Collider Foundation Startup Services Report
BARRIERS AND MOTIVATORS
January – June 2023
Through the Start-up Business Support Services, Collider was able to serve 48 entrepreneurs during the first half of 2023, assisting them in refining their business ideas and providing resources to enable them to navigate and plan the next steps to implement their ventures.
Through 130 hours of support, we individually assisted entrepreneurs from the Rochester, MN area with this demographic distribution:
One of Collider's purposes for this 2023 has been to promote the participation of women and minority groups in the Rochester entrepreneurial ecosystem.
A misunderstanding about the virtue of a free and confidential service and trust building issues in the community are obstacles this service faces, especially when it comes to BIPOC entrepreneurs.
For this, some marketing efforts were considered such as visiting places of congregation for the Hispanic community, offering free events on business education topics that were relevant to the entrepreneurs, and participating in other social events organized by third parties.
Thanks to the information obtained in the intake form, it has been possible to identify that as the business idea matures, the barriers decrease, and the motivators change.
In general, the most common barriers and motivators are an interest in finding specific business education (22%); the location of a specific business resource (22%); they want to start a business but are unsure how (16%); the need of general startup business consulting (11%); business funding (10%).
Despite the barriers they must face, entrepreneurs have motivations and needs to meet.
As for the Hispanics, it was common to hear that they want to start businesses either because their immigration situations do not allow them to have a formal job, or because they have the expertise in a specific industry and want to become independent.
Miguel Valdez and Enrique Nunez during Festival de la Mariposa, where they launched their food business endeavor La Receta, a peruvian street food pop-up restaurant. They started working with Collider in June at the ideation stage.
For this ethnic group there is a common interest in food businesses, home cleaning services, and construction and remodeling.
In other communities, it is more common to hear that the desire to start a business comes from recent changes in their work situations, such as layoffs, maternity, or retirement. Worth noting is the recent interest by businesses in the cannabis industry since recreational marijuana was approved by the state of Minnesota. Since then, it has been a topic of frequent interest among entrepreneurs looking for specific information to open dispensaries or agriculture businesses.
As of June 2023, most entrepreneurs who have received 1:1 startup business support is concentrated in the following industries:
To conclude, the efforts of the second half of 2023 are aimed at attracting a greater number of entrepreneurs through events sponsored by Collider that meet their needs for business education and access to ecosystem resources.
Startup Services Report by Juliana Silva, Director of Startup Services
