Establishing a U.S. Entrepreneurial Corps to Foster a Small Business Ecosystem
Summary
The next administration should create a U.S. Entrepreneurial Corps (“E-Corps”), a program to train, invest in, and build networks for the next generation of small business leaders. E-Corps should include three components: 1) a national network of 1,000 small business incubators co-located at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and at Land-Grant Universities, 2) a competitively selected cohort of 2,000 small business connectors to staff the incubators, and 3) underrepresented entrepreneurs to participate in the program. E-Corps reimagines the Federal Government’s approach to building an inclusive small business ecosystem by providing support to community anchor institutions while connecting underrepresented entrepreneurs to capital and historically inaccessible networks of financiers and advisors. E-Corps will become the connective tissue for entrepreneurial communities across our country, spanning both urban and rural communities.
Soft law was never meant to be a permanent solution. Treating it as one, and letting the sandcastle stand in for the skyscraper indefinitely, is how we end up with a decade of voluntary commitments and no enforceable accountability to show for it.
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“What excites me is that it’s very tempting to be very discouraged, and say, ‘Oh, we’ve got these archaic institutions that are calcified and you could never change them.’ But I think we’re in the middle of a technological revolution that will upend lots of things, and does provide a window.”
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