The State Journal
Published: August 10, 2006

Entrepreneurship Group Spurs Growth

Professionals form network to help others solve problems.

By: Jessica Farrish

BECKLEY-- How do you do business in southern West Virginia?

That's a question that has led a group of business owners, contractors, state agents and others in the southern counties to form the West Virginia Entrepreneurship Alliance Inc. -- a network of professionals who have teamed up to offer a business startup course and other services to entrepreneurs.

The alliance was formed by a group of local professionals who recently met for a 10-week FastTrac^® course -- a hands-on development program developed by the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City. The FastTrac^® program is designed to help entrepreneurs hone the skills they will need to create, manage and grow a business, according to Deanna Keener of the local FastTrac^®.

After the local course ended, course members wanted to help other entrepreneurs with questions they'd faced, they said.

"(We formed the alliance to) basically just try to help entrepreneurs in southern West Virginia deal with all the problems of being an entrepreneur (and) hopefully lend some of our guidance," said founding alliance member Doug Bixler.

The alliance received a $200,000 grant from the Pittsburgh-based Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation through the Region 1 Workforce Investment Board in Raleigh County.

Bixler said the grant will be used to get the alliance off the ground.

Alliance members will work to establish networks and provide resources -- including reviewing of business plans and linking angel investors with promising new businesses -- to entrepreneurs, Bixler said.

The alliance also will speak to politicians on issues facing entrepreneurs, Bixler added.

In a meeting coordinated by Region 1 Workforce Investment Board and the alliance member Bill Loop, Bixler and others in the alliance met with Benedum Foundation representative Mary Hunt-Lieving at the Region 1 Workforce Investment Board offices in Beckley to accept the grant and answer questions regarding the new group.

The big issue facing entrepreneurs just starting their businesses is lack of knowledge, according to the alliance member Dr. Anne Cavalier.

"Starting a new business is like trying to pile up sand in a windstorm," Cavalier said. "There are so many details.

"You've got a great idea, you're hard working, you have that vision and you're willing to invest yourself and resources. ... But you don't know anything about the business end of putting it all together."

The alliance will offer a FastTrac^® course in Beckley in September and help answer questions on critical issues that make or break a business, including marketing, staffing, investing and financing, Cavalier said. For entrepreneurs with well-established businesses, alliance members hope to help with issues like expanding and staffing.

Alliance Vice-Chairman Ron Bailey said when he set out three years ago to "reinvent" a 62-year-old family business, he discovered that technology is a big concern now for businesses.

"Every business today is a technology business, whether you believe it or not," said Bailey. "Finding people with (technology) skill-sets to help us grow effectively and support our customers has been very challenging."

Hunt-Lieving said "high tech" possibilities need to be maximized in West Virginia.

"With West Virginia where it is, it lets you be in New York, Pittsburgh, D.C., responding to business opportunities," she said. "With high tech, the idea that you can maximize the opportunities and your market and your benefits -- by building technology into what your business is -- is huge."

Hunt-Lieving commended alliance founders for having the vision to encourage economic growth on the local level.

"We have to build a more entrepreneurial culture in West Virginia," the Benedum representative said.

Connecting entrepreneurs to others who are able to help with their questions and concerns is a goal of the alliance, Bixler said.

The network will be listed on a Web site the alliance will operate, he added.

Alliance member Melissa Aguilar of the Region 1 Workforce Investment Board said the group plans to expand from Raleigh County into McDowell and surrounding counties quickly to encourage entrepreneurship throughout the region.

"Each of us are dots on a map," she said. "The problem is the line between each of our dots have not been connected in the right way. The process from getting from dot to dot is what we've got to learn."

The alliance already has helped local entrepreneurs, according to Robin Morgan of Workforce West Virginia.

"(A client) walked away from the meeting with those answers (to a business question)," Morgan said. "The benefits are already beginning to show from the alliance."