Community leaders are always interested in creating a vibrant economy to provide prosperity for their citizens. Promoting entrepreneurship is often at the heart of any economic development initiative. However, entrepreneurship comes in many different flavors from technology start-ups to micro-enterprises. Moreover, small business enterprises run the gambit from high growth companies to more static main street retailers.
As a result, many different small business support organizations are created to assist specific types of businesses. However, from the perspective of a budding entrepreneur, the options can be overwhelming. Some support organizations are not well known while others are household names, which makes choosing the right organization difficult to impossible.
As the entrepreneurship director at Pikes Peak Community College, I am always looking for ways to help nascent entrepreneurs navigate the labyrinth of support options. Recently, my research uncovered a company called U.S.SourceLink, headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, that thinks that it has cracked the code.
U.S.SourceLink is the largest resource network for entrepreneurs and was designed to make entrepreneurship easier. Once implemented in a community, U.S.SourceLink helps transform fragmented economic development organizations into a vibrant and vital ecosystem. The goal of U.S.SourceLink is to help the community create an ecosystem that sparks, supports, and sustains entrepreneurship. It was initially developed through a cooperative effort between the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the U.S. Small Business Administration, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Since it’s initial roll-out in Kansas City, U.S.SourceLink has been implemented in many communities throughout the United States.
U.S.SourceLink connects all of the city’s business development resources to each other and to the entrepreneur in an effort to help the community create jobs, accelerate business, and strengthen local economies. Using an internet-based resource navigator, entrepreneurs identify the area where they need assistance and answer some questions about their industry and business. The tool then presents them with a comprehensive report of community assets and programs that are there to help them.
Moreover, the tool allows community leaders to track their progress on various business development initiatives to assess traction and results. The tool was developed by and for economic development experts to help support entrepreneurs, small businesses, and local economies. The podcast episode below is an interview with Maria Meyers, the CEO, and Founder of U.S.SourceLink, and Cathi Ulrich, the Director of Global Business at U.S.SourceLink, as they discuss how they got started and what it takes to implement it in a community. If your community has not yet implemented U.S.SourceLink, encourage your community leaders to listen to the podcast and learn more about how U.S.SourceLink as it might very well be the magic sauce to propel greater entrepreneurship in your community.
