Jerry Johnson issued a bit of a challenge in the comments, encouraging us all to brainstorm potential business ideas for young rural entrepreneurs. That reminded me of a terrific list of actual student businesses in Norfolk County, Ontario. It’s a list of real businesses started by kids in grades 6 through 12, part of their […]
Farm Fresh Auctions – a new angle on the local niche
In an era when we’re encouraging every rural business to look further outside their local market, it’s interesting to see a business go the other direction. Most rural auction companies use the internet to promote the items at their sales and to accept bids from far-flung customers. But one auction service I heard […]
My Local Newspaper Wouldn’t Hire Me, So I Started My Own–Online
Guest Post by Micah Choquette Owner, Editor and Author of the Sapulpa Times, Sapulpa, Oklahoma, population 20,000 Angrily, I hit “Send” on the message, certain that I was burning a bridge by doing so, but at this point, I didn’t care. It was 2015 and I had just spent far too long chasing a deal with […]
Tiny businesses in storage sheds: a rural economic development tool
When Deb Brown and I spoke at the RuralX Summit, one of the ideas we mentioned was the tiny business village, where businesses pop up inside of storage sheds in Tionesta, Pennsylvania. Dylan Fulton and Camden Breitling, high school students from Miller, South Dakota, heard that idea and ran with it. Together with some supportive […]
