Oxford has long been a community built around small businesses, from the shops and restaurants surrounding the Square to businesses supported by tourism and the University of Mississippi. But Allen Kurr, vice president of Oxford-Lafayette Inc., says a focus on entrepreneurship over the past decade or more has created a massive opportunity to build on that foundation.
As an economic development corporation, Oxford-Lafayette Inc. has made entrepreneurial development and small business growth a pillar of its long-term strategy, working with the university, Innovate Mississippi, the Mississippi Small Business Development Center and other partners to connect entrepreneurs with resources that extend well beyond Oxford and Lafayette County.
Kurr said student entrepreneurship has grown substantially over the past decade, alongside businesses in the creative economy, culinary arts and technology. Some entrepreneurs are developing companies around university research or sophisticated technologies, while others are building Main Street businesses. What connects them is an ecosystem that includes the university, a 700-member Chamber of Commerce, the SBDC, Oxford-Lafayette Inc. and statewide organizations such as Innovate Mississippi.
“The ecosystem has a lot of doors and entry points here in Oxford,” Kurr said. “But once you get into the ecosystem, it’s all about those handoffs.”
For founders, that means the first step isn’t necessarily finding the perfect organization or program. A founder might enter through Innovate Mississippi, the SBDC, the Chamber of Commerce, Oxford-Lafayette Inc. or another local partner. The important part, Kurr said, is identifying what the entrepreneur actually needs and connecting that person with someone who can help.
When founders contact his office, Kurr’s questions are straightforward: “What are your gaps? What do you need? How can we make a connection for you?” As organizations across the ecosystem have learned more about one another’s capabilities, those handoffs have become stronger.
Mentorship is another critical part of that process. Kurr said entrepreneurs can become intensely focused on their ideas, and it can be difficult to recognize when and where they need help. Experienced mentors can challenge the founder’s assumptions about customers, markets and business models while helping founders avoid mistakes others have already made. Just as important, mentorship invests in both the entrepreneur and the company. Kurr has seen entrepreneurs who participated in programs years ago return to the ecosystem as mentors, bringing experience from both successes and failures to a new generation of founders. His advice to entrepreneurs is to be willing to have those conversations, recognize the gaps in what they know and take advantage of people who can help them test whether an idea will work.
For Kurr, the same principle applies at the community level. Oxford may have significant resources, but no single community can provide everything every entrepreneur needs. A founder might need expertise from the Mississippi Polymer Institute in Hattiesburg, research capabilities from Mississippi State University or Jackson State University, or a connection to a “blue tech” resource on the Gulf Coast. That makes collaboration especially important in Mississippi, where people and resources are spread across a largely rural state.
Kurr credits Innovate Mississippi with helping build and maintain the statewide network that makes those connections possible. The result is an ecosystem in which a promising idea that starts in Oxford need not remain limited by the resources available there, just as an entrepreneur elsewhere in Mississippi can benefit from expertise and opportunities based in Lafayette County. Kurr sees the network continuing to strengthen as local and statewide partners better understand how their resources fit together.
For founders, his message is simple: Enter through whichever door is available, be open about what you need, and use the network around you. The value of Mississippi’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is not that every resource exists in every community. It is increasingly important for entrepreneurs to be connected to the right resources, wherever in the state they happen to be.
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