Creating an Entrepreneur Friendly Environment
On February 22, a group of Love the Harrisonville Square volunteers attended a training seminar in Excelsior Springs focused on ways to support entrepreneurship in our community.
The training included a variety of topics that will help Love the Harrisonville Square with the Economic Vitality point of the MO Main Street Connections Four-Point approach. These topics covered:
- The impacts that a thriving entrepreneurial environment can have for a community, including job creation
- The four types of entrepreneurs including micro-enterprise, main street, innovation-led and second stage businesses
- How to find entrepreneurs in your community
- Identifying gaps in resources and working to fill them
- Gaining the communities support to be successful
Speakers for the day included:
Maria E. Meyers, the executive director of the UMKC Innovation Center and founder of SourceLink. SourceLink has consulted with more than 100 different organizations on building entrepreneurial infrastructure, providing research, goal-setting support and evidence-based best practices.
Kate Pope Hodel, project director at KCSourcelink and the first director of marketing for the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (part of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation).
Erik Pedersen, vice president of entrepreneurship for NetWork Kansas, which is responsible for all aspects of the acclaimed rural Entrepreneurship (E-) Community Partnership.
We look forward to making use of much of this information as we continue in the MO Main Street Affiliate Grant process and prepare to kick-off sub committee meetings soon!