Resources:
Lee Van Roth's Feature Article: Ypsi-based Small Business Support Hub offers many free services for entrepreneurs
Ann Arbor SPARK Small Business Support Hub
Transcription:
Lee Van Roth: You're listening to 89.1 WEMU. I'm Lee Van Roth, and this is On the Ground Ypsi. Small businesses play a vital role in shaping Ypsilanti's local economy, and organizations like SPARK East are working to ensure entrepreneurs have the tools that they need to succeed. Through its Small Business Support Hub, SPARK East is offering coaching, resources, and connections designed to meet local business owners wherever they are in their journey. With me today to explain all that the SBSH has to offer is Kristine Nash-Wong, Entrepreneurial Resource Director at SPARK East. Kristine, thank you so much for being here today!
Kristine Nash-Wong: Oh, my pleasure!
Lee Van Roth: So to start, can you give us a bit of an overview of the Small Business Support Hub, more specifically, the kinds of resources that you're offering to entrepreneurs here in Ypsi and throughout Eastern Washtenaw?
Kristine Nash-Wong: Sure. So, the Small Business Support Hub is really a more connected collaboration between community service providers. So, we work really closely with a number of organizations that have been providing services to small businesses for years. But this program has enabled us to sort of strengthen our network, work together more closely and ensure that that every small business that need to receive business coaching or start networking opportunities or looking to apply for a grant or could use some assistance in figuring out how to do that. It's receiving the help that they need
Lee Van Roth: And in building out this network of resources, like as you've explained too, there is this really strong focus on SPARK's side of things to ensure that you're meeting business owners where they're at, wherever it is in their business journey. If they are still looking to open up, if they have maybe just opened their brick-and-mortar, they've gone from being a virtual or other type of business into a location in the area, how does that approach to entrepreneurship and supporting entrepreneurship kind of shape the resources that you want to provide?
Kristine Nash-Wong: Yeah, I think you kind of nailed it. Every stage of the business requires sort of a different level of expertise, a different skill set, and a lot of small business owners get into the business they're in because they're passionate about the topic. They know something about the small business that they want to go into, but they might not know all of the different aspects that go into actually running day-to-day. So, if the ideation page that's going together, a business plan, looking to make sure that you have the right funding in place that trying to determine a location, is it something that's going to be a virtual, is it maybe that's set for a pop-up or some other kind of remote location or do you want to do a brick-and-mortar. And then, obviously, as businesses scale, the challenges change over time. And so, I think we really focus on making sure that we have business coaching available at each of those key stages and that we're here to support businesses, sort of wherever they come to us.
Lee Van Roth: In addition to that coaching and advising, you had also mentioned how the Small Business Support hub also helps to connect entrepreneurs and business owners with funding opportunities, with various workshops and things like that, how do all of these different pieces come together, at least from SPARK's perspective, to create or help a business owner get to this point of what success looks like for them?
Kristine Nash-Wong: Yeah. And I think that's a great question because, for small business, it really is around what are their goals for that business and what do they want to achieve. I think you mentioned something that's kind of important around funding. One of the things that we find is there's so many things going on with the small business. Small business owners are really often just running from the moment they start in the day until it ends. They don't have the opportunity to sort of step away from the business and think about some of those different milestones because they're just busy sort of executing and putting out fires. So, one of the most important things around funding is sort of developing the relationships with local banks, with grant opportunities, with funding before you need it. And so, we do focus in on that a lot, in terms of helping business owners understand what goes into some of the different capital opportunities, how you get prepared for that, what kind of relationships you need to build, and getting all of those in place before it's needed.
Lee Van Roth: And I know SPARK East itself, SPARK East in downtown Ypsi, has a handful of in-house resources or other things that folks can take advantage of, such as community events like 9th Hour, those sorts of opportunities to connect with others. In addition to those, as well as this network of local resources that you've crafted over this time, how has, how has the SPARK team kind of determined what exactly folks here in Ypsi, business owners here in Ypsi, could really, use?
Kristine Nash-Wong: Yeah, that's a great question! So, I think, as someone who's been working at Ypsi for five years, I can tell you that the small businesses tell us what they need, and I love that! So, there are a few sort of newish programs that we've developed over the last year or year-and-a-half, as part of the Small Business Support Hub. And those include having a Small Business Navigator available. So, they have in-person hours every other week, and we also have virtual hours every week. They also can help those understand some of the resources that we do have, like getting them set up with other grant opportunities or helping them navigate the business intelligence software that we offer for free for all small businesses. It's called Size Up SPARK. And we have trainings on that. So, we have weekly trainings or we can do ad hoc trainings with the Small Business Navigator based on a specific question that the small businesses want to answer, like: "What are my optimal hours for operation?" or "Who are my closest competitors in this state?" And then, we also have what we call the Entrepreneur Resource Studio, which is held every week. And that enables small businesses to connect with specific questions they have for an expert, like a lawyer or sales and marketing expert, maybe like trying to figure out how to set up your Google page. Businesses are saying, "Yup! This is exactly what I need!" And we've also been working on expanding some of our marketing and feel support because that is one that businesses always need.
Lee Van Roth: This is WEMU's On the Ground Ypsi. I'm Lee Van Roth talking with Kristine Nash-Wong. So, Kristine, in addition to all of the different resources and things that SPARK East is offering, either in-house as part of the Small Business Support Hub or the connections and things that can be made between entrepreneurs and other local resources, and I'm wondering why that aspect of this is so important, especially to someone who maybe is just starting out in their business.
Kristine Nash-Wong: Sure. So, I think one of the things that I've discovered working with entrepreneurs for the last couple decades is that they are amazing at solving problems. But one of the challenges is, as we talked about before, they're busy from morning, noon and night, and they may be solving challenges or problems that have already been solved or that a resource might exist to help them solve. And so, I think networking with other small businesses, connecting with them, is incredibly important because there's no need to recreate the wheel if you don't have to. And sort of connecting to these resources, connecting to other small business owners, helps folks understand where problems are even solved or give them ideas on how to creatively solve a problem that might be just sort of peripheral, but someone had some relevant ideas or expertise that they can tap into.
Lee Van Roth: And if there are any business owners listening who maybe are looking for a little additional support or looking for those networking opportunities, why would you encourage them to take that step and reach out to SPARK East?
Kristine Nash-Wong: So, I think in terms of recommendations from my side and resources to look out for, we definitely have on our website a section for startup services for small business support. We also have a whole section dedicated to upcoming events where all of our community partners and sort of a number of service organizations across the Washtenaw County area post their events, and you'll find just a ton of upcoming sort of programs, trainings, networking events that you can tap into there.
Lee Van Roth: Well, Kristine, thank you so much for joining me today and for giving us a little bit of insight over at SPARK East! We appreciate it!
Kristine Nash-Wong: Oh, thank you!
Lee Van Roth: For more information and links to the full article, visit our website at WEMU.org. On the Ground Ypsi is brought to you in partnership with Concentrate Media. I'm Lee Van Roth, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU, Ypsilanti.
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