We Create KC: KCSourceLink Reports on KC Entrepreneurship

We Create KC: KCSourceLink Reports on KC Entrepreneurship

 Kansas City Report on Entrepreneurship | We Create KC

You build this city . . .

(Cue music. You know you’re humming it anyway.)

 

When you start a business, when you reach out for help to grow a business, when you hire your first employee, when you invest in a Kansas City startup, when you connect a Kansas City entrepreneur to a resource, when you choose to #ShopLocalKC—all of you help strengthen our economy and make Kansas City a great place to live, work and play.

Because when you choose KC, you create KC.

That’s the anthem of this year’s We Create KC, KCSourceLink’s fifth state of entrepreneurship report. In this year’s report, we wanted to step back (timeline!) and thank all of those who have stepped up to grow Kansas City businesses and advance Kansas City entrepreneurship—from entrepreneurs to resource providers, from investors to storytellers.

And now some highlights



We Create KC: Year 5
celebrates all of you in Kansas City who help create a better KC and who are helping us become America’s most entrepreneurial city. 

In this year’s state of entrepreneurship report, you’ll find:

  • a 15-year timeline of Kansas City’s entrepreneurial infrastructure, from the launch of KCSourceLink in 2003 to the 10th anniversary of Global Entrepreneurship Week
  • a numeric breakdown of the four types of entrepreneurs who contribute to the Kansas City economy
  • the quantifiable impact of Kansas City startups (defined as first-time employers with fewer than 20 employees) through the number of jobs they create
  • the capital continuum and the number of capital resources that are a part of Kansas City’s entrepreneurial infrastructure
  • the number of equity investments and grants into KC-based companies as well as the amount invested in KC startups
  • the number of investors from Kansas City that are investing in KC companies as compared with investors from outside of Kansas City
  • a list of Kansas City companies to watch based on funding in 2016 and 2017
  • examples of how corporations can engage with Kansas City’s startup ecosystem

But wait, did you say Year 5?

Yep. KCSourceLink benchmarks, tracks and measures KC entrepreneurship along six imperatives for entrepreneurial growth.

We started doing this through We Create KC in 2011. That’s when our Resource Partner, the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce proclaimed a bold goal: to make Kansas City America’s most entrepreneurial city.

The community rallied behind that grand vision, and KCSourceLink got to work with our 240+ Resource Partners to figure how to achieve that goal and know when we’ve reached it.

So We Create KC was born. The report, produced under an award from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration and with support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, is organized around six imperatives that were identified as key areas of development in the region’s quest to nurture entrepreneurship and economic growth.

To wit:

  • How does KC connect entrepreneurs to support resources? (Ahem, that’s what we do. Let us connect you.)
  • How has KC dramatically increased available startup and growth capital? (We host a capital dashboard, and we can help match investors-to-startups.)
  • How is KC creating a strong entrepreneurial pipeline of ideas?
  • How is Kansas City telling its story of entrepreneurship—and who’s listening? (We keep a list of KC rankings.)
  • How is KC building and retaining entrepreneurial talent?
  • How can KC better engage the broader corporate community in the startup ecosystem? (That’s what we’re working on next.)

The report also looks at the quadrants of entrepreneurship, recognizing that not all entrepreneurs are alike. In 15 years of working in the entrepreneurial community, KCSourceLink has developed a framework for categorizing entrepreneurs as Microenterprise, Main Street, Innovation-Led and Second Stage. Resources to support business growth tend to cluster around these areas, and all are critical to a thriving, vibrant economy.

Why does entrepreneurship matter?

  • It’s needed: Young firms (0-5 years) create jobs with net employment growth of 8.6 percent. Older and larger firms shed more jobs than they create. (Sources: U.S. Census Bureau  Business Dynamics Statistics; Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation)
  • It works: Economic gardening—a focus on “growing your own” businesses in your region—resulted in 71 percent increase in employment in Littleton, Colorado, since 1989 while providing no incentives or tax breaks to recruit or attract outside business to the city.

Entrepreneurs and the jobs they create are a vital and critical ingredient for a growing economy, providing to shared economic prosperity, opportunity and empowerment.

What progress have we made?

Since 2003 when we were founded by the Kauffman Foundation, the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the U.S. Small Business Administration, KCSourceLink has made more than 53,000 connections and 35,000 referrals to partner organizations—and we continue to build collaborations that matter, all to move the needle for entrepreneurship in the Kansas City area.

KCSourceLink helps Resource Partners form coalitions and alliances that help pool resources together and make them more visible (like 2016’s KC Coworking Alliance and 2015’s Multicultural Business Coalition) and organizes week-long, metro-wide entrepreneurial events (like Global Entrepreneurship Week, which attracts thousands of attendees to 100+ events). We not only match entrepreneurs and small business owners with the right resource at the right time, we also help make sure those resources are visible, accessible and relevant to KC entrepreneurs and the challenges they face in starting and growing their businesses.

Yeah, we stay busy.

Is this your first We Create? Collect all five!

We Create Year 1 (2013)

In its first year, We Create KC benchmarked the six imperatives. Along with Resource Partner highlights and entrepreneurial success stories, We Create Year 1 includes:

  • the quadrants of entrepreneurship and the numbers of Microenterprise, Innovation-Led, Main Street and Second-Stage entrepreneurs that start and grow businesses in Kansas City
  • KC Company Watch List of companies that received two rounds of funding, a list that We Create KC continues to update each year
  • the chart of the supply and demand of tech jobs and talent
  • ·number of equity funded companies by stage and location
  • map of Inc. 5000 growth companies

We Create Year 2 (2014)

In its second year, We Create KC continued to track entrepreneurial connectivity, talent, capital and funded companies, adding the following to its data set:

  • map of entrepreneurial density that tracks where in our region new companies (those that have hired their first employee) are formed
  • the impact of the KC Regional Microloan Program, which loaned $3 million across 262 loans, resulting in 800 jobs
  • map of equity funded companies by stage, location and number of deals
  • a snapshot of Kansas City entrepreneurs by business sector, stage and revenues
  • a chart of connections between Kansas City’s entrepreneurial organizations, a first step toward mapping the ecosystem and its collaborations

We Create Year 3 (2015)

In its third year, We Create KC introduced the Resource Rail℠, a map of Kansas City’s business-building resources that serve all four types of entrepreneurs, from inception to exit. In addition to its annual watch list of startups, We Create KC shared:

  • an infographic depicting “who are our entrepreneurs” by entrepreneurial type, revenue, age, funding streams, and location
  • a microloan report sharing the impact of such loans to women, minorities and types of industries
  • the growth of grant, equity and angel funding since the We Create Capital report was published the summer of 2015
  • the innovation pipeline: the types of homegrown innovations moving toward commercialization and the organizations that help accelerate those ideas

We Create Year 4 (2016)

Last year, We Create KC revealed substantial progress made in improving access to capital for early-stage entrepreneurs and quantified the number of first-time employers in Kansas City from 2009 to 2015, by industry. We Create KC shared:

  • the pipeline of ideas, via projects curated through Whiteboard2Boardroom
  • a 290% increase in available capital for early-stage entrepreneurs, for a total of $792 million in capital available to early-stage entrepreneurs
  • average (4,400) and annual numbers of KC startups (defined as first-time employers with fewer than 20 employees) that hire their first employees, from 2009 through 2015
  • a snapshot of what KC entrepreneurs look like and what they need, including education level, age, reported revenue changes and types of assistance requested
  • a list of Kansas City’s nonprofit resource partners that are part of the KCSourceLink entrepreneurial network

We Create Year 5 (2017)

This year’s We Create takes an historical view of Kansas City’s entrepreneurial infrastructure, highlighting resources partners who’ve worked behind the scenes to shape Kansas City entrepreneurship and support entrepreneurs on their journeys. We Create KC Year 5 includes:

  • a 15-year timeline of Kansas City’s entrepreneurial infrastructure, from the launch of KCSourceLink in 2003 to the 10th anniversary of Global Entrepreneurship Week
  • a numeric breakdown of the four types of entrepreneurs who contribute to our economy
  • the quantifiable impact of Kansas City startups (defined as first-time employers with fewer than 20 employees) through the number of jobs KC startups create: an average 16,376 jobs each year
  • an infographic of the KCSourceLink network and how it works to make connections, create collaborations, increase awareness and measure impact
  • the pipeline of ideas, via projects curated through Whiteboard2Boardroom
  • the capital continuum and the number of capital resources that are a part of Kansas City’s entrepreneurial infrastructure
  • the number of equity investments and grants into KC-based companies as well as the amount invested in KC startups and the increase in access to capital
  • the number of investors from Kansas City as compared with investors from outside of Kansas City
  • a list of Kansas City companies to watch based on funding in 2016 and 2017
  • examples of how corporations can engage with Kansas City’s startup ecosystem

(But wait: there’s also We Create Jobs, which tracks the number of jobs KC startups create, and We Create Capital, which tracks how KC is improving access to capital for all its entrepreneurs).

What’s next?

Glad you asked. KCSourceLink will continue to work with its partners to improve access to capital and access to resources and to report on why and how entrepreneurship matters to a thriving and sustainable economy.

The next step is to engage all players in the entrepreneurship ecosystem, including corporations.

In 2013, corporate engagement was seen as an area of opportunity for Kansas City and the needle hasn’t moved much in the past couple of years. Our next step will be to assess corporate involvement in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, figure out which corporations are involved with the startup ecosystem and how they are choosing to engage.  

Many feel that corporate engagement has to come in the form of cash and financial investment in startups. However, we want to look at the ecosystem on a much deeper level— how are corporations mentoring, supporting, incubating ideas and potentially become first customers for our area startups.

We have a feeling there is a lot out there; however, there isn’t an infrastructure built to showcase this aspect of the ecosystem and those that aren’t tapped in on a personal level don’t know how to engage. Stay tuned for findings and to learn how you can help ensure a vibrant ecosystem that includes all players.

How can you support KC entrepreneurship?

Shop local. Invest in startups. Make a connection. Start a business. Talk to an entrepreneur. And if you have a specific idea, reach out to us. We’re ready to help you start a business, grow a business or connect into KC’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

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