Meeting to focus on boosting creation of new companies, jobs within South Carolina
As a high schooler in northern Virginia, Peter Waldschmidt started two businesses: computer repair and landscaping.
While in college at Bob Jones University in Greenville, Waldschmidt and a partner started Tetra Data — a company that designed, built and sold data analysis systems for school districts and state boards of education.
He sold Tetra Data in 2007 to education and textbook giant Follett Corp. and used the proceeds to start his current company, Gnoso, a software development firm in Greenville, which has grown from a single employee — him — to 10 people today.
“I don’t think I was ever not an entrepreneur,” said Waldschmidt, now 34. “It’s been kind of a natural thing.”
South Carolina’s problem is that there aren’t enough people like him.
So Waldschmidt will be one of the featured panelists at a conference intended to identify ways to grow entrepreneurial firms and create jobs in a state that ranks 39th in the nation in folks starting their own firms and hiring others.
Called “A Conversation on High Impact Entrepreneurship,” the conference at Midlands Technical College’s Harbison campus will feature speakers, panel discussions, market research presentations and other information intended to promote and build a new generation of entrepreneurs. It is hosted by New Carolina, South Carolina’s Council on Competitiveness.
“If South Carolina really wants to succeed, we need to scale up these businesses,” said Garry Powers, director of economic development initiatives for the Columbia-based CTC Public Benefit Corp., a national not-for-profit economic and work force development consultant. Powers serves as chairman of New Carolina’s Entrepreneurship Task Force.
Nationally, people creating entrepreneurial businesses each month rose to 0.34 percent of the adult population in 2010 – the highest level over the past decade and a half, according to the Kauffman Index, which measures entrepreneurial activity in the U.S. The report notes that much of this increase is due to people losing their jobs in the Great Recession and having to start a business — most being self employed with no other employees.
But the report also notes that the number of people starting firms that hire employees, called employer-based entrepreneurism, actually dropped from 2007 to 2010, from 0.13 percent of the adult population to 0.10.
“So all of that is not necessarily a good thing,” Powers said.
USC economist Doug Woodward is expected to present statistics for South Carolina entrepreneurship at Thursday’s conference.
South Carolina ranks 39th in the country in employer-based entrepreneurship, according to the Kauffman Index. One of the main problems, Powers said, is that South Carolina has a smaller base of top-level management, technical and professional talent.
“We’ve done a good job of recruiting companies to the state because we have a great business climate and (low) taxes,” he said. “But we need to also bring in high level talent that can create new businesses.”
For Waldschmidt there is more that can be done to support the entrepreneurs who create businesses here.
“We need to help them communicate and feed off each other,” he said. “When I came here it was just me against the world. It should be like growing a garden. You see what’s coming up and you water it and tend it.”
