaq values. The program highlighted ways to align business with the values that matter to them. Entrepreneurs don’t have to just accumulate money, similar to B Corporations, triple bottom lines, or social entrepreneurship.  

Entrepreneurs connect to more entrepreneurs

One entrepreneur may serve as a connection point to others. Rose Williamson of the Crow Reservation in Montana started her beaded jewelry business from her home. Then she expanded into making clothing. She sells her jewelry, clothing and beadwork at pop ups, at events around the state, and online. Because Rose is fairly well known now, she gets a lot of invitations to participate in events and showings. Rose often reaches out to other, less well-known artists in her community to come with her and exhibit their art at these events.

Example: Podcast

Jan McKay is an Indigenous entrepreneur who created heirloom audio recordings that Andrew worked with. Jan would capture audio recordings of elders, family members and people in the community telling stories or sharing memories. Then Jan would edit them to create a personal podcast. This started as a hobby. During a Mashup Lab training, Jan learned ways to develop a business model and a scalable opportunity. Then the team mentored her through making her own choice whether to stay small or grow. 

Takeaway: Listen to people in the specific community you are serving. 

Expect differences between and also within Nations or Tribes. Even neighboring communities have different cultures. 

Be flexible with delivery and facilitation to better match what works for this community. That may include things like more emphasis on verbal storytelling, more local guest speakers, oral history. 

Bring in co-facilitators from the local community.  

Hold up real and local examples from this community. 

Plan for entrepreneurs to refer others and make it easy for them. 

Latino, Latina and Hispanic entrepreneurs 

Prospera is a Hispanic small business support organization that works in several US states. Their representative José Alvarez shared that issues holding Latinos back include:

• Linguistic and cultural challenges
• Lack of trust
• Access to short and long-term financial capital
• Access to direct government assistance and markets
• Lack of training
• Confusing tax structure
• Inability to maintain accurate accounting

Practical steps

Alvarez offered these suggestions:

Educate and inform about how and why the Latino/Hispanic community fits in the ecosystem:

• Community leaders, elected officials and decision makers.
• Hispanic community itself.

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Create collaboration efforts that make sense.

Empathy and flexibility

Cultural competency among stakeholders, officers, program managers

Targeted investment in tailored programs and resources.

Alvarez said it is common in Latino culture for one entrepreneur to connect with and extend opportunities to more people from their community. We’ve each seen this dynamic at work, and Deb shared these examples, below, from her time as a Chamber of Commerce director. 

One success connects to more

Diana Castro started a business in Webster City, Iowa, by taking advantage of a reduced rent incubator program. Diana and her team carried youth clothing, shoes, hats and caps and miscellaneous Chicano and Hispanic-labeled products in the incubator space. 

They did well and went on to purchase a larger building in the same block. They expanded their lines and opened up a couple of spaces in the building for others to try their ideas out. One of the most successful spaces that her daughter Laura opened was a small ice cream shop with frozen treats and drinks. They went on to add simple Mexican food for lunch. Diana’s husband is rehabbing other empty spaces in the building’s first floor. Eventually they will fix the second floor for possible housing. 

Diana’s success caused an influx of biz. Two doors down another Hispanic local opened up a small grocery store, El Mercadito Tienda Mexicana. They found out they didn’t need a large inventory of food so they shrunk the food footprint and added other items like bedding. 

A young barber, Eddie, from a neighboring town, realized his clientele were mostly from Webster City. So he rented a space across the street from Diana’s and has one chair there. 

Eddie’s boss from the other town decided to relocate to Webster City too. He rented a larger building that only has one chair in it. But he’s also made it a third space by adding a pool table, sofas and soft drink machines. There’s room to grow too.

The empty place right next to him is now a second-hand clothing store and always busy. They also have quite the knack for exciting window displays that draw in all types of customers. 

The owners of a  beloved restaurant, Second Street Emporium, on the same block retired. A young Hispanic family, Armando, Isabel and Tomas Solis, and Ignacio Gonzalez and Georgina Santiago, are leasing the space and still serving the same food. They are on a learning curve and working hard to adjust to different styles of food and cooking. 

Diana also made the boarded up windows on the second floor available for the community to use as an art project. Each window had a mural painted on it that represented significant community features and historical figures. The murals were funded through a grant partnership between the City of Webster City and the University of Iowa.  Diana only requested that one window had a dove on it – a symbol of hope and peace for the future of Webster City and its residents.

There’s a couple of interesting things happening here. The Hispanic market is growing! As is the Hispanic population. Deb talked with a couple of the other business owners on the block, and they made some observations too. 

The Hispanic population is not as risk averse as the rest of the population in town. Hispanic businesses are trying their ideas out and adjusting if they aren’t working. 

The Hispanic businesses have set their hours primarily from noon to 9 pm to be open. The rest of the businesses in the block are open 9 to 5. Hispanics are first catering to the hours their people can shop. Mothers shop after lunch. Many work late and need later hours. The bonus for them is they are seeing more people from the community come in the evening too. 

The other barber and the third space is giving a place for the Hispanic men to gather. In the places they are from, hanging out in the street is normal and accepted. In rural Iowa, not so much. 

Takeaway: Listen to people in the specific community you are serving. 

• Plan for entrepreneurs to refer others and make it easy for them. 
• See the lists above

Black Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs of Color

David Ponraj, CEO of Economic Impact Catalyst, based in Florida, shared several insights at the International Economic Development Conference in 2023. He said that many entrepreneurs tripped over the basics, like knowing that EINs (business tax ID numbers in the USA) are free. Many were paying $75 to an online service to get one.

David also emphasized trust. A study run in 2019 and added to in 2020 found that the barrier for entrepreneurs of color in southern Dallas was not lack of capital. There are plenty of CDFIs that serve the area. The biggest barrier was a lack of trust. People had applied and been turned down for loans, but never told why. For example, if it was their credit score, they weren’t told it was their credit score so that they could do something about credit repair. If you don’t look at why businesses are being rejected for loans, you can’t address it and you are losing trust.

Additionally, David said they found business owners of color do not own their commercial real estate. The largest barrier was the 20% down payment requirement, a solution was to offer a loan of up to 95% of the property value as long as the owner would occupy at least 25% of the space. This allows the business owner to build value through their business as well as to rent out the remainder of the real estate to additional businesses to build additional wealth in the community.

Tarsha Hearns from the Dallas Entrepreneurial Center said that by asking entrepreneurs why they came to the DEC instead of any other entrepreneur serving organization, they learned it was that entrepreneurs see them as catering to their specific needs. So do entrepreneurs see you as catering to their needs?

They surveyed the partners within the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and they found that the partners did not know what CDFIs do. They did not know how to prepare an entrepreneur to seek funding. They weren’t aware of the specific services offered by all of the resources that were available, and therefore they often sent entrepreneurs to the wrong provider to seek the wrong service. This again hurts trust in the community.

At a conference in North Carolina, Dawn Baldwin Gibson said that people–even kids–who don’t think they’ll live that long won’t plan for the future. Why would they? But if kids can see their parents doing something entrepreneurial and planning for their future, the kids can better see themselves in the future.

Another story comes from the micropolitan city of Pascagoula, Mississippi, population 22,000, where over a third of people are Black or African Americans, more than one sixth are Hispanic or Latino, and a quarter of all people are in poverty. The city took “a big, dirty lot down by the railroad tracks” and added tiny houses for businesses to rent at a steep discount. Their economic development goal was to give people a lower-cost way to start a business. They put the businesses on a 3-year track to grow enough to move on to larger buildings downtown, and many have. To find more potential businesses to incubate, they also cut down barriers by holding business fairs where emerging entrepreneurs could use a temporary test to try out a business idea. The city manager said it worked to help people build wealth through entrepreneurship.

Takeaway: Listen to people in the specific community you are serving. 

• Be flexible with delivery and facilitation to better match what works for this community. That may include things like more emphasis on

Poverty, criminal record, etc

Building fairness means not judging people by where they are now or where they have been. That includes choosing to see people as valuable members of the community, that everyone has gifts. They just might need smaller opportunities, removal of barriers, before they can share them. 

In the micropolitan town Tionesta, Pennsylvania, population 500, they have a Market Village of little sheds people can rent to run a small business. One of the sheds was rented by an older woman who sews things like clothes for a popular brand of dolls. When Deb and Becky visited with her, she told us she was in her third round of cancer treatment. She sewed at home when she could and opened her little shop when she was feeling well enough to do so. She felt like – and was – a productive person in society and of service to others. This smaller opportunity let her work around her schedule and abilities. 

Many projects like sheds or divided buildings to support entrepreneurs unthinkingly add barriers that don’t need to be there. Do organizers really need to require a liability insurance policy for someone to rent one of the tiny business spaces, or could they get a group policy instead? Is a large deposit of the first and last month rent really necessary for the shared art galleries, or is it ok to just take it month by month? Do communities absolutely need to require a special license or background check for every temporary business at the festival, or is it ok to allow something just for a short time?  

Insight: Seeking funding calls for expert help, and only some businesses need to seek funding. 

Not every rural business needs a loan

Most rural people won’t need outside funding to get started in business. The Survey of Rural Challenges found that finding a usable building was a more common challenge for rural businesses than finding a business loan. That was true in the results from 2015, 2017, 2021 and 2023. 

Lots of people find that result surprising. Loans get a lot more attention as a business support strategy than do usable buildings. There are so many small business loan funds and so few programs to help make more usable buildings available in small towns. 

Rural businesses are more likely to grow incrementally with small experiments and temporary trials, like those in the Innovative Rural Business Models set out by SaveYour.Town. Taking small steps to grow a business doesn’t require major injections of financing like the traditional startup process. 

Many will resist or decline to seek loans 

Rural entrepreneurs may resist loan financing, so emphasizing it as a primary support service can actually push them away from seeking other assistance. 

Many rural entrepreneurs want to be self-reliant and taking a loan makes them dependent on others. When Becky was talking with business owners and community leaders in rural eastern Washington and western Idaho, many of them immediately dismissed any suggestion of seeking loans or using support programs. They preferred to feel independent.

Cultural or religious beliefs can also be barriers to financing. Some Christian, Islamic and Jewish beliefs bar people from participating in loan financing because it is seen as unethical usury. For some Native Americans or Indigenous cultures, seeking financing can be seen as a confrontational process, one to be avoided. 

Real estate collateral requirements for financing may not work with tribal, reserve or trust lands. Potential entrepreneurs may have tribal permission to use land that they do not hold title in a legal form that can be used for collateral. 

Depression-era and farm crisis lessons were drummed into the skulls of generations of rural people. “Never put the land on the note.” Deb remembers the farm crisis of the 80’s when the local bank called in a loan on her parents’ farm equipment. It was bad timing. Crops hadn’t yet been harvested, and there had been some sick animals that needed treatment. Her mom spoke with the loan officer and explained that she would make the payment one week late when she received her next paycheck from teaching. The bank vice president called the loan in and refused to accept the payment one week late. Deb’s parents lost all their farm machinery and never again farmed at that level. They never forgot that bad treatment at the hands of a bank.  

Takeaways: 

Funding doesn’t have to be loans

There are dozens of other strategies for businesses to raise money that aren’t loans. Hosting a dinner party for a business. Locavesting. Crowdfund Better. Soup events where all “pitches” get some cash. Demo nights: ARTPreneur that Andrew knows. 

Financing calls for experts

For those who do need and want to go after loan financing, only a tiny percentage of them have the knowledge and skills to succeed without help. There are way too many different financing options that are way too technical for most people to navigate on their own. 

Why do we expect small businesses to become experts in the world of financing and funding stacks? It makes more sense to provide them personal expert support. 

Insight: More potential entrepreneurs will be able to take advantage of training or support if it is designed to cut down barriers that keep them out. 

On the Survey of Rural Challenges, one respondent said, “ I spoke with many individuals who mentioned an interest in starting a business and, anecdotally speaking, many individuals would mention not knowing where to get started – and not understanding what resources were available and how to access them. When we would direct them to the city’s economic development, the Small Business Development Center, or an economic development district office, they seemed very confused as to what these organizations offer, where to start, and what resources were available. Despite many organizations being available to help, it can still be very overwhelming. Also, around here, the hours of operation of these organizations are challenging for potential customers to make it work, and finding employees is incredibly problematic.”

Running workshops for entrepreneurs is tough for economic development and CoC groups: 

Too many experts hate to make the drive out to rural places, and they demand inconvenient hours for trainings, like 10 to 2, so no one signs up. 

And some of the free experts that rural places can call on can be too academic, focusing on impractical stuff like formal business plans or the deadly dull details of tax compliance, so people drop out and don’t finish. 

Andrew added these important considerations for organizers of entrepreneur support programs:

• Hours that work for them probably aren’t your first choice
• They need to see how it will benefit them with tangible takeaways
• The descriptions that appeal to them aren’t written in expert wording
• Be approachable throughout the process, don’t ask too much up front 
• The longer it is, the fewer people will attempt it and even fewer can finish. Long courses require extraordinary support and customization 
• Wraparound support for other issues: childcare or bring your kids to training, etc

Those factors can include family, jobs, and activities outside of work. These are often overlooked, underestimated, dismissed and disregarded.

Some of this is intentional and some is not. It all cuts down on who has enough capability to even try a business idea.

Mashup Lab’s experience shows: 

• Over 80% of participants had never signed up for a business / entrepreneurship program before, DESPITE many of them having resources available and accessible to them, sometimes even in their own backyard 
• 75% of participants were women, and more than ½ of them were women with small children
• 30% were newcomers to their rural communities

What Mashup Lab has done to address the challenge of needing more support:

• One-to-one support is possible by limiting it to 15 entrepreneurs per cohort
• They allow unlimited calls for entrepreneurs to talk with supportive staff
• They expect and work with self-doubt, uncertainty, mental blocks
• Kid distractions are encouraged! That’s seeding future entrepreneurs.
• No pressure, no tests

Doesn’t always require money for them to have “skin in the game”

Mashup Lab charges for their training. Usually it’s covered by a local organization that is sponsoring the course. Should the sponsor require a partial or matching payment from people who are still in the “dream” stage before starting a business? There are other ways for them to be invested in the program without expecting them to have ready cash. 

• Time “currency”… time invested is actually more valuable than the $100 we would charge them.
• “Calling in a favor” currency… have to ask a spouse, a neighbor, or another family member to take on more responsibility /carry more of the load / look after the kids to allow them to do this for 6 weeks.
• “Putting it out there” currency… actually letting other people know OR committing to themselves that they are actually going to try; the feeling of accountability to themselves and knowing that other people are expecting them to “show up”
• Social “currency”… space in our cohorts is limited, and we typically get 20-30 applications to fill the 15 spots we make available… “I’m taking a spot from someone else in my community that could have used this opportunity.”

Takeaway: design your support to entrepreneurs’ needs and convenience

Before they’ll attend a training session or workshop, they need to see how it will benefit them with tangible takeaways and networking with other entrepreneurs, Andrew said. So design your events to include those features, then promote them clearly. 

Design your programs for pre-start entrepreneurs to shape them into cohorts. They can build a lasting sense of community with each other to provide this kind of mutual support if you plan for it, Andrew said. Even if they aren’t in the same cohort, all your graduates can support each other in a kind of alumni network as long as you start with that end in mind.

Insight: More entrepreneurs will be able to try, start or expand their business ideas when they can grow through multiple small steps.

In the Old Way of going into business, startups need to have all their ducks in a row in order to go into business. Everyone needs to have great credit, deep pockets, good connections, be clean and sober, have strong business skills, and a solid support network. There aren’t really that many people who have all those qualifications. 

The New Way is to take small steps. 

The Innovative Rural Business Models from SaveYour.Town spell out how things have changed in how to start a business. People can start with a tiny experiment, a temporary business at an event, working together in a shared space like coworking, or traveling with a truck or trailer. Technology lets them access services that were never available to small businesses before. Automation and smart apps let anyone leverage technology to eliminate a lot of the Old Way drudge work. 

Instead of getting all your ducks in a row before you go into business, today you just have to get one duck, and you can get started. 

More need help with a building than need a loan

Usable buildings are chosen as a small business challenge more often than loans, a continuing trend since 2015 on the Survey of Rural Challenges. 

Many, many rural business programs support lending, but very few spend much time on making more usable buildings available. It’s not just full size buildings. Rural places can get creative with tiny spaces, shared buildings, sheds, and business-inside-a-business models.

Shed business spaces

Look above for the shed business stories from Pascagoula, MS, and Tionesta, PA. Hyannis, Massachusetts, population 16,000, filled empty spaces around their harbor with sheds they call “artist shanties.” Each one is just over 100 square feet. Painters, photographers, jewelers and other craftsmen use them as display and selling space each summer. In 14 seasons, they hosted over 700 artists, who have collectively sold over 1 million dollars of arts and crafts. Other examples in Conneautville, Pennsylvania, pop 700; Kuna, Idaho, where building trades students helped build the sheds. 

Shared business spaces

100 Mile House is a town in British Columbia, population 1,800. A local real estate agent told Becky that she noticed a lot of local people had side craft businesses, but there were few places in town to sell crafts. She started with an empty building, marked out booth spaces and rented them to the crafters. Pretty soon it was a full building, with people selling their sewing crafts, hand-tied flies for fishing, local photos and much more. 

Shared retail spaces pop up in towns of all sizes, from just a few hundred, like Mariner’s Cove in Bruce Mines, Ontario, population 500, all the way up to the biggest of cities. They are a smart idea for communities of any size struggling to improve opportunities for local entrepreneurs. 

Look inside existing businesses for ways to share the space with more businesses. Any community lucky enough to have even one brick-and-mortar business can use it to support makers with an Art on the Walls project. This idea comes from Goffstown, New Hampshire, (population 3,000). Each quarter, they install the works of local artists on the walls in brick-and-mortar businesses. The artists get their works for sale in front of more people, and the businesses get more promotion by the artists and the arts group. Simple and everyone wins!

In Webster City, Iowa, (population 8,000) Kathy Anderson makes scarves, hats, mittens and sweaters. She initially sold just from her home. One year, she opened a pop-up store in an empty downtown building. She sold out! 

That small success also helped her avoid a bigger failure. She found out that she didn’t want to start a full-time, full-size retail location. Trying to keep up with making that many products would be just too much! Now she puts her items for sale inside existing retail shops around town. 

Insight: Existing businesses and entrepreneurs can best support each other. 

Professors Glaeser and Kerr said in the Harvard Business Review that “research shows that once entrepreneurship gets established, it tends to be self-perpetuating.” 

While the professors didn’t say why that happens, we think that it comes down to two things: entrepreneurs shift the community culture towards entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurs start supporting each other. 

In the 2023 Survey of Rural Challenges, 30% of business owners mentioned needing business assistance including a lack of competent service providers, support programs, training and technical assistance. 

Existing business owners trust and learn better from each other than they do from outside experts. 

Deb was part of an informal group of business owners in Hampton, Iowa. The entrepreneurs ran a couple of specialty shops, a flower shop and a winery. Deb was the marketer in the group. Some were new in business, and some had been in business for years. 

“We got together at the local winery, and we’d talk,” Deb said. “No agenda, no formal lectures.” 

They found out they had some challenges in common. Most were struggling with finding customers, how to get repeat customers, how to market events outside of the area, and how they could work together. They answered each other’s questions, best as they could. By the end of the night, they came up with some practical steps to try together. And they did those. 

They kept getting together as long as it was helping them. The specialty shops already belonged to a group of businesses, and they took the ideas they learned back to the group. 

“Eventually we quit meeting, and that’s ok because it had served its purpose for us,” Deb said.  

Informal learning opportunities are often better for existing business owners than formal classroom work. 

When Deb worked in Webster City, Iowa, a small group of entrepreneurs decided to support each other. The owner of the pottery shop and the owner of the clothing shop had both been in business for quite a while. They wanted to help the new business owner who had just started a uniquely used items shop. 

They got together after work, informally. They shared their practical business know-how, like how they received new products in their stores and how they used marketing to their advantage. They gave the new entrepreneur full tours of their stores. They also answered a lot of her questions, the things she needed to know most to succeed. None of the questions involved a business plan, taxes, or whether she should incorporate. Yes, she will need to know those things in due time, but this wasn’t the time. 

The new store owner told Deb that getting answers to her most immediate questions helped her get to know the community better and was an important part of her success.

We know of similar groups from Texas to Ontario. Business owners decided to get together informally. They usually gather at different business locations just to talk, ask questions, and help each other. It’s point-of-need learning. 

Start a text group

Alena Jennings says people call her “The Doodle Lady” because she runs The Doodle Academy, in Ponca City, Oklahoma. Alena and several other downtown women business owners in the retail arts and event-based sector started a text group. They share with each other about books they’re reading, things they’re learning and other ideas they can share. They use the group to coordinate events and to keep each other motivated. 

Most existing businesses don’t need a full weeks-long curriculum. They need an answer to a single burning question at a time. 

When business owners are stuck on a single problem, it’s usually marketing according to the Survey of Rural Challenges. 

You probably have an Etsy wizard in your town right now, someone who is selling their handmade or vintage items online. These are folks who could offer some coaching to other crafters and makers. And the best way to do that in small towns is with informal gatherings

Andrew says that when small business people say they’re stuck on marketing, the deeper base level issue is storytelling. They need to learn how to tell their story in a way that feeds effective marketing. 

Takeaway: Help small business people help each other. 

Build in tangible takeaways and networking time 

Before they’ll attend a training session or workshop, they need to see how it will benefit them with tangible takeaways and networking with other entrepreneurs, Andrew said. 

So design your events to include those features, then promote them clearly. 

Design your programs for pre-start entrepreneurs to shape them into cohorts. They can build a lasting sense of community with each other to provide this kind of mutual support if you plan for it, Andrew said. Even if they aren’t in the same cohort, all your graduates can support each other in a kind of alumni network as long as you start with that end in mind. 

More about the authors

Andrew Button, Mashup Lab 

After a 15-year career working in rural communities with various innovation, businesses, and economic development organizations, Andrew founded Mashup Lab in 2014. Andrew has worked with nearly 3000 aspiring entrepreneurs throughout rural North America, supporting them along the full spectrum of their entrepreneurial journey, from solopreneurs to 500+ person operations, to innovative high-growth tech start-ups. Andrew holds an MBA from Saint Mary’s University, concentration in Entrepreneurship and Management Consulting and a BBA from Acadia University, with a concentration in Marketing and Finance. In 2019, he was selected into the Wallace McCain Institute’s Entrepreneurial Leaders Program as one of the Top 30 high-growth potential entrepreneurs in Atlantic Canada.

Deb Brown, SaveYour.Town

Growing up on a farm in Iowa, Deb’s first entrepreneurial venture was raising a hog. Since then her wealth of experience includes Chamber of Commerce work, foreign casualty insurance underwriting, bartending, retail management, even selling knives. As the Director of a small town Chamber of Commerce, Deb supported local businesses, created the Tour of Empty Buildings to revitalize the downtown, and began working with other small towns nationwide. In 2015, she co-founded SaveYour.Town to help rural people save their own communities using their own assets. Deb earned certifications from the Institute for Organizational Management, Leadership Iowa and the Ag-Urban Institute.

Becky McCray, SaveYour.Town

Becky is a lifelong entrepreneur and cattle rancher. As co-founder of SaveYour.Town, she shares insights from her real-world small business and small town experience. In 2006, she founded Small Biz Survival, a site focused on rural entrepreneurship that is now syndicated internationally. She also co-authored the award-winning book, Small Town Rules. She started the Survey of Rural Challenges in 2015, collecting and publishing the feedback from over 1700 rural people. Becky earned her BS in Business Administration from Northwestern Oklahoma State University.