Work | Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneur Resources

The Iowa Lakes Corridor assists new and established entrepreneurs to plan and grow businesses, focusing on serving clients with high growth opportunities. The Corridor starts with a self-assessment of the entrepreneur’s leadership team, spotlights an understanding of the target customer base, provides focus on competitive advantage, assists to evaluate opportunities to protect intellectual property and supports the entrepreneur through the building and polishing of their growth plan.

As clients grow, the Corridor shifts services to meet changing clients needs. Services for maturing companies include mentoring on methods to define achievement milestones, measuring progress against milestones, ensuring leadership team composition keeps in sync with changing needs during pressured growth periods and ensuring availability of advanced technical and professional advisory services to enable informed strategic and tactical decisions.

Networking and Educational Events

A major barrier to entry for prospective entrepreneurs is the lack of access to professional and social support. To overcome these barriers, the Corridor offers informal and formal opportunities for exchanging ideas:

Between entrepreneur peers
Between Angel Investors and Iowa Lakes Capital
Between Angel Investors and entrepreneurs
Between institutional investors and entrepreneurs

Bi-monthly evening networking sessions:

Brief update on Iowa Lakes Corridor clients
Feature entrepreneur describes business model
Featured keynote speaker
Hors D’oeuvres and drinks served

Iowa Lakes Corridor has partnered with the Kauffman foundation to offer Kauffman FastTrac^® NewVenture and GrowthVenture educational workshops to help entrepreneurs plan and implement new, and grow existing, businesses. To learn more about Kauffman FastTrac^®, click the Entrepreneur Training link above.

Advisory Services Provided to Entrepreneurs

Human Capital Development

Leadership Team Composition
Board of Directors Recruitment
Advisory Board Recruitment
Production Staff Training

Growth Plan Development Consulting

Strategic Plan
Tactical Execution Plans
Milestone Definition and Measurement

Intellectual Property Training

Patent
Trademark
Trade Secret

Professional Referrals

Accounting
Legal
Insurance

Market Analysis Critical Evaluation

Market Research Planning
Sales and Marketing Plan Development

Financial Analysis

Cash Flow
Profit and Loss
Balance Sheet

Administration Systems Review

Bookkeeping
Information Technology
Shareholder Records

Referrals to Sources of Investment Capital

Private Lending (Banks)
Private Placement Angel Investment
Iowa Lakes Capital
Public Incentives
Strategic Institutional Investors

For more information on the Entrepreneurial Resources provided by the Iowa Lakes Corridor, contact Brian Dalziel at 712-264-3474 or 1-800-765-1428 or you can email him.

Resource Guide

The Iowa Lakes Corridor Development Corporation has a resource guide available for entrepreneurs who are looking for contacts and resources within the State of Iowa and the Iowa Lakes Corridor region.

Please feel free to contact us at the Iowa Lakes Corridor if you would like to receive a hard copy of the Entrepreneurs Guide. Click on the link for the online version of the Iowa Lakes Corridor Entrepreneur's Guide