Building Up Small Businesses

Business plans, projections, gap loans, what’s all of it mean?

Entrepreneurs looking to start their own business or take their idea further don’t always understand all the necessary paperwork and administrative details needed to successfully start their business. Located in Reno County, StartUp Hutch is looking to help entrepreneurs support the local economy and showcase their talents.

“I think that someone who wants to be an entrepreneur needs to ask themselves, do they really not want to work for someone else? Or do they just not want to work? Being an entrepreneur means you’re going to do a lot more work than you would do if you were working for somebody else,” said Jackson Swearer, StartUp Hutch Program Director.

The 2020 US Census Bureau reported 4.4 million new businesses surfaced during 2020. As new businesses surge and the entrepreneurial wave hits Americans, many people look for support from their community.

“Entrepreneurship is a team sport,” Swearer said. ”(If) you think that you can do it all yourself, you probably can’t, you probably won’t be successful. The trick is to figure out what are you passionate about, and what are you good at...figure out what you’re bad at and what you don’t like, and get somebody else to do that stuff for you.”

StartUp Hutch, previously known as the Quest Center and rebranded in 2020, is bringing support and resources together for entrepreneurs across Reno County. Many entrepreneurs look to StartUp Hutch’s mentors for encouragement.

“Our primary function is to help local entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses. We try to provide

BUILDING UP small businesses Local business looks to help small businesses and entrepreneurs Photos & Story | Kaitlyn Seiwert opportunities for entrepreneurs and other resources for entrepreneurs,” said Swearer. “ Entrepreneurship is a team sport. While his team offers multiple resources and advice to local entrepreneurs, some keys to a successful business can not be found in a resource or bank loans. “Really, one of the secrets of entrepreneurship is the most successful entrepreneurs are people who are just passionate about what they’re doing,” said Swearer. “And they sort of don’t know what they could fail.” StartUp Hutch also offers philanthropic outlets for community members like investors. “Somebody like an investor for example, who takes somethings that’s probably a pretty sure...and they invest their money in that. Entrepreneurs are people who are taking risks. And we want to help people do that,” Swearer said.

He shares that investors across the county are ready to help entrepreneurs and business owners launch their ideas.

“Since July of this year, we’ve talked to at least 50 different clients, and loaned out over $400,000 in loan funds in 2021,” Swearer said.

While StartUp Hutch offers monetary assistance to local business proprietors, they also offer lots of advice. They offer help in writing business projections and plans.

“There are probably some folks who we have helped avoid making a mistake, whether that’s making a mistake in their business or starting something where, really the math wasn’t going to work out very well,” Swearer said.

Because of StartUp Hutch’s resources and investors, StartUp Hutch has been able to help entrepreneurs across the state. “We’re doing a few things that are pretty creative,” said Swearer. “Historically, one of the biggest success stories was Midwest Malibu, which is out at the airport.” Midwest Malibu is a local company that specializes in aircraft servicing. Since Swearer came on board in 2020 and helped with the rebrand, another huge success story for StartUp Hutch has started to surface.

“One of the things I am most excited about is the Hoke Hotel Project. [It’s] a new boutique hotel and building which probably needed torn down or gutted,” Swearer said. “We had some creative people come in and they wanted to develop that building.”

Swearer explained that the Hoke

Hotel Project included a huge team effort, one of the keys to a successful business plan. “ We’ve talked to at least 50 clients and loaned out over $400,000 in loan funds in 2021. “That was really one that we were able to bring together a lot of different resources and make something happen,” said Swearer. “I think [it] could have a significant impact on downtown Hutchinson in the long run and on tourism for Hutchinson and Reno County.” New businesses offer Reno County new tourism opportunities and activities. “They [Mark and Phoebe Davenport] bought the Plaza Towers and the Leon Place also in downtown Hutch. And then they bought this other building,” said Swearer. “They’ve taken a real substantial interest in downtown Hutchinson, and taking on some of these older buildings, and really trying to lift them up bringing them back to life. They have a real passion for it.”

Photo | Kaitlyn Seiwert The Hoke Hotel building is located on the corner of Walnut and First Street. Renovations have already began on the inside.

Swearer enjoys working with entrepreneurs such as the Davenports and likes to see the ways they can change the community.

“We have a mental image in our heads and in our culture of the entrepreneur being like a solo person who is individually brilliant, who makes something amazing happen. And in my experience, the entrepreneurs who are successful are successful because they have built good teams around them,” he said.

As Swearer explains, entrepreneurs can’t do everything themselves and must look for team effort. Entrepreneurs are the people who take risks and have to put in lots of effort to look like the successful business owners seen across the globe.

“There are people who are business owners who’ve been very successful who were at the golf course everyday. But that wasn’t what their life looked like for the first five or ten years when they were building that business,” said Swearer.

Entrepreneurs can expect to put in more work than others, and that scares some people. But others, as Swearer explained, have the unique ability to look past the possibility of failure and instead see work filled with their passion.

“It’s gonna be a lot of work, it’s going to be hard. And you might fail. Make sure that you are getting into it because you have a passion for what you want to do, and passion for this process of building a business.”

Swearer described passion being important for entrepreneurs, but has also alluded to team work being equally important.

“One of the keys to really longterm success is being able to put together a good team, not being able to do it all yourself,” said Swearer.

Swearer offers some advice to not only entrepreneurs, but everyone, who’s looking to create their team of supporters. He said, “Put people around you and trust them and rely on them.”

Developing Strategies

StartUp Hutch offers services to all local entrepreneurs, including students. Two students in Coach Nac’s class have a rare type of entrepreneurship hard to find in students.

StartUp Hutch originally began as the Quest Center in the 1980s, and at the minimum, had a partnership with HutchCC. After StartUp Hutch’s rebranding, they still sit in some office space owned by HutchCC in the Allied Health building.

Branton Hutchinson has an ambition to sell high quality furniture to low and mid-income families at a fraction of the cost offered by big furniture corporations. Hutchinson already sees challenges when starting and trying to grow his business.

Learning people skills, every position throughout the LLC that I’ll be owning, building up clientele by reputation are a few of Hutchinson’s challenges he sees in his future.

While Hutchinson isn’t sure exactly what he’ll need to do to solve his challenges or what resources he needs when building his business, he describes how he already has a partial plan to his success.

“There’s a lot of services I need and some of them I don’t know yet but I’ll find out as next year moves on,” said Hutchinson. “I’ve already started the journey towards learning and growing knowledge of what I need to do and slowly grow.”

Another HutchCC student, Cooper Blackledge, has successfully started his business.

“I own my own business, you can find me on social media @Blackledge Bones,” said Blackledge.

When starting his own business, Blackledge used other small businesses to aid in certain areas.

“I used a small business that makes my t-shirts at a low cost, this allows me to allocate my budget in different areas of my business since saving money on apparel,” Blackledge said.

Blackledge went on to describe how one of his biggest challenges was money.

“Another challenge would have been getting enough money to startup, for this I had to just save until I had enough to get the bare minimum supplies, from then on I am able to buy more with the business I get,” said Blackledge.

“Just like anything else, good times come after hard work,” said Blackledge. “There are many challenges when starting a business but don’t let that scare you, good things will come.”

StartUp Hutch Success Stories

Holly’s Sweet Treats

Locally known in Hutch for custom cakes, cookies, fresh bread and more

Started in 2013

Used StartUp Hutch resources in 2016 to write business plan, fund cabinets, sign

sheStrength The Etc Shop

Midwest Malibu

Metropolitian Coffee