Entrepreneurial Development Center

By Curtis R. Nelson, President & CEO, Entrepreneurial Development Center, Inc.

As the EDC moves full throttle midway through its fourth year, having assisted over 300 Iowa-based existing businesses and start ups, we’ve seen time and time again why Iowa ranks so poorly when it comes to entrepreneurial business development. The combination of nearly non-existent early stage financing and the lack of sufficient technical resources continually hamper Iowa’s budding entrepreneurs in their quest to develop viable business models. It’s not the lack of ideas but rather the lack of ability to turn those ideas into viable business models.

This was a big reason for the launch of Iowa Farm Bureau’s new Renew Rural Iowa program in September 2006 – to provide guided support to rural Iowa’s scalable entrepreneurial businesses, where resources are even scarcer. The EDC is the business mentoring component of the program and has seen many of the same challenges in rural companies as it sees in businesses in the Cedar Rapids area.

This commonality of business challenges underscores the need for business leaders to take the time to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses in several key areas. As part of the Renew Rural Iowa seminars, I continue to deliver the message that for businesses to be successful, five key ingredients are required: a strategic fit, a quality business plan, a balanced team, good leadership and the right resources.

To be successful, businesses must have these five key ingredients:

• A viable product or service that a satisfactory volume of customers will actually purchase in place of all other options, i.e. a product that has a strategic fit in the market.


• A complete, well-founded business plan that outlines and validates the business model and describes the strategic and operational architecture necessary for success. Failure is almost insured when entrepreneurs move from idea to execution without a quality plan.


• A capable, well-balanced team with disciplines in marketing, sales, development, operations, and finance that can execute the business plan. These disciplines can be considered part of your team via creative means other than full-time employees, such as an Advisory Council or other business advisors.


• Leadership that can set the vision, create the proper culture and pull all the ingredients together effectively and consistently.


• Appropriate resources. Note: if you have a viable product or service, a quality plan, a balanced team, and good leadership, the appropriate funding and resources almost always come together.

If you are still struggling with your business, chances are that YOU are making it difficult by being out of balance in one or more of these areas.

At EDC, we help entrepreneurs understand their strengths and weaknesses in all five categories and we assist them in creating the proper balance to significantly increase their odds of success. We help existing interstate commerce, scalable businesses grow to the next level, and we assist start-up businesses in reaching their first revenue goals. We offer our sincere gratitude to our partners and sponsors, especially Iowa Farm Bureau, for their continued support in making this essential program available to entrepreneurs across Iowa.