Photo courtesy of IEDC

Guest post by Deb Brown

What attendees learned from attending the Idea Friendly Session by SaveYour.Town at the International Economic Development Council Conference — Big Ideas you can copy in your town 

Becky McCray and I were excited to lead an interactive Idea Friendly workshop at the International Economic Development Council Conference in Dallas in September of 2023.

The Idea Friendly Method is:

• You gather your crowd with a big idea. 
• You turn that crowd into a capable network through building connections.
• You and the crowd accomplish the big idea through small steps.

What Happened in the Idea Friendly Workshop

Attendees developed their own Idea Friendly Projects after learning what Idea Friendly is and how to use it effectively in rural communities. 

Engaging the audience, we asked what their rural challenges were. Not surprisingly, they aligned with the top 5 rural challenges on our Survey of Rural Challenges results: 

1. Shortage of good housing
2. Downtown is dead
3. Not enough volunteers
4. Losing Young People
5. Lack of Childcare

The attendees broke off into groups and chose a challenge to work on together. Each table had a flipchart sheet and the group worked the challenge through the Idea Friendly Method. The different groups presented their results to the entire room.

Photo courtesy of IEDC

What the Big Ideas were: 

Challenge: Housing

Big Idea: Offsetting public infrastructure to incentivize private development 

This idea brought to light the number of people who wanted help with a 12 unit housing development. The first small step they would take is to work with the economic development organization to find ways to bring the interested parties together for a conversation. 

Challenge: Not enough volunteers

Big Idea: Volunteer engagement and involving the whole community 

Their ideas included helping to promote all the possibilities for volunteering and creating a guide to managing volunteers ensuring any required government protocols are well explained. They created a brilliant tagline: making volunteering painless. 

One attendee said to me, “Friend, I’m just a redneck from Alabama and I never get to meet people from other places. This was awesome!” Attendees came from the continental United States, Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Saipan, and Canada.

Challenge: Losing our young people

Big Idea: Helping youth boomerang back 

This group was excited about working with different organizations and people to create a strong publicity campaign. This big idea uses storytelling and sharing the small wins with some catchy promotional pieces. “Wish you were here”, “While you were gone”, and “We’ve grown up” are some of the hooks to use in promoting the community to their audience of young people. 

Big Idea: Downtown is dead

These folks took their big idea to fill the downtown and built out a list of who else wanted to work with them, and then built possible connections that could help get it done. They realized they were not alone and had others in their towns that wanted to help. 

Challenge: Lack of childcare

Big Idea: Create a downtown childcare facility 

After identifying a long list of people and organizations that would want to join this project, the group came up with the idea of playground “playdate” to bring them all together for productive discussion. They were excited to see how a new downtown childcare facility could not only improve the availability of childcare, but also spur downtown revitalization and contribute to positive placemaking. 

Creating Idea Friendly Projects is an easy to use and effective way to address our rural challenges. 

This interactive IEDC session was a great success, and it was inspiring to see the plans the participants came up with to address the challenges they were facing. By working together and using innovative approaches, we can create more vibrant and resilient rural communities that are better equipped to face the challenges of the future.

“Thank you both so much for your preparation and execution of your session today! Sincerely, it was a true pleasure meeting and supporting you today. Your preparation and professionalism was reflected in your session. I appreciate your adaptability as well.”

Alexa Schultz, IEDC

Next steps:

• Reach out to SaveYour.Town about an Idea Friendly Workshop for your community or event
• Read more about the Idea Friendly Method. 
• You can also watch a 24 minute Idea Friendly video for a $5 investment into your community. 
• Don’t forget to sign up for our free weekly newsletter that addresses rural challenges! 

Kids in a canoe photo (CC) by CC Chapman

Our latest Survey of Rural Challenges said natural resources are rural communities’ best rural assets, but most places don’t have enough outfitters to take advantage of them as tourism development.

Here’s how rural people like you can take small steps to grow into outdoor outfitters. 

• Gather Your Crowd to attract groups and organizations that want to help
• Build Connections to borrow equipment and acquire insurance
• Take Small Steps by splitting the work with different businesses and organizations in the community.

Both Deb and I visited Eastern Kentucky last year. I visited Estill County, and Deb was in Jackson County. We each shared a version of this process to help get tourism ideas off the ground.

Ask around, others may help

Kathy from Jackson County wanted to start her own outdoor business but she only had one side by side ATV to use. Then another person offered a canoe for Kathy to rent out. This started a conversation around the room of how she could start now, using what others offer and they would help her too. 

Small steps to take now

In Estill County, we sketched out the steps to grow their own outfitters for river and forest recreation. Here are some of the key steps:

• Talk to an existing outfitter in a similar area from the surrounding communities. Ask lots of questions.
• Find local outdoor recreation groups. Their members might be good potential operators, partners or customers.
• Consider covering startup costs with Sponsor-A-Canoe with local business logos or wraps.
• Cover insurance costs by finding a sponsor or getting a discount through the chamber or organizations like the American Canoe Association.
• Break up all the parts of the business and find a person or group to manage or run each part. One group might own the canoes, another has a trailer and can handle payroll, another might volunteer for part of the work during startup.

It’s not as traditional as starting all at once with a business plan and lots of debt, but it’s more of the rural approach. We’re used to making do and making things work.

Subscribe to SmallBizSurvival.

Small retail spaces like retail collectives and shed markets generate prosperity for rural areas and small towns when they:

• give small business ideas an affordable foothold
• create experiences that draw customers in
• build on the element of discovery for customers
• test promising retail concepts
• shelter businesses too small to survive on their own
• fill gaps in local retail markets
• boost cooperation and innovation among local retailers

But did the COVID19 pandemic change all that? Ecommerce sales are forecast to keep growing steadily after taking a big jump from 2019 to 2020. Has that killed rural retail collectives?

NO.

New shared mercantile spaces

Here are two new shared retail spaces that opened just before or since 2020.

Colfax Mercantile, Colfax, Washington

The Colfax Mercantile first opened in 2019 and made it through 2020. They’re in a building that had sat vacant for 15 years. Now it’s home to 15 different tiny businesses plus an office for the Chamber of Commerce. You can find frozen yogurt, furniture, repurposed, cookies, retro candy and much more in the Mercantile. It took award-winning cooperation between local business owners Laura and Austin Storm and the Colfax Downtown Association’s Economic Vitality committee, add in a little inspiration from a SaveYour.Town visit where we talked about the potential for shared retail spaces.

Special thanks to Sarah McKnight who hosted and sponsored me on my visit to Colfax and provided these photos of their results.

Walker Mercantile Company, Woodward, Oklahoma

Walker Mercantile operates in a shared building in downtown Woodward, Oklahoma. They opened in 2021, and feature many Made in Oklahoma products, a candy shop and other local vendors.

Notice the one wall bookstore in the photo via the Mercantile’s Facebook page. That’s a great example of a business idea that would struggle as a solo business in a small town, but can make sense in a shared space.

New shed market villages

Shed markets continue to pop-up in small towns and rural communities. Here are two recent ones.

Kuna Square, Kuna, Idaho

In 2021, Kuna, Idaho started their own shed market inspired by my retelling of the Tionesta Market Village story at the Idaho Economic Development Association. They built their sheds in a smart way. The City of Kuna partnered with experienced contractors to help teach high school students construction basics including framing, roofing, siding, and flooring. For 2022, they updated their name to Kuna Square, and are definitely planning to be around for many years to come.

Thanks to Kuna Economic Development for the photo. 

Pop-up shop market, Guthrie, Oklahoma

Newly announced in 2022, Guthrie, Oklahoma, is starting work on a pop-up shop market using sheds to fill an empty lot in their downtown. They’ve actually done pop-up shops in their park, so moving into a shed market in the downtown makes good sense.

I stumbled onto this one when it was announced on the news that they had received two grants to fund it. This rendering was on the City of Guthrie Facebook.

Discover more

More about shared rural retail store buildings:

• What business does every small town need? A store full of tiny retail spaces
• Small town retail trend: shared spaces
• One downtown building gives life to many new retail stores
• A community of small businesses in one shared building

More about sheds and market villages:

• Rural economic development idea: tiny business villages
• Tiny businesses in storage sheds: a rural economic development tool
• Tip for better pop-ups and shed businesses

Get our best stuff by email

Subscribe to SmallBizSurvival.com

Cited by:

Retail collectives increase options in small towns, Ag Journal, October 2022

Tokens, blockchain, and NFTs are just a few of the new elements that complicate understanding today’s virtual worlds.  Screenshot (CC) by Duncan Rawlinson.

Are you a proficient online gamer or metaworld master based in a rural community? You could make a small business out of being a virtual world tour guide.

Years ago, a now-defunct business ideas site profiled Synthtravels, a business that offered guided tours of online virtual worlds.

If you’ve heard of the metaverse or virtual worlds, but didn’t know how to begin or where to go or what to do, why not let a real person act as tour guide and show you around? That’s the idea of this business.

As online worlds increasingly overlay and relate to the physical world through augmented reality, connecting with a guide makes even more sense.

I can imagine starting with Zoom or video calls to help the customer setup hardware like VR goggles, or to get started with the software behind worlds like Decentraland, Fortnite, or Horizon World.

Then imagine customers venturing into the virtual world, but with a guide at their side to answer questions and ease them through common initial issues.

After that, there’s potential in helping people set up wallets, learn about tokens and NFTs, and understand the blockchain underpinnings of the metaverse.

If you are experienced with virtual worlds, this is a business or sideline you could operate from anywhere you can get online. You could target niche groups of customers, like parents curious about what kids might experience and business executives trying to get started in this new market.

New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Subscribe.

Could you squeeze in an extra desk or two in your business? It could be an extra line of income for you. Photo via Pexels.

With more people working remotely, more people are working from places that are neither their offices or their homes. Cue the rise of the Third Workplace.

You may remember “third places” as places you hangout that aren’t home and aren’t work. Coffee shops, bars and places like that. “Third workplaces” are places you work that aren’t home and aren’t the office.

Since rural places host a lot of professionals working from the field, we’ve long had people who wanted temporary and flexible places to work. What we haven’t had was much supply. Now with more remote work and more entrepreneurship, we expect to see more people looking for places to work. That’s a business opportunity.

Any small town or rural business could potentially create a new line of income from any  space that could be adapted for a third workspace to rent out. 

Adding additional lines of income is one of the Small Town Rules: always have more than one line of income.

All kinds of small town businesses have extra workspace, including the tire store. Photo by Jon Swanson

The larger trend

Of course this is all about remote work, whether it’s current residents or people moving to rural places working online. The pandemic accelerated this, and it’s still going.

• People who may want a change of scene from their home office.
• People may crave more work interaction than they get at home.
• People may want to feel part of the larger business community.
• People who work from an office might benefit from getting away for some focused work.

One of our favorite trendwatchers, Emergent Research said:

We’re seeing signs that, thanks to the shift to remote work, the paradox of place is breaking down and workers and companies are geographically spreading out. We expect both the trends towards greater use of 3rd places for work and economic de-agglomeration to continue.

Have some extra reception space? Even couches or soft seating can be office-like enough for a third workspace. Photo by WOCinTech.

What would you need to set up a workspace?

1. Chairs or places to sit are good.
2. Desks or tables would be nice.
3. Wifi would help.

Pretty much everything else is negotiable.

Even wifi, which feels like an absolute requirement, can be flexible. If your wifi isn’t great, some workers may have a wireless hotspot they can use. (But still, faster and more reliable wifi would be better.)

The basic amenities are chairs and work surfaces, because otherwise remote workers will make do with almost nothing. Photo by Becky McCray.

Even if other co-working places exist in your town, you can still create your own third workspace with your own personality. Different people will like different kinds of workplaces.

Some people want a noisy coffee shop. Some will like quiet libraries. Some want a more homey place, and others will feel more business-like in an office-style setting. Whatever the feel of the work space you create, there is someone who will love it.

Are guest rooms going empty? Those are potential workspaces. Photo by C.C. Chapman.

What businesses could make money from extra workspace?

Coffee shops, cafes and food businesses have long been used as informal workspaces. What if you made a just slightly upgraded workspace for an extra charge?

Business incubators could create office space and co-working space.

Hotels, motels or bed and breakfasts may already offer a workstation or two for guests. Could you expand the workstation to accommodate regular co-working? Could you rent guest rooms as temporary offices?

RV Parks, too. 

Outdoor workspaces including parks, yards, porches and RV parks have income-producing potential. Photo by C.C. Chapman.

Any business with room for an extra desk or office. Maybe an insurance company has some open space in their offices. Maybe an attorney has an extra partners office they only use for storage.

Nonprofit organizations, economic development groups or chambers may have offices or meeting rooms that aren’t in use all the time.

Churches, worship centers, fellowship halls, or youth centers may have classrooms or offices they could share.

If your space is accessible by wheelchairs or people with mobility issues, you can serve more people. Glenda Watson Hyatt who uses a wheelchair brings her own roll-up keyboard that’s easier for her to use when working. Photo by Becky McCray.

Two real life examples: bringing clients in, and The Smoffice

What to look for: empty space or storage space in any businesses’ office

Mike Samson, co-founder of crowdSPRING, said they partnered with a design development firm, and the deal included a tiny amount of office space. This worked for them for nine months before they outgrew it.

Samson said there is a big difference between working at home, and working with other people who have ideas, connections, networks, and can invite you to events. We’ll talk more about the benefits of third workplaces, below.

Deep display windows downtown can turn into small offices. Photo courtesy of The Smoffice.

What to look for: deep display windows downtown going empty: The Smoffice

In Durham, North Carolina, a local coffee shop had big display windows up front they weren’t sure how to use. So they turned one into a small office space. They called it The Smoffice, and held a contest to find a tiny entrepreneur that wanted to use it. Everyone benefited from the publicity, and the two businesses actually interacted and helped each other while they were located together.

Deep display windows downtown can turn into small offices. Rendering courtesy of The Smoffice.

Bonus Points: Third workspaces bring side benefits to workers, entrepreneurs and the community

Better workers: When people who usually work from home do some of their work from a co-working space, Emergent Research said that they feel more engaged and motivated, they expand their professional networks and feel more successful.

Better entrepreneurs: Entrepreneurs learn best from each other. When they’re in close proximity, they have opportunities to run into each other randomly. They’ll talk to each other, answer questions for each other, come up with ways they might work together or potential customers they might refer to each other.

Better community: When people who work from home or remotely meet at these third workspaces, they’ll start to build connections. That’s an essential part of building community and social capital.

Coworking groups and clubs can form in shared workspaces. that helps build beneficial social capital in your community. Photo by Sheila Scarborough.

This fuzzy boy is always getting matted fur. If only there was a cat grooming service he could go to!

This was a new idea to me. Alyssa McCleery from Newkirk, Oklahoma, brought this up. She has local dog grooming but had to drive hours to find a place to get her cat groomed.

I was skeptical at first, but why not cat grooming as a service?

Just trimming cat claws can be a challenge. Not to mention those longhair cats who get matted and tangled fur.

The Groomer to Groomer website has plenty of articles on grooming cats as a business.

Seems like a perfect mobile business for rural areas. Show up in a van or trailer, do grooming on site and cover as much territory as you choose.

There is an economic development benefit. When someone has to drive out of town, maybe hours away, to get their pet groomed, they are going to be shopping  and spending money while they wait. Better to have that service provided in town, maybe even in home, and avoid the extra out-of-town spending.

Want more small businesses in your town?

Watch our Cheap Rural Economic Development ideas video.

A local furniture store hosts two temporary businesses for a special shopping event, combining business-in-a-business and pop-ups to benefit everyone. Photo by Becky McCray.

By Deb Brown

The old way of doing business is one building, one business. What if you could test an idea and have a business inside a business?

Anyone of us either knows or can find someone who is making things from their home and selling it.

What if you encouraged already existing home-based businesses to host a trial popup in your store?

These small popups can be short term, over a season or if it works out a permanent addition. Perhaps you’ll let them try their idea out for free for a short time. If it works, you can determine together if they pay rent to you or a commission.

Who do you know that is a:

• Quilt maker
• Artist
• Artisan
• Painter
• Sculptor
• Widget maker
• Baker
• Crafter

Look for those that are doing business from their homes. Maybe they are just beginning to think about making some money with their products.

How can you help them, and your business at the same time?

Invite them to set up in a corner of your shop, as a pop up.

Then try these ideas:

• Meet the artist event
• Have a party announcing your new acquisition
• Create a Facebook event and do something special to announce their arrival

Why does all of this matter?

1. You will be bringing in new people to your store to meet these crafters. Cross promotion is good for business.
2. You’re giving a hand up and not a hand out to a new business person.
3. You’re enlivening your community using local resources.
4. You’re making your store a place where people come for an experience.
5. You’re building community and that strengthens the town for everyone.

More rural economic development tricks

Find out more rural economic development tricks in our latest SaveYour.Town video.

These apples from a backyard tree might go to waste, or they might be the start of a profitable side business.

By Becky McCray

Need an idea for your next small town or rural business? This one would make a good side hustle: Gather and resell fruit that would otherwise be wasted.

Think of all the fruit, berries and nuts that no one picks, especially in yards and public spaces in your town.

You don’t have to be in a big town, either. In my yard, we have apple, pear and pecan trees that produce far more than we can use. Then there are my neighbors’ half dozen fruit trees, the wild greens and seeds growing along the side of the road, not to mention the wealth of mulberries that drop each year. All that in a community of just 30 people.

It will be different where you live. My friends in Maine talk about gathering and cooking fiddlehead ferns, and Deb learned that you can forage for hazelnuts in Iowa in a workshop from her Legacy Learning group.

You might have heard food gathering called foraging, urban harvesting or gleaning. Whatever you call it, it’s an opportunity for a small business, especially a seasonal or part time gig.

Where to find free foods to gather

You can ask around to find good sources for fallen fruits.

• Who has lots of fruit trees in their yard?
• Who used to garden but is older now?

Knock on their door and ask for permission to harvest the fruits or plants they won’t be needing. You can even offer to split the harvest: part to them for having the trees or plants, part to you to sell.

You can also look around for fruit, berries or nuts that are free for anyone to take.

• Where is fruit falling on sidewalks or over fences into the alley?
• Where are berries or nut trees growing wild or in public places?

Look for classes or workshops in foraging or harvesting wild foods. Extension education groups or cultural heritage organizations may offer sessions.

Talk to your elders to learn what they remember about gathering wild foods. My grandmother told me about gathering wild greens for salad back in the Great Depression.

Be good neighbors

Learn to forage safely and for safe foods. Check your library for books about local wild foods you can check out. Ask librarians if they know of workshops and classes. Learn and follow the health and food safety regulations that apply in your area.

Don’t enter people’s private property without permission, of course. Ask permission if it’s not clear where the boundary is or it just seems like you ought to.

Leave some for others. You’re part of a community, so don’t strip shared trees bare or take more than you are pretty sure you can sell. Maybe take special care to leave some easy to reach fruits on lower branches for kids and elders who may come after you.

Be smart business people

Take small steps in your business by gathering a few samples, just enough to sell at the farmer’s market this weekend. Then you’ll have a better idea what and how much to gather on the next foraging trip.

Add value to your wild foods. Find out the health regulations, then try your hand at jams, jellies, roasted nuts or even baked goods.

Wild sand plums make great jelly that’s always in demand in Oklahoma. The bushes grow wild alongside many county roads.

You can add value to nuts like hard shell pecans by having them cracked. Learn how to thresh wild grains to make them more valuable to customers.

Even cleaning and displaying your fruits attractively will add value. Scout around the farmer’s market or grocery store for ideas how to make your own foods sell better.

The types of wild foods available and the ways you can add value to them will vary, so learn from those local workshops and local elders.

I bet you could even sell responsibly foraged flowers.

The county is just going to mow these wild sunflowers down. What if you cut some to sell at the farmers market?

Falling Fruits on the map

There’s a collaborative global map of free places to go look for foods to harvest at FallingFruit.org with entries in most countries including the US, Canada and Australia.

When you find good free food sources, add them to the map. As rural people, we know we depend on each other especially in tough times. That’s a good reason to share what you know.

You’re part of the Food Business Ecosystem

Gathering fruits and berries is just one part of a whole ecosystem of local food businesses. Find out more about creating a local food business ecosystem with this video we created with SaveYour.Town.

So why do we greet new ideas with “That will never work”?

How to greet an idea respectfully

Picture being introduced to someone you’ve never met. You look them in the eye, and you shake their hand. You want to make a good first impression while you’re also forming your first impression of the other person. Now is not the time to hit them with all the negative thoughts that pop into your head.

You hold your opinions to yourself for now and make time to get to know the person better. You show interest in them, ask questions to learn more about them and listen to their answers.

You don’t necessarily agree with everything they say, but you show respect for them by listening first. 

You can do the same when you greet new ideas.

Practice greeting each new idea with a friendly hello and pause

Listen to the new idea without responding. You don’t have to agree with the idea, or think it’s a good idea. Hold your objections for later.

First show interest in the idea. Ask questions that help you learn more about it, not to help you poke holes in it. Avoid throwing out all the potential problems and reasons not to try it that pop into your head. 

People learn by doing, trying and sometimes by failing. If you stop them from trying, you’re stopping them from learning. But there’s one question you can ask that will help them learn the most while failing the least.

The magic question to ask of all new ideas:

How could you test that idea in a tiny way?

Every idea is good enough to test. It might lead to another idea or a new approach. It might inspire someone else to try another new idea.

The smaller the test, the smaller the possible failure.

That’s the Idea Friendly way.

Bottom line

Greet a new idea like you would greet a new person: with your respect, not your opinion.

Get more Idea Friendly Implementation tips in the video Idea Friendly Next Steps from SaveYour.Town.

Thanks to Jurek Leon for sharing this concept in his newsletter several years ago, inspired by Paul Hellman, author of You’ve Got 8 Seconds.

Subscribe to Small Biz Survival

Easy summer business for teens: helping seniors with their cell phones.

Looking for the perfect instant summer business idea for young entrepreneurs? Try phone clinics.

I saw this idea pop-up in a meeting that involved a cross section of the town of Cathlamet, Washington. People of all ages were there: students from the high school, county commissioners, chamber of commerce members. One of the adults was lamenting that they didn’t know how to fix a certain annoying problem with their phone.

“That’s easy,” one of the students said. “I’ll help you after this is over.”

Immediately other adults spoke up. They had phone issues, too! Could they get help?

That’s a business idea! With just a sign and a couple of chairs, any tech savvy person could set up a booth at an event. Set a price by the job or by time.

There’s plenty of demand from older adults who are online and need some tech support. Maybe not a full time class, just a quick solution.

Especially in small towns, there aren’t a lot of established alternatives, so there’s not too much competition.

More help with Youth Engagement

Deb Brown and I are sharing what we’ve learned from working with students and youth in small towns. Learn more about our Connecting with Kids video here.