The Right to Start program in northwest Arkansas, launched in June with funding from the Walton Family Foundation, is hoping to see the city of Fayetteville waive business license fees for small businesses during their first year of operation.
And that could happen soon, Chief Operating Officer Kim Lane and Advocate Daymara Baker told Arkansas Business. Baker is a Venezuela native who runs Rockin’ Baker, which trains and employs young adults on the autism spectrum and produces artisan breads for hospitality groups and restaurants.
Lane said Right to Start aims to close the gap between entrepreneurs and policymakers. How it plans to accomplish that is through the hiring of advocates, like Baker.
So far, the program has her and two other advocates: Christopher Jacob, who has served as a community liaison for the Marshallese in the region, and Irma Chavez, who founded Conexión de Negocios Latinos, a networking group that supports, promotes, educates and connects Latinx businesses in the region.
During a successful pilot program, these advocates met with more than 80 entrepreneurs to learn the entrepreneurs’ stories and about the barriers that they’re facing, Lane said. There were many “lightbulb moments,” she added.
“Right to Start believes everyone has this innate right to start a business. And we feel that many people don’t know that that right exists, which is why, of course, we’re advocating for entrepreneurs,” Lane said. “I think a lot of the entrepreneurial work in general focuses on high-tech, high-growth businesses. A lot of the work we’ve done has been in local grocery stores, barbershops, local restaurants, things like that.” Those companies are creating jobs and positively impacting local economies, she said.
Lane also said Right to Start is the continuation of that pilot program, and the idea of it is to not only listen to entrepreneurs but do the “hyperlocal” work of getting them in the same room with policymakers. The program is intentionally targeting the underserved Marshallese and Latinx communities in northwest Arkansas as well.
“There are systemic things that can be changed to make it easier for entrepreneurs to succeed, particularly in entrepreneurial policy,” Lane said, and “our work is mostly in that advocating, really being a bridge builder for the entrepreneurs.”
Through her advocacy work, Baker found that many entrepreneurs felt the business licensing fee in Fayetteville was too expensive for them.
She was asked to and agreed to join the city’s Economic Recovery and Vitality Steering Committee and recommended the waiver through that body. But the proposal has yet to be presented to the city council for a vote.
‘Cumbersome’ Process, Cost
Baker also said the No. 1 thing she’s learned as an advocate is that, for entrepreneurs, the process of starting a business is cumbersome. There is so much to do and so many agencies involved that it is overwhelming, Baker said.
She can relate because she has been through that process.
Baker said entrepreneurs are looking for clear guidance and are concerned about costs like that business licensing fee. As an advocate, “I see myself more like a megaphone. I listen to them, and I try to bring those voices to people who need to hear that,” she said.
Going forward, Baker said she would like to see the community as a whole take a more active role in advocating for and supporting entrepreneurs.
Meanwhile, Lane envisions small community-level actions advocated for by Right to Start having a larger impact.
“These stories are pertinent on the federal level as well, because I think it creates such a good example for how you can start to see the dominoes falling when all these local communities around the nation start making just these small policy changes here and there to make it easier for entrepreneurs to succeed,” Lane said. “You can see how all of a sudden the system starts changing from the inside.”
Right to Start, headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, has offices in six states and volunteers in 19 communities across the country.
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