IdeaSpark kicked off at the Adams Hub in downtown Carson City Monday, giving about 30 people exposure to business start-up techniques.
It was the first in a series of workshops to take entrepreneurs through the development process to move from the idea stage through whatever is needed to advance their proposals toward inception and eventual actual commerce. After the workshops, the next component with Entrepreneurs Assembly, Inc., after the autumn workshops, is designed to help build an entrepreneurial culture and an educational foundation for such entrepreneurs.
But the three-hour workshops lay the groundwork and the first one pleased those involved.
“It was great,” said Miya MacKenzie, president of MacWest Marketing and a spokesperson for the Adams Hub, which is collaborating with Entrepreneurs Assembly (EA) to handle the two-phase business start-up training program. She called the first workshop and those to come an opportunity for participants to mull an idea to determine what is needed to get under way and “to see if it’s got the legs” to grow from idea stage to reality.
Subsequent workshops periodically will focus on topics like developing a business model canvas, strategy development, investor presentations and the like.
MacKenzie, who works as local spokesperson for Steve Neighbors of the Hop and Mae Adams Foundation, which got the Adams Hub up and running this year, said those in attendance Monday included business people, students from Western Nevada College, and some high school students. She said the concept is to see if business ideas they have make sense and put them in touch with resources to move forward.
Jumpstart, the program’s second component, will be offered as an accredited course at WNC and is to be handled by EA lecturers that teach pertinent University of Nevada at Reno and Truckee Meadows Community College courses.
Rob Griffin, Adams Hub executive director, said the program represents a spirit of collaboration to aid local business hopefuls. Sherry Black, WNC academic director of career and technical education, said the Jumpstart portion of the training enhances efforts for many community college students who must face balancing work and study at the same time.
Finally, according to those involved, the Adams Hub will help EA expand its local footprint in the capital city’s start-up ecosystem by hosting an “EA at the Capitol” event. The EA organization is a Reno-based not-for-profit formed in 2010 to help Nevada’s economy recover via entrepreneurship.
