Op-Ed: Entrepreneurs and small business owners are the lifeblood of local communities

The WV Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Annual Conference is coming up on Tuesday, April 29th. This year's Conference is being held at the Butcher Center at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virgina.

This daylong Conference is full of networking and learning opportunities for entrepreneurs and small business owners from throughout the state. The Conference features an incredible Exhibitor Showcase for entrepreneurs to engage and learn about the resources and insights that foster a thriving entrepreneurial environment in West Virginia.

I am honored to attend the Conference this year as a panelist for a discussion titled, "State of the State: Entrepreneurship in West Virginia". As the state's chief business registration official, my office works hard to make it easy to start a new business in West Virginia.

What used to take up to two weeks to open a new business can now take less than two hours. We now use technol​ogy to assist entrepreneurs 24 hours a day via our artificial intelligence chatbot SOLO, and we offer virtual appointments with business specialists for customers who cannot make it into our brick-and-mortar during their busy days.

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I am also proud to announce the expansion of the services provided by our office for new and existing business owners. We have renewed our partnership with WV Workforce and will be onboarding the WV Small Business Development Center and WV Grant Resource Center into our Charleston location. Starting next month, experts from these organizations will be in-house every Thursday excluding the WV Grant Resource Center which will be on a bi-weekly schedule. These experts will work with customers by providing guidance, business coaching, and resources for financial opportunities. I am grateful for these organizations’ willingness to join us in our office space to help entrepreneurs get businesses off the ground and sustain them for years to come.

As a lifelong entrepreneur and former Director of the WV Economic Development Authority, I know well the challenge of starting and growing a business and the need for more jobs across the state. Entrepreneurship offers the opportunity to start and grow businesses in every community in West Virginia, because every community has skills, culture, and heritage from which new businesses can be created. Those new businesses, in turn, reflect the dreams and ambitions of West Virginians. They are the businesses that West Virginians decide to start.

West Virginia has its own wonderful history of entrepreneurship. You see it every day in the retail shops, cafes, repair centers, restaurants, and other businesses in every city and town. No matter how urban or rural a community is, it has businesses that define that community, make it special, give it character, and on which we all depend and enjoy frequenting. Now, we need more of them so that every community is thriving, every downtown storefront is full, and every West Virginian has the job opportunity they want.

To do that, we need to get more government out of the way of West Virginians working to fulfill their dreams. Helping those who will start businesses helps all West Virginians. Research in the United States shows that for every 1% increase in the entrepreneurship rate, the poverty rate decreases by 2%. In addition, every new business per 100 people adds nearly $500 to average household income in a county, according to GoDaddy Venture Forward data.

All West Virginians have a right to pursue their dreams. To start a business, if that’s what they want. To create a job, rather than find a job. To design their own future rather than let someone else do it for them. Entrepreneurship enables that to happen, and strengthens the economy of the entire state.

I want to encourage all entrepreneurs and small business owners to learn more about the WV Entrepreneurship Ecosystem and consider joining me at the Bridging Innovation Conference here in the Mountain State.