The number of new business starts in North Carolina is setting records, according to a recent report released by the NC Secretary of State. Nearly 96,000 new businesses opened between January and June, up 80 percent over the same period last year. Based on this momentum, the secretary’s office now projects that nearly 200,000 new businesses will be registered by the end of 2021. The report says new business starts are up 64 percent in Forsyth County, and 94 percent in Guilford.
“Our survey findings point toward a new era of entrepreneurship, with 81% of respondents indicating they launched their businesses in search of new opportunities, while just 12% report starting their new businesses as a result of job losses during the pandemic,” said Secretary Elaine Marshall in a story in the Triad Business Journal.
This new era of entrepreneurship is a proverbial overnight success story resulting from years of hard work and underfunded efforts to support new business starts. Years ago, in the face of fleeing manufacturing jobs and oncoming sea change of digital transformation, several Triad pioneers offered a different path for economic prosperity – building and growing startups.
There was not much support for these early efforts, with legacy industries still attracting most of the attention. Founders lacked mentoring, investment, affordable workspace, and ways to connect with other entrepreneurs. To fill this gap, entrepreneurial support organizations, or ESOs, like co-working spaces, accelerators, incubators and maker spaces popped up and started to create an ecosystem.
Largely under the radar, these ESOs have educated, mentored, convened, invested in, and grown hundreds of new startups from blockchain databases to mobile apps to HealthTech and more. These companies have created jobs and attracted talent and investment. And the ESOs have done it with impossibly small teams of two, maybe three, employees.
So, here is where we find ourselves now: We have an explosion of new businesses, but the resources to support them have not grown. The equation is out of balance, and we risk a different set of headlines in the next 18 to 24 months if we fail to address the shortfall. Those future headlines may decry record numbers of business failures without aggressive investment in organizations designed to foster startups.
Many governments, companies, universities, investors, traditional economic development agencies and business leaders have opted to stay on the sidelines, taking a wait and see approach for proof that startups contribute to economic development. Or they have merely written entrepreneurship into their strategy documents with no further action or funding. The evidence is in: fostering startups is working and now is the time for those on the sidelines to get in the game. Without new sources of support, ESOs and the record number of founders who rely on them will face unnecessary delays and barriers.
Imagine what would be possible if the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the founders we serve were well-funded instead of stretched too thin. Instead of one session a year, we would run more accelerator programs, creating more companies. We would expand existing incubators and start new ones to grow these promising young companies. We would have more and richer investment funds available to sustain startups’ growth. We would create more jobs and opportunities.
What the Triad ecosystem has done on a wing and a prayer is remarkable. Now is the time for more involvement from a wider swath of participants so we can sustain and build on the momentum we have already created.
To learn how you can get involved, email Karen Barnes at karen@agilecity.ws
Karen Barnes is the CEO of Agile City, a nonprofit innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem consultancy based in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Their mission is to use innovation and entrepreneurship to connect communities, companies and entrepreneurs and create thriving, resilient and equitable mid-sized cities.