Young adults are generally advised by their parents and teachers to pursue traditional career paths in various professions or trades. Schools provide the essential skills in reading, writing and math, while teachers and parents provide guidance with regard to job opportunities. The intent is to obtain the necessary education to pursue a specific field, get hired and attain success... Read More

Founded less than two years ago, Lime has raised $467 million and is already a unicorn to investors, sporting a valuation of $1.1 billion. "Through the equitable distribution of shared scooters, bikes and transit vehicles," the company "aims to reduce dependence on personal automobiles for short distance transportation and leave future generations with a cleaner, healthier planet," according to its website. Strategic investors include such disruptive innovators as Uber and Google. Lime currently operates in more than 120 U.S. and European cities and has facilitated some 12 million rides... Read More

The Davenport, Expo '74, Gonzaga basketball and the University District are among Spokane's successful transformations and examples often used to illustrate the region's passion and tenacity. Terrain, the local arts organization now in its 11th year, should also be included on this distinguished list... Read More

Meet Bobby Enslow, founder and CEO of Indaba Coffee. Enslow is reflective of the phenomenon described in Bo Burlingham's book Small Giants by choosing to be "great instead of big."

Enslow grew up in north Spokane, attended North Central High School and earned an MBA in finance from WSU. His MBA program included a summer internship in South Africa, where he spent three months working with HIV patients and in hospice clinics, observing extreme poverty and wealth next to one another... Read More

In a near unanimous vote, the House recently passed the JOBS and Investor Confidence Act of 2018. The bill contains provisions to: 1) create a new stock exchange, 2) evaluate reducing the cost of an initial public offering (IPO) and compliance expenses associated with being a public company, 3) improve investment research, 4) broaden the definition of an accredited investor and 5) provide startups more flexibility in pitching their plans to prospective investors... Read More

A few weekends ago, my son Connor had a group of entrepreneurial friends out to my lake cabin. We hung out on the dock, played games, enjoyed meals together and talked around the campfire. I admired the creativity and enthusiasm of the young men and women as we discussed a wide range of topic... Read More

Among the bright spots in Spokane's Economic Development is StartUp Spokane. StartUp's program manager, Megan Hulsey, describes StartUp as, "the front door for all entrepreneurs in the Inland Northwest," providing co-working space, access to mentors, events and workshops and introductions to funding sources and other service providers... Read More

Culture trumps strategy," author unknown, is among my favorite quotes and one I frequently pass on to entrepreneurs seeking insight on how to build a successful business. Creating a differentiated product, targeting a rapidly growing market and establishing a profitable business model is important, but none of those guarantee success if you don't have a team that is aligned, empowered and excited to show up to work every day... Read More

Finalists in the 2018 Northwest Entrepreneur Competition (NEC) will face a panel of judges at Whitworth University later this month. Winners will share $42,000 of prize money, along with $20,000 in professional resources. Since inception nearly 18 years ago, the competition has contributed $800,000 to emerging businesses in our region... Read More

Yet another leading technology company has quietly opened an office in downtown Spokane. Egnyte, based in Mountain View, California, took two floors above Luigi's in 2017 and expects to employ 100 people soon.

The company delivers an enterprise-class collaboration platform. It allows enterprises to simply and securely share and manage their files.

Egnyte has raised $62.5 million from top venture capital firms, including Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins, and from technology partners such as CenturyLink and Seagate. The company raised its initial seed funding in 2007 and achieved profitability at the end of 2017. Egnyte CEO Vineet Jain told CNBC he is readying the company for an IPO (initial public offering) in 2019... Read More

Seattle-based Rover quietly opened a downtown office in the Bennett Block last September, and the firm expects to have 100 employees in Spokane by the end of 2018. Spokane is Rover's first and only office outside of Seattle, and the company was not recruited by any economic development effort... Read More

Investment into a meaningful number of emerging businesses is vital to achieve favorable economic growth for any region. Among other benefits, rapidly growing young businesses create high-paying jobs, develop innovative and proprietary intellectual property, attract strategic resources from outside the region and contribute to a dynamic arts and entertainment culture... Read More

A powerful way to build our local economy is one business at a time. We have lots of homegrown talent here in the Inland Northwest, and it often just needs to get nudged in the right direction. Still, a great idea for a new business is only step one in the process... Read More

Greater Spokane Incorporated's announcement that it would be submitting a bid to Amazon for its second headquarters has stimulated increased chatter about the effectiveness of our region's economic development initiatives. There is increasing concern that we are not seizing the opportunity to proactively market the region and attract compelling businesses, particularly high-tech and other emerging growth companies... Read More

We are in receipt of your request for a proposal to secure a site to serve as Amazon's second headquarters; our responses are attached, and what follows is a summary of our offer. We have taken seriously your encouragement of proposals that "think big and are creative."... Read More

A major roadblock to Spokane's economic success and vitality has been lifted with the retirement of Doug Clark from the Spokesman-Review and the elimination of his column. Gone will be the very public and regular bashing of our community that has contributed to a cultural mentality that "it can't be done here." If Spokane were a publicly held entity, the city's stock price would have increased upon his departure... Read More

On July 19, Avista announced it had entered into an agreement to be acquired by Ontario-based Hydro One. A few weeks earlier, Telect announced it had been acquired by Amphenol. Previously, it was PAML acquired by LabCorp, Demand Energy Networks by Enel Green Power and etailz by Trans World Entertainment. That makes five acquisitions of Spokane-area companies in roughly a six-month period... Read More

To achieve economic vitality and sustained growth, Spokane needs to ensure career opportunities for our youth; either right out of high school, upon graduation from college or after a few years of working elsewhere... Read More

Jim Fowler's first exposure to the Inland Northwest was recreation-based; from 1992-96, he was co-owner of the Lookout Pass Ski & Recreation Area and lived in Wallace, Idaho. It was also his first experience as an entrepreneur. Fowler never lost his passion, however, for this place. In fact, he lives in Liberty Lake now... Read More

Last week, Amazon announced plans to open an office in Bellevue. GeekWire reported that "chatter among the real estate scene has it that the new Bellevue office is not a one-off, and Amazon is looking for even more office space in downtown Bellevue and surrounding areas. Amazon's vice president of Global Real Estate and Facilities, John Schoettler, did not confirm the rumors, but he told GeekWire that Amazon has no plans to slow its growth." ... Read More

During March Madness, most everyone in Spokane is focused on Gonzaga men's basketball and the endless number of statistics associated with it. Head coach Mark Few established a vision, developed a culture, created alignment, executed the plan and led Gonzaga to the national championship game, finishing the season with a 37-2 record... Read More

The word maverick derives its origin from a cattle rancher from Texas named Samuel A. Maverick, who refused to brand his cattle with a hot iron. As a result, not having a brand became his brand. I sometimes feel this way about Spokane. Our excellent city has failed to establish a compelling brand... Read More

If you don't like change, you'll like irrelevance even less." This is one of my favorite quotes, attributed to now-retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki. Case in point: Blockbuster could have been Netflix, but the company failed to respond to evolving market conditions and went out of business.... Read More

Austin. Boulder. Durham-Chapel Hill. Do you ever wonder if the Spokane region could be mentioned in the same sentence as these hubs of innovation? I believe this is a realistic, achievable goal within the next 10 years. Our community possesses many of the requisite assets, and I expect demand for them will be robust as other cities increasingly become labor, real estate and quality-of-life constrained... Read More