On the surface, Bend’s business environment seems to be thriving in many areas. Continually placed on best of lists ranging from craft breweries to outdoor products, Bend’s small businesses are competing in the national marketplace. But, can we do better at fostering the growth of local businesses and entrepreneurs? A new, Bend-based, nonprofit think tank, with a mission to make Bend and Central Oregon a better place to live, thinks so.
Looking Forward, a 501 (c) 4 nonprofit organization with no office or paid staff, is setting out to create an, Entrepreneurial Ecosystem for the Bend area. Made up of some of Central Oregon’s most recognizable business people and community leaders, Looking Forward looks to assist entrepreneurs in achieving their business goals.
“Because Bend is a small business community, with no fortune 500 companies, the companies that are creating jobs are entrepreneurial,” explains Jim Schell, founder of Looking Forward. According to Looking Forward, “an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem is an unofficial, organically grown and organically sustained business ecosystem that is driven by a community’s participating entrepreneurs themselves.”
A strong Entrepreneurial Ecosystem focuses on communication and collaboration between entrepreneurs. It asks entrepreneurs to assume ambassadorship roles in the community and assist in working towards the greater good of the community.
“When we look at Bend today we see a community where there are some very successful entrepreneurs and new entrepreneurs joining the community,” illustrates board member Rane Johnson, principal research director with Microsoft Research. “Our goal is to leverage the experience and wisdom of our members as a force for positive change, in the process addressing some of our region’s most pressing and urgent issues.”
To achieve their goals, Looking Forward is committed to work on four initiatives.
First, they would like to develop a marketable story for Bend. Second, they want to have an event to introduce the ecosystem to the traditional business economy. Next they are interested in unifying the organizations that work to make Bend a better place such as Economic Development for Central Oregon, Bend’s Chamber of Commerce and Bend2030. Finally, they hope to create leadership training for the leaders in each of our four economic clusters; microbreweries, tech, bioscience and outdoor products.
“People that could move anywhere in the world, chose Bend,” says entrepreneur Bill Mosely, CEO of GL Solutions.“Just the sheer energy and talent walking down the street is amazing. However, we need leadership to bring these contributors together and maximize our entrepreneurial opportunities.”
Many of the founding ideas of Looking Forward are derived from the book, Startup Communities by Brad Feld and the community it describes, Boulder, Colorado. In fact, Schell and another Looking Forward member, SJ Camarata, Camarata co-founder of businesses in the software and medical technology fields, traveled to Boulder and interviewed twelve key members of their ecosystem.
In an effort to begin collaborations, Looking Forward held an informative meeting May 27 at Bend Golf and Country Club. As a testament to interest, 23 of the 25 invited business people attended. Looking Forward currently has eleven core members and seven partner members, each looking to enhance Central Oregon’s livability.
A large part of Looking Forward’s strength comes from the diversity of its members. The wide range of both life and business experience allows for a balanced attack in meeting their goals.
Schell brings his experience as a Minnesota entrepreneur, creating four successful businesses, and author of six books to the table. Rod Ray (Bend Research, Inc), Amy Tykeson (BendBroadband), Becky Johnson (OSU-Cascades) each have had the honor of running some of Central Oregon’s most well-known organizations. Former Oregon State Senator Neil Bryant (Bryant, Lovlien & Jarvis) and Jim Petersen (Karnopp Petersen LLP) offer their knowledge of the law to prospective entrepreneurs.
Tim McGinnis worked for Chase Manhattan Bank for thirty years until retiring as CEO of Chases’ Asia Pacific Region. Camarata co-founded businesses in the software and medical technology fields. Thomas J. Carlsen MD was the managing partner of The Center for Musculoskeletal Care and Research and a consulting orthopedic surgeon for the U.S. Olympic Team, U.S. Ski and Hockey Teams.
Rane Johnson serves as Microsoft Research’s lead for growing, attracting, and retaining women in research, science and engineering. Rita Hansen specializes in startup and early phase environments in the clean tech, alternative energy and renewables, and sustainability fields. And, Linda English founded the non-profit organization LINGOs, providing online learning to over seventy international nonprofits around the world.
“Many of our members are those who have had success here and are interested in paying the community back,” says Schell. “We want to make Central Oregon a better place to live.”
Schell sees their biggest obstacle as being the gathering and coordinating all of the players needed to make a change.
“Entrepreneurs are inherently super busy, under-resourced and over-worked,” adds Johnson.
“For the ecosystem to be successful it will need the active involvement of these super busy individuals. We can build an infrastructure, we can coach and help build leadership capacity but in the end it will be the entrepreneurs in each of our clusters who will need to take the helm and support, coach, or lead each other for us to be successful.”
Out of the May meeting, four committees were created to achieve their set goals. The Event Committee will forward plans of a, Bridging Bend event in September aimed at bringing businesses together. The Telling the Story Committee is advancing the story of Bend’s entrepreneurial community. The Leadership Development Committee will help develop ambassadors from Bend to spread the Bend brand outside of our community.
Finally, the Alignment & Coordination Committee is geared towards helping to align and coordinate organizations and agencies that are already working to further Bend’s economic environment.
While the non-profit begins its work of bettering the business community, it is unclear what government’s complete role will be. So far, the City of Bend has asked Looking Forward to guide them in allocating $50,000 of infrastructure support to help the clusters succeed.
In addition to working in committees to further their goals, Looking Forward has set its mind on specific achievements. These include looking into land use policy, assisting entrepreneurs with Capital Gains tax laws and possibly creating an internship program.
Looking Forward
Website: www.lookingforwardoregon.org
Founder: Jim Schell
Year Established: 2014
Service: Assisting Central Oregon entrepreneurs
Hot News: Local non-profit gathers business leaders to help others achieve goals.
Outlook for Growth: Looking Forward’s members have committed to creating an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem.
