A group of entrepreneurs, government leaders and educators wants to connect business with resources, and grow the Hub City in the process
If Spartanburg’s business landscape were an amusement park, SERN would be that team of people in the neon-green T-shirts helping you find your way around.
But sitting in a conference room at the USC Upstate College of Business & Economics (known as The George), members of the Spartanburg Entrepreneurial Resource Network talked about the serious business they’re after.
Right This Way
Organized in 2006, SERN is a mix of conventional small-business organizations, government agencies and higher-education-driven innovations you find elsewhere, but the way they work in concert in Spartanburg is unique.
SERN wants to make sure doing business in Spartanburg doesn’t have to include hours of figuring out the right resources. That’s SERN’s job, and it’s not uncommon for a young company to engage with three or four different SERN groups as its needs evolve. Businesses that have knocked on the wrong door will be led – not just pointed – to the right one, or two.
“When you truly care and you really know what’s at stake, you have to follow up,” said Patty Bock, economic development director for the City of Spartanburg.
Beth Smith, area manager for the Spartanburg Small Business Development Center (SBDC), said SERN works at all stages, from companies looking to relocate to Spartanburg to local executives who need to connect with others. Everyone needs something.
Let’s Get Together
There’s no funding behind SERN.
“We meet once a month and we rotate providing coffee in the coffee maker, and that’s all we need,” said Steven Hahn, head of entrepreneurial services at the Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce.
Still, collaboration is easier said than done, if it’s even said at all. Getting all of the members of SERN in one room simultaneously can be difficult, and Hahn was charged with that task in the beginning. It took about a year.
Step one was for members to see each other often in order learn their respective roles, Hahn said. “We ended up formalizing what should be happening in all communities.” It gave the group a brand and snappy moniker to show that this organization represented a community-wide culture, he said.
Some SERN members were busy learning their own jobs at the same time.
“For many of us, we were new in our roles then,” said Smith, who had just reopened Spartanburg’s SBDC office at the time. “Naturally enough, though, if somebody asks you a question and you don’t know the answer, you’re going to pick up the phone and ask somebody else.”
Making It Work
The group created an advisory committee including highly experienced people such as Dan Adams, CEO of The Capital Corporation, and John Bauknight, co-owner at Longleaf Holdings. They took road trips to places like Statesville, to visit the University of South Carolina’s business incubator.
“We got a lot of good ideas, but in all that, we never saw anything but silos,” said Mike Forrester, director of economic development at Spartanburg Community College (SCC).
“Just as entrepreneurs have to search out the best fit for their company, we as organizers are in the same boat,” said Frank Rudisill, dean at The George. He has recently been busy expanding the school’s business incubator space.
Eddie West, chairman at Piedmont SCORE, emphasized that the Spartanburg community is collaborative where other communities might be more competitive.
That reality might be as much a result of coincidence as intention. It turns out that although they are all tasked with supporting business, the organizations are just distinct enough that there’s no overlap.
At the same time, they fill in each other’s gaps where necessary. Smith, for instance, said the limitations of her job mean she can’t spend too much time with any single client or attend certain meetings with them. But she can call another SERN member at that point.
What’s more, each one’s success can affect the entire group. The fact that the small-business incubator at SCC is filling up validates the need for more space at The George, Hahn pointed out.
“We can proudly claim that any project doesn’t happen without feeding off the other ones,” he said.
The Confidence Factor
SERN has been a factor in most of the business news in Spartanburg in recent years – or even recent months. Ten companies just completed a digital health program, shortly after the Main Street Challenge put a spotlight again on downtown (see page XX). SCC’s incubator was recently named the fourth largest in the nation by square-foot.
Still, the community sometimes needs convincing of its own potential.
“Spartanburg just needs people to believe in what they can do,” said Jeremy Boeh, assistant director of The Space at Wofford College. “There are lots of great ideas flowing here. I just think they need a group of people who can do that.”
It’s an observation others have made about Spartanburg’s economic development, and SERN sees itself as a catalyst for that mental shift. The group needs to go even further, Forrester said, getting middle-school students excited about entrepreneurship.
At that suggestion Hahn piped up to make a small announcement: He had an upcoming meeting scheduled, with a group of fourth-graders.
