Defying the odds
how entrepreneurship thrives in the hands of a community and entrepreneurs
I have been away for the past couple of weeks, the first one spent traveling through rural Scotland and the second recuperating from the 1251 miles driven and thinking about all that I saw and learned. The trip offered a shifted plane of observing island and mainland communities, rural and urban, diverse and homogenous.
Though anthropologists perform such studies as part of their professional practice, rudimentary lessons were visible to this lay member. This story, therefore, takes a divergent path from my usual to share what I learned.
Background
I am a leisure traveler, so my observations are simply those of a tourist on the move, meandering through streets, eating in restaurants, sightseeing, visiting museums, transportation and hospitality. As a consumer, each transaction offers a comparison to what I am used to at home, and a handful make me capture notes.
I apologize early to my sociologist and anthropologist wife as this will not be a citation-worthy ethnographic study. And I will do my best to not overstretch my imagination in drawing a parallel to similar entrepreneurial communities in Iowa today.
Observing the oldest professions
No, not that one. The oldest note in my book of memories is from walking the ruins of Pompeii in the summer of 2011. Our tour guide, Juan Carlo, a Ph.D. historian was describing the basic structure of each home along the street front. A six-to-seven-foot stone “table” abutting the steps into the house, a kitchenesque living space just behind and living quarters on the 2nd floor. I wondered why so many homes had that stone table and was told that that’s where the homeowner conducted their business. The butchers, bakers, cobblers, and others of that civilization created their living on the ground floor of their homes.
That summer is also when I had just begun talking with Central Iowa entrepreneurs at Startup Weekends, meetups, mentoring sessions, Startup City Des Moines and other entrepreneurial events. The numbers of entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs was growing steadily in the wake of the recent financial crisis and many of us wondered about the reasons why. There appeared to be a loose correlation between an economy that was suffering and the increasing number of entrepreneurs.
Looking at the ruins of Pompeii the connection suddenly came into focus - the displaced humans of Central Iowa were seemingly snapping back to their evolutionary roots with many choosing a livelihood independent of a boss. By becoming the owners of their enterprise, they were choosing to direct their destiny. With corporate life only about 125 years old, their DNA was taking them back to being in control of idea, strategy, production, sales, finance, and customer relationships.
A nearby community where I see such strong entrepreneurial spirit alive is in Pella. Just as so many rural communities shrink with their economies, the town square in Pella is vibrant and the businesses remind one of a lively European plaza rather than an American main street. Butchers, Bakers, Dressmakers, Cafes, Florists, and other owner-operated businesses thrive in the hands of a fiercely proud community. It is one of the rare cities with a shortage of housing for young professionals while peer cities struggle for young (or any!) professionals.
Iowa’s towns could take a page from Pella. Pride in heritage, support for the local, and an unwillingness to abandon principles in name of economic development are likely catalysts for its growth. It is, unmistakably, a homogeneous town with the stereotypes alive and well (you don’t need to signal where you’re turning because everyone already knows where you’re headed). Yet it continues to find ways to prosper and grow.
Making the most of natural advantage
I’ve enjoyed Scotch for a number of decades. Served in 25-30ml drams (about a fluid ounce), Scotch delivers a dizzying array of flavors and characteristics to those who the time to breathe, taste, and savor. A trip in 2012 took me to Scotch’s homeland, specifically a miniscule island, merely 240sq miles in size whose product is available in midwestern grocery aisles. Farmer distillers have produced spirits of international acclaim on this island for more than 200 years despite its remoteness (2-hour ferry ride from the western edge of Scotland which itself requires a 3-hour drive by car from the nearest international airport).
You begin to discover why the entrepreneurial farmers chose such remote production facilities as the ferry approaches the island. Distillery smokestacks hide behind rock outcroppings left behind from the days of Pangea. Mist and clouds hide the landmass on all but the clearest days. The island itself is remote, and its residents have burned its vast reserves of peat for heat and fire since before the monks who brought Christianity, brewing and distillation to the island.
The island’s barley farmers of late 1700s procured illicit stills, used the plentiful water from the island’s interminable water supply (thanks, Scottish rain), and used the most basic of all yeast strains. Some added smoke from burning peat to the freshly germinated barley before extracting the sugars and others varied methods and vessels in which they aged the spirit. The resulting spirits were remarkably different from each other despite being made within a mile from others.
They hid their product from the excise inspectors ready to levy tax should they find the spirit. Owing to its iodine nose, one even claimed their spirit had medicinal value and circumvented US prohibition laws. They matured, excelled, traveled around the world with kilts, bottles, bagpipes and accent in tow. They eventually began paying taxes and are now global enterprises today that contribute significantly to the UK’s GDP as they continually migrate their businesses to be sustainable from the farm to the bottle. From a 240-sq mile island in the Atlantic Ocean!
Remarkably, alcohol is a similar Iowa product which contributes heavily to our GDP. Its environmental footprint today, however, is quite expensive (IMO) with 3-4 gallons of water consumed to produce 1 gallon of ethanol. If this is to be our industry, we will need to quickly adopt methods that reduce our ecological footprint before we destroy the very ecosystem that produces the raw materials and exhaust the natural resources shared by all parts of the state’s economy.
Food deserts
Communities thrive when all members of a community have an opportunity to participate in its economic growth. Multiple trips to the UK demonstrate two incredibly basic mainstays of thriving villages, many smaller than our towns across Iowa - chippies and Co-ops.
Fish and Chips (or battered-fried fish with fries to us Americans) are only second to Chicken Tikka Masala as UK’s national dish. Served fresh and hot, often in a newspaper, wax paper, or Styrofoam containers of late, they have been inexpensive, universally available and approachable. Though restaurants and pubs all serve them, a chippie remains a go-to during hours when traditional eateries are closed.
Similarly ubiquitous are stores called Co-Ops. Generally open before and after the town or village’s businesses, these stores stock the basic need — groceries, freshly baked goods, drinks, basic medicine and sundries. They closely mimic a Caseys in any of our small towns across the Midwest with one major difference. Grocery prices are similar to those found in larger cities’ major grocers, thus are affordable and negate the need to leave the community for most household needs.
The benefit of these two mainstays in the smallest villages is that they return the village’s dollars into its own economy. Residents do not have to travel distances to shop, the stores are staffed locally, tourists find reasons to stay in the villages and not seek larger communities, thus adding further to the local economy. With basic needs met, the rural communities continue to thrive.
Scotland’s (and now the UK’s) Co-op has been subsidized and instrumental in its ubiquity. To help rural Iowa thrive, cities and towns have an opportunity to partner with the likes of Caseys to help achieve price equity with Hy-Vee, Fareway, Walmart and other grocers in mid-size and larger towns. If money from within rural Iowa stays and churns within the town, prosperity can follow as it does in other parts of the world.
Youth and Young Professionals
America is aging and not replacing its population at an adequate velocity, one demonstrated by a minimum birth rate of 2.0 (two children per woman of child-bearing age) to sustain itself. America’s birth rate fell significantly below 2.0 at the turn of the millennium and hasn’t recovered. Immigration, which had softened the blow of reduced birth rates has been in a decline throughout most of that period.
The resulting impact is a hollowing of rural towns in rural states with a corresponding impact on those towns’ economies - from college enrollment to factory employees to everyday employees at main street businesses. We know that the raw material desired by colleges, employers, and businesses are 18-year-olds - and it takes a minimum of 18 years to ‘produce’ them.
What I see when I travel outside the US is a world of young people able to create lives and livelihoods in the towns where they grew up. Though many do and will continue to leave, thriving cities that provide the basic necessities. I have stayed in bed and breakfasts run by couples in their 20s and young children in tow, experienced cafes where they serve fancy coffee in as ‘hipster’ an environment as found in the world’s greatest cities, produce and sell their craft around the world — all from the rural enclaves that welcome them, adopt them, and realize their importance to the region’s continued survival.
Our smaller communities need to resist NIMBYism to ensure spaces and places exist for the young to come, build, stay, and grow. Young professionals don’t all want to buy a single-family home. Nor do they want to simply engage in the entertainment of decades past. If we want the young, we must accept what they need, bring, and grow into the communities.
Signs of hope
Despite the rapid degradation of Iowa’s previously high standards across our water, soil, population, economy, education, individual rights, and the environment, there are hints of hope. Whether we as Iowans will use those hints of hope to transform our communities so they can thrive will depend upon us. As will our willing acceptance of increasing mediocrity that increases brain drain, submits precious soil to the Mississippi and the Gulf, further poisons drinking water and erodes all those unalienable rights.
The solution to prosperity isn’t to revert to the same old same old - it is to see, welcome, and embrace the change underway. More of the same, or reversion to a past may leave our successors walking ghost towns and deserts where the world’s most fertile soil once grew anything sown into it and voluminous reservoirs of water once flowed just beneath.
I am a proud member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative, journalists, poets, authors, and artists supported by a passionate community of readers. And I cannot wait to attend my first Okoboji Writers Retreat next week! I hope to post my next story from the retreat!!!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts from your travels. I wish more people in Iowa shared your perspectives.
As I am currently traveling and today walked on the Roman Road, this column struck me. So many parallels between ancient societies and today. We are part of an ebb and flow of history, economic and political striving and strife. Look forward to comparing notes.