Pandemic pushed fresh approaches to innovation

Apr. 2—Covid-19 resulted in more of a sense of togetherness being developed in various segments of life.

The pandemic, for example, bolstered unity in agencies and organizations that provide a helping hand to smaller-scale entrepreneurship efforts, says Judy Moore, executive director of WV Hive and managing director of the Country Roads Angel Network.

Just recently, a call was undertaken among numerous participants to plot a strategy for the April 4-7 Bridging Innovation Week, which will be the focus of the Bridging Innovation West Virginia Entrepreneurship Conference events at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.

"We landed on the lessons learned from Covid, and how, (while) we don't like giving credit to something so devastating, but how it really has helped us restructure the approach and the growth that we're seeing in entrepreneurship development in West Virginia," Moore said Thursday, "both in (that) there have been a ton of new businesses that have started up, and the fact just overall the West Virginia entrepreneur ecosystem has really somewhat transformed.

"Entrepreneurship supporters are coming together, and they are supporting one another. We're not necessarily working within our own sand boxes and being territorial. We're coming together ... as a unified body, which is something Covid made us break down those barriers and come together to fight against something that was bigger than any of us could conquer alone. Things like that have been really transformational in the work we're doing, so that's going to be at the core of the conversation."

The WV Hive and Country Roads Angel Network (CRAN) will help sponsor and collaboratively participate and showcase program impact during multiple events of Bridging Innovation Week.

During the week's events, Moore and Kevin Combs, CRAN chairman, will guide key conversations on the importance of small business development, new jobs, investment opportunities and mentoring of new startups throughout the state. They will contribute to concurrent sessions being held from 1 to 1:50 p.m. on Tuesday, April 5.

Those sessions will include:

—Small business entrepreneurship (how to start, resources for entrepreneurs)

Representing WV Hive and CRAN, Moore will be the moderator. Key speakers will "discuss the importance of entrepreneurship, where we've been, where we are now, how we got there and everything in between," Moore said. "I get the opportunity to lead a conversation about entrepreneurship and, specifically, the importance of the resources and the growth in entrepreneurship support for start-ups and small businesses."

—Innovative financing models and approaches for small business

Kevin Combs of CRAN and Christy Laxton of the Wyoming County Economic Development Authority will be panelists.

As part of the week's activities, Country Roads Angel Network will host an event from 5 to 8 p.m. on April 5 for investor members and potential investor members. During the second in-person investment review meeting, four small businesses will make pitches to CRAN investors for funding to build their enterprises. The investor pitches will come from different fields, including one related to renewable energy, said Moore.

On Wednesday, April 6, there will be pitches from various Marshall and WVU student programs seeking award funds, as well as some community projects.

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In 2018 or early 2019, key entrepreneurship providers came together to form the West Virginia Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Group, Moore said, "and that was the start of something that has led to the development of the production of this conference. It's really been quite amazing to see that group come together and evolve."

During a monthly call, various entrepreneur support programs, financial institutions and other interested partners coalesce to discuss supporting entrepreneurs and small business owners across the state.

"In 2020, we had decided to have a conference to basically launch what was going on, the movement of entrepreneurship in West Virginia, and of course, you know what happened here. It was to be the first week of April, so it got canceled."

No attempt was made to hold the event in 2021, but "this year, everything looks like it's going to be able to happen," Moore said. "It's kind of going to be a celebration of all of us that have been involved in it from the beginning."

Going forward, small businesses and their communities in some situations have "basically flipped from pure devastation to ... the opportunities now are unbelievable," Moore said. "There's a lot of federal money being made available right now. A lot of that is available for entrepreneurship support."

Also, the designation of the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve in late 2020 "is creating an opportunity for several surrounding counties, not just for the Gorge area, for just unbelievable growth," she said.

In the future, much thought must be placed into planning, Moore noted. "We know also that we have to get better in planning for what potentially could be that next devastation. We are extremely resilient people, especially southern West Virginia. First, it was the (downturn of) the coal industry" that began with miners losing their jobs and had a ripple effect that led to storefronts closing and other negatives.

"We started recovering from that, then along comes Covid," Moore said. "We can't live thinking that it might be another 100 years before we see something else hit us. It has made businesses more resilient to where they will be better prepared for that next wave."

A tangent Moore noticed in recent months was that some small businesses weren't ready to properly handle seeking Covid-19 funds coming from Small Business Administration via the federal government "because they didn't have good accounting practices in place" to substantiate figures that would have allowed them to receive SBA funding. "The businesses that survived despite not having had that support probably will never allow something like that to happen again," she added.

Moore said she's anticipating next week's conference. "We're really taking this as a celebration. We're just so excited about where we are right now, and what the opportunities are for entrepreneurs that didn't exist five years ago."

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WV Hive is an entrepreneurship program of the New River Gorge Regional Development Authority and has been in existence since late 2016. It got its genesis from an Appalachian Regional Commission grant.

"One of the biggest metrics that I can attach to success and a change during Covid is the fact that, before Covid, we were supporting on average 75 businesses at a time," Moore explained. "Now, we're up to 100, 105, around that point."

Another aspect brought to the forefront by the pandemic "was the fact that, as West Virginians, we have pride that is probably unmatched. I think a lot of time that pride doesn't allow us to ask for the help that we really should take advantage of. Again, through Covid, because businesses were so severely impacted, they had nowhere else to turn. It was beyond anything that they could do by themselves, so they reached out for help. And we're seeing that to continue to carry on. They're just more apt to reach out and say, can you help me?"

Support from WV Hive for the 12 counties it serves is geared to helping make sure a business has a greater opportunity to be successful "because there are so many startups that never survive that first year, or even the first three years," she said. "Hive helps them develop a good strong business plan, identify potential weak spots in the business plan, or help them strengthen skills and provide them with skills for marketing, accounting" and "all of the things that a small business owner has to be good at."

Being a program of the NRGRDA, a loan program from the umbrella agency is available to Hive clients. While helping make loan support a possibility, WV Hive also tries to include requests for technical assistance funds in any of its requests to the federal government, Moore said. That is aimed at offsetting website development costs, accounting software and other areas.

The other funding opportunity is from the sister program, CRAN. "We work with businesses that come to us for support that have the potential for the Country Roads Angel Network investment. We work with them to strengthen them to get to the point where they can actually pitch their business to the investment members."

Email: skeenan@register-herald.com or follow on Twitter @gb_scribe