The business and economic development oriented literature is ripe with articles about entrepreneurship. So many pieces look at the entrepreneur and his success. Lots of pictures and little discussion on the help received. Very few focus on the assistance available, utilized, needed or how to access critical resources.
In economic development, I generally see organizations publish books with the title of "Guide to Establishing a Business in..." or "Resources Available to an Entrepreneur in...". These publications focus on legal, tax, registration and requirements to start a business in a specific city or county. All resources have a local or regional focus. They do not look at help beyond a predetermined territory. For most businesses that would likely suffice. However, for certain entrepreneurs, this type of publication may not go far enough.
Last week Bloomberg BusinessWeek published an article about Maker's Row. Maker's Row was founded by Matthew Burnett and Tanya Menendez. It is an article worth reading. The link is at the end of the post. Their objective:
"Maker’s Row is the home of Made in America for the 21st century. We enable brands to find manufacturers to create products here in the United States. Our mission started off with manufacturing in America. We wanted to: make the manufacturing process simple to understand and easy to access."
So what did they do? They created a full service platform to help entrepreneurs in certain industries. They started with a database that contains over 7,000 factories. Most of the listings are either apparel/accessories or furniture/home decor firms. In depth factory profiles are comprehensive. The database allows a person to either search for a company to help create a product or for a factory owner seeking new customers. For certain services, the website requires a fee or subscription.
The site offers podcasts for start-ups. An entrepreneur can also find assistance in design, prototyping, and mass production. For any new business venture in these industries, this is a real resource. Rural firms can seek potential partners not located in the immediate area.
Basically, they created a virtual manufacturing platform and entrepreneurial assistance program utilizing U.S. factories. It is the kind of service I trust many professional economic developers would like to have developed. It is the next step to the guide or resource noted in the second paragraph of this post.
If this could be duplicated for other industries, it could be an additional resource for entrepreneurs and economic development professionals. Examples would be metalworking, finance, etc.
To me, this is an exciting concept. I always wanted to create something like this, but I did not have the expertise. It is the type of service that clearly demonstrates an understanding of the challenges facing an entrepreneur and a business model that helps solve critical barriers to success. It also offers the benefit of matching a new venture with the best partner no matter where either is located.
Sometimes I think economic developers face a difficult choice. We want and encourage our local firms to partner with local start-up ventures. However, for any one firm and especially for an entrepreneur, we also want to help them find the best fit in terms of services offered and cost, even if it is located outside our service territory. After all, what drives their success is slightly different than one of an established business.
On the Maker's Row website, be sure to read the "Why We Are Creating Maker's Row" page. It is one the reasons I think people start businesses. They could not identify or easily find a service or product that they needed to make the venture a success. Maker's Row is an entrepreneurial business helping other new ventures succeed.
Link to the article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-29/maker-s-row-a-guide-to-made-in-america
Link to Maker's Row: http://makersrow.com/
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