ESHIP Summit: 5 things we learned about entrepreneurs at the Kauffman Foundation event
This week, around 450 people from all over the country gathered in Kansas City for the Kauffman Foundation’s third annual ESHIP Summit.
The three-day event focuses on the emerging field of entrepreneurial ecosystem building and is attended by a wide variety of professionals in that field, including business owners, investors, educators, economic development officers and people who run incubators and accelerators.
The conference’s agenda included inspirational speakers, collaborative work in small groups and opportunities for attendees to learn about and connect with national resource providers — organizations such as Kansas City’s own SourceLink that offer tools for entrepreneurs and the people who work to support them.
The Maker City KC team attended the event to learn more about entrepreneurial ecosystem building and to meet people who live and breathe entrepreneurship every day. Here are five things we learned.
1. Entrepreneurship is a team sport.
At ESHIP Summit, we learned that three out of every 1,000 people start a business every month — and the success or failure of those businesses is dependent on the other 997 people. So if you want to see more successful small businesses in your community, support entrepreneurs by buying their product, trying their service, connecting them with a resource or sharing their story with friends.
Chris Goode, founder of Kansas City’s own Ruby Jean’s Juicery, said his business never would’ve made it if the people in his community hadn’t gone out of their way again and again to support his health cafe, which is contributing to the revitalization of Troost Avenue.
“People that connect and support people like me — people like you — make it possible to do what we do,” Goode said on stage at ESHIP Summit.
2. Inclusivity matters.
One of the goals of ESHIP Summit is inclusivity — the idea that every entrepreneur should have access to the same opportunities, regardless of gender, race, age, income level or geographical location.
Ashlee Ammons and her mom Kerry Schrader, who co-founded a mobile event app for networking called Mixtroz, spoke about the importance of inclusivity at the conference.
Ammons says she and her mom were repeatedly underestimated as entrepreneurs because they were black women from the South. She added that her mom regularly faces ageism.
“My mom is like Netflix — she keeps iterating,” Ammons said. “She is not like Blockbuster — she’s not going anywhere.”
Both women gave up six-figure jobs and worked tirelessly to build their business. They took full advantage of every opportunity they came across — and even shared a dorm room for 14 weeks while participating in an accelerator.
Their perseverance paid off: Ammons and Schrader went on to be featured in Forbes and became the 37th and 38th black females to close $1 million in funding.
At the end of their talk, the women invited everyone at the conference who had helped them along their way to the stage. It was another reminder that entrepreneurship is a team sport where every player has something to contribute.
3. Location matters, too.
More than 50 national resource providers participated in the ESHIP Summit. Among them was The National Main Street Center, an organization dedicated to “strengthening communities through preservation-based economic development in older and historic downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts.”
Dionne Baux, who directs the organization’s urban programs, said at the ESHIP Summit that America’s Main Streets “cannot be replicated by a mall.”
“Place matters,” she added.
Baux said that when communities consider how to revitalize their own Main Streets, they need to start by supporting the businesses that are already there. That might involve asking longtime business owners if they need help with facade repairs or other improvements.
She added that vacant lots can be transformed into thriving marketplaces for entrepreneurs. In her own city, Chicago, entrepreneurs have built a street food market and mini mall out of shipping containers. They call it Boxville.
Regular neighborhood events such as Kansas City’s First Fridays are a great way to build community among business owners and spur economic activity, Baux added.
4. Thriving economies are built from the bottom up.
Too many cities focus their efforts on bringing in outside businesses — think Amazon — instead of supporting their own entrepreneurs, according to Dell Gines of The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Omaha branch.
Gines said at ESHIP Summit that it’s important for Midwestern cities to build their entrepreneurial ecosystems from the ground up. He added that cities such as Kansas City, Tulsa, Lincoln and Wichita are doing that — but that there’s more work to be done.
“We’re not really connected the way we should (be),” Gines said. “I’m optimistic we can, because we have so much momentum.”
He added that if Midwestern cities continue to become more innovative and entrepreneurial, “we will be the destination point for capital flow and for people that are saying ‘I want to come to Kansas City’ or ‘I want to come to Omaha because that’s such a cool environment to be an entrepreneur in.’”
5. Cities shouldn’t try to be “the next Silicon Valley.”
Wendy Guillies, the president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation, kicked off the conference with a powerful speech about the importance of embracing the inherent strengths of your community.
She said American cities shouldn’t try to be the next Silicon Valley.
“We should be asking how can we be the best Detroit? How can we be the best Kansas City?” Guillies said.
Victor Hwang, vice president of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation, added that supporting entrepreneurs locally can have a global impact.
“By lifting entrepreneurs, we lift the community,” Hwang said. “By lifting the community, we lift the nation. By lifting the nation, we lift the world.”
The next ESHIP Summit is scheduled for June 30-July 2, 2020, in Kansas City. For more info, go to kauffman.org.
This story was originally published May 24, 2019 at 12:07 PM.