HOULTON, Maine — Houlton is considered one of 10 Maine cities participating in a nationwide plan to nurture small companies.
The one Aroostook County city concerned, Houlton joins Ellsworth, Augusta, Tub, Belfast, Biddeford, Saco, Gardiner, Rockland and Westbrook within the nationwide Principal Avenue America 2022-23 Entrepreneur Ecosystem Challenge.
As post-pandemic distant working will increase and home-based companies blossom in rural areas, cities want supportive environments for entrepreneurs. Extra enterprise homeowners imply a extra bustling downtown, and that’s what Houlton Director of Group Improvement Nancy Ketch desires to see.
“This can be a fantastic alternative for us to guage the companies obtainable to help our native entrepreneurs, and to not solely decide the place the gaps are, however do one thing to fill these gaps,” Ketch mentioned.
Leaders can’t determine in a vacuum what is going to assist enterprise homeowners. They need to ask first. That’s why Houlton is listening earlier than planning, Ketch mentioned.
Final week, Ketch emailed a survey to native enterprise homeowners designed to gauge the place they want help and join them to native assets. One survey query asks, if that they had $1 million, how they’d spend it to help native entrepreneurs.
Ketch desires homeowners at numerous phases of their enterprise lives to let the city know what they want. To develop outreach, Ketch encourages survey recipients to ahead the survey to different native entrepreneurs.
Surveys have to be returned by Feb. 12.
City officers sit up for seeing the outcomes come to fruition, she mentioned.
Entrepreneurs are risk-takers with modern concepts, and their power brings new and generally out-of-the-box considering that sparks a city’s vibrance and sometimes will increase the city’s financial resilience, Nationwide Principal Avenue America Chief Program Officer Matthew Wagner mentioned.
The ecosystem venture is a partnership of the Maine Improvement Basis, Maine Downtown Middle and Principal Avenue America, which goals to assist cities develop higher relationships with native enterprise homeowners and, in doing so, revitalize their native economies.
Initially, the Maine Improvement Basis, Maine Downtown Middle and Principal Avenue America accomplished an entrepreneur ecosystem pilot venture with Skowhegan, Lisbon and Monson.
In Skowhegan, for instance, native entrepreneurs mentioned the downtown lacked a devoted facility corresponding to a maker house or incubator. The findings led to the event of the downtown Skowhegan Middle for Entrepreneurship.
Due to the success of the pilot packages, the ecosystem venture acquired congressional funds by means of U.S. Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins. Every taking part city will obtain $10,000 for planning (conferences and assembly house) and $50,000 for venture implementation. The venture runs by means of March 2024.
Enterprise ecosystem constructing is comparatively new to financial growth and downtown revitalization, particularly in rural communities, Wagner mentioned.
Most neighborhood entrepreneurial help techniques are inefficient, he mentioned.
Wagner visited Houlton in November and can return subsequent week to steer a spotlight group with native enterprise homeowners. He’ll meet with space stakeholders just like the Small Enterprise Administration, city authorities, Better Houlton Chamber of Commerce, county authorities and educators.
He’ll consider the outcomes and put together individualized reviews by early spring.
Just like Skowhegan, Houlton city leaders will carefully study gaps from a enterprise homeowners’ perspective and which will result in adjustments or extra choices. However it’s too quickly to know the way that may look, Ketch mentioned.
“We need to let it evolve organically,” Ketch mentioned.
Houlton’s leaders don’t have a full image of what rising companies, particularly home-based, are in the neighborhood, in line with Ketch.
Outdated stereotypes of rural communities usually harm new enterprise development, however rural communities provide native assets and property not discovered in additional city places, in line with a Brookings Institute 2020 report.
“Related, sturdy ecosystems create communities the place companies need to find and develop and that is particularly necessary in rural Maine, ” Senior Program Director of Maine Improvement Basis Anne Ball mentioned. “These companies add to the vibrancy and creativity of communities. ”
