The Melting Pot Business ownership is like a melting pot. Not in the normal sense of different people coming together to form a community, but similar: it takes many different forms of personal experiences, education, actions, trials and errors, lessons learned, tears, sweat, long nights, hard work, and an unbelievable amount...
Are you aware that West Virginia lags far behind Appalachia, and the nation, in entrepreneurial and start-up activity? In fact, the Kauffman Foundation’s 2017 State Report found that WV ranked last in startup early job creation with a third as many jobs created as the leading state, and below the...
Bridging Innovation 2023 Announced! That's right! Bridging Innovation 2022 is coming to Wheeling next year! If you haven't heard of Bridging Innovation or were unable to make it last year, now is the time to get your event registered for 2023! Keep up to date with Bridging Innovation by checking in...
Today's blog is an excerpt from the article Understanding Cybersecurity Risk — Small Business Edition by Andrew S. Baker, president and CEO of Brainwave Consulting Company, LLC. This article can be read in it's unedited entirety on the WV SBDC website, which can be found here. A Subset of Overall Business...
West Virginia small businesses know a thing or two about “Building a Better America through Entrepreneurship", as nearly 99 percent of businesses in the Mountain State are considered small and they employ nearly half of the private sector workforce. Therefore it was fitting the U.S. Small Business Administration to choose...
Spotlight Programs: Lauren Prinzo Community & Economic Development Specialist WVU Extension Service Equity in Entrepreneurship Findings Update and Discussion West Virginia University is conducting in-person strategic planning meetings across West Virginia as part of an Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) POWER Technical Assistance grant aimed at expanding entrepreneurship opportunities for rural and low-income youth. The next round...
Life After the Military Retired First Responder, Becky McCallister at My Way to My Roots Farm. For some veterans and active-duty members, agriculture offers an opportunity to gain back the camaraderie that many feel they lose in their life after military duty. For others, it offers a chance to be their own...
The West Virginia Regional Technology Park (WVRTP) in South Charleston is anchored by unique facilities ideal for transforming an abstract idea into a completed, market-ready product with existing office space and laboratories, new concepts, technologies or systems that can be created and refined at the park. The Tech Park is...
Exporting isn’t just for big companies. Small and medium businesses represent 97 percent of the 270,290 businesses that engaged in international sales in 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. West Virginia exports reached a total of $4.6 billion in 2020. Of the 134 countries West Virginia exported to in 2020,...
Many of West Virginia’s towns and cities of all sizes are in the midst of a renaissance. Community development efforts abound in many parts of the Mountain State, and historic downtown areas and neighborhoods are at the center of this economic resurgence. Private investors are finding themselves more and more...
