So what’s going in most of the country?
That’s not exactly clear. It’s easy to see that competing with traditional businesses– that is, nondigital — is a tough road. Prospects aren’t good for a mom-and-pop grocery or most retail outlets in a 7-Eleven and Amazon era. Investors and lenders aren’t abundant for startups in challenging rural, suburban, and urban communities, many where people are struggling with flat or declining incomes.
Yet with the report’s pessimistic tone, it’s hard to bottle up the entrepreneurial gene that drives some people to plunge into businesses of their own. The ambitious, hard-working person who would have opened a store a couple of generations ago now creates an app to sell products. The would-be restaurateur opens a brewpub or a food truck. The exercise buff who doesn’t have the resources to open a gym creates a software add-on for the FitBit.
Buck Heidrick, a certified business adviser at Washington State University Vancouver’s Small Business Development Center, says his frontline experience doesn’t reflect the data in the report. Heidrick and his colleagues statewide are swamped with helping people who have good ideas. The ease of obtaining financing ebbs and flows, but there’s plenty of assistance and even government encouragement for those who see their futures in launching a new business.
In fact, three of Heidrick’s clients came up with business ideas so good that a corporation bought the idea before they could launch their business — all reward, no pain. Now that’s an entrepreneurial success — far better than selling Popsicles to a paperboy.