NWA SUMMIT 2023
Elevate the entrepreneurial spirit in everyone, everywhere
The Summit’s Impact on Northwest Arkansas
Read more below about what participants experienced:
Take Action!
This Summit was the first of its kind, where Americans from all backgrounds came together to realize the potential in all of us to be starters, makers, doers, dreamers.
Attendees met “next door” entrepreneurs and became active changemakers for the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Northwest Arkansas. We can all take action to make our community more supportive for entrepreneurs of all kinds.
Sign our Statement of Principles and support our fight to expand entrepreneurial opportunity for all. We’ll send the Statement and all signatures to the U.S. President and other elected officials in 2024 during the election cycle.
Join Our Coalition
We are born to be starters, makers, doers, dreamers.
Everyone has the right to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams… a Right to Start. When the Right to Start is realized, prosperity spreads through homegrown jobs, higher incomes, stronger communities, lower inequality, and less poverty.
Join the first-ever Right to Start Coalition in Northwest Arkansas to help change the entrepreneurial landscape and level the playing field.
Sign up to learn more!
Let Your Voice Be Heard
We asked the audience -- who all actively participated as changemakers -- about barriers facing entrepreneurs in their communities. A local artisan crafted wooden postcards, where participants could write their answers.
We then sent those postcards to local policymakers, so the policymakers could hear directly from their constituencies about why entrepreneurship needs to be a civic priority.
Here is what participants sent to policymakers:
Barriers Identified
During the Summit, participants also identified significant barriers that exist for entrepreneurs in starting and/or running a business. These challenges, and their potential solutions, are listed below.
Also, groundbreaking information about the impact of micro-businesses on the Northwest Arkansas economy was shared from Venture Forward by GoDaddy (slides are downloadable here).
Here are barriers that participants identified: