Sign North Carolina Banking Living Will Online

Industry sign banking north carolina living will online

hello and welcome to the city club at gibson mill my name is thomas moore and i'm the business development director here at the mill we are so excited to host this event today if it wasn't for re gibson and james kanan two entrepreneurs this mill wouldn't be here today and this community would look completely different roughly 120 years ago gibson mill served a different purpose back then it was gibson manufacturing company established in 1899 when ari gibson partnered with local industrialist james cannon gibson mill was plant six for the cannon mills company through the early early 20th century the space hummed and pulsed with over 31 000 sewing spindles mill workers manufactured vibrantly colored yarns gingham and mattress fabric as well as dress goods before making towels and sheets from the 1930s through the 1970s gibson mill thrived for decades when the mill closed in 2003 it resulted in the largest permanent layoff in the history of north carolina one year later some local entrepreneurs purchased this property together and reopened it for retail office and warehouse space gibson mill's story wasn't over today gets a meal hums and pulses again this time with a fresh fun energy it's a new vibe that respects our past in our present with a strong emphasis on environmental consciousness as one of the region's largest adaptive reuse projects most importantly gibson mill serves as a community driven gathering spot with craft breweries retail office space and a locally sourced food hall which will open next year here at gibson mill we stand for five core values number one community we are first and foremost a place for people to gather and exchange ideas meals conversations good memories and time well spent together number two innovation we believe in fresh new ideas and vibrant experiential concepts we are pushing towards progress that is inclusive welcoming and relatable number three opportunity for the past 120 years this mill created jobs that change lives we want this space to continue to create jobs and opportunities for 21st century economic development number four tradition we represent the heart we respect the hard work ingenuity and craftsmanship of american manufacturing we respect that tradition in the partners collaboration collaborators and vendors we work with today and number five sustainability we're in it for the long run we know that a sustainable environmentally conscious and socially respectable approach to people place and planet will sustain this concept for generations to come we welcome all people ideas and traditions in this vision though gibson mill's purpose today has transformed since 1899 the heart of the mill is true to its roots it serves as a strong stand for innovation opportunity and tradition within our community our partnership with the cabaret center is integral to our commitment to reinvest in the local community the caber center will be a place for all people aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners alike to come together for collaboration education and ultimately the growth of their ideas and businesses we can't be more excited to be a part of this project and have the opportunity to work with such amazing community partners we understand the importance of supporting local economic development through innovation this is gibson mill modern innovation built by a legacy of opportunity and community thank you so much for being here and next up is paige castrodale okay good morning i'm paige castro dale i am the interim executive director with cabarrus economic development and i'm so glad that you guys are here with us virtually we look forward to being able to share this project with you in person over the next couple of months i wanted to take this opportunity to talk to you a little bit about how this project came to life cabarrus economic development is the lead economic development organization for cabarrus county and its five municipalities and back in 2007 the cabarrus edc and the cabarrus chamber commissioned a study to better understand entrepreneurial development in in our county and what this study found is that even though there were many organizations that were working with small businesses and small business owners there was real lack of cohesion among those organizations and there was a lot of confusion if you were a small business owner or you had an idea for a business there wasn't really a clear path for you here where you could go to get that get that support one of the other things that was identified in this study was the fact that if you were someone with a scalable business not necessarily a main street business but a growth oriented company there really was nothing here for you there were there were no solid resources available to support you um coming out of that study the recommendations were to establish an entrepreneurship council that would assemble the key stakeholders in the community and really define what the vision could look like for entrepreneurial development here and the other recommendation coming out of the study was to establish a brick-and-mortar presence a clear place for entrepreneurs to go to eliminate that confusion and make it easier for them to access the help that they needed that study sort of came in and out of focus over many many years and ultimately there was never really one organization that was equipped to carry that that torch fast forward to 2019 cabarrus edc launched a program called grow cabarrus which was focused on supporting second stage companies so kind of beyond that startup phase but not necessarily maybe a more established company and what we found during that process was one there were many more companies in the community that fit that description than we realized and two if we took it back another step and started to really look at the startups that were here there really was nothing for him for them in terms of support or resources and so at that time we decided that it was the responsibility of the economic development organization here to really recognize entrepreneurship as a valid strategy within economic development and create a path forward that was recognized by the community as viable so we started to kind of put pen to paper and think about what that would look like how could we take this study that you know we knew the results really were true for our community and nothing had really changed honestly over the 10 plus years since it had originally been commissioned and what would it look like for us to actually build something that supported entrepreneurs about that time we were introduced to peter marsh who's the founder of flywheel and started looking at what they were doing in other communities across the state and really felt like the strategy that they had in place was what we needed here in cabarrus county and so a partnership there really made a lot of sense and so over the course of the first half of this year through a pandemic we were able to form that entrepreneurship council that was recommended in the original study um we found a beautiful building in downtown concord that flywheel has been renovating um and we really have demonstrated i think to the community that there is a strong support here to support entrepreneurs and one other thing i just wanted to add i think our peers and economic development across the country are starting to maybe rethink what economic development looks like postcovid a lot of what we're hearing is that entrepreneurship needs to be kind of in the forefront of our strategies moving forward we know that that entrepreneurship supports economic recovery um and so i feel very fortunate that we are not just now having those conversations here that those conversations have been taking place for a long time and that we have the pieces in place to help our community recover from this by supporting entrepreneurs so i'm going to bring up danielle who is the community manager with flywheel she'll be working out of the concord location at the cabarrus center and she's going to talk to you a little bit more about flywheel and everything they've got going on over there thank you my name is danielle kuhn and i am the community manager for the kibera center and i am a part of the flywheel co-working team i just want to first thank every community partner that we have had on this project so far you'll see in this photo here there are a lot of different logos and a lot of different organizations that have really come together to put this big project in the works and we're moving forward really great so flywheel co-working we design and operate space that includes office space meeting rooms private offices co-working areas and amenities but really we're more about the community and the vision and bringing everyone together to be able to just really build individuals as well as businesses and help everyone grow and develop so within the three state area that we have here the kibera center is going to join this growing network of innovation centers and you'll see here you'll just you have right now north carolina south carolina and virginia and just a few more coming up in the works so keep your eyes out for that we started out in winston-salem which you'll see a photo here of the inside of the space of winston-salem location we have a davidson location that we designed and operated but now the we handed off the operations to davidson college and what you'll see here are the renderings of the new location called the cabarrus center that's going to be opening in downtown concord at 57 union street we have event space private offices and co-working facilities and then additional amenities that you'll be able to access as well we don't just use the physical space and the beautifully designed space to bring people together we bring them together for a purpose and you'll see here these numbers really speak for why we do what we do and it's really just being that network and that resource for individuals to be able to be the best version of themselves as well as for their businesses to just create that economic development and have an impact on the economy the flywheel foundation really supports the mission and the programming that flywheel offers we're able to focus on accelerating local economic development as i mentioned as well we really push forward the programming and the events within the space we're bringing together the ideas the people and the capital access to be able to to promote as much as we can we're going to be offering a micro grant program which there's more information to the more information on that to come but in order to be accepted into the micro grant program you have to fill out an application and you'll start with these two programs you'll participate in these two programs which the enrollment will be free once you participate through that you are eligible for the micro grants so stay tuned for more information on that so that was a little bit about flywheel but why we're really here today is to hear from tom rue who is going to tell us more about the state of the state of entrepreneurship in north carolina i'm going to give you a little information about tom tom is the president and ceo of nc idea it's a private foundation committed to helping people in north carolina realize their full entrepreneurial potential he is an entrepreneur investor mentor philanthropist and works with entrepreneurs governments and universities around the world to embrace the entrepreneurial mindset needed to grow vibrant economies tom spent the first 20 years of his professional life in the variety of startups and growth companies and the last 15 years helping others do likewise during his seven-year tenure at the kauffman foundation he directed the foundation's programs addressing entrepreneurial education mentoring access to capital and fostering entrepreneurial ecosystems core priorities in his current capacity at nc idea he has served in the on the world economic forum's global agenda council for entrepreneurship and currently serves on the board of advisors for the kenan institute of private enterprise at the university of north carolina and on the governor's entrepreneurship council so bring your hands together and help me welcome tom rood of the stage what do uh applauds online sound like these days right and other interesting things we've learned um first of all thank you thank you for the warm introduction uh i'd like to thank the center uh for just asking me to come and speak and in particular i need to thank uh peter from flywheel i think i've known peter marsh since my time at coffin we might have met even so it predates my time at um at nc idea so when peter asked you know would i come forward and give a speech on kind of the you know priorities for 2021 state of entrepreneurship you know first of all it's easy for me to say yes because it's a topic that's very near and dear to my heart but what i would say at first is that the priority of entrepreneurship is the priority for society to get past covid because you see historically data proves whether it was 2008 or 2001 or even recessions before that when the economy goes through a big shock to the system the first people on the front lines that lead those recoveries have been historically entrepreneurs and will be this time and if you think about it it becomes kind of logical right they're on the front lines out of necessity as we have seen unfortunately into the detriment of millions of people large corporations you know in response to the economic downturn have had to shed jobs millions of them to be specific but entrepreneurs they have to be the first ones out there looking for signs of life and in so doing especially when their companies are less than five years old the number one thing they do for the economy is create jobs to hire people and i can't think of a time you know at least in in my past life where jobs were needed more than they are today so you see when i say that that this is the state of entrepreneurship speech it's really the state of redefining what economic development should be from a priority standpoint so to do that i'm going to take you through just a little bit of data i'd like to start first with a macro you know view before i do that i'll just say very quickly nc idea is an independent private foundation 501c3 we have nc in the name so sometimes we're confused with being perhaps a you know government organization or government funded we are not we have our own money we have our own agenda we are governed by an incredible board of directors who have embraced the mission of the organization namely to help people realize their full entrepreneurial potential i should say that that board has also during these unprecedented times significantly stepped up and for the current fiscal year that we're in and for the next one so in other words 20 fy 2022 for us they have pledged that we will have an operating budget of at least 10 percent of our net assets i apologize it's a little wonky but for foundations by law irs regulation we have to deploy five percent of your net assets that's what gives you the tax-exempt status and most organizations will stick to that five percent you know hoping that their assets grow at some rate above five percent and in times of downturn because you know everybody's endowments took a hit they even pull back typically ncidia did the exact opposite and we leaned in and the board has said we're going to over commit we're going to overspend yes it's going to impact the size of our endowment it's going to start burning it down but we have faith that in doing this we're going to give the economy of north carolina what it desperately needs right now and we're going to worry about our own self-survival at at another time because for right now there are too many people in need this work is too vital so i can't be appreciative of my board enough to demonstrate the courage to do that at this time so i'm going to start with some macro data you heard in in my bio i have the good for good fortune to serve on the board of advisors at the kenan institute of private enterprise at unc chapel hill i'm biased when i say this but i would put them as a national if not global thought leader in certain very specific areas nd they recently issued a study that i can't recommend highly enough about the seven factors that are reshaping the economy these are important things to recognize for those of us that are in this space of economic development in the roles that we can play because these are factors that they are identifying that's going to impact every aspect of society i'm not going to get into them all and forgive me i need my cheaters but you know changes in work travel and migration patterns for example the very first one as we are all getting accustomed to work from home and doing events via zoom and other tools that's perhaps preaching in the choir but this has lasting impacts beyond just the momentary inconvenience i mean i'm sure you have all uh heard now of companies that are going to permanent work from home status right and this is factoring into certain economic development strategies for example tulsa oklahoma recently launched a program called remote tulsa where they are bribing i mean paying knowledge workers that have the ability to work from some location other than an office space to move to tulsa they're getting stipend grant offerings they're getting subsidized housing offerings right there are economic development professionals around this country that are seeing the reshuffling of norms as an opportunity to change their economic fate i'm very appreciative and and hopeful that north carolina is going to lead the nation in some of that ingenuity and economic development but that's just one example of several some of these national trends also play well into the unique portfolio that we have here in north carolina namely number six shocks to health care and pharmaceutical demand uh in particular you know closer to where our office is located in durham namely the triangle you know there are several big companies that are playing a very dominant role in that space and then finally what i'll just highlight from this report is the risk reassessment by capital providers you know the capital stack as it's referred to is very significant because so much of what has built the kind of economic um floor if you will from an economic development standpoint we're predicated upon historical norms right but what does due diligence look like if you're you know an angel or a venture capital fund what does due diligence look like if now you have a startup coming to you and pitching under the notion that they have a completely distributed workforce right or you know what is a total addressable market if that market is shifting now and morphing into something else you know trends in real time at home retail for example are shifting you know our shopping patterns are changing that's changing the way companies have to engage so there's going to have to be some rethinking in the sources of capital that drive a lot of this activity and in particular i would say from an economic development standpoint some of the traditional investment into brick and mortar i think is going to learn to appreciate more the programming that's you know wrapped around those those physical asset investments right or as i like to say kind of in my unsophisticated way of speaking it's equally if not more important what happens in between the four walls than the four walls themselves so what does that mean when you want to lend or finance programming like that this is going to be a differentiator for states nationally the ones that are just hunkering down and weathering the storm right now are going to lose ground in relative rankings and the states that have jumped into this leaned in so to speak have thought outside the box have adapted to host events like this one in the way that it has to still keep people engaged they're the ones that are going to gain ground there's going to be even a greater division of you know haves and have-nots for lack of a better way to do that again i'm happy that i think north carolina is going to be one of those ones one of those states that's going to take several steps up in national rankings in many categories speaking of which startup genome for those of you who don't know startup genome it is a international think tank that does a tremendous amount of research around what entrepreneurial ecosystems look like what makes them strong how does that help people thrive help the communities that they exist in and this year they released their their global rankings and we had something to crow about in north carolina specifically in the top 100 emerging ecosystems category we were the only state in the nation that had three ecosystems in the top 100 rankings yeah i'll add to that volume it's hard not to feel trust me there are people for everybody online there are people in this room safely distanced um specifically and you can go to startup genome to see all the the nitty-gritty and the detail and the data but the the four pillars that they they uh rate are performance um in an aggregate startups you know funding raise things like that well actually funding is a separate category market reach uh experience and talent and that's that's the human component right and i'm happy to see that that category is getting more attention now of course in the big category of just you know you don't have to put the emerging tag on um you know the state still has a little ways to go because the you know the silicon valleys the boston the new york still dominated so the us obviously still occupies the top spots but there are international hubs you know around the world that are catching up uh this is a little bit tangential to my talk and i'm gonna add limit here for one second but you know as you may have heard from my introduction you know i've had the good fortune to serve on organizations like the world economic forum um you know i've presented at the united nations i've collaborated with organizations um that were focused on advancing you know entrepreneurship and you know this thing that used to be uniquely american right entrepreneurship we kind of defined the category even though we stole the word from the french that secret that strength that we uniquely had and we're a world leader in that secret's out and the adoption of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial mindset thinking supporting ecosystem building that's caught on like wildfire around the country so it's not good enough for us in the us to simply continue what we have done we have to eat our own dog food here and we have to evolve as we would expect entrepreneurs to do right react with the data showing us pivot as necessary execute execute execute okay nvca national venture capital association you know this is their 2019 peter i think 2019 is the most recent report they put out um so this data is a little bit suspect in the sense that it's just it's old it's in the 2019 report which points to 2018 data as per the 2018 data north carolina was sixth nationally by i think it's deal volume dollars and if you look at texas we're very close and we actually did less deals for slightly less money which means our average uh funded deal was higher than there so we're in striking range nothing to be um ashamed about for sure uh take this with a grain of salt well actually i should point to this screen take this with a grain of salt because you know we are um lps ourselves you know a big chunk of our endowment is invested in private equity and all of the funds that we are limited partners in have postponed capital calls so i suspect when you know the reports of the covet era do come out we're going to see a very big slowdown in private equity it's to be expected so i wouldn't get too alarmed about that everybody you know the initial reaction to a shock to the system is you know pulling in protection cover your flanks uh take an assessment of things so private equity was no different when it all comes back out you know we're back to normal i suspect you know we won't do any worse than we're doing here so all this to say i think north carolina is doing pretty well in the private equity space and we're blessed to have many great funds um you know statewide and even here in the area it's my fact greg brown shout out to one of my uh board of directors you know runs the charlotte angel network um a very great great fun on this part of the state all right um this was an interesting so every time i get asked to do a talk like this it forces me to refresh my shtick and make sure that um if somebody saw fit to put me in front of you all that i had something useful to say and so this story came out of the economist on the 10th so just in the last couple days so i made a quick edit to my deck and they have found from a data scrub that they were doing and i think goldman sachs was their partner on that um you can look up the story and i might be wrong on which big bank was their partner on the data scrub but they have found recently that the number of new businesses uh in america is booming reversing a trend that had been going on a disturbing trend that had been going on for years now um you know on average we have been seeing uh in aggregate about 500 000 firms ceasing operations per year so if you want to keep kind of a net level position we need about 500 000 a year or more starting if we want to keep our aggregate place steady obviously if we're above the you know close rate then that's better and if we're getting below it that means the entrepreneurial ecosystem is shrinking so this is welcome news i would put a little bit of a caveat in here because some of the speculation as to why well actual reasons why we won't know for some time because that's always done after the fact but some of the speculation in the story was that this could be also a response to some of the ppp money that went out there so that individuals were forming corporations so they could access some of this fund but again i go back to my opening statement and that is that historically it is entrepreneurs that lead recoveries so they will be they are the canary in the coal mine so to speak so as they go so goes the economy so this may be a very uh positive finding for the us in particular because as the story points out no other as they define it rich nation is anywhere close to having new firm formation at this level so maybe we are getting our our mojo back and we're jumping ahead time will tell but it's certainly an encouraging data point taking it down a little bit more micro now and by micro i mean you know micro enterprise godaddy who knew the the big online registrar they have funded a very significant data project and they're in partnership with several academic institutions using the data that they have on 20 million micro enterprises namely their customers they have published some very interesting uh reports i highly recommend if you're a geek like me on this because i gotta tell you my wife hates it every time i say this these white papers this is like my porn she'll catch me at one in the morning in bed reading a white paper and tell me to turn that off but um this is some really good white paper stuff and shouldn't be surprising right on this latest report that they put out which was in september the four you know dominant things that microenterprises are saying they need to succeed access to capital that's right duh skills training you know they need to understand it for themselves to have access to markets but also for staffing which by the way i'm not going to call it a silver lining of covid but the fact that we are adapting to more online training programs has made it very accessible to others um you know organizationally and just trying to you know realize and be sympathetic and have empathy towards our team uh you know one of the things we did in response to this shift was we reimbursed every employee who wanted to have a subscription to masterclass right and just say listen we're going to acknowledge that this work from home time is going to be different you're going to have some cycles you didn't have before you know try to invest in your own self-development and that would be true for an entrepreneur with a startup trying to skill upskill you know employees broadband adoption i have to take a moment to collect myself when i talk about broadband for one thing it's not in our wheelhouse it's an infrastructure thing but i am asked uh frequently what would be like a top priority to advance entrepreneurship in north carolina and and more broadly and it's sorry it's not sexy it's not glamorous but broadband and having greater distributed access to higher speed uh internet is probably the single greatest thing we can do to advance entrepreneurship as well as help in education as well as help in telemedicine there's i would struggle we could have a drinking game if you could identify you know things that it wouldn't help and i would speculate that you'd be very sober at the end of that game because it could help just about everything and the fact that this is not a greater priority for our legislators infuriates me yeah i i'm obviously not going to be uh red or blue we're officially purple we don't advocate as a private foundation we don't advocate for specific legislation so don't misinterpret my comments in that regard i'm just saying is a key factor especially when you consider our rural communities for example right with a distributed workforce people can't start businesses in certain counties and zip codes but for the inadequate access to broadband technology so if you want to ask yourself how can we bring more economic opportunity more wealth creation in these underserved markets and communities that need it so desperately light them up put fiber in that makes it an option with the big trends in migrating workforce that will play directly and complementarily into that hand and i i say this from personal experience my two eldest children work at the same venture-backed internet security company up in northeast ohio they like the microsofts and facebooks of the world have said we're closing down the office we're permanently work from home distributed workforce and they have been told feel free to move to any part of the country you want to work you have to abide by the time zones so staff meetings and all the kind of the overhead of running the business so if you are going to you know even move out of the country just be aware that you have to shift time shift and you have to have adequate broadband right that's the power of it and i hope through grassroots and direct and other enlightened efforts we can advance the state i think we're one of the there's so many rankings but i think one of the ones i read recently is like we're you know we're 26th that's terrible yeah and it certainly doesn't ring we are 26. we are 26. no good no bueno and then finally flexible benefits um yeah i was uh one of the benefits of working in an organization like the kauffman foundation is that they have just brilliant research department and they analyze data again in non-political terms so it's kind of ironic now thinking about the hearings that are going on in in dc today with the supreme court justice one of the things that the affordable care act did that doesn't get nearly enough air time was it was a boom for entrepreneurship specifically giving individuals an option to get health care benefits from an open market ended this thing that was called that is called job lock right many very talented people people that would love an opportunity to go forward and try to start a company couldn't because they had a child for instance fighting some unfortunate disease and that you know that being a pre-existing condition and so they couldn't take that risk but when the aca came into play and individuals could buy health care on an open market that gave them the ability to leave behind jobs of quiet desperation to go start new companies again i'm not taking an official position on that what i'm saying is when we consider things especially in political terms we have to think about unintended consequences if there's something that could be better than that by all means make it better but understand the impacts it's going to have on the economy there's already work um by brookings in the uh strategy for left behind places report that show a consolidation of work talent now mind ou this is pre-covered but a consolidation people are less willing to change jobs over the last couple years and there's been consolidation in larger corporations and that might be good for if you have some of their stock in your 401k not so good in other ways especially again entrepreneurship so we need to be flexible we need to figure out ways to help people where they are so that they can have the space to create new things and in the process of doing that create the jobs again that we need so desperately all right i'll get off my soapbox now so with all that said you know um there's a little bit of back context i kind of want to start wrapping things up by just sharing a little bit more about who we are you know we operate a strategic combination of grants and programs where we help individuals directly through direct grant making most notably our seed grant which is a fifty thousand dollar grant uh program that we run twice a year and then our micro grant program which we started about two and a half years ago which are these ten thousand dollar grants and these are as i'm using the word grants free money these don't go in as debt we don't take equity um again having done this and worked with you know ecosystems all over the country and frankly all around the world i am unaware of any other organization that puts this much money into the startup ecosystem free in other words without getting some sort of carried interest collectively we've helped directly it's coming up on 500 now these slides are always dated by the time we publish them we've distributed over 11 million dollars in grants our companies that we have funded and helped have created nearly 3 000 jobs yada yada yada right all good numbers that anybody in economic development would love to have you know and understand which is why kind of my closing thought around all of this is you know we need to redefine what economic development is you know for too long the practice euphemistically referred to as smokestack chasing has focused on incentive making for large established companies to move a factory into your zip code right let's bribe i mean incentivize somebody to come over you know more often than not at the expense of the community that lost that plant right so we don't look at that as we celebrate that we got we retracted some plant here but on a net net basis at least nationally speaking it's just moving chairs around right whereas supporting entrepreneurship is a primary economic development tool that's creating something new that's net additive that takes nothing away from your large corporate base which by the way we love them right they are the source of those baseline jobs that we need there are people that you know don't want to do anything entrepreneurial and there's nothing wrong with that we need that it's not a binary conversation that if we focus on entrepreneurship it comes at the expense of traditional economic development activity that's not the way it works it's additive right what work what i'm advocating for is i'm trying to compete you know for the hearts and minds of people that make the decisions on how you know public resources are allocated to say if you're willing to support for instance a job creation tax credit and you're willing to give a company 20 30 years to demonstrate the roi on that tax credit if you took a fraction of the resources you're willing to allocate that way and plowed it into an early stage startup ecosystem you'll get 10x the return and by the way those companies tend to be loyal to the locales that they're born and that they grow in they are far less susceptible to the notion of somebody giving you a five percent bounty to move to another state so i put this out there hopefully into the universe so that the people that are in positions to rethink these notions actually do so recently we we had our third iteration of ecosystem grants so i talked about what we do for individuals but uh four years ago shortly after i started i'll be march it'll be five years uh that i'm in the role but well over four years ago we looked at and said that's great and the history of the programs you know are wonderful and the data speaks for itself but there's only so much we can do and so what we saw a big gap in the marketplace at the state level was how to coordinate ecosystem partners and more importantly than coordinating and just being a cheerleader for them is how can we help them with capacity in other words fund them so we started the ecosystem partner program we just had the closing of our third iteration of this program we have funded over three dozen organizations to date uh we had i was just telling peter we had 61 applications and that's great and it's humbling it reminds us all the whole staff the incredible team at nc idea the privilege it is to do this work but it's frustrating in the sense that uh pretty much most of those applications deserve to be funded should be funded and they're doing vital work we don't have enough money to do it even at our 10 budgets we don't have enough so we'll be embarking on an effort to figure out a way to raise more money to deploy in particular through our ecosystem because every one of you out there that is doing this everyone on this backdrop that you see and danielle had on her earlier screen this is where the magic works in the collaboration of all these organizations coming together under a common cause purpose and value to advance entrepreneurship you want to make north carolina stronger support this work it's no more complicated than that people ask me what's the silver bullet to building great ecosystems entrepreneurial ecosystems you know and again i i smirk and i abuse people with this i'm dragging out my answer like i am right now stalling but the reason i'm doing that is there is no sexy silver bullet it is qualified good qualified people sufficiently funded focusing just incredibly on execution consuming the data and reacting to it in other words measuring everything rinse and repeat it's no more complicated than that yet it's not as commonplace as it should be at least not yet so again that's a way for me to applaud um the folks that are coming together for this and then finally i'd be remiss if i didn't take this opportunity to pimp one of our own things out namely our statewide ecosystem summit i know some of you in the room or at least online we're at our first one last year i was a pretty good gig this year like everybody else like what i'm doing here today we're going to be online but we have a few fun things up our sleeves so if you really want to see what's happening at the statewide level please go to our website ncidea.org and you'll find out information about registering for the program and my final thought to leave you with today is understanding why we focus on entrepreneurship quite simply it's because our greatest natural resource is the entrepreneurial potential of people if we were able to unleash that and harness it it'll create more for humanity than anything we can harvest from the sun the wind or dig up from the ground it'll have more impact across society and quality of life every measure you can think of which is why we have to focus on doing that and unleashing that potential within individuals so with that said thank you all for investing the time today to be online and here in the room i applaud all of your efforts and i look forward to seeing the fruits of those laborers in the not-too-distant future thank you [Applause] thank you so much tom it's really great to hear all of the work that you all are putting in and the impact that it's having on north carolina as you mentioned we really believe in the ecosystem that we have and pulling everyone together we are fortunate here locally to have great organizations that can come together and bring these key knowledge assets to the county and to the innovation centers that we're opening we're going to start have two of those organizations speak today first we're going to start off with billy mutis he's with the north carolina food innovation lab he's going to discuss the ideation the the development and the growth that's coming out of the lab right here in kannapolis north carolina and then we're going to move on to megan smith who is with the small business center at rowan cabarrus community college so we're going to hear a little bit from bill and megan and then we'll get together and we'll be able to network right after this event [Music] thank you danielle good morning good afternoon it's good afternoon um as danielle mentioned i want to talk a little bit about some of the activity we've got going on at the north carolina food innovation lab and really how the efforts that are going on here in cabarrus county with comparis center and flywheel are very applicable to some of the things we're doing many of you probably know we're a plant-based facility that was funded by the state of north carolina in an attempt to start encouraging entrepreneurs to build new facilities in our state and hire our citizens in the two years we've been hard at it already trying to get a facility built we've taken advantage of being able to work closely with entrepreneurs to educate them about the food industry and food safety and food manufacturing and what it means to launch a food product many of the entrepreneurs that initially come to us are very engaged in selling products already into the farmers markets or maybe even into some local grocery stores that next step up is a big step up in the food industry today our government has passed a lot of new regulations from a food safety perspective there are already a lot of regulations around labeling trade commerce and all of that sort of thing that goes into making the economic development cycle work but most people don't realize that when you take that next step up from selling at the farmer's market even a local grocery store it's a big step and a lot of people will fail the other challenge of it is a lot of new products fail 98 to 99 of all know food products fail within the first four years so as we work with entrepreneurs we try to give them a dose of reality but we think that also the efforts that are going on flywheel and others will help prepare them to have less of a chance at failure as they start developing their business plans and understand the dynamics of the entrepreneurial industry we we we have several services that we offer to entrepreneurs we've we start off with taking a look at their food products from a recipe perspective oftentimes we don't call it a recipe we call it a formula now because it is a formula that's going to be formulated in a large industrial plant so many of those times many times the entrepreneurs are buying their ingredients maybe at costco or sam's club maybe they've learned about cisco and can get some ingredients from cisco but the cost structure of those ingredients that go into their food product is much higher than we can realize if we actually go to directly to the people that supply food ingredients to the industry the other thing that we then tom mentioned this is capital uh capital is expensive most entrepreneurs are looking for capital so they can grow their business we have an extensive network within a lot of the food venture capital type firms that are out there and our network continues to build as we've launched into this effort in the last couple of years today's dynamic environment for funding even during the pandemic i'm glad to say that at least the food industry has continued to be funded pretty well through this pandemic but an entrepreneur that's looking for funding has to have more than just one product or one idea they've got to have several and they have to know what their next generation of products looks like as i mentioned earlier the failure rate is very high so if you don't have a second third fourth fifth sixth even tenth idea of what you want to come into the market with your likelihood of getting funding is diminished greatly you also have to understand the market dynamics it used to be that we would say well how are you going to position this product what who are you marketing to and where do you want it on the grocery shelf well the retail industry as we know has changed drastically the last seven months so marketing a new product today is going to be about your internet strategy and e-commerce we've we've come up to speed quite a bit the last last few months on this ourselves and continue to work with our customers to help them learn how to launch a product on the internet and how to position it and how to attract certain segments of the customer and population from there a lot of entrepreneurs then start looking at how do they manufacture their product we have a nice pilot plant that we've we've been building out about 10 000 square feet operating under the strictest food hygiene sanitation conditions so it will be a government inspected facility and that will give them the opportunity to be able to market products into a small market to get started with once that growth starts happening we then work with them to find co-manufacturers or co-packers in the state and in economic development local economic development has been very good about also working with us to identify where are these co-manufacturers and co-packers and what are they capable of doing as tom mentioned one of the big things right now is also training training is is extensive in the food industry it's it's about the food safety modernization act it's about food labeling it's about allergens it's about cleaning it's about sanitation it's even about how to take a pump apart and rebuild it so if you're a food manufacturer your training has to continually be occurring and doing it virtually isn't always an option something like the better process control school for people that want to do canned products has to be taught in person because there are a lot of hands-on type things we have to teach you from there we also offer quite a bit of other services and consulting for the food industry but we also have a professional photographer and videographer that can help you do little vignettes of video that help you launch on the internet or we can take pictures if you want to do brochures of your nice products so that's kind of a quick overview of some of the things we have going on 10 minutes doesn't give me a lot of time to do it justice frankly but we're here to help you the cabaret center will be here to help you flywheel will be here to help you so if you're a food entrepreneur it's a great time to be jumping into the plant-based food area right now we saw during the pandemic about 45 percent growth in that area before that we had been seeing about 22 percent over the last five years even now it is it has slowed down the last couple of months we're not running at that 45 level like we were back in june and july but we're still running above 25 so we're still above even the last five-year running average um plant-based foods are here people want to eat healthier and as a result of that that segment of the industry is growing rapidly and north carolina's position very well we grow about 85 different crops in the state of north carolina that quite frankly about 85 percent of it leaves the state for further processing we want to reverse that trend so thank you for your time today [Applause] hi what are the places that make you feel like you belong now i know it's 20 20 so you got to work with me a little bit here but say you have folks come visit you and you're gonna show them where you're from i'll wager a bet you don't say there's my walmart there's my tj maxx now around here a little territorial so you might say that's my qt that's possible mine is personally the best but when we think about the places that make us feel like we belong that sense of place isn't that so oftentimes small business if your visitors are with you wouldn't you take them to the ballpark of kannapolis or drive them down union street maybe you would uh eat dinner at 73 in maine the list goes on and on and on but so many times the things that we associate that sense of belonging with is small business and at the small business center it's our goal just to help start and grow small busine ses we do that in three main ways the first is by providing one-on-one confidential business counseling and that looks different from one person to the next for some folks they just need a sounding board for their ideas for other people they're looking to write a business plan or revamp their marketing so one-on-one business counseling the second way that we aim to help start and grow small business is through business owner development and we do that through educational workshops and seminars whether it's the building blocks of how to start a business and how to write a business plan to how do you use instagram for your business uh how do you prospect customers in an increasingly virtual world now by and large the workshops we're putting on are entirely free and when that happens people say oh there must be a catch or they or they say well maybe the content isn't up to par i'm so proud to say it absolutely is up to par we have excellent national and internationally renowned speakers and experts providing our workshop series this fall and i can't wait to get into what we've got coming up for spring so it's excellent content that we provide in our effort to help develop the small business owner community the third way that we are working to add value in the small business community is simply through connections and it's just when we have clients come to us a piece that we try to provide is that connection to the other uh resources and partners that they need along their journey as you've seen and heard today that entrepreneurial journey it can touch a lot of pieces and places and partners and agencies and it's one of the reasons why i'm so very excited to be a part of the cabarrus center i just believe that through our interactions and our collaboration there together we'll all do a better job of providing that connection piece for our clients collaboration has also just been increasingly apparent to me from a regional standpoint i came into this role new this summer and as everybody was frantically trying to get workshops into a virtual space there was a great opportunity for regional collaboration for example if you're a small business center in a neighboring area and one of your clients can benefit from a workshop i'm putting on sure join our virtual workshop your center is still going to get credit for that client's participation and vice versa and so in that way we've been able to content share content that's relevant for the region without every center sort of recreating the wheel and so that's just been a very a real benefit to us regionally statewide we're a part of the statewide small business center network and that is basically a collection of 60 small business centers we run in tandem with the community college system and as you can see on the screen well it's not on the screen actually let me fix that there we go as you can see on the screen now we provide economic impact in about 92 percent of north carolina counties and on average we are instrumental in helping start over 700 small businesses and help create and retain jobs about 4 000 of them every year now of course these numbers are from the previous fiscal year and and we know 2020 numbers aren't going to be these um but regardless the effort and the efforts of the small business center network will remain the same and our investment in the small business community will remain the same so it brings me back to where we started um what are the places that make you feel you belong support them explore the small business community if you can't picture in your mind the faces of those small business owners get to know them i can promise you they'd like to get to know you and then as you have opportunity please share what you've heard from the speakers today and what you've learned about the small business center thank you anyone within the entrepreneurial journey or just small businesses in general and to just help economic development within your local area so what we're going to do i'm going to talk about a couple upcoming events that we have that are pertaining to the kibera center as well as flywheel and then i'm going to introduce how we're going to network if you are available to stay after within the virtual platform uh to to network with everyone so upcoming we do have a behind the scenes hard hat tour that we're going to be bringing everyone in in person to the kibera center it's going to give you a great introduction to the space where it is and give you the behind the scenes of the progress of the construction the design and get to meet our team we'll be able to talk through the membership opportunities that we have available and how you can contribute to the cabarrus center so please head to our website register for the event we're going to be running tours from uh 10 a.m to 4 p.m so it'll be drop in style and you'll be able to meet the team and see the space coming up this weekend we do have a weekend filled with social impact it's a pitch style weekend it's through tech stars it's a startup weekend so it covers friday saturday and sunday it's fully immersive you get to learn more about how startups are started and you'll you'll see pitches you'll get to meet with mentors judges and it's a really fun impactful weekend so if you're able to attend that feel free to sign up as well we'd love to have everyone that's in this call we'd love to have you attend as well we also have coming up on november 12th and 13th so next month new ventures demo days that is a two-day event as well you can learn much more on the flywheel website what we're going to do now it is time to network so you had a great opportunity to hear from great speakers today to learn a little bit more about the cabarrus center and all the organizations that are here there are plenty more as we have mentioned so feel free to head to the website to see more about these individual organizations but you do have the opportunity to stay on and network we're going to head back to table mode which is what you started in when you first logged into this platform it's going to look like this visual on the screen here each table you can go to and sit and talk with other folks that are at the table if you'd like to switch to another table just feel free and click double click on a chair at that other table and you'll you'll be able to communicate with those folks please turn on your microphones and your cameras to be able to get the most out of this opportunity and be able to see and speak with those that are at the table if you do have any questions there is a help desk at the top left corner of your screen or there is a chat bar and you can click on that chat box and be able to talk within the entire group of people or those that are specifically at your table so we truly appreciate those that are here in person with us today as well as thank you to those who are attending virtually we will have this recorded so if anyone from your team or any folks that you you know might be really interested in this information we'll have that record and we'll be able to send out a link as well so thank you so much we hope that you enjoyed this and we hope that you stay to network and meet some new individuals so thank you you