Mike Colwell has spent 11 years at the Greater Des Moines Partnership helping small businesses in Greater Des Moines through Square One DSM and Startup Stories and through direct mentoring.

Christina Moffatt, founder of Creme Cupcake + Dessert, has worked at the Partnership for three years, helping small businesses through conferences and other efforts. 

Both noted that some of the Partnership’s work to help startups and entrepreneurs had been lost in a maze of branding. So the Partnership hired longtime Des Moines-area business Essman Research to help sort things out. 

What they found in focus groups and other contacts with about 1,000 business representatives is that people who are in the startup community or the entrepreneurial space don’t focus on those labels. They see themselves as owners of small businesses, Colwell said. 

So the Partnership decided to phase out Square One DSM, which Colwell led as a way to reach out to startups and entrepreneurs, and roll those efforts into the Partnership’s mainline branding. 

The small business efforts have been combined in a new Small Business Resources Hub that offers links to key contacts and resources at the Partnership and specific help by topic, including: accounting and taxes; events and networking; finance, banking and capital; information technology and data; legal issues; marketing and sales; how to start a business; staffing and hiring; success stories; and successful planning. Those categories were chosen based on the feedback Essman got from business owners, Colwell said. 

“When you go back 11 years, the Partnership has been trying to support small businesses and startups, and those were two different thing,” said Colwell, the Partnership’s executive director of entrepreneurial initiatives. “When we rebranded for DSMUSA, and we began doing a better job with branding, it became obvious that having the Square One brand didn’t reflect well for our investors. Some of the clients were missing out. Very few people identify with the word entrepreneurial.

“Research has show that startups see themselves as small businesses trying to grow,” Colwell said. We wanted to bring everyone into one place.”

Moffatt, the Partnership’s director of small business development, said the new website should be a great help to businesses. “We had some great resources, but they weren’t categorized well. We looked at the resources and tools people were looking for. We added to our resources, and the website brings them all to one place.”

The offerings include a new Mentor Connection, which gives people a place to find a mentor, or to volunteer to be one. “We can add value by making sure it’s a good match so no one wastes their time,” Colwell said.