113. Supporting Rural Startups with Margaret Hedderman

Our guest on today's episode is Margaret Hetterman. Margaret works with and for Startup Colorado, which is an entrepreneurial ecosystem building organization located in Colorado. And she joins me today to talk about kind of, kind of the journey of the whole organization. It actually started under a university but led to their switching over their status just to exclusively a nonprofit. We talk about a little bit about the reasons for some of that, some of the initial work that they did. But what I loved so much about this conversation is how attuned to the different needs of rural small town entrepreneurs this organization and Margaret herself as a human really are. It's not the same. I get that, you know, being an entrepreneur kind of, there's always a set of challenges that maybe accompany everybody regardless of where they're at. But they approach their work from a support and collab, really from the depths of both support and collaboration. Which just fits so perfectly with how we view our role in helping people build successful businesses here at Growing Small Towns. You're gonna hear some, some tips about, well, and also you get the opportunity to check out their network, which is also really cool. But this is both for people that may be entrepreneurs themselves. This is for people that feel their role is to help support entrepreneurs wherever you might be. There's lots of little tidbits to take away from this one. So please enjoy this conversation with Margaret Heckman. Well, hey, Margaret, welcome to the Growing Smart TV show.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Yeah, super excited. So when Elise reached out to me and told me a bit about Startup Colorado, I did a little bit of digging and I was like, yep, this is cool. So why don't we start there? Just tell us about, you know, who you are, what you do for Startup Colorado, and what it is.

Sure. Yeah. So I'm Margaret Hetterman. I'm the communications and editorial director at Startup Colorado. We are now, as of this year, a 501 nonprofit, and we work with rural entrepreneurs and ecosystem builders throughout the state to cultivate successful environments for them to start and grow businesses in those places that they call home.

Okay, awesome. So, so you used a phrase just there that I hear a lot and that I think is kind of, it's kind of like inside lingo, the word ecosystem. I want to thank you, by the way, for just saying it's creating successful environments. That's what an ecosystem is, right? But for those that maybe aren't in this work, because I feel like this is similar work to what we are trying to do with Growing Small Towns, right? I mean, it's, it's how do you connect the people that need the resources to the providers already doing the work and maybe gap filling if there needs to be additional services or programs that can augment it. Do you have a thought about what makes for a successful environment, especially for rural entrepreneurs? And what have you found in the work? Well, and also, when did you start Startup Colorado? So you said this year you've been a nonprofit, you're a nonprofit. When did it officially launch?

So Startup Colorado began way back in 2011 at the University of Colorado, and it was just a summertime program, and that was launched by Brad Feld, who's kind of the granddaddy of the Boulder startup scene, and Phil Weiser, who's now our Attorney General. And so they got together and created this summer program in 2017. It was relaunched and refunded, still at the university, but now it had a focus on rural entrepreneurs. And so that's kind of when I came on board, was when it is in the second evolution of the organization.

Okay, so I've, I've already asked a question. It's going to hang— we're going to come back to the ecosystem thing, but this history is very interesting to me. So Brad Feld, I've actually read some of— because he's, he's a published author, is he not?

Yep, The Startup Community Way. Right.

Okay. Oh, that's fascinating. So you worked alongside him?

No, he had already, he had already kind of moved on from this particular project. He was much more involved with it at the, at the beginning stages.

Okay.

But our whole premise was based on that concept, like the Boulder thesis, of building, building an ecosystem that supports entrepreneurs and taking that out into rural Colorado and seeing if it would work.

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about the evolution of the program, you know. So, and we don't, we don't have to necessarily talk about what it was, I mean, what it initially started at. That's, that's probably not quite as relevant as just what does ecosystem building look like now? What does Startup Colorado look like today? What do you guys do?

Yeah, so we do a lot of things. Ecosystem building is very complex work, and it's a little bit challenging to define in just a single sentence because it involves so many different ways of working with people and building relationships. So kind of, I think probably the easiest way to describe it is we go into a town where we already have partners, so business support organizations, people like you, entrepreneurs, people trying to start businesses, and understand what resources are already available to those entrepreneurs. And then this, this is actually what happened in 2017. During SuCo 2.0 is the Startup Colorado team did some different surveys and analysis, analyses of the, I think it was 5 or 6 different communities around the state to understand what that environment looked like for rural entrepreneurs. And then they wrote a report, gave it back to those people in the communities and said, here are our recommendations. And so that involves everything from having a coworking space to having entrepreneur meetups. To maybe supporting more events downtown that drives traffic. It's different for every community because especially in rural places, they're so different and the challenges that they face are so different. So we really don't have a blueprint for what it looks like. Like there's not a A to Z procedure for developing an entrepreneurial ecosystem. It depends on what is currently present in that community as well as the entire region. So you know, here in Colorado, and I'm sure it's the same for you, these towns are segmented by huge geographical distances. Like where I'm at in Durango, Silverton is just 60 miles away, but there's two major mountain passes that sometimes get closed in the winter. So it's, it's trying to build that regionality, and we do that online with our online network. So I have been rambling all over the place.

No, no, no, I love it. And the reason I think this is all just so fascinating is because The idea of supporting startups. So that's one of the questions, by the way. You said SuCo, which I was like, oh, I love it. Startup Colorado, that's what you call it.

That's—

yeah, SuCo 2.0 is what she said. I was like, I caught that.

I like it.

So in thinking about this, in North Dakota, we have a couple of providers that were really informed by Brad Feld's work, which is really cool. So again, that's where this idea of ecosystem building comes into play. I love that you are articulating the fact that you can't create this idea of a blueprint. It's like a blueprint with 50,000 decision trees in it. Exactly. Like, if this, then this, if this, then that. Because it's like you visited one small town, you visited one small town. They're not the same. It depends on what's around them. It depends on their proximity to bigger communities, depends on if they've got primary employers. You know, if there's like a large manufacturing plant in the middle of a small town, that small town looks really different from mine or others, right?

Yeah.

Okay. So there's kind of, it sounds though like there's two components to your work and maybe I, maybe I misunderstood. So you have to clarify this. There's the online network, which is probably accessible to anyone.

Well, so we primarily serve rural entrepreneurs in Colorado, but it's definitely open to anybody that wants to join to learn and see what we're doing to support Colorado's entrepreneurs. Yeah. So maybe it would help if I kind of break our work down into different lines of business because it's— they're connected, but they're really different at the same time. So before we started this online network, the Startup Colorado team had 2 people, Western Slope Regional Director and our Eastern Plains Regional Director, and they were driving all around the state about 50% of their time, and they were going to these different communities and meeting with entrepreneurs, meeting with business support people. And just building relationships, building trust, because that is so important. Because as you know, a lot of outside organizations will come into a small town and say, I have all these ideas for you to improve your economy, and then they disappear and never come back. So we didn't want to— we didn't want to be like that. We wanted to support the people that were already there doing the work, and that involves being a trusted ally. So this was all going on. We were hosting events, helping other organizations run events for entrepreneurs and just kind of going at full speed. Then the pandemic hit and we launched our online network for rural entrepreneurs. And we kind of already been thinking about this before the pandemic, but it just accelerated it. So the online network was developed as a way to address a lot of the problems that entrepreneurs face in rural areas. Which is finding resources, you know, not knowing where to look, accessing mentors and peers, knowing that maybe the person next door is building a business that they didn't even know about. So just kind of trying to create an online community for rural entrepreneurs so that they can access resources wherever they are. That kind of qualifies two different lines of business. We're still on the ground working hand in hand with a lot of our partners, and that involves providing sponsorship funds so that they can host events and run different activities in their area. We also provide scholarships to entrepreneurs so that they can attend networking or educational events. And then we are also having a lot of one-on-one calls and meetings with people, connecting them to the resources that they need. So it's— there's a lot of partnership building that happens outside of this online environment. And then there's, there's this community that we've built, which has now reached about 1,300 people throughout the state. That's Yeah, it's, it's really taken off in this last year. And a lot of that is due to events that we're hosting kind of in tandem with this online space. So we have monthly online meetups for entrepreneurs to come and have a structured conversation. So it's a little bit like networking, but it's an organized conversation that— and so that drives a lot of people into the network and starts creating relationships in real life and then pushing it onto that network so that they can continue the conversation. So those are two lines of business. We also have a very strong storytelling program. So we have a narrative podcast in which we feature the stories of rural entrepreneurs. We have an entrepreneur news site, and these are the things that, that I'm running. And then there's our emails and newsletters. And the whole idea here is to build a culture of belief. Through stories.

Love.

Because when you hear that somebody else is doing a business in a little town that you never heard of, it makes you believe that maybe you could do it too.

Right.

So yeah, so those are kind of like the big tiers. We are out to start having more direct educational programming for entrepreneurs. So later this year, we're going to be offering a pre-accelerator program that takes idea stage entrepreneurs and gets them ready for a larger accelerator.

Okay, I have a bunch of questions. I'll try to, I'll try to go back to— okay, so one thing that I'm curious about, let's talk a little bit about how and why you're now a nonprofit. Because I just, again, you know, Margaret, as I listen to this, A, I think, what can I take away from what they're doing and implement it in a small way, maybe through an org, you know, my organization, which we already have. But then I think about all the people that maybe aren't in our space but are listening to this and are thinking, okay, And, and instead of being like, well, I just need to move to Colorado, which would be a great thing for you guys. I mean, I'm sure you'd be like, please move to Colorado. And there's lots of reasons to do that. But every rural entrepreneur needs more help probably than they currently have, right? So I'm curious what the mechanism was or what the change was, because I'll tell you, the fact that you're becoming a nonprofit or you're a nonprofit now and operating this way is far more accessible to most of us than it coming under a university platform, right? Yeah. I mean, yeah. So can you tell me a little bit about that just to help or to give that hope of possibility to someone that might have the drive to start something like this in their perspective?

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So to some extent, we kind of outgrew what we were capable of doing when we were at the university. We just developed all of these really interesting different programs and opportunities to support entrepreneurs that just they weren't in line with what a university did. And so it got to the point where we had come up on our, our 5-year round of funding that we got back in 2017. And so the decision was, do we stay at the university and maybe not do everything that we wanted to do, or do we branch out on our own and start fundraising, basically become a startup ourselves and really grow into an organization that can support rural entrepreneurs? I think for somebody that was maybe interested in creating an organization like this, we were lucky, I think, to have been started at a university because it did provide a lot of the HR resources that, that support the employees working for that organization. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have started at a university. I think the main thing is really comes down to building those relationships. Like, that's the only reason we were able to become a nonprofit is that we had allies all over the state who said, please don't go away. We want you. We want your help. Please continue to exist and work with us. So, so yeah, that would probably be my main advice is just focus on building those relationships and supporting people that are already on the ground doing the work.

Oh, do it. I love a good soapbox, Margaret.

Because there are a lot of Denver, Boulder, you know, major metropolitan organizations that want to go into rural communities to help. And that's fantastic. But they don't do the research and they don't build the partnerships before, before going in and saying that they're helping. And so all it really does is create conflict and confusion. Because they don't fully understand what the landscape is like and what's actually out there happening on the ground.

Man, as well, it's fascinating because so I, again, I swear I'm not making this about me, but I see this over and over and over. Like in North Dakota, we've got Fargo, which is the, not the capital, but it's the biggest city. And I would say it's kind of where a lot of that entrepreneurial, the ecosystem building. I first heard that whole phrase, out of Fargo, right? Which is fine and great, and there's nothing wrong with it. What I was asked to speak at a conference, gosh, in '21. So it was not last summer, but the summer before. And I literally talked about farmerizing your pitch. There's air quotes around the word farmerizing because it's not about farmers. But in North Dakota, we're largely ag, right? We're very ag driven. And I simply talked about the fact that it's alluding to what you're talking about, that if you come in as though you're on a white horse and you're going to save us, you're going to be met with a lot of resistance. And the people that need you, even if your stuff is great, it's not going to resonate and it's not going to be welcomed or appreciated. The people that need your help aren't going to get it. And so I think it's really, really important to acknowledge that there's good people probably already in place. And yeah, it's true. And I don't know if you feel this way. For me, I feel like a lot of times our small town providers, the business building people, organizations, individuals, people, they tend to be less resourced. A lot of times they're part-time because there's not that same— so sometimes it can seem as though they're not as savvy or they're not as capable. But I don't find that to actually be true once you spend a little time with them and get to know them. They just need extra help, connection, support, and convening, just like anybody else. Is that what you feel like you're, you're finding as you go through the state?

Absolutely. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's what we try to do in, in supporting entrepreneurs. Part of our job is supporting people that are there for them, you know, those SBDC offices and those different economic development organizations that are quite often underfunded, underserved, and they just don't have the resources to do everything that they could. And so we put our effort behind those people because they know what's happening on the ground. They know who those business owners are and they know what they need. So it's— yeah, it's all about collaboration and not duplication. There's so much duplication in rural places.

Oh my word. Yeah, there's a choir to preach. Oh my goodness. And again, everybody's trying to do the best they can, right? Everyone's trying to meet a need. But the push for regionalization or creating regions is a huge passion of mine as well because we literally make it harder for ourselves. It's already hard enough to run a successful business when you're further away from resources. The internet, obviously it levels the playing field so much, I think, as far as access to resources. But yeah, that's— to me it's so important because we rise and fall together as the small towns around us. It is really important that we're working together. And I haven't seen at the scale of what you guys are doing. I haven't seen this happen. And that's why it caught my eye so much. I kind of went out and looked at what you're doing and I thought, holy— Initially I was like, what a whole bunch of work.

Oh yeah.

I mean, for sure, right? Like you said, it's complex work. It's not simple. And getting people, getting people connected to it and you guys are doing the coalition building is the key to it all. And that really requires a lot of work.

It is. Yeah, it is a lot of work. And one of the things that we started out very, very early on was trying to develop a sense of regionality and get a lot of these towns that had never considered themselves as part of a region to start thinking that way. And there are certain areas in the state, particularly in the mountain towns, where there already was a lot of entrepreneurial energy because these are really desirable places to live and they're attracting people that come from maybe a very strong startup hub like Austin or California or wherever.

Right.

So they're already coming into these places and starting to create some of that energy. But kind of out on the Eastern Plains, we started seeing, or we've, we've been trying to support a sense of regionality out there because these towns are so, so far away. And that being said, they always come to the larger town, kind of like a hub and spoke model, to do maybe their shopping or, you know, get out of town for a little while. And so we've started working with people in those areas to create events in, like, Fort Morgan, for example, that are pulling people from these smaller communities and to help create that sense of being a region instead of a town that's separate from everybody else in the area.

Right.

And it's, it's slow, but it's starting to happen. Like, we're, we're actually able to see, um, you know, these, these different types of events taking place on their own now without our support, which is really cool to see.

That's super cool. Can you tell me a little bit about what these events look like? Like, what are you guys doing at these events? Because I do think a hub and spoke model makes a lot of sense for a state like North Dakota as well. I would say South Dakota, Montana. I mean, Montana is really big, huge footprint, right? And then really far apart between towns. And I just think this makes so much sense for where I live and for so many people that listen to this podcast. So what kinds of things are you offering at these events? What do they feel like? What do they look like? And I hope you don't feel like I'm saying, Margaret, give me all your best ideas and we're going to swipe over.

No, take the ideas, do it in your place.

The goal is to see if we can create some of that momentum in our respective places because I think sometimes it feels overwhelming. I will say that one of the reasons this works for you guys is because of the incredible efforts that you have made to build relationships because you have people with boots on the ground in those communities. So you know where and how to market to those communities. That's a huge piece of it, right? Being heard and being discovered. So I guess I'll say to anybody listening, you can't, you can't sidestep the hard work of building real relationships, and that just takes time. But assuming you've got some, like, even if— think about Oaks here. We have a handful of small towns, like maybe 5, kind of all around us within a 60-mile radius, right? And I have a lot of connections in those places. So if I wanted to bring together entrepreneurs and host it here, what kinds of things are you doing at these events.

So just to be clear, we don't, we don't host all of the events, but we do get behind and support a variety of events that might be hosted by the SBDC office or somebody else that's in town. And then we, we can either come in and market it or we can help with some organizational ideas, a little bit of money. But to answer your question, there's a lot of different types of events that we get behind. Most recently, we did a Lean Wine in Craig, Colorado, which is way, way out there in northwest Colorado, about an hour from Steamboat Springs. And it was— it's a similar concept as our monthly Lean Coffee meetups, but this was an in-person event where they met up at a new local wine bar that's, that's popped up in their kind of burgeoning downtown district and What you do is you come in and you have, you have a question and then everybody votes on the questions and then they take the top 3 or 4, you know, however many they think they can get through. And you spend 5 minutes on each question going back and forth and discussing it as a group. And then you can vote to continue that conversation or move on to the next question. And so the idea here is it's basically a networking event, but there's structure to it. It's not that just kind of stand around and hope that you meet someone interesting. Like, this is actually bringing up the problems that you want help with. So that's, that's one example of kind of a networking event that we do. We also get behind more informal happy hours that are being hosted at coworking spaces, and a lot of times the organizers of those events will have a theme that they want to kind of attract different people to come in and talk about. And then there's also there's a lot of business coaches and business support people who are running their own coaching businesses in Colorado.

Yeah.

So whether it's like a branding expert or just an entrepreneur career coach, a lot of times we will pay for them to go to a community and have a presentation, and then that's followed by a Q&A session. So really, it's just about being creative and understanding, like, Who's your audience and what are their biggest problems and how can you create an event that they're going to want to come to and feel like they get something out of? And that's, I think that's the biggest thing is ensuring that there is a takeaway for those people. They didn't just waste an hour at the event and who, and who knows how long it took them to drive to that event. You want to make sure that they go home with one valuable connection or one valuable resource that helps them in their business. And the more often you do those, people kind of get accustomed to going to these different types of events and meeting people. And that in itself starts to create energy. And from there, maybe somebody else says, oh, I want to do something totally different on another side of town. And that just starts putting more energy over there and it just builds upon itself.

Right. Well, and I love too that one of your focuses as an organization is the storytelling part of it. I think that's so, so important. And I was nodding my head and smiling because you were talking about that, because I think we've been doing this podcast now for, gosh, I think, I think we've been going on like 3 years. And the goal is to bring— we sometimes we're just talking to people doing cool stuff in their small towns, but it's all about inspiring hope. I mean, you said belief and hope that something is possible. That is all we are about here, because I just think there was a time when there was an enormous disadvantage to being in a rural place, in a small town. There really was, because we didn't have access to the things that we can easily access now. And what you and I were chatting about before we hit record was simply one of the things, though, like, it's not because the stuff doesn't exist, but it's because you don't know even what questions to ask. You know, you can go out to Google, and if you really know what you need, it's going to be awfully hard for you to read, like, to get your— gather your own resources. And so I think that's a really cool niche that your organization, that Startup Colorado, is playing for all of these folks, right? So I'm assuming your forum, online community, is it a forum that's— or what's your mechanism? Like, how are people actually coming to that? How are they engaging with each other? Is it an actual forum built on your own site?

Yes. So we use a software that is specifically designed to host private online communities. And they have this company, they have communities across all variety of industries. It's called Hivebrite. If you're interested in trying them out to build your own community, we'll link to that in the show notes again, just because people might—

you just never know who's listening to this and it's like, oh, I totally want to have that or do that. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's what's really cool about it is that there's a live feed. So it's kind of, you know, like, like your news feed on Facebook or LinkedIn. And then there's people search. And this is where I think this is one of the coolest parts of it is that you can go in and search by the industry, the town, the expertise, the type of member that somebody is. So if you want to look for a mentor, somebody that's flagged themselves as a mentor, in the marketing industry, it'll narrow it down. And on the map, it'll show you where this person lives. And who knows, you might discover that they're the next town over, that person that you never would have connected with before because you just didn't know that they were there. So yeah, so basically, if you just kind of imagine a private version of LinkedIn and Facebook for rural entrepreneurs, that's what it is.

And I love this so much. Like, I love that so much because I think, and again, you can set the level of member. You get to determine what those flags are, I assume, when you set this thing up. Like, and you guys said, okay, we want to make sure that start— and I do have— what, just again to kind of round out, I've never seen your site, right? I've never seen your— I've seen your website, but I haven't seen your private, your membership platform. Do you have— what are some of the other flags? That's what I'm curious about. Like, how do you identify what these people are? Because I think You know, as, and as you're looking at that or looking for it, I think something that's interesting is, you know, identifying a person in their various level of the phase of their business, right? Like, yeah, you know, so it's different, like I said, at each stage, right? Yeah. Okay. I figured that might be, and again, I think one of the challenging things about what you guys have built is just iterations. As you, as you learn, you might be like, this flagging system doesn't really work as well as we want it to, and then you make adjustments. That's all cool. I just think what a neat— I love that you shared who your software provider is because that level of detail could be so valuable. And yet everybody's so local because they're all in the state. That's really cool, Margaret.

I love it. And it's all customized too. So we set exactly what we wanted to be asking people whenever they sign up. And one of the things that's evolved since we started it was we ask whenever you sign up to join, what do you need help with and what can you help with? So the whole idea is creating a give and take and establishing that expectation when you're coming into the network. It also allows our community engagement manager— we have somebody that's dedicated to running this community— it allows her to actually pair people together in the hopes that they can find, you know, whatever resource it is that they need.

Yeah, she's like a matchmaker, right? That's part of her job. Besides just because the community, I'm sure, is kind of naturally organically building and evolving and shaping itself. But she's there then to say, hey, you need to talk to this.

Exactly.

And that's really cool. Yeah, I love it. Okay, so what are some of the flags if you've got it up?

So we ask, you know, as you're joining, what type of member are you? Are you a business support organization, an entrepreneur, a funder, a mentor? We ask expertise. So everything from marketing and content, human resources, legal. Business planning. There's a bunch of different expertise in there. And then obviously, what do you need help with? What's your industry? And then again, what's your business stage? Are you idea, launch, or growth?

Okay, love it. Yeah.

Yeah. And we don't work yet with a lot of exit stage companies. That hasn't— I don't think we have been around long enough to see some of the people that we've supported from the beginning get to the exit stage of their business. We may get there at some point, but right now we are really focused on the people that are starting and growing.

Well, and that makes sense, right? I mean, the name of the company is Startup Colorado, not Succession Planning Colorado. Exactly.

That'd be really boring.

It would be. Yes, it would feel kind of boring. I think I love just thinking about this because you really have created what I think our state needs. I would argue that probably every state to some degree needs it because even though we often feel left behind, and again, there's air quotes on that because no one can see me but you, in small towns, right? We go, oh, well, nobody cares about us. We don't have any resources and whatever. Across the country, there are far more small rural places than large metro areas. And so, yes, there's that disparity. But programs like this, people like you, you help to overcome that. And it's just so cool. I love it so much. So in our show notes, for sure, we'll be linking to everything. What does it cost to join your network?

It's free to join. Yeah.

And that too. It's just like, in my brain, I'm like, how, Margaret? How?

Yeah, well, that's why we're fundraising.

Yes.

The whole reason that it is free is because we don't want to put up barriers to entry because we know that sometimes Every $5 counts for somebody that is starting a business, and we don't want to make it difficult for them to access the resources that we're offering. So yes, we are in our fundraising stage, and that's, that is what donations go to, is helping us run this network.

Sure. Yeah. Well, and I think what's cool, what you're going to find, because you're babies at being nonprofits, right? You've been doing the work for a long time, but now, now that you're out securing your own partnerships, there is going to be so many beautiful private sector partnership opportunities for you. Private sector organizations that see the value economically from a livability community standpoint. I mean, that's— I wouldn't say I'm moved towards a private sector partnership model exclusively. It's just where my skill set fits. I'm not one to just like secure individual donations from people. I really look for partners, right, that believe in funding the work that we're trying to do. And so I know that you will naturally find those partners that see the value in what you're doing because it's incredible work. Seriously, congratulations to all of you. So, so how big is your team right now?

It's 3 people. Um, wow, you guys are doing such important work. We're about to be hiring though. It is a small team, but I mean, it's always been a small team, but we are exceptionally small right now. But we know how to be efficient and get things done, right?

I think one of the cool things is hearing the evolution of where you started having two kind of state directors— they were titled directors, right? And that they physically, they built a lot of affinity and goodwill and they built that network of real relationships. And so we just— I can't, I cannot skip over how important that is because it's the work. Yeah, I mean, it is the work. And then continuing for you guys, even as a smaller team, and maybe you don't physically get on the road as much as those two individuals did at the start, you now have to just feverishly nurture those relationships.

I—

and that is—

there's a lot of phone calls.

I— yeah, I can only imagine. I mean, seriously, given Given how our state looks too, I can really appreciate how challenging that work is. As we wrap, I just thank you so much for the work that you're doing. Anybody listening to this, are they able— what are we able to do to engage with your organization? I guess that's the question, the way I'd ask the question as we wrap.

Yeah. So the first thing would be go to startcolorado.org and you are free to join. Just know that if you're not in Colorado, that most of our attention is going to go to the people that live in rural Colorado.

Sure.

That doesn't mean that you can't learn from what we're doing. And if you are interested in either establishing your own online community for entrepreneurs, or if you're interested in just learning how our organization works, you're free to reach out and we can, we can set up a call and, and talk about it. Because we want organizations like this to be replicable in other states or maybe even in other countries.

Right. And that will be the next evolution for you all. And that's probably super scary since you're like, and no, we just need to take a deep breath.

I get it. I'll think about that next year.

Yeah, right. Yeah, fair. Give yourself a few months, Margaret. It's fine. But it really is. Conceptually, I just believe so fervently in what it is that you guys are doing, the way that you're doing the work, the way that you're partnering, your idea of regionality. All of that is just so, so important. The other thing, though, question-wise, if people just want to follow your publications or your podcast, what are the ways for them to do that if they don't join the network specifically?

Our news site and our podcast is open to everyone. So if you just go to startupcolorado.org and click on stories, You'll be able to see all of our podcasts and all of the articles that we're putting out.

Okay, awesome. Because again, I think that is— those are just real stories of real people doing cool things in their respective places, right? And so we can never get enough of that. Yeah, I don't think—

and I'm lucky enough to get to go around and see, see them in their natural habitat and do interviews. So it's fun for me.

Isn't that an amazing part of the job?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So cool. So, so cool. Well, again, I can't thank you enough. I said earlier, I was like, yeah, we're going to be friends.

And we are.

It's so great.

It's so fun. 1 hour later.

Yep. Yep. Besties. I do. I fall hard and fast, Margaret. It's the truth. But I want to thank you for the work that you're doing. You're structured in a way that I think a lot of us can learn from. And I think the fact that you're opening your network to anybody, it is really valuable. It still is really valuable. Like you said, like if an entrepreneur in a rural place in North Dakota joins your network, what they're going to find that isn't maybe as relevant to them as some of the state-specific stuff, because every state's got their own stuff, right? And that's fine. But just being able to connect with people that want entrepreneurs to succeed, that's a heck of an opportunity for everybody.

So, yeah, I mean, if somebody in North Dakota wants to start working with a startup in Colorado, That seems like a great partnership.

Yeah, yeah, I, I think so too. And even the ability to like look at industry, we're starting later this month, we're starting a year-long kind of cohort program that we've developed. And again, it's not necessarily new programming, it's pulling together the best of what these entrepreneurs need. But there's 10 startups that we're working with and a couple of them are really nichey. You know, one of them is a, a, a vineyard and a winery, one's a butcher shop, right? Those are really niche. They're really niche businesses. So the idea that they could can even join your network and connect up with somebody doing that kind of business. If they can provide value to each other, my goodness, that's such a win. So thank you for so thoughtfully doing this work because it's, it's super important. And I, for me and all the people that listen to this show, we believe that small business is the way forward for small towns, right? We're not necessarily going to recruit the 50 employer or 50 employee, you know, employers. Those companies aren't going to look at our small towns necessarily. So growing our own, growing that talent from within, it's such an inspiring way to support people. So thank you guys so much for the work that you're doing. Thanks for coming on the show.

Yeah, well, and thanks for helping us spread the word about our work.

It's awesome. Can't wait to have you back in a year when you expand— you expand to different states and countries.

I'll give you an update.

Uh, thanks so much, Margaret. It was great having you on the show.

Thanks so much. Have a good one.

You too.