MySalesButler provides internet sales and marketing services to creative agencies, marketers, and software companies. This article is part of an ongoing series to support entrepreneurship in thriving communities.
Rural Entrepreneurship: Trading Resources For Lifestyle
Starting a business in a rural area presents a unique set of challenges. Resources and connections available in the cities are out of reach. Small communities lack funding to support local entrepreneurs. Having a limited network of like-minded people leaves struggling founders feeling isolated.
Despite this, rural entrepreneurship is on the rise. Founders are foregoing big-city resources to launch businesses in less-populated areas. They cite a better quality-of-life as the main factor for their move.
MySalesButler CEO/Co-Founder Bryan Wachs is encouraged by the continued rise in rural entrepreneurship. Now, as he noted in “Celebrate the Hopesters” a recent article for CO.STARTERS’s INTERSECTIONS, rural communities need to support them:
Cities are slowing down in growth, and people are migrating to places where life is more simple and sane. Rural areas – where job growth languishes – need to pivot toward emerging technologies and the companies that utilize them
Partnership to Support Startup Capital, Networking, and More
Seeing a need for more support led Wachs to team up with Chattanooga, Tenn.-based entrepreneurial network CO.STARTERS. As their new Southwest Regional Connector, he’ll work with leaders in rural areas and small communities in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and southern California.
Wachs said the new partnership will give rural entrepreneurs access to education, capital resources and techniques, and an “advisory board” of cohort peers.
“CO.STARTERS provides boots-on-the-ground leaders systems and resources to build an entrepreneurial ecosystem that fits their individual needs,” he added.
“Bryan has a passion for supporting entrepreneurs of all kinds to build up rural communities, said Enoch Elwell, CO.STARTERS founder/CEO. “He builds a narrative of hope and excitement for the future wherever he goes.”
Wachs, of Grand Junction, Colorado, is a serial entrepreneur and grassroots economic and community development leader. He helped create coworking spaces in western Colorado and co-founded West Slope Startup Week. He started MySalesButler in 2011. The company provides internet sales and marketing services to creative agencies, marketers, and software companies.
CO.STARTERS launched in 2008 to provide business support to artists, creatives, and other non-traditional small business owners. Today, they operate a national network of support communities, programs, and workshops for commercial, non-profit, and Spanish-language startups.