The Denver Post reports today (click here) on a new Colorado governement effort to boost startups.

Here's the comment I just posted:

If formal planning and market research worked as well as the Small Business Administration, SCORE, SBDCs, and the academics their money and power have influenced think, we'd have a planned economy, not a market economy.

The big problem is that we have set up government programs to snuff out the entreprenurial spirit in America.

Local chambers of commerce, trade associations, and other ways business owners and entrepreneurs gather can do a lot of good. But the SBA/SCORE/SBDC cancer should be cut out, in my opinion.

Maybe a group like this can take a step back and see this very real problem.

John S. Wren, MBA+
Founder, Small Business Chamber of Commerce
IDEA Cafe Startup Workshops * Franklin Circle Peer Advisory Groups
See our Facebook Page: Small Business Chamber

(MBA is a warning. The + means I'm a recovering MBA, that much of what I learned in graduate business school I've had to overcome to be truely helpful to people who what to start something new. Does that mean I have all the answers? No, just the opposite. Again, it's a warning in the interest of full disclosure and transparency.)

In today's Denver Post:

Denver IDEA Cafe Startup Workshop, a free weekly meeting for aspiring
entrepreneurs and others looking at a career change. This week's workshop
will feature Karl Dakin speaking on the topic, "My startup experience and how
I found my new job with Regis University as executive director of the John J.
Sullivan Endowed Chair for Free Enterprise." To be held at Panera Bread,
1330 Grant St., Denver. More info: SBCcBlog.com

For optional RSVP go to our Denver Small Business Chamber Facebook Group
or click on the link to the right for our meetup.com site. Of course, no RSVP is
every required, but it does help us plan.

This should be a very interesting meeting, hope you can join us if you are starting
in a new direction, and please email a link to this site to your friends who have
recently lost a job, had a bright idea, or for any other reason might find it helpful.

I just posted this ad on Facebook, what do you think?

If you see it there, please DO NOT CLICK, since you

are already a member, we are charged for each click.

Curious about what happens for those who do click

on our Facebook ad? Hopefully, not you. :)

Those who click will be taken to this, so just click here:

http://Facebook.com/Small.Business.Chamber

Here's the copy from the Facebook ad:

Small Business Chamber of Commerce

Free help as you start a new career, a new
project or campaign, or a new business.
In exchange, you help with brainstorming.

How do you like the ad?

PLEASE FORWARD to any of your friends who might like to join us.

Starting in a new direction with your work? Join us this Friday or any Friday for our Denver IDEA Cafe Startup Workshop. No RSVP is necessary, walkins are welcome, but your RSVP on our Facebook Page or Meetup site guarantees you a seat at the brainstorming table.

Here's the release I just made to the media. Thanks to the Denver Business Journal, the Denver Daily News, the Denver Post, the Villager Newspaper, Westword, and all the other media outlets that help us get the word out to people who could use a boost at the end of the week. Here's the release I just made to them:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 7, 2011

 

Contact:  John Wren cell (720)495-4949

 

New, Free Small Business Chamber Announces Startup Workshops.

Since 1994, free help for people starting a new career, project, campaign or new business.           

 

DENVER—The Small Business Chamber of Commerce's free Denver IDEA Cafe Startup Workshop  meets from 2 to 3:30 p.m. each Friday at Panera Bread, 13^th and Grant in Denver. Speakers and brainstorming. For speaker this Friday and more information see http://www.sbccblog.com/ or http://Facebook.com/Small.Business.Chamber or call   (303)861-1447.

 Since 1994, the Denver IDEA Cafe has been helping people who are starting in a new direction by providing a free forum where successful people share their startup experience and then brainstorm specific questions or problems.

This Friday, June 10, Cowboy photographer Jim Keen, http://keenmedia.com/, "Startup with my cameras."

 

June 17, Mike Thompson http://www.thefathershowrp.org/ on "How I started my nonprofit for fathers."

 

June 24, Karl Dakin  http://www.karldakin.com/ "My startup experience and how I found my new job with Regis University as executive director of the John J. Sullivan Endowed Chair for Free Enterprise."

 

 

IDEA is an acronym for:  I= Inspiration or Identify the Problem; D= Develop Alternatives; E= Evaluate the Alternatives; and A= take Action. The meeting is free and open to anyone who is starting a new career, a new campaign or project, or a new business.

 

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John S. Wren, MBA+   http://www.JohnWren.com  or http://Facebook.com/John.S.Wren is the founder of the new, free Small Business Chamber of Commerce http://sbccblog.com/ or http://Facebook.com/Small.Business.Chamber   Contact Wren at (303)861-1447 or JohnSWren@aol.com.