Like going to business school, but better. Our goal is to provide the tools, resources, education, training and support you need to build your successful business in Washington State. Startup 365 is Washington’s Small Business Training & Education Center. We offer entrepreneurs and business owners a competitive advantage through a range of small business services, education, and support—all designed to meet the diverse needs of Washington’s companies, from education and training to business loans, export assistance and crisis planning.
Start a business
Starting a business in Washington State is one of life’s great adventures, building something from virtually nothing while making your idea a reality. To help as you begin this journey, we’ve created a number of resources, programs and services to get you on your way.
- Small Business Training: This education is delivered online, allowing you to participate at your own pace. You can choose from a range of business topic areas that interest you, from money management to marketing and everything in between. These courses will help you, no matter what type of business or industry you are considering—there are even specific academies for food and creative industry entrepreneurs! Whether you’re just researching your options, you’ve just started a business, or you need to recover and restart, these academies cover a wide range of subjects that are particularly relevant to you own situation and needs.
Grow a business
Knowing when and how to grow your company is an important step, especially when you have others who depend on your business for their livelihood. Starting a business is hard, but running one can be even harder. These programs will help you expand your operations, whether you need a little advice, some additional training or data and analytics that will help you move to the next stage of success.
- ScaleUp: Small business owners participate in 35-hours of on-site classroom training to improve financial operations, reduce operational expenses and learn how to compete more effectively in the marketplace.
- Thrive!: Targeted to second-stage companies, this program takes an entrepreneurial approach to regional prosperity. It helps existing companies increase revenues by as much as 10 to 20%, and is often referred to as a “grow from within” strategy. In contrast to traditional business assistance, Thrive! helps remove roadblocks to growth such as developing new markets, refining business models, aligning internal operations and gaining access to competitive intelligence.
Resources
Along with a robust training and education curriculum, StartUp Washington offers several tools to help you plan for your growth and more.
- Startup Wisdom: This handy guide contains 27 different strategies that entrepreneurs can use to access business capital, from the highly traditional to those that are pretty out-of-the-box. Includes pros and cons for each strategy as well as case studies.
- SizeUp: SizeUp offers a sophisticated set of online diagnostic tools that will help you refine your business model, identify competitors, find suppliers, develop advertising strategies and more. You can run various scenarios, comparing your business to others in the area to see how your pricing, staffing, revenue projections and marketing strategies stack up, complete with local, regional, state and U.S. data comparisons.
- When Trouble Strikes – A Crisis Planner for Small Businesses: Natural and manmade disasters are inevitable. While you can’t prevent every disruption in your business, there are things you can do to either reduce their likelihood or their impact. When Trouble Strikes gives you proven ways to identify and neutralize potential disruptions as well as things you can do to get back up and running in their aftermath.
- Retirement Marketplace: An online marketplace where qualified financial services firms offer low-cost retirement savings plans to businesses and individuals, including sole proprietors, “gig” workers and the self-employed. The Retirement Marketplace simplifies the process of finding a retirement savings plan by making it easy to compare state-approved plans.
Highlighting entrepreneurship
- Global Entrepreneurship Month: Each November, our partners across the state hold workshops, seminars and competitions to expose residents to the idea of owning and running their own business. It’s a great way to find out what it takes to run a business and glean new ideas.
Our partners
- Associate Development Organizations: Our team of economic development experts works closely with an array of regional partners. In particular, each of our state’s 39 counties is represented by an Associate Economic Development (ADO) organization that furthers their economic development goals. These ADOs are funded in part by the Department of Commerce and their performance and expertise is critical to our goal of growing the economy and building communities statewide.
- Small Business Liaisons: Part of our role at the Small Business Training and Education Center is to make it easier for you to do business in Washington. We are part of a team representing 27 agencies that link entrepreneurs and small businesses to training, tools and regional and local agencies that help you succeed in Washington. Got a question or need further help? Contact us with your specific questions about our economic development services and programs.
- Startup Centers: Startup Centers offer entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses a suite of consulting, mentoring, and educational programs and services designed to jump-start and grow local businesses. StartUp NCW in Wenatchee is affiliated with the Department of Commerce but economic partners throughout Washington operate other startup centers.
The Department of Commerce partners with local and state agencies to help improve the regulatory experience for businesses in cities throughout Washington State. The program’s goal is to improve our economic vitality while creating jobs. Initial projects are focused on the restaurant, manufacturing and construction sectors.
The Washington Employee Ownership Program (WA-EOP) offers business owners considering a sale an array of resources, support, and financial incentives to help make a smooth transition to any number of employee ownership models, including employee stock ownership (ESOPs), worker cooperatives, and employee ownership trusts. This program is overseen by the Washington Employee Ownership Program Commission.