Arkansas SourceLink Aggregates Business Resources

A new website being developed by Connect Arkansas will let entrepreneurs tap into an enormous cache of business resources, all pooled in one place – and for free.

The site, ArkSourceLink.com, was partially launched in January. It’s the brainchild of C. Sam Walls, president of Connect Arkansas, an organization chiefly concerned with spreading grant-funded Internet and computer connectivity throughout the state. Since last summer, for example, the group has given away about $41,000 worth of computers to low-income Arkansans.

Walls wanted to spread that connectivity to entrepreneurs. His team discovered U.S.SourceLink, a website model that caters to businesses in 17 states. Funded by the National Telecommunications Administration’s broadband stimulus grant, Connect Arkansas became a U.S.SourceLink affiliate.

The Arkansas SourceLink website features six main tools, all free to use, four of which are currently active. Connect Arkansas maintains the site and updates the tools.

The first tool, called Resource Navigator, is a U.S.SourceLink product. It exists to help entrepreneurs find specific resources in any part of the state.

For example, Joe Blow in Little Rock thinks he might want to start his own shoe store. He types his ZIP code into the navigator, then selects "concept" for his stage of business and "retail" for his industry.

He can then choose whether or not he has a business plan, then narrow down his specific needs.

When he clicks "search for resources," the site generates a list of organizations ranked by distance from the ZIP code. A few examples from this particular search would be the Pulaski County Enterprise Community Alliance Inc., the Arkansas Small Business & Technology Development Center at UALR and the Arkansas Secretary of State.

Each entry has a brief description of its purpose, an email address, a phone number and a link to a Google map.

The second active feature is a learning center that collects digital lectures from business professors and schools around the world. Walls wanted to bring prestigious business advice out of the classroom and into the home.

"We’re bringing to Arkansas those folks out of Duke, Cambridge, other top-of-the-line schools," Walls said. "If you can listen, or read, or see, you can teach yourself entrepreneurship from some of the best sources in the world. It’s not dependent on finding classes in proximity to you."

Third, an event calendar shows business-centric events and classes in various areas around the state.

Fourth, a government resources feature links directly to an Arkansas.gov page that lists available resources from the state government.

The final two features – as yet inactive – are a venture forum and a mentorship page.

The venture forum will feature advice on investment. "It will show how to be an investor, how to attract an investor," Walls said. "The forum itself will have recordings of people who have business ideas, and the way to contact them."

The mentorship page is one of the most important, Walls said. It will include information on how to become a mentor and what to look for in a mentor.

"I’m convinced that at this day and age, you can materially reduce your failure rate by having a good mentorship," Walls said. "A good mentor relationship is not easy to find."

Walls said the venture forum and mentorship pages should be up within a few months, and then Connect Arkansas will begin to promote SourceLink.

"We have a designer working on it, mapping it out with the vision we put in front of him," said Jamie Moody, Connect Arkansas’ director of marketing.

Walls said SourceLink was uniquely Arkansan.

"Everything that’s been done on this is part of our effort," he said. "What you’re looking at here is Arkansas ingenuity."