On the first Wednesday of every month at 9 a.m. a group of people gather at Tipsy McSway’s in downtown Brunswick to listen to two entrepreneurs talk about their businesses or nonprofits. We hear it all — beginnings, histories, successes, problems and challenges. Such is the nature of 1 Million Cups, Brunswick. These meetings have been going on for 18 months so it is time to tell the citizens of the Golden Isles what we have learned about our Brunswick entrepreneurs.
In general, entrepreneurs are an interesting lot. Regardless of where one goes, you tend to find them in unexpected places. They value their individuality. And they all have interesting stories that have led them to do what they do. In many cases their calling is so strong they have to do what they do.
Almost 42 percent of our entrepreneurs and presenters and their enterprises can be found in downtown Brunswick. It seems like there is a general impression in our community that not much is going on in downtown. While there is often news of renewed hope of a hotel and conference center development project, entrepreneurs are filling the void. Entrepreneurs will often go where others will not. Opportunity has many different faces and between Norwich and Newcastle streets may offer such an unexpected place.
Nearly 53 percent of our 1 Million Cups entrepreneurs are women. This is very unusual relative to other communities that support a 1 Million Cups forum. Entrepreneurs are, more often than not, go-it-alone, risk-taking pathfinders. Here, success is its own reward where judgment is only found in the ability to please customers. Opinions based on arbitrary characteristics such as gender do not find a home in the world of entrepreneurs.
To affirm these points about our Brunswick entrepreneurs, new freedoms and social liberalizations are being introduced in Saudi Arabia through the influence of reformer Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. One of the first signs of the impact of these small initial changes is the appearance of entrepreneurs and their food trucks in the capital city of Riyadh. One of the most popular, judging by the line of men wanting to buy coffee, is run by a woman and her daughter.
Finally, Brunswick entrepreneurs have some amazing stories. Entrepreneurship is more than just starting a business. It involves the beginning creativity necessary to identify unmet needs of others or problems that need to be solved. In the case of our Brunswick entrepreneurs opportunity and creativity have been found in the napkins of a grandmother, in the hearts of rescue dogs, in the wellbeing of veterans, in the desire to give kids their own places to read at home, to just know that there is opportunity in the vacant buildings in downtown Brunswick and on and on. All are special and unique. Entrepreneurial storytelling is alive and well in Brunswick.
Data from studies of the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City show that since 1980, businesses aged 0 to 5 years show positive net job creation — more jobs are created than destroyed. Businesses 6 to 10 years of age show zero net job creation over the same period while businesses older than 11 years show negative job growth. So, economic prosperity and job creation is found in new firms. The ecosystem that generates new businesses is the land of the entrepreneur. From the experiences presented at 1 Million Cups, Brunswick, our ecosystem is alive, well and very special.
Reg Murphy Center