We’re Your Buoy: Sailing the Seas of Small Business Assistance

You’re on a raft in the middle of a fierce ocean. It’s solid, but it’s small, perfectly suited to skim calm waters, but of dubious integrity when faced with the rough and tumble waves of a serious storm. Unfortunately, that storm is coming. Like winter, it always comes. You can see those dark clouds looming on the distance. The water swells, heaves, and advances toward your raft. If only you had a small motor. Or a sail. Or a flare. Or a cellphone.

This is the picture of small business.

Alone and adrift on unfriendly waters, no resources, no help, left to the whims of economic cycles with only your wits and the love of the sea to guide you.

Hold up. Scratch that. That’s not how it is at all!

Take a second look around. The sea of small business is not a desolate wall of water. All around you are buoys and dinghies, seaplanes and submarines, rescue boats and light houses—all ready to throw you a line, shine a light and guide you and your business through rough waters.

As a startup or small business in Iowa, you are surrounded by SBDCs, EDCs, and JPECs, area chambers of commerce and business assistance centers, incubators and accelerators, associations (TAI & ABI) and many institutes.

In fact, on the good ship IASourceLink, there are hundreds of resources ready to help you:

• Plan and register your business
• Find a business location or incubator
• Research, define or expand your market
• Hire new employees
• Export
• Sell to the government
• Network
• Find funding to start or grow your business

So the question is not, “Can I get help with my small business?” It actually never has been.

The question is, “Who can best help me with my business, right now?”

IASourceLink saves you the time of sending a flare or carrier pigeon or message in a bottle to each and every one of the alphabet crew listed above. Instead, we are your point person for help with your business in Iowa.

IASourceLink figures out what challenge your business is facing right now—whether you need a business plan or funding, a prototype or intellectual property protection—and we dive into our network of hundreds of small business resource partners to connect you with the right team for your immediate business need.

And when you have a different need down the channel- say you need to hire new crew, train them, or learn something about how to sail your business into the sunset- we step in again to help you find the right resource for your business need at that time.

We are your first call, your first step toward business success. And we hope you keep calling as your business grows and your ship sails to new and uncharted waters.

We do this all for free. It does not cost you a dime. No tips or gift baskets necessary. You already pay your taxes, ensure you play by the rules, and our role here as a public entity is to give back to the Iowa business community to help you grow.

We just ask for one thing: when you see another little raft out there, facing the waves on its own, we hope you pass our name and number along.

Content contributed by Sarah Mote, KCSourceLink. KCSourceLink is a proud affiliate of U.S.SourceLink, America’s largest resource network for entrepreneurs.