It almost goes without saying that Hurricane Helene has ravaged our community—Buncombe, Henderson, Madison, Haywood, are just a few of the counties where devastation visited. The impact on families is mind boggling. The damaged infrastructure will take years, perhaps decades to fully rebuild.
So how does an entrepreneurial support foundation like Hatch respond?
First, we need to provide relief and support to those immediately in front of us—our neighbors and members of the Hatch community (including those who seek our services, volunteer and mentor for Hatch, rent space from Hatchworks Coworking, and those who don’t). Taking care of “our own” is not selfish but sensible.
Specifically, Hatch will be working to identify needs and match those needs with resources available in the community; we will be setting up referral sites online to help people find what they need and make what they have available.
Second, we need to pivot in the services we offer. We will not back off of our commitment to startups and scale ups. However, a new priority has emerged from the destruction: the need and opportunity to help existing companies survive. There is no value in starting new companies while letting those businesses already running collapse.
Again, specifically, we will be building on the resource sites to match needs and solutions and we will partner even more closely with other like-minded agencies in the area to maximize support. Groups like Venture Asheville, Mountain BizWorks,Eagle Market Streets Development Corporation, Black Wall Street AVL, and others can achieve more by working together, avoiding duplication, and fostering communication and collaboration as we rebuild our economic ecosystem.
We will focus on what we do best—education and connection. We will source business recovery expertise (mostly online) and double down on our Founder Roundtables to provide forums for owners and leaders to share ideas, encourage each other, pool resources, and bring their businesses back.
Friends, this is a historic time and historic opportunity. We are knocked down but we are not knocked out. Our region will rise and rebuild. There is a lot of work to do and we certainly don’t have all the details worked out. However, we do want to let you and the community know our direction and response.
For more information, we encourage you to visit the Hatch site, www.hatchinnovationhub.org or contact us at info@hatchavl.org.
Sincerely,
Mike Baer, Hatch Chair
Maui Vang, CFP®, Hatch Vice Chair