Opinion: Gritty entrepreneurs inspire Evolution of an Enterprise

The business climate in southwest Missouri is no doubt favorable to entrepreneurs.

This very publication was given a chance 26 years ago to make it as a fledgling local startup. I’ve heard publisher and founder Dianne Elizabeth Osis on many occasions say that she couldn’t have succeeded without the embrace of the Springfield business community.

The climate is becoming increasingly favorable as Springfield universities develop and add entrepreneurial programs, more southwest Missouri communities add business incubators and the Jordan Valley Innovation Center takes a more prominent stage each day. Entrepreneurs are making their voices heard.

All of the above set the stage for SBJ’s Evolution of an Enterprise, a regular series in which SBJ Reporter Cory Smith will follow a local startup through the various stages of development.

Theworkshop 308 LLC is the golden boy – or guinea pig, if you’d rather.

The series will provide unprecedented exposure for the new business owners; however, the trade-off is offering SBJ full access to business plans, financials and certain personal information.

The company will spend 2007 under SBJ’s microscope. Complete transparency is essential to publishing honest reports of the entrepreneurial journey – good, bad and ugly

Theworkshop 308 Owners Jason Mitchell and Michael Mardis have agreed in writing to these concessions. These guys understand that’s what we require in forming accurate, informative and interesting reports.

Our hopes for this series are that it’s educational, inspiring, influential, gripping, personable, reflective of the environment and life-changing – both for the readers and for the sources.

About the owners

So, who are these guys? In a word, the owners are raw. They’re raw in a business sense (environmentally conscious architecture and furniture); they’re raw in a personal sense (lengthy hair, scruffy beards); and they’re raw in an entrepreneurial sense (first-time business owners).

The guys also are real, which should make for a great series. “We’re not trying to save the world,” Mitchell says about their energy efficient home designs, “just rethinking what we’re doing.”

They’re full of ideas. After graduating from Drury University, they each left Springfield to get exposed to new ideas, building trends and different ways of thinking. They bring those experiences back to Springfield with this business.

What else are these entrepreneurs? They’re young risk takers. They’re edgy. They’re “all in” right now, working days and nights to get open.

Selection process

Determining which company we would profile wasn’t as grueling as one might think.

A handful of companies stepped forward when we solicited interest from startups. We did that through various means, including a presentation to Score, conversations with local PR firm and ad agency officials and a query on the SBJ Daily Update. The latter is ultimately how we discovered theworkshop 308.

The trick was finding a company whose timing gelled with ours. We wanted a company that was opening for business in January or February and was far enough along that it already had a sound business plan and financing in place.

We ran into many companies that started up within the past six months or would be in the next six months. Another company, a wine retailer called Vino 100, ran into trouble gaining permission from its franchise to open up its books.

Theworkshop 308 was right on cue. The best of luck to the gritty guys.

My personal desire is that they find economic success, make headway in changing minds toward green building, and we can look back years from now and say, “Remember when …?” But the journalist in me knows this business could flop. Look at the statistics. And it’s OK if it does. Failure builds character, teaches the best lessons and, if applied the right way, leads to success.

We are prepared for the best and for the worst. Either way, I hope you enjoy the ride.

Eric Olson, Springfield Business Journal editor, can be reached at eolson@sbj.net.