Entrepreneurs share lessons learned at Traction Thursdays in Fairfield

FAIRFIELD – Local entrepreneurs have been treated to a free weekly program for almost a year that has sharpened their business skills and helped them build lasting relationships.

The program is called “Traction Thursdays,” and it meets every Thursday at noon in the Fairfield CoLab at 101 N. Court St., the former Iowa State Bank building. It is organized by Fairfield resident Bob Ferguson, though he is quick to point out that he didn’t start it, but rather adopted it.

Alex Taylor is the director of entrepreneurship at NewBoCo in Cedar Rapids, and his organization got a small business grant to establish a weekly entrepreneurship support meeting. Taylor had met Ferguson thanks to Ferguson’s work in launching the Southeast Iowa Regional Community Food Web. Taylor offered to provide resources and consulting to get a weekly program started in Fairfield.

“I took on responsibility for finding and curating all the speakers,” Ferguson said. “Alex would recommend someone and then I’d connect with them. We’ve been going for a year, and we still have not run out of great speakers, and I don’t anticipate we ever will.”

Ferguson said the vast majority of guest speakers are from Fairfield, but sometimes they come from other towns, especially if they’re service providers.

“These are people like those from the ELEVATE program, or Principal Financial, or Kelly Prickett from the Small Business Development Center at Indian Hills,” he said. “We had Jeff Geerts, a senior project manager with Iowa Economic Development, talking about what other towns have done for economic development.”

Ferguson said the point of the program is to get entrepreneurs talking to each other.

“Some are experienced entrepreneurs who are telling their harrowing stories of how they became entrepreneurs, and all their trials and tribulations,” he said. “Some speakers are brand-new entrepreneurs with an idea, and so they come and present their business and get feedback from the group. It’s a really eclectic and interesting mix.”

Ferguson said guests love hearing from entrepreneurs who talk about the lumps they had to take on their way to starting a business. It makes them feel that they’re not alone in facing these challenges.

“We have not had one single entrepreneur who said, ‘I started my first business, it went great, I made a lot of money, and life is good,’” he said. “Everyone has stories of disaster or near disaster, and sometimes some harsh lessons learned. We talk about businesses that failed but incubated others. Meghan Dowd talked about Cado Ice Cream and the pivot that they needed. It helps people understand that being an entrepreneur is not easy, and failure is not permanent. It’s part of the game.”

Attendance at Traction Thursdays varies from about 20 people to the high 30s, and some people watch the program over Zoom. That week’s guest speaker is promoted through the Fairfield Area Chamber of Commerce’s newsletter, and sessions are recorded by Jason Strong of the Fairfield Media Center. Strong uploads every show to the FMC’s YouTube channel, where the entire archive is accessible.

Ferguson said he decided to hold the meetings in the Fairfield CoLab because that institution “represents the entrepreneurial heart of Fairfield.”

“There is no place that represents and supports entrepreneurs quite in the same way the CoLab does,” he said. “We can accommodate 40-50 people, and we have the AV capabilities.”

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com