Silver State welcomes ‘entrepreneurial powerhouse’ status

By Rob Sabo | Special to the NNBV

Members of the Reno-based group Entrepreneurs Assembly attend a recent roundtable discussion in Carson City. EA is just one of several entrepreneurial support groups that are gaining steam across Northern Nevada.
Photo: Cathleen Allison

As the aspirations of Reno’s entrepreneurs continue to rise, fueled by Northern Nevada’s increasing presence as a technology hub and a strong economy throughout the state, Reno’s entrepreneurial support and development community is growing by leaps and bounds as well.

Entrepreneurs no longer need to go it alone — there are a host of organizations dedicated to supporting entrepreneurial growth in the Truckee Meadows.

Groups such as Entrepreneurs Assembly, SCORE, Nevada Small Business Development Center, 1 Million Cups, StartUpNV and others are helping Northern Nevada entrepreneurs transform their ideas into scalable and revenue-producing enterprises. Entrepreneurs are starting more technology and other businesses than perhaps at any time in the city’s history.

Matt Westfield, entrepreneur-in-residence and adjunct professor at the University of Nevada, Reno College of Business Ozmen Center for Entrepreneurship, says many of these organizations sprang up following the Great Recession as out-of-work Nevadans scrambled to find their next new thing. 

“We had all of these out-of-work professionals believing their lives were over — there were no support mechanisms because everyone was in the same boat,” Westfield says. “There were no jobs and no opportunities for anyone, especially entrepreneurs.”

Westfield was teaching an entrepreneurial course at the time and realized there was disconnect between aspiring entrepreneurs learning how to start a business at the university and a lack of support networks to help foster success in the early stages of the business cycle once they tried to bring their ideas to fruition.

Read the rest of the article at nnbusinessview.com.