Small, rural communities can have a tough time attracting large employers; so some are looking to spur local business development from the ground up. In Floyd, Virginia, they held a competition offering prizes for the best business plans.
Yesterday we heard from the first place winner, who’ll now be able to take her natural and organic body care products to the next level.
Today, in part 2 of our series….we meet the second place winner with another home grown business idea.
“Creativity is more than about pottery and woodworking and music. It’s certainly those things and they’re all wonderful. But creativity has its own outlets and we need to develop those as well,” says Floyd County Economic Development Director Lydeana Martin. She was looking for ways to develop some of the county’s rich assets. Understanding that creative people don’t always have experience running businesses, she put together a 6 week program of classes and mentoring drawing on the skills of successful local business people like Jon Beegle.
“I started my landscaping business with a mower on the back of a pickup truck.”
Beegle is now Chairman of Floyd’s Economic Development Authority. Here’s what he tells people who want to start small businesses.
“Start organically,start as small as possible, pay your dues, don't buy a bunch of new equipment to start the business, invest as you go, put a percentage of what you make back into your business and if you have a good business model and a profile, then you’ll be successful. If not, you haven’t lost a lot because you started small.”
And that’s why the $2500 prize for second place in the business plan challenge will be helpful to winner, Leah Rodriguez. She wants to create a new niche in the ornamental plant market, growing and selling flowers and shrubs raised without pesticides.
Rodrigues says, “I don’t get why you’d spray pesticides on a plant and then stick a tag on it that says, attracts bees.”
Rodriguez says most people think there’s no market for organic ornamental plants, but she remembers hearing the same thing about organic fruit and vegetables not too long ago.
“Sometimes you have to create the market.”
And she says, people may not be aware that conventional nursery practices can sometimes cause other environmental damage.
“Over fertilizing and getting tons of nitrogen into our rivers and streams, which is a huge problem. It causes growth of algae, which sucks the oxygen out of the water, which causes dead zones.
Rodriguez knew she wanted to start an organic plant business, but didn’t quite know how to begin. “I was just kind of following what they were saying about finding a problem, and marketing and stuff like that and I said, ‘I’m going to go for the pitch’ and I went for the pitch and I got second place and I’m like ‘Oh Wow, what a way to be validated!’ I guess this is the route I’m going.
“She had a really good understanding of a niche in the market that wasn’t being met,” says Patrick Obrien, Regional Planner, for the NRV Regional Commission and a judge in the competition.
“I could tell you my wife would probably be one of her first customers there, that it’s just something where there is a growing interest and if you’re into gardening or houseplants, having that extra information about how to do things organically or without pesticides or fertilizers, I think that’s a great idea.”
Rodriguez plans to start selling her pesticide free ornamental plants at farmers’ markets in the area by 2016 and a couple years later, open a retail location in Floyd County. And then…
“Ultimately I’d like to open a botanical garden and be an educational institute not just a nursery. And I want to get there by slowly building the nursery and maybe funding the start up of the botanical garden and have that be something I offer to Floyd. I have big plans!”
Big plans can grow from the seeds of small business and good ideas too, have a way of multiplying, once the creative juices start flowing. Floyd business competition judges planned to name just first and second place winners, but they liked another team’s idea so much, they added a third place prize. You’ll hear about them in our next report.
