By Abby Ober
Blue North
“How?”
For prospective entrepreneurs, this word can often pose the biggest challenge. How do I find investors? How do I become connected to a supply chain? How do I even know if my idea is any good? – and the list goes on.
Cohort programs are a great way to find answers to these questions. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur and haven’t considered participating in one, this is your opportunity to find an answer to a new “how.” These answers may change your business life for the better.
Blue North has teamed up with Pikeville-based Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR) to bring CO.STARTERS, a nationally recognized accelerator, back to the region. Beginning Thursday, July 29, the 10-week online cohort program (open to all Kentucky residents or those with businesses in the state) will examine several aspects of launching and maintaining a successful entrepreneurial venture. Applications for CO.STARTERS presented by Blue North and SOAR are due Thursday, July 1. The fee to participate in the program is $75.
A Chattanooga, Tenn.-based organization, CO.STARTERS grew out of CreateHere, a five-year revitalization effort to provide support for businesses. Since expanding nationally in 2013, CO.STARTERS has served 280 communities and helped more than 16,000 businesses in the process. The organization offered its first Kentucky cohort in a partnership with SOAR in 2019 and later with Blue North in 2020.
At its most basic, CO.STARTERS is an incubator program designed to help entrepreneurs get started turning their ideas into reality.
“You should expect to be taken through, step-by-step, every aspect of looking at your business from start to finish,” says Rebekah Marr, CO.STARTERS Co-Founder/Director of Operations and Programs.
“We really believe that it’s important to invest in individuals and meet them where they’re at … They have some dream, passion or hobby they want to see if they can make work,” she adds. “We know that people can’t do it alone. A lot of what our program is about is about walking with them in that network of support and really building those connections that they’ll need to take that next step and move forward.”
Covering the basics, however, isn’t the only value of CO.STARTERS. For many, shaking off fears and becoming confident in both their ideas and themselves as entrepreneurs are two of the biggest benefits of the cohort experience.
“Some people think ‘I’ve got to build the entire restaurant before I can ever serve a customer.’ We say things like ‘How about you do a pop-up event?’ or ‘How about just inviting your friends and family over and letting them taste your food to get some feedback first?’” says Marr. “A lot of these ideas are very scary to people. We break it down in a way so that they’re getting each piece and mastering that piece so they can build on it.”
Another benefit of a CO.STARTERS? The heightened sense of community that comes with knowing you are not alone. Marr – who ran her own consulting business before taking on full-time work with CO.STARTERS – says she loves having entrepreneurs huddled together. Marr notes that like a collaborative work space, a cohort might feature a 20 year-old and 60-year-old in the same space. Their exchange of ideas can cut across generations, experiences and cultures that neither might have access to otherwise. Cohorts exemplify the idea of “power in numbers.”
SOAR Director of Business and Innovation Ryan Jones has similar hopes for Kentucky’s next cohort.
“The benefit of working with Northern Kentucky business owners and connecting the Eastern Kentucky business owners is we just think differently. Somebody from Northern Kentucky might have a completely different perspective on someone running a business in Eastern Kentucky,” he says. “In working together, it’s just going to create this camaraderie that’s going to help everyone’s business. It’s going to be a win-win.”
With 50 graduates – including a recently completed cohort just for female entrepreneurs – now existing because of SOAR’s efforts, Jones is equally confident entrepreneurship “is a way that Kentucky can move forward.”
“If we think about entrepreneurship as an economic development strategy, people are going to start and grow in our communities,” he says. “They’re going to support our communities, and they’re going to create jobs for our communities.”
Jones understands this firsthand. The owner of Lincoln Road Coffee Lounge in his native Virginia and Lincoln Road Roastery in Pikeville, he followed in his late father’s entrepreneurial footsteps and started a business.
“I wanted coffee, there was no place to get good coffee,” he says. “So, what do you do? You start a business that roasts coffee and we’re still in business today.”
No matter their reasons or “how” journey, he is confident a CO.STARTERS cohort can help anyone wishing to follow their dreams.
“If you’re just starting, and you’ve never had a business course, you’ve never been to college, you hardly know anything about business at all, this is the cohort for you,” says Jones. “In 10 weeks, you’re going to learn good principles to help you turn your ideas to action.”
Before investing in a business, invest in yourself by considering the CO.STARTERS experience. It could turn out to be the best money you’ll ever spend.
Abby Ober is the program director at Blue North, an organization whose mission is to empower startups and small businesses. Blue North welcomes any questions and encourages small business owners and entrepreneurs to contact them here.
