Rural Entrepreneurship

Rural Roundup: Entrepreneurial Challenges & Opportunities

Over the past 4 months, RuralRISE has interviewed a series of ecosystem builders about 2020 and the changes COVID-19 has wreaked on the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The stories and advice they shared are worth their weight in gold for these tumultuous times.

But what about the entrepreneurs? Without talking to them, our interview series would be missing half of the story.

Along with the challenges of 2020 have come new opportunities. And every entrepreneur knows that when the status quo breaks, someone needs to be there to help people transition to what’s next.

That’s why we reached out to a few rural entrepreneurs to get their take on what’s going on in their area of the United States.

We asked them three questions:

What is the biggest opportunity or challenge you see as an entrepreneur, at this particular moment in time?
What have you done to either a) take advantage of this opportunity, or b) thrive despite the challenge?
What entrepreneurial support or resources have been (or would be) most helpful to you during these times?

Let’s hear their stories!

Reggie & Lori Cole: Owners of Natural Bliss Health & Wellness Store

White Hall, Arkansas

There’s an old adage, “necessity is the mother of invention” so during this time of Covid-19 so many people have been negatively impacted with layoffs and business closings.

This season of distress has resuscitated old dreams and brought to light new ideas, especially in the area of entrepreneurship.

It’s important to use that passion to fuel those ideas and take advantage of different loans, grants and programs geared to small business owners.

We absolutely realized that changes had come. We knew that initially many people were not able to come out as much as before. We knew we had to find a way to increase our online sales so we revamped our website, added more products and even offered pre-shopping by having customers call in their orders pay by credit or debit card and have it ready when they or an appointee arrived (curbside service).

We increased our social media posts to help advertise weekly specials and sale prices. We also took advantage of a new opportunity to upgrade our loyalty program for repeat customers and provide more much needed and appreciated discounts. We love to give back.

One of the most important resources we found was staying connected to our local branch of the Small Business Administration.

They kept us up to date on available resources to help bridge the gap during that initial crunch. We were told what to expect during the wait for federal funds and how to apply when the loans were made available as well. We also were alerted to different grant opportunities, local Business to Business Networking seminars and self help courses via Zoom.

The Generator has been a vital link to us being connected to business-minded entrepreneurs and also helped us stay connected to small businesses who have a desire to not only just survive but to thrive.

There is power in numbers! The Bible even says, “In the multitude of counsel there is safety.”

Visit their website to learn more about Natural Bliss and support their entrepreneurial efforts.

Jennifer Litteral: President of Coffee Hound Coffee Co.

Brewer, Maine

Major opportunities or trends normally happen over long periods of time and are difficult for small businesses to get into because larger corporations are poised having planned and speculated long in advance for those changes.

However, the pandemic has shaken loose so many new trends and opportunities that are ideal for small enterprises because small businesses are nimble and can shift faster than larger corporations or companies.

Like steering a huge tanker on the ocean they have to plan long in advance for their movements — where smaller boats can steer quickly around or to something in a split second. Small businesses are like the small boats and they are winning the race to these opportunities today.

Having the ability to be open and listen to real-time statistics about your industry is crucial at this moment in time to be able shift or pivot with purpose and direction.

For the coffee industry the pandemic changed our customers to at-home baristas;
The at-home coffee market is expected to grow to $15 billion in 2020;
40% of people working from home say they will continue to work from home even after COVID and 39% of those are willing to pay more for premium coffee.

So, we were able to shift the focus of our company to meet the needs of our customers for their new normal with national at-home delivery through a new e-commerce platform as well as having our products available in grocery stores throughout Maine through a distributor as well as servicing Hannaford’s local program.

As entrepreneurs and small business owners, we are already courageous, smart and highly adaptable – but COVID has taken this to a level that has left many of us reeling. A normal day for a small business owner is to wear about 100 hats and we often don’t have time to look up and research what resources are out there.

Even with my diverse background, I didn’t find the time to seek out the resource organizations in Maine – luckily one found me. To be included in the 2020 Maine Center for Entrepreneurs TopGun cohort was beyond valuable for our company to be in during a pandemic and while we were pivoting.

I think the resources are out there and in multiple formats across many organizations. The questions are — can they more broadly get on the radars of small businesses when we might not travel in the same circles or online communities?

Is there a way to combine and channel options in a simple to find and easy to digest format that is distributed or found where small businesses will take notice and utilize?

Visit their website to learn more about Coffee Hound and support their entrepreneurial efforts.

E. James White: CEO of LivestockCity, Inc.

Mount Solon, Virginia

When the pandemic first came, people were stocking up on food, with supermarkets running out of food including meats.

One of the features we wanted to offer even before the pandemic was to provide a way for livestock farmers to sell their meats and animal products through our platform — sort of like “Etsy for farmers.” We call it “Farm Stores.”

Unfortunately, we couldn’t complete this section in time during that food shortage, but as we are seeing an uptick in Covid-19 cases again, it’s possible we will get another chance to offer this service to farmers when there’s a real need. If not, we still think it is a good service to offer, especially for those that are looking for grass-fed or organic food products.

During this challenging time, we have been able to recruit talented interns and volunteers, as many internships were canceled this summer due to the pandemic.

Since we are a remote team, we were able to easily take on remote interns that were a higher caliber than what we’ve seen in the past — and over the summer they really helped us advance our mobile app and web app development.

Our biggest challenge has always been financial, in order to pay for the help we need to develop our platform and products.

We’ve had to be creative in bootstrapping in order to progress LivestockCity, but with funding we could significantly speed up the process and get our services in the hands of livestock farmers quicker. Without funding it will take longer, but we will continue to work towards completion for 2021.

Visit their website to learn more about LivestockCity and support their entrepreneurial efforts.

Kanesha Adams: CEO and Founder, EduScape

Pine Bluff, Arkansas

My biggest challenge at this time has been gaining access to capital.

As a startup company, with an alternative learning platform, the market can be very competitive and in the absence of capital, it makes the struggle to grow and scale more challenging.

On the flip side of it, as a minority-female founder, I have a unique lens for investors.

I have been afforded the opportunity to work from home and build my small business, which has been a major turning point for my company. I have a small team, which also makes the work difficult, but I have a mission-oriented team who believe in the work we do, which allows us to combat our challenge.

I have been really intentional about overcoming the areas of opportunities that I have been presented by building a network of advisors, and a support team who value me as an entrepreneur and my work.

I have applied to pitch in a pitch contest and spend time daily seeking out additional knowledge opportunities by way of accelerators or incubators. I spend 2-3 hours a day on LinkedIn connecting with people who may be willing to support my business in any way.

Having a mentor in this space with me has been the most helpful resource for me during this time. My mentor has been in the edtech space for about 20 years, and has shared some amazing resources, advice, and tips as I develop my plan to move forward.

I have also connected to incubator advisors such as The Venture Center and Communities Unlimited (which is a CDFI that supports small business owners). Building a network is a resource that you can’t put a price tag on, and I have been really intentional on using my network.

Visit their website to learn more about EduScape and support their entrepreneurial efforts.

What Will 2021 Bring for Entrepreneurs?

As you can see from these four stories (and those of entrepreneurs and small businesses across the US and around the world), 2020 has brought its share of challenges.

But these stories also demonstrate how resilient entrepreneurs can be. In a world where pivots were the norm prior to a worldwide pandemic, this kind of quick thinking and innovation is just what we all need.

As 2021 quickly approaches, these entrepreneurs serve both as a beacon of hope and a reminder of the importance of the work we all do. Together, we can make the most of any challenges the next year (and beyond) may bring our way!

This is the fourth in a series of interviews — stay tuned for the next installment! You can also catch up on the first, second, and third interviews.

By Jessica Glendinning

Rural Roundup: How Can Ecosystems Help Small Business Survive?

By this point in 2020, I think we can all agree that times are tough.

Across the United States and around the world, small businesses have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic — with even greater impacts on Black, Latinx, immigrant, and female business owners.

But even in the midst of crisis, there is opportunity. A chance for us to come together as communities, to innovate, and to collaborate on finding solutions to the most challenging problems facing our world.

That’s why we reached out to some of our favorite rural ecosystem builders and get their take on what’s going on across rural areas in the United States. Today’s wisdom comes to us from our friends at First Southwest Community Fund.

We asked two questions:

What is the biggest opportunity or challenge your organization sees, in this particular moment in time?
What advice would you give to our communities to help them either take advantage of this opportunity or thrive despite the challenge?

So without further ado, take it away Cass!

Cass Walker, Executive Director at First Southwest Community Fund

Listening to your stakeholders has always been the most important thing any organization can do, but in these unprecedented times listening to what small businesses need is crucial for their survival.

Needs are changing daily, and the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting our communities and businesses in ways we did not foresee.

Understanding the challenges – and then acting to help mitigate the effects – is vital for organizations like ours to have an impact in these difficult times.

Challenges are everywhere at the moment – helping businesses survive shutdowns, building online platforms for communications, remote teams, keeping employees healthy and well in this new “normal”…

However, at First Southwest Community Fund we’ve also seen a number of opportunities during this unique moment in history. Together with our partner, First Southwest Bank (a CDFI), we’ve worked tirelessly to get assistance to rural Colorado businesses.

In times of crisis, people can be incredibly resourceful and innovative, and re-focusing on who and what is important for our economies to thrive is paramount. We’ve chosen to focus on supporting innovation, creativity, and supporting those who keep our economy alive.

Solving New Problems: Innovation and Creativity

Many people have ideas about how to pivot or change their business models to survive COVID – however, most of these innovations need capital to implement.

A woman sits at a desk looking at multiple computer screens.

Hearing the needs in our community to create new online platforms, find ways to deliver educational and health content safely, and change business models to provide new needed services, we created the Innovation Assistance Awards Program.

Through partnerships with The Colorado Trust’s COVID-19 Response Fund, Startup Colorado, and the San Luis Valley and Southwest Colorado SBDCs, we have been able to provide small grants up to $2000 alongside technical assistance to bring these ideas to reality.

To help make technology ideas easier to implement, we partnered with local media companies to provide discounted and tailored services.

We partnered awards with workshops to increase knowledge and skills. To date, we’ve awarded 30+ Innovation Awards to small businesses and nonprofits in rural Colorado, and are scaling our program to serve more areas.

We’ve helped a rural bookshop create an online marketplace for their products, a theatre take their educational programming virtual, and a restaurant launch a grocery delivery service for at-risk residents.

This initiative has brought hope and optimism, as our rural small businesses continue to show their resilience to thrive during this crisis.

Keeping Our Rural Economies Alive: Early Childhood Care & Education

As an industry, early childhood care and education has historically been underfunded and underappreciated.

A young girl in a highchair peeks through the top of a toy camera.

In our rural areas, there was already a lack of access to early care and education, with nowhere near enough capacity to deal with the demand.

In times of COVID-19, we have seen a huge impact on this ecosystem and a deeper understanding of how access to early childhood care and education is an economic development issue

Through support from The Colorado Trust’s COVID-19 Response Fund and working with the Early Childhood Council of the San Luis Valley, we were able to create a program to assist 14 women-owned licensed family child care providers across the San Luis Valley in Colorado with operating capital who collectively serve 141 children.

It is vital to the economic recovery of our rural region that these providers stay operational. We do not traditionally do many grants as an organization, as we are typically focused on small business loans.

However, in these times, new tools such as these micro-grants are needed to support the key organizations which enable our communities to keep their business alive – especially women-led businesses, BIPOC-led businesses, and for entities who were not eligible or able to receive PPP or EIDL.

Shifting Our Focus: Rethinking Entrepreneurship

In today’s ever-shifting economy it is vital for small businesses and nonprofits to rethink and redefine what entrepreneurship means to them.

A laptop and a journal are set up on a kitchen table, looking out over a living room with a cast iron wood stove.

Whether that means simply working from home, shifting product delivery options, shifting products or services offered, or completely restructuring a business model, anyone can be an entrepreneur and can make a difference in their local economy and for their family during these times.

Many of our programs at FSWCF have been developed to help businesses and nonprofits make these shifts, including our Rapid Response & Recovery Fund, Technology Innovation Awards, Food Truck Loan Program, Rural Women-Led Business Fund, and Creative Arts Loan Fund.

Getting creative, working together, and finding ways to maintain your business and livelihood in your rural community is what will propel small businesses and organizations through this pandemic and make our rural communities stronger on the other side.

What’s Next for Rural Small Business?

It’s easy to feel like 2020 has us stuck in between a rock and a hard place. But as Cass and her colleagues at FSWCF show us, there’s a lot we can do to support our communities, small businesses, and entrepreneurs right now.

We may not know what the next 12 months will bring, but together we can begin to reimagine a brighter 2021.

This is the third in a series of interviews — stay tuned for the next installment! You can also catch up on the first and second interviews.

By Jessica Glendinning

COVID-19: Rural America’s Opportunity

Across the board, 2020 has been challenging. Between the health and economic challenges placed on communities around the world by COVID-19, it can sometimes be hard to find a silver lining.

But every time we face a challenge there’s usually an opportunity buried within it — it’s just our job to reframe the situation and figure out how we can use the challenge to benefit our customers and communities.

We asked two questions:

What is the biggest opportunity or challenge your organization sees, in this particular moment in time?
What advice would you give to our communities to help them either take advantage of this opportunity or thrive despite the challenge?

So without further ado, take it away Ines!

Ines Polonius, CEO at Communities Unlimited

Social distancing is Rural America’s competitive advantage. Urban areas make up only 3% of the U.S. land area but are home to more than 80% of the population.

Young people, now more than ever, want to come back home to rural places. Intentional entrepreneurial ecosystems will help.

On July 5, 2020, The Hill concluded that a combination of the coronavirus pandemic, economic uncertainty, and social unrest is prompting waves of Americans from large cities to permanently relocate to more sparsely populated areas.

Coming Home to Rural

While a town deep in the Mississippi Delta may not see an influx of New York City executives any time soon, it may well welcome home young people who grew up there.

COVID has demonstrated that many jobs are mobile. Economic insecurity has people looking for more affordable housing. In 2016, the median monthly housing cost in rural areas was $1,271 lower than in urban areas. This gap has only widened over the past four years.

Social distancing is much easier when your closest neighbors might be cows.

A field of cows, a common sight in rural America.

So how do we in rural communities capitalize on our competitive advantage? Quality of life.

The Rural Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP), a partnership of six organizations including Communities Unlimited, provides technical assistance and training to rural communities across the U.S.

RCAP’s Rural Homecoming Toolkit provides strategies for attracting those with roots in a community back home.

For decades rural leaders have been focusing on attracting corporations, not people. To attract people, rural places require vibrant local economies built on local entrepreneurs, who are often forgotten by state economic development policy.

Corporations vs Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

Through intermediaries like Communities Unlimited (CU), some rural communities are creating vibrant rural entrepreneurial ecosystems that support the growth of existing local businesses as well as budding entrepreneurs.

Three young black girls celebrate with ice cream at Dermott, Arkansas' Entrepreneurship Extravaganza.

In Dermott, Arkansas, a predominantly Black rural community in the heart of the Arkansas Delta, a community leadership team has been working on just this. In this community of 2500, almost 36% of the residents live in poverty and have for more than 30 years.

Leaders know how to navigate hurdles with creativity, but no one was quite prepared for the devastating challenges of COVID19.

Beginning on March 23, 2020, the leadership team gathered virtually via ZOOM with CU’s community facilitator to continue planning its Entrepreneurship Extravaganza.

This call to action inspired the grand opening of three new businesses: a barbershop, a boutique, and a shaved ice stand. All three launched in June by community residents while they and the rest of the country were in the throes of COVID.

On the other side of town, leadership team member, Debra Williams purchased eight vacant buildings to revitalize the downtown and create an entrepreneurship hub.

Through the partnership between Dermott’s leadership team and CU, the ecosystem has access to start-up capital in the form of microloans and intensive technical assistance.

By creating an intentionally inviting and supportive environment for entrepreneurs through quality-of-life businesses, access to capital, an entrepreneurship hub, and technical assistance, Dermott and other rural places can welcome home those with roots there who want to start a business, bring their existing business, or telecommute.

Challenge or Opportunity — It’s Up to Us

During times of chaos, we all have a choice: stick our heads in the sand and hope things go back to “normal” soon… or pivot and do something different. Something better. Something to uplift and benefit the communities where we live.

We may not know what our new normal will be yet, but together we can start to chart a new path forward.

This is the second in a series of interviews — stay tuned for the next installment! You can also read the first set of interviews here.

About Communities Unlimited: As a Rural Development Hub and Community Development Financial Institution, Communities Unlimited takes a holistic approach to ensuring healthy communities, healthy businesses, and healthy families in rural places and underserved neighborhoods in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. www.CommunitiesU.org

By Jessica Glendinning

Rural Roundup: Opportunities and Challenges in the Age of COVID

Unprecedented. It’s the word most likely to be used (and overused) to describe 2020.

For ecosystem builders and entrepreneurs across the globe, this year has presented unique challenges — from health and safety regulations changing the way we operate to economies in recession.

But along with the challenges come new opportunities. Every entrepreneur knows that when the status quo breaks, someone needs to be there to help people transition to what’s next.

That’s why we reached out to some of our favorite rural ecosystem builders and get their take on what’s going on across rural areas in the United States.

We asked them two questions.

What is the biggest opportunity or challenge your organization sees, in this particular moment in time?
What advice would you give to our communities to help them either take advantage of this opportunity or thrive despite the challenge?

So without further ado, we’ll let four of them take it away.

Melissa Bradley, Co-founder at Ureeka

This likely comes as no surprise, but the biggest challenge we’re seeing right now is the impact of COVID-19 and the need for businesses to pivot.

While this new reality has greatly affected the small business community, they are resilient and are turning this challenge into an opportunity by redefining their business to not just survive the economic downturn, but thrive during it.

The best action to take during this time is to identify what your ‘gaps’ are. This includes answering questions like:

Which parts of the business have been negatively impacted?
Which parts can be maintained or grown?
What challenges do I have with my suppliers?

When you can identify and understand your ‘gaps’ you can build a plan to fill them.

A great example of this is pivoting your marketing strategy to align with where your customers are spending more of their time these days – online. If you previously did not have a large web presence, or any web presence, this may be an opportunity to ‘fill the gap’ so you can continue to reach new customers.

Ureeka hosted a webinar at the beginning of COVID-19 outlining all of this which is still very relevant as businesses are starting to reopen. That recording is available to watch here.

Enoch Elwell, Founder of CO.STARTERS

We are in a time of transition, where the landscape of business and society is shifting significantly, rapidly, and in an unpredictable way.

This is both the biggest challenge and opportunity for small business owners and entrepreneur support organizations, as there is a need to rethink and refocus everything from our products and services offered, to our messaging, our customer, and even the foundation of business models.

Organizations that are slow to adapt or that have little runway to navigate this transition are languishing and dying. But those who are able to connect with the new market needs will be positioned well to thrive throughout this time and beyond.

Do everything you can to manage your mindset to shift from a mental perspective of anxiety and fear toward one of abundance and possibility. The opportunity is there if you look for it!

Talk with your customers (or the people and orgs that you serve) to find out what their changing needs are. Then start small to find the little things you can do this week to move forward in shifting your model to meet the changing needs of your customers.

Small achievable steps build motivation and momentum!

CO.STARTERS is also offering a 5-step framework to help small businesses with COVID recovery.

Nathan Ohle, CEO at Rural Community Assistance Partnership

As the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to impact small rural and tribal areas across the country, the importance of small businesses and entrepreneurs has never been clearer.

In the immediate aftermath of stay-at-home and safer-at-home orders, hundreds of thousands of small businesses closed their doors, some for good.

For those that were able to move to online ordering, virtual service delivery, and in some cases, use this as an opportunity to build new markets, access to capital was of critical importance.

In the past decade, rural communities have seen a disproportionate closure of community banks, making access to PPP loans and other capital sources that much harder. This issue will continue to be a driver of inequities for rural communities unless new and innovative sources of capital reach these communities.

Some of the best stories coming out of COVID in rural areas are Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) who are now in some cases, working collaboratively with one another to serve and fund rural entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Rural communities in total had not fully made up the losses from the 2008 Recession before COVID hit, and now are faced with a crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetime.

Out of this crisis, however, comes great opportunity.

Rural communities see higher rates of self-employment than the national average, and those businesses are more resilient the smaller the county they reside in. The path to prosperity and opportunity runs directly through small businesses and entrepreneurs.

There is an opportunity to raise the voice of entrepreneurs into national conversations about the rural recovery from COVID, and to push for a more intentional focus on building capacity in communities and building the framework and ecosystems that allow for small businesses and entrepreneurs to thrive.

As communities start to think about how they might recover and flourish out of the COVID pandemic, it will be imperative to build capacity locally, to create ecosystems that support and attract small businesses.

Ensuring that quality of life issues like access to water, broadband and other necessities are available is vital to attracting and keeping young leaders in rural areas.

Understanding that they are not in this alone, and that there are support organizations across the country setting the table for innovators and entrepreneurs to grow and thrive in rural and tribal areas.

It is time to start thinking creatively about how they drive new business opportunity, and to start telling the story of innovation that lives inside every small community across the country.

Ciara Thyfault, Senior Product Manager for NetWork Kansas

NetWork Kansas has seen a variety of challenges and even some opportunities.

Since we provide many loan programs we anticipate a big challenge of ours may be to continue collecting payments in the coming months.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the first thing we did was offer options for loan deferrals as a way to assist with cash flow to our loan recipients. Many other lenders did the same.

On the other hand, we had the opportunity to work more closely with the Kansas Department of Commerce to provide resources throughout the state.

Our first program we initiated was the HIRE (Hospitality Industry Relief Emergency) Fund where Commerce allocated $5 million of bridge loans to hospitality businesses across the state of Kansas. NetWork Kansas administered the fund and within 48 hours we approved 346 loans.

Our next program was Restart Kansas where communities could help us raise tax credits, allocated to us by Commerce. With the money raised, we gave a portion back to the community to establish a local Restart Kansas disaster relief fund and then a community could have the autonomy to approve loans to businesses affected by Covid-19.

It has been quite a roller coaster ride learning to navigate all the Zoom meetings, learn about all the new resources popping up across the country, and unfortunately dealing with all the negative effects COVID-19 has had on businesses not prepared to adhere to the new rules and regulations or maybe simply didn’t have ability to be technologically advanced to keep up with the changes.

Ask the Ecosystem Builder: What’s Next?

As we enter the half-year mark on this pandemic, it can be hard to focus beyond just getting through the upcoming week. But as these leaders show, there’s opportunity to be found amidst the crisis.

We may not know exactly what’s coming next, but with the resilience and determination inherent to living in a rural area we can pioneer a new path forward, together.

This is the first in a series of interviews — stay tuned for the next installment! And to get involved as the RuralRISE community grows, be sure to sign up for our newsletter and monthly meeting reminders.

By Jessica Glendinning

Innovation in Rural America: It’s Not an Oxymoron

This post was originally published here.

When someone mentions “rural” America, what’s the first thing you think of?

Maybe it’s cattle, corn, and soy. Maybe it’s idyllic landscapes — mountain views, rushing rivers, and sunsets over an uninterrupted horizon. Or maybe it’s memories of your favorite vacation out in the middle of nowhere, sitting around a campfire and watching the stars.

But chances are, innovation and entrepreneurship aren’t the first words that come to mind.

While it might surprise you, all over the country rural communities are overcoming stereotypes and embracing an entrepreneurial mindset.

When Rural Leaders Gather

In May of 2018, 175 leaders from over 25 states assembled in rural Appalachia to highlight the unique challenges and opportunities facing rural entrepreneurship and ecosystem development.

Over the course of the three days, attendees actively participated in conversations, activities, and exercises that focused on how to support entrepreneurial growth in rural communities.

Conversations during that inaugural RuralRISE Summit centered around the unique challenges and opportunities that come along with being an entrepreneur in a rural area.

If you didn’t get a chance to “sit around the table” during those conversations, here are a few key findings that came out of these conversations:

To drive new programs in rural areas, organizations should partner with local, trusted community-based organizations.
For many rural communities, access to stable, consistent broadband or wireless connectivity continues to be a challenge.
Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, rural communities can identify programs that are already working, and figure out how to scale them.

But above and beyond the conversations about how organizations can build better entrepreneurial ecosystems, there were some surprising insights from the three days.

8 Surprising Truths About Rural Entrepreneurship

While rural America does have a lot of cattle, corn, and soy… that’s hardly the whole story.

Let’s take a look at some of the reasons our nation’s next “big thing” may very well come from a small town you’ve never heard of.

1. Innovation Lives Outside Silicon Valley

By nature, rural communities are innovative. We have to be.

In places like San Francisco, New York City, Tokyo, and London, the tech sector is where innovation thrives. Tech innovation has long dominated the conversation when it comes to disruption and new industry.

But what about innovations in the way our food is produced to cope with changing weather patterns? Or small communities developing new and unusual ways of doing business, because the old models don’t work the way they used to.

Innovation doesn’t necessarily look like the next Facebook or Google.

2. Economic Development is the Name of the Game

Entrepreneurship and small business growth are at the heart of opportunity in rural communities.

When life in your small town is dependent on tourism, and the supply of tourists starts to dry up, what do you do? You might choose to cling to what worked in the past… or maybe your community gets a chance to shift direction and build a new economy.

All across America, there are small towns that have faded into poverty after industry jobs disappeared. And there are also small towns experiencing a revitalization, with small businesses opening up and rural entrepreneurs deciding to put down roots or return to their hometowns.

Opportunity abounds when you shift your viewpoint.

3. Rural Lives Outside the Box

Rural communities have unique opportunities (and challenges) when it comes to entrepreneurship and innovation.

Travelers to rural areas are often caught off guard when they can’t get a cell phone signal. And anyone looking for a broadband internet connection… well, there are entire swaths of our country where 6 mbps is “high speed” internet, and gigabit fiber is something fairytales are made of.

But rather than complain about these challenges, the rural entrepreneur gets a chance to rise above. We get the opportunity to think differently — and to work in creative ways. We focus on the resources we do have, and use them to the best of our ability.

We think outside the box, because we have to.

4. Impact is Measured in People

In a large city, businesses can come and go without many people even noticing they were there in the first place.

But in a rural community, one new small business can have a profound impact on the entire town. Because of close relationships and a commitment to choose local, small communities can be the reason those businesses thrive.

For example: the local daycare center that allows new parents to get back to work without worrying about who’s taking care of their kids. Or the small cidery or craft brewery, where everyone in town hangs out on a Friday night, bringing life back into a downtown area and drawing more new businesses to open.

When your community cares, small businesses win.

5. Metrics Need Different Measurements

In urban areas, “success” is often measured by metrics like the number of new businesses started, and the number of new jobs created.

But how we measure entrepreneurship in rural communities needs to be different than how our urban counterparts are measured. When you’re talking about numbers in the hundreds, rather than tens of thousands, even a few new jobs can have a significant impact.

And unlike the venture capital landscape of Silicon Valley, even small amounts of risk capital can have a big impact. Rural communities are used to making do with very little funding, and small investments go much further in rural areas.

Even small shifts can have a big impact.

6. Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

Okay, so this one isn’t really a surprise for anyone living in the country.

Local relationships are the biggest currency in rural settings, and trust matters. Too often rural communities have witnessed well-intentioned outside organizations attempt to develop and implement new programs and activities, without taking into account the efforts already taking place.

Rather than leveraging pre-existing relationships with the community members, organizations, schools, or faith-based groups who are already operating in the area, these outside organizations see an “opportunity” and end up walking all over the community they want to help.

It’s better to work together, listen to each other, and collaborate in a way that facilitates trust.

7. We’re Better Together

Once you’ve been in business long enough, you learn that nothing great is accomplished alone.

Building rural entrepreneurship demands creating new and innovative partnerships, and being open to learning from what others have done (and are doing). It’s not just neighbors helping neighbors — it’s community coming together to build something bigger than the individual.

After last year’s RuralRISE Summit, there were a number of organizations that took these kinds of relationship-building lessons home with them. From the rural entrepreneurship hub collaborating with local businesses to build stronger partnerships, to the organizations from different states who committed to sharing what’s working, “together” is the name of the game.

In business – and in life – it’s all about who you know.

8. It’s Who You Know

Ever tried to get a program or project off the ground in a new place, where you didn’t know anyone?

It’s true in both urban and rural areas: connection and relationships are key to business and organizational success. The power of the group can often be the difference between failure and success.

Rural entrepreneurial ecosystem building is a community, and creating connections is at the heart of what RuralRISE hopes to accomplish.

Now you might be left wondering: with the opportunities and challenges surrounding rural entrepreneurship, what are the next steps?

You Are Invited

Community. Relationship. Connection.

It’s all well and good to talk the talk. But how can you take action, and take advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead for rural communities?

We may be biased, but we believe the RuralRISE Summit is a great place to get started. RuralRISE is a community of organizations that aims to increase opportunities and prosperity for small and rural communities across the United States.

Recognizing that innovation and entrepreneurship are blind to location, RuralRISE seeks to increase the opportunities, increase accessibility, spotlight innovation, entrepreneurial and start-up activities that work in a rural context.

It’s time to both have the important conversations around rural entrepreneurship, and bring those conversations home. Are you in?