CO.STARTERS business accelerator helps startups on path to success

Published July 29, 2024

Right person, right place, right time.

Jessica Meyers’ startup revolves around helping people who want to live in rural communities find jobs that allow them to make it happen.

For this founder, Startup Sioux Falls became the locale of choice as she contemplated launching PorchLight several years ago and joined the CO.STARTERS Core Accelerator program.

“CO.STARTERS was such a huge boost for me,” Meyers said.

“I was working full time at the time and working on my business idea. In the beginning, you’re figuring out systems, and through CO.STARTERS, they were able to really explain things like the SBA and all the free services available, including the SBDC (Small Business Development Center), which became so instrumental in my business.”

Startup Sioux Falls began offering the CO.STARTERS Core Accelerator program in early 2021. Since then, the organization has conducted 26 cohorts throughout South Dakota with 338 graduates. It’s the second stage of Startup Sioux Falls’ proven process of programs, from pre-startup to startup to growth stage.

“This program offers you the benefit of a proven process and framework to build a business, while delivering it in an easy to consume way,” said Jeff Hayward, program manager at Startup Sioux Falls.

“We are lucky to have so many successful founders and CEOs in our community who give their time as facilitators for this program, providing a ton of value to participants.”

Each week begins with a guest speaker, other founders and professional service providers, “who provide a wealth of information and resources,” he continued.

“And finally, we support all participants with a co-working membership, as well as access to our new EIR, or Entrepreneur in Residence Program, during the program.”

Each 10-week cohort is limited to 16 participants. The next one begins Sept. 10 and will be facilitated by Melissa Johnson, founder of multiple businesses, including Oh My Cupcakes!

“We will also be focusing this cohort towards founders who are building small and regional-sized enterprises — think retail and local businesses that will scale in a more traditional way, versus tech/bio/cyber/etc.,” Hayward said.

For more tech-minded founders, an innovation-driven enterprise CO.STARTERS Core cohort will be held in the spring.

Typical participants in CO.STARTERS Core are pre-launch or have been in business for two years or less, but it can be broader than that. The program could be a fit if:

• You’re a new business owner wanting to ensure you’re set up for success.
• You’re a seasoned entrepreneur looking to launch a product or service.
• You’re a small-business founder seeking to create solid, sustainable systems.

For Meyers, “it sounded like everything I needed,” she said. “Every week is a specific topic to get started, which is exactly where I was in my business. So I took each’s week’s subject, whether it was articles of incorporation or accounting or branding and used it as my homework and really took it to heart.”

CO.STARTERS Core helped her hone her so-called “elevator speech” to focus on her mission and succinctly explain what the company does.

PorchLight “focuses on rural workforce development,” she explained. “We help candidates update their resumes and interview prepared to land a job, and we partner with companies to help recruit a rural workforce, along with partnering with communities to help them prepare for a 21st century workforce through community assessments, housing studies and strategic planning.”

There are multiple examples of CO.STARTERS Core participants finding that the program leads to business growth, Hayward said.

“A recent graduate who spoke at Founders Day this past spring said it best — that since completing CO.STARTERS, his year-over-year revenue is up 30 percent,” Hayward said. “And this isn’t a one-off — we see growth in nearly every stage of business amongst participants of the program, from idea to startup and from startup to full-time operating.”

Here are some of those stories:

PorchLight has seen similar success. Shortly after completing CO.STARTERS, Meyers began to land contracts. Her connection with the SBDC helped provide seed money to get started as she left her full-time job, and “in 2023, we started really taking off,” she said.

Last year, PorchLight placed $750,000 in salaries within rural communities – average population 4,800 – and in the first six months of 2024, “we’ve already doubled that, so it’s awesome, and I’m so proud of it,” Meyers said.

She also has continued her relationship with Startup Sioux Falls as she has scaled to a four-person team.

“We’ve all been remote, and I was an original founder in the Startup building downtown, which was clutch for us because it allowed us to have private meeting space,” she said. “It’s been so helpful as a team to not have to meet at a coffee shop, and I have vivid memories writing up our first couple contracts at Startup Sioux Falls and sending it to clients. It’s such a wonderful place for a solopreneur or early-stage business.”

Now, she’s starting to look for her first outside office space, but she still uses Startup Sioux Falls for a networking environment as much as a workspace.

“Startup Sioux Falls is a spectacular resource to the community of Sioux Falls. It truly is,” Meyers said. “They are launching incredible companies, and the network and connection to education is amazing. I know we would not be half as successful if it wasn’t for the startup community.”

To learn more about PorchLight, click here.

To sign up on the waitlist for the next CO.STARTERS program, click here, or email [email protected].