I posted here last week about Myrtle Creek, Oregon, a town of 3,500 about 90 minutes south of Eugene and half an hour south of Roseburg, where the city government decided to help small business by investing in business planning.
It ended up being a very interesting and productive evening, a roomful of interested people, a good discussion and, I hope, a new angle on practical development in the Main Street world the presidential candidates talked about a lot during the recent campaigns.
I arrive about nightfall to find city manager Aaron Cubic, a man in his mid-30s (I think), dressed in a suit, setting up chairs and tables in the unassuming community center just a few blocks from the main street, which is named Main Street. Cubic was easy to like, seemed to know everybody as people streamed in, and appeared happy with the whole affair.
The room filled with a wide range of people, some running existing businesses, some looking to start new businesses, all with real questions and concerns.
The city had copies of Business Plan Pro available for participants, who only had to fill out an application to get the software. And I had been asked down to talk about business planning for a couple of hours. Of course, it was my view of business planning, based on my Plan-As-You-Go book, starting with plans only as big as you need to run the business better.
I talked afterward to a man concerned with what inventory to carry in his fly-fishing store and a woman looking to start up a nonprofit. She’d been convinced when she arrived that doing a business plan would be too hard, but left intending to do one the next day.
I am very happy with the whole event. It feels like something real, tangible, that one town is doing to help its community. All the politicians talk about helping small business, but how many concrete things can they really do?
I hope Myrtle Creek becomes Oregon’s next boom town.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 5:12 am and is filed under economics, entrepreneurship education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.2 Responses to “One Small Town, a Few Dozen Business Plans”
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November 18th, 2008 at 6:54 am
This is really an inspiring story
All town should do this to help its own community. There is one small town here in Canada where the mayor bought old factory to create new ones ( this is not permitted)
But this guy was fighting a mammouth and he succeeds well. He was doing better than our own provicial government.
This is the way to go. Government are just puppet anyway to banksters.
Thanks
Michel Richer
hombyz
November 18th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Which reminds me, I meant to add that while I was in Myrtle Creek doing the workshop I also met John Lazur, Deputy City Planner. It was good to reconnect that loop because Aaron had John contact us initially.
John was at the event, helped to set up, and helped with the distribution afterwards.