Nashville Entrepreneur Center hits the Web

Chamber/Tech Council initiative leveraging Music City brand

Email | Print By Erin Lawley

The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and Nashville Technology Council today announced their plans for the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, a set of online resources to help entrepreneurs start businesses. Eventually, the center will become a separate 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a brick-and-mortar home.

As NashvillePost.com first reported earlier this week, the center's launch today at entrepreneurcenter.com is the product of two years of discussions and research that began with a 75-member entrepreneurship task force in 2007. After the group released its recommendations in 2008, Technology Council President Tod Fetherling and former echomusic CEO Mark Montgomery led the first Entrepreneur Center meeting. This summer, the group appointed echomusic alum Joe Kustelski as product manager for the project, who took the lead on shaping the center's direction.

In short, the center's goal is to connect early-stage entrepreneurs with the resources — including people and capital — they need in order to be successful.

The center's Web site, developed by local interactive marketing agency Paramore|Redd, includes a blog, a calendar of entrepreneur-focused events and various resources for starting, pitching, growing and funding a business. The site's "Ask an Entrepreneur" page lets users submit their questions to the center if they're still not getting the answers they seek.

The center's content was developed based on task force recommendations, research on successful entrepreneur centers in cities around the country and conversations with local organizations, universities and "almost 100 entrepreneurs," Kustelski said.

Some of those entrepreneurs' stories can be seen at entrepreneurcenter.com, as well as the micro-site, "I Am Music City." The site will be used to help market the center by leveraging Nashville's Music City brand and having successful local entrepreneurs such as Jim Lackey, founder of Passport Health Communications, and Anastasia Brown of 821 Entertainment Group, tell their stories in short video clips.

Moving forward, the center will begin to raise money to hire an executive director and staff and create an annual operating budget of $1.5 million to $2 million, Kustelski said.

Pointing out that nearly 22 percent of Nashville's work force is made up of sole proprietorships, Janet Miller, chief economic development and marketing officer for the Chamber, said she has "high hopes" for the impact the center will have on the region's economy.

"We're already ahead of the nation in the number of entrepreneurs we have," Miller told NashvillePost.com. "With this as a focal point, that 21.6 percent figure could skyrocket."