On Thursday, July 2, Senator Heidi Heitkamp held the first Senate Small Business Committee Field Hearing in Fargo to discuss how federal government can better support entrepreneurship in rural areas like North Dakota. The room was filled with local community leaders, media, and entrepreneurs – faces you’d recognize from 1 Million Cups, Startup Drinks, etc. In fact, many of those events were referenced as boosters of the “entrepreneurial renaissance” in North Dakota, according to President Obama’s Cabinet Member and U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator, Maria Contreras-Sweet.

“The startup scene in Fargo has attracted national attention, and rightly so,” said Contreras-Sweet, who has been a member of President Obama’s Cabinet since April 2014.

“The SBA’s North District Office has sought out opportunities to support entrepreneurs not only through our delivery of SBA programs and services,” she continued, “but also through…organizations and events such as Emerging Prairie, Startup Weekend, Women’s Startup Weekend, 1 Million Cups, Startup Drinks, E-commerce Breakfasts, Fargo Startup House, hackathons, and the incubator at NDSU Research and Technology Park.”

Proud moment right there.

Local leaders give testimony to Fargo’s pros and cons

Also presenting testimonies that day were John Machacek of the Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corporation, Jake Joraanstad, co-founder and CEO of Myriad Mobile, and Dan Mahli, Senior Planner for the City of Fargo.

Machacek spoke of the EDC’s continued effort to aid the startup ecosystem in Fargo, specifically through addressing gaps experienced by the local entrepreneurs.

“A struggle we are experiencing is that while our population has been quickly increasing, this growth is being outpaced by the employment growth, leading to our metro typically having over 6,000 open jobs,” he said. “This is a major issue that we hope the community will help collectively tackle.”

As far as funding issues, Joraanstad shared some of the local programs that aided him in boosting Myriad Mobile off the ground in their early stages. Some that he referenced are the Operation Intern program, the Technology Based Entrepreneurship Grant (TBEG), the North Dakota Development Fund, and the Students in Technology Transfer and Research (STTAR) program.

“The biggest problem we faced was securing funding to allow us to grow,” Joraanstad said. “Without the help of the GFMEDC, we would have had an extremely difficult time getting to our next stage of growth. [They] helped us navigate the waters of business classification.”

Increasing opportunity for New Americans

Joraanstad also addressed the problem of hard-to-find-talent by offering a few suggestions: automating more tasks, expanding the Operation Intern program, and making it an easier process for New Americans to work here in Fargo, for example.

The latter point is one that Mahli expanded on as well, highlighting that there is a large community of New American and refugees in Fargo-Moorhead and that 52% of high-tech firms in Silicon Valley are founded by New Americans.

“While the federal government is responsible for larger immigration policy issues such as visas and citizenship, local governments can help create a welcoming environment for people that immigrate here,” Mahli said. “Our equality framework in the United States is one of our greatest strengths. Let’s lead with it.”

Heitkamp agreed, stating that she hears “every day from the SBA about these problems.”

“How can we turn the…aircraft carrier of bureaucratic ways towards a more innovative outlook?” she asked, during the post-testimony Q&A.

The solution, Mahli said, “has a lot more to do with listening than anything else.”

Investing in human capital

These bigger picture issues – establishing a welcoming community, improving livability and reducing poverty, for example – are closely linked with the need to bolster entrepreneurship in the city, Mahli said.

“Efforts to reduce poverty levels by increasing earning power and family self-sufficiency – and let’s be bold and include entrepreneurship in this area – have a major impact on community and individual well being,” Mahli said. “Call me a dreamer because I am, but it would be nice to make decisions about great start-up ideas…based on human capital rather than access to wealth.”

Human capital, Mahli said, can be defined as “personal qualities that produce value.” The heart of progressing as a city, he said, is not by investing in businesses but rather investing in individuals.

“By investing in a person’s skills, abilities, ethic and creativity…I believe the results – as measured by experiences, education, health, happiness– can improve the entire economy.”

New Initiatives

Some programs that Contreras-Sweet brought up as potential options to bring to Fargo are the Cluster Program, one she helped organize in Los Angeles as a way to fund public-private partnerships – as well as the Startup in a Day program, which allows startup founders to register and access permits over the course of one day.

“Thank you,” Contreras-Sweet said, at the closing of the meeting. “Thank you for your excellent testimony that I can take back to Washington.”

Read more about the SBA hearing, here.

Photo courtesy of Greg Tehven.