The competition will provide start-up entrepreneurs and small business owners with the opportunity to formulate and present short business plans, as if presenting to an investor, to receive feedback and mentoring from panels of business professionals, and to network with experienced business leaders.    

This is Jigsaw's most significant effort to cultivate the existing innovative talent of Blaine County. We want to help entrepreneurs create a business plan, present it to others, and receive expert feedback that will help them accelerate  their business fevelopment.   

Entrepreneurs Just Do It! runs for a month. Entrepreneurs are invited to submit a two-page business plan to Jigsaw by October 17. Plans will be reviewed by a panel of five business professionals from the public and private sectors. 

The panel will then select three-five "finalists" for formal presentations; Jigsaw will announce them on October 29. The following week, finalists will present their business plans to a second set of business experts, and the public, at an event generously hosted by the Ketchum Public Library (November 7, 9 am-1 pm). The winner will be selected and awarded a cash prize of $1,000 for business investment.   

Entrepreneurs Just Do It! is modeled after Idaho TechLaunch, a business competition organized by Boise's Idaho TechConnect. Rick Ritter, president of TechConnect, welcomes Entrepreneurs Just Do It! "This competition and others like it in Rexburg and Meridian," he says, "fit well with our goal of building a statewide network of annual competitions whose winners go on to participate in TechLaunch each spring."

On the evening of the competition, the Library will host guest speaker, Mark Solon, founder of Highway 12 Ventures, a Boise-based venture capital firm.  He will address the role of entrepreneurs in local and national economies, especially in the next decade.

Keep your eyes and ears open for more announcements from Jigsaw, the Library, and

Sustain Blaine which also supports this competition.

As Jigsaw's Business Weekly has often pointed out, innovation and entrepreneurship drive successful economies, whether they function in rural or urban areas.  Not only do entrepreneurs provide the bulk of U.S. jobs through small 2-10 person businesses,  they can become the leaders of national and international businesses that provide a large base of local jobs. What would we do without Power Engineers, Smith Sport Optics, Rocky Mountain Hardware, ESS, and Scott USA?  How many other businesses are currently "growing up" in our valley, preparing jobs for the kids who will return here as adults to build their lives? 

Jigsaw offers a two-page business plan template and mentoring on writing it for those interested in entering Entrepreneurs Just Do It!  All applicants will benefit from detailed written feedback, whether or not they are chosen for the finalist round. We look forward to working with those of you who are involved in that challenging, addictive, and often frustrating, effort to start, and grow, a business.  Please call me if you're interested at 726-1848.

Until next week...Jima Rice