Entrepreneurial Programs are Helping Small Businesses Spring to Life
Today, downtown Pensacola is a hot spot of cultural activities and enrichment. The streets are lined with boutiques, fine-dining restaurants and performance venues—and nearly all of them are locally owned. Pensacola has seen a boom in economic growth and development, and locallyowned businesses are at the heart of it all. by Fiama Mastrangelo photos courtesy of Studer Community Institute
Until recently, small business owners have had to figure it out on their own. Having connections helped, but small business networks have been historically limited in diversity, leading to issues in underrepresentation and exclusion. A local entrepreneurship hub is here to change the way that people of all different backgrounds gain access to vital resources in business growth. Enter, The Spring. Described as “a hive of entrepreneurial activity” by its CEO, D.C. Reeves, The Spring is at the heart of entrepreneurial development in Pensacola. Located in the Studer Community
54 | NWFL’s Business Climate
Institute building on the corner of Spring and Garden Street, this hub is housed in a brandnew coworking space that serves as the base of operations for the programs offered there. The coworking space sets the tone for participants in The Spring’s Venture Monitoring Service (VMS) and gBETA Pensacola, the two programs that are offered free of charge to entrepreneurs. Amidst meeting areas, lounges and shared desk spaces are the literal doors to gBETA and The Spring’s conference room where roundtable discussions are held for VMS sessions. As Reeves put it, the coworking space serves as the “physical front door to [Pensacola’s] entrepreneur ecosystem.” Both the VMS program and gBETA have been brought to Pensacola from elsewhere—the VMS program is an adaptation of the model developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and gBETA is a branch of the larger national startup accelerator, gener8tor.
