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Walk into a gift shop in Southeast Alaska, and you’re likely to see cans of smoked seafood, jars of kelp salsa and hot sauce lining a section of the store. Enter a liquor store, and there might be glass bottles, decorated with marine life, of liquor distilled in Haines. Wildfish Cannery, Barnacle Foods, and Port Chilkoot Distillery are all success stories of a small business competition called Path to Prosperity.
“Really recommend their hot sauce, their Bullwhip Hot Sauce,” said business coach Marc Wheeler, speaking of Barnacle Foods’ award-winning hot sauce. Wheeler works with Spruce Root, which runs the competition. Spruce Root is an Alaska Native nonprofit focused on building up small businesses — and what they call a regenerative economy in Southeast Alaska.
“This word regenerative kind of sticks in your mouth, and it’s like, ‘What does that really mean?’ It feels pretty jargony,” Wheeler said, “But it’s really thinking about sustainability for the next level. How do we operate in this world and make things a little bit better? Not just how do we keep this thing going, but how do we improve the situation, so our grandchildren and our grandchildren’s grandchildren can have a future here?”
Wheeler used to own a coffee and ice cream shop in Juneau – Coppa – which was an early participant in the business plan competition. He sold the shop last November but said participating in the program shaped his business philosophy.
“I hadn’t thought about the community sustainability, of how to build the social capital,” Wheeler said. “Thinking about that really kind of shaped our business practices and was a big influence on us.”
Wheeler developed a local workforce, employing people in the kitchen who might struggle to find work elsewhere because of disabilities.
“It just really made us, I think, more human, but also just added so much to our business in a way that you can’t really describe,” Wheeler said. “And I attribute that to going through the competition.”
Wheeler said Spruce Root has re-tooled its business development competition this year – it’s now called Business and Balance. It involves a nine-week virtual business course, every Friday over Zoom, which will help participants create a business plan and financial projections.
“That plan can be really important for figuring out if an idea is feasible or not,” Wheeler explains. “They can also really kind of crystallize your thinking about your business.”
The course and competition are open to people who want to start a new business or bring an existing business to the next level. Wheeler said this year there are three $20,000 prizes. The nine-week training costs $175, but Wheeler said it’s refundable if business owners come to most of the classes.
Wheeler said it’s also a way to get to know other entrepreneurs around the region.
“It’s kind of lonely to be an entrepreneur,” he said. “You can’t really talk to employees, and maybe your spouse doesn’t want to hear about it anymore. So it’s fun to have a network of folks.”
Brooke Leslie works with Spruce Root and the Sustainable Southeast Partnership as what’s called a “catalyst,” focusing on helping spark community development opportunities.
She explains: “[It’s] kind of reframing how we do business in Western culture versus creating a new working model based on Indigenous values and community first. So it’s really a full-grass approach. You often hear, ‘top-down’ or ‘grassroots’ but we’re really trying to take a blend of approaching the entire blade of grass.”
Participating in the Business and Balance program and competition can take out some of the trial and error of starting a small business, she said.
“You can really save a lot of like time and sometimes money [lost] through the trial and error process by taking courses like the Business and Balance course,” Leslie said.
Spruce Root is taking applications for the Business and Balance course through the end of the month. Find more information here or by emailing Marc Wheeler at marc@spruceroot.org.
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