Entrepreneurial Resources for WV Small Business Owners

Description

Join Us! As guest speakers Tara St. Clair and Tyler Brandstetter share the following opportunities and upcoming events for WV Entrepreneurs.
 

WV Entrepreneurship Ecosystem West Virginia has created an abundance of entrepreneurial resources throughout the state in the past several years. In early 2019, a group of entrepreneurial providers held a meeting to connect and identify opportunities for improvement in aiding entrepreneurs. The Entrepreneurship Ecosystem effort started as a simple exercise in aligning efforts for better communications through loose collaboration. In less than three years, it has evolved and created a formal network, the WV Entrepreneurship Ecosystem, and a fully functioning ecosystem website through WVBusinessLink.com

WV BusinessLink is the one-stop, online resource for connecting with the resources that support entrepreneurship throughout the state of West Virginia. We support businesses at all stages of development from early stage startup/idea phase, all the way through established small business. BusinessLink also catalogues and provides access to a variety of events for entrepreneurs across the state, and a library of blogs from resource providers and business owners.
 

Bridging Innovation This series of events brings together various meetings and competitions from across the state that are promoting and fostering entrepreneurship in West Virginia. These efforts will range from supporting elementary to college students and community members in their pursuit of becoming entrepreneurs to creating more opportunities in West Virginia and building our ecosystem across the Mountain State.
 

and more !
 

Tara St. Clair is the Director of Operations for the Encova Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Chamber’s College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University. In her role, she provides critical direction for the development and implementation of programs in the Encova Center. Her expertise lies in developing strategies to implement new programs and expand existing programs. St. Clair has a strong commitment to building innovative initiatives that create synergistic relationships between the academic world and the community. She has developed a number of initiatives including the Impact Challenge which is an immersive weekend experience that gives high school and college students the opportunity to work in teams to define solutions for West Virginia’s most pressing challenges. She also works collaboratively to plan, organize, and coordinate with institutions across the state to enhance outreach program participation in West Virginia.
 

Tyler Brandstetter is the FASTER WV Business Launch Specialist in partnership with the West Virginia Small Business Development Center and Advantage Valley as well as the interim Resource Coordinator for the West Virginia BusinessLink . Previously, Mr. Brandstetter worked in product and business development at the Robert C. Byrd Institute, and has also co-owned a local mobile food service business.