Celebrating Entrepreneurs

During our fall GCDF trainings, we have talked quite a bit about entrepreneurial characteristics and resources available in your communities to help people begin businesses. In small groups, we have also brainstormed some great business ideas for a recession and business ideas targeting baby boomers. In fact, in 2009 about 6% of job seekers went off unemployment because they started their own business.

Last week (November 15-21) was Global Enrepreneur Week where millions of people around the world gathered to generate new ideas and seek better ways of doing things. The goal of the week was to especially encourage young people to embrace innovation, imagination, and creativity. In Kentucky, the folks over at Awesome, Inc. launched the first ever Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame. Some of the inductees included John Y. Brown who grew the KFC dynasty worldwide and John Schnatter who founded Papa Johns Pizza.

Each year, Awesome, Inc. in Lexington hosts StartUp weekends where entrepreneurial minded folks network, brainstorm, develop ideas, and learn tools to launch a business. They also offer business/meeting space, mentoring, and technology development labs. Such business incubators are proving to be a beneficial resource.

What can we as GCDFs do to help clients in our region consider beginning a business as their next career?