understand level.” With nearly one in three Americans reporting trouble paying household expenses, part of the commitment to lowering the barrier to entrepreneurship involves keeping the program low-cost. The CO.STARTERS’ $200 fee is intended as a ‘checkpoint’ for participants to ensure they have a realistic understanding of what to expect.
By Erick Richman
Starting a Business is Hard StartUP C O L U M B U S I S W O R K I N G T O M A K E I T E A S I E R
fter just a few moments with Ben MacMinn, A his passion for uplifting small business is clear. “We have incredible people here doing incredible – I should say amazing - things,” Ben says. As director of StartUP Columbus, he’s focused on answering the question “‘How are we going to support these entrepreneurs?’” That focus drives his work helping citizens create their own small businesses, launching new shops like BeeJou Craft Kombucha and Plant Hustle Vegan Bakery. In addition to Ben MacMinn
free consultations and a nine-week, low-cost CO.STARTERS course that guides aspiring entrepreneurs in creating realistic, personalized business plans, a newly created Incubator Program offers a free workspace and a structured environment to young businesses. “Columbus has had a rich history of entrepreneurship,” Ben says, mentioning former startups turned major local employers like TSYS, LocaL
“It’s very difficult,” he says, “It’s not the ‘I’m going to go sit in a coffee shop and make $100,000 a year doing nothing and going on vacation.’ It’s hard work.” The $200 fee doesn’t make the company money – the notebook itself costs them $125, he says - and it wasn’t decided upon lightly. “We wanted to set a price that was not extravagant,” Ben says, explaining that it was chosen to reflect his belief that the people who might be struggling with financial insecurity are exactly “the people that need this knowledge.” That manifested in a commitment to work with individuals oneon-one when the fee does present an issue. “Sometimes people can’t afford it, and I understand that, but if you’re
Synovus, and W.C. Bradley Company. However, in a 2015 comparison with nine other cities, the Columbus 2025 Regional Prosperity Initiative found that Columbus ranked last on metrics such as the number of employees in firms less than five years old. To him, that meant Columbus wasn’t lacking enthusiasm or ideas, but the resources and support systems that these other communities were using, like incubator spaces, entrepreneurship programming and accessible networking opportunities. Though he praises the work by the SCORE mentorship non-profit and the local office of the University of Georgia’s Small Business Development Center (hosted in Columbus State University’s Cunningham Center), he says the rankings convinced him that “we needed to do more.” The three organizations are now partners. “StartUP Columbus, we created it to really tie
all those resources together, as well as provide our own resources. There’s so many other pieces that have to be in play to support entrepreneurship,” he says. Participants in the nine-week CO.STARTERS program explore how to set up their business for success, from revenue projections to legal considerations. “It really dives in deep, but at an easy-to14
APR I L-MAY 2021
