The United States provides an incredible environment for startups, ranking 1st out of 138 countries using the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index.  While Charlotte steals the national spotlight when it comes to newsworthy entrepreneurs and startups, York County has its own bustling entrepreneur ecosystem. With a population of 266,439 (2017) and growing, there’s plenty of room to offer goods and services to people who want to support York County businesses.

Entrepreneurship in York County is Ready to Grow

With Knowledge Park underway and fully supported by the Rock Hill Economic Development Corporation (RHEDC), the City of Rock Hill, Winthrop University, and York Technical College, entrepreneurship ideas in York County are endless.

If you’re researching entrepreneur opportunities in and around York County, South Carolina, be sure to keep these business clusters and ideas in mind:

      1. Advanced Materials Industry

Almost 800 advanced materials companies call South Carolina home, and Rock Hill is full of industry and workforce resources. Producing elements for use in a broad range of end-products, including metals, polymers, ceramics, glasses, and composites. York County is home to over ten Advanced Materials companies, with plenty of room for growth due to the county’s research facilities and an exceptional workforce.

       2. Personal Services & Care

As the population of York County grows, so does the need for personal services and care. From salon services and massage therapy to senior care, professional service entrepreneurs have an opportunity to serve a growing population.

Curious about the competition or other personal service options? Check out the York County Chamber of Commerce list: Personal Services & Care in York County. 

       3. Professional Services

Supporting the infrastructure and business community is a goldmine for entrepreneurs. As more and more homes are built, professionals are needed to service them and maintain them. As businesses grow and expand, professional services like accounting, human resources, and consulting are in demand.  Gone are the days when one or two large companies provide the bulk of professional services to an entire community; startups and entrepreneurs have a strong foothold in York County as professional service providers.

       4. Distribution & Logistics

With easy interstate access and the proximity to Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, York County is the perfect match for distribution and logistics startups. State and regional resources are available to provide industry, training, and workforce solutions.

While entrepreneurship invites exciting challenges, fear of failure can keep the best candidates from pursuing their dream business. Keep these ideas in mind as you explore your options:

Success

What’s the profile of a successful entrepreneur? According to the Kauffman Foundation, 95 percent of business founders surveyed had at least a Bachelor’s Degree. Founders were significantly more successful if they had worked previously in a similar industry before starting their own company.

While there’s no “cookie cutter” formula to success, improving your business skills is critical to the success of your business. If you don’t have time for formal training, YouTube is an incredible resource with business growth information. If you’re looking for a formal training option online, Coursera.org offers approximately 850 online courses for small business. If you’re already living in York County, check out Winthrop’s Small Business Development Center. They offer workshops, conferences, free consultations to help build business plans, and more.

Paying the Rent

Gone are the days of needing a business space right away. If working from home is too distracting or not an option. consider joining the nearly 1.2 million people worldwide who have already worked in a co-working space. If you have an industrial space but no place to put support staff, co-working may be the answer as well.

Growing Your Business

Starting a business is only part of the entrepreneur success equation; you must grow your business with new customers and clients as well as employees and staff. Winthrop’s Small Business Development Center offers marketing workshops.

If you’re starting a technology business, check out the Technology Incubator at Knowledge Park. Support includes hands-on consulting, resource identification, and educational and technical assistance.

Don’t forget about the York County Chamber of Commerce. Chamber Advocates can help you navigate the local economy and support you through a Legislative Agenda that supports businesses in York County.

The post Entrepreneurship Ideas in York County first appeared on Collision Cowork.

Unfortunately, many jobs created by residential growth don’t fall into the mid to advanced career level that most people are after. If you’re already a Rock Hill resident and growing weary from the long commute to Uptown or South Charlotte, have you considered trying to find a job in Rock Hill that pays a similar or higher salary? Take advantage of the growth of our County and our town and start your job search today.

First, follow websites and news sources that are interested in promoting York County employment opportunities and supporting Rock Hill businesses. While everyone else is using sites like Indeed and Monster, give these Rock Hill job sites a try:

Search for Rock Hill jobs on these websites:

JobsRockHill.com

SCWorks.org

City of Rock Hill

SciWay.net

Jobs.HeraldOnline.com

Looking for a job in healthcare? Piedmont Jobs

Looking for a job in education? Rock Hill Schools

Looking for a job in law enforcement? Rock Hill PD Recruit

While you’re searching for the right job, don’t be afraid to give the Entrepreneurship or freelance/consulting route some consideration. Rock Hill and York County offer a variety of business start-up tools and services to help you explore the options.

At Collision Cowork on Main Street, we have a community of Entrepreneurs who are in a variety of startup phases and established business owners who use our coworking space as their official office. In addition to flex space and private offices, we offer event hosting, conference rooms, and plenty of parking. At the end of your day, you can head over to Amelie’s French Bakery for a treat, take a yoga class at Synergy Yoga, or stroll down to Fountain Park for an event or some relaxation near the fountain.

The Technology Incubator assists startup and early-stage firms through a combination of hands-on consulting support, resource identification and referral, plus educational & technical assistance.

Check out other entrepreneurs at York County’s 1 Million Cups. If you already have a business, but it’s less than five years old, apply to present at the next 1 Million Cups.

Winthrop University partners with the South Carolina Small Business Development Center to provide free business plans, free consultations to help businesses grow, and a variety of workshops and conferences.

The Rock Hill Job Center offers business services and can help you recruit workers and provide training reimbursement for qualified candidates.

Don’t forget about networking for Rock Hill Jobs; online and offline.

The digital age has certainly changed the job market and the process of applying for jobs, but networking is still king when it comes to the old saying, “It’s not WHAT you know, it’s WHO you know.” Connecting with people in-person will take you a lot farther than sitting behind a computer all day.

If you don’t live in the Rock Hill area right now, you can still connect with locals on City-Data.com. The forum is filled with posts from people who currently live in Rock Hill, those who are hoping to move here, and others who live in surrounding towns.

For in-person networking, Rock Hill gives you plenty of options:

CRG in Rock Hill meets every Thursday morning and guests are always welcome.

MeetUp.com has a few listings; while some of them are in Charlotte you’ll still find people from Rock Hill in attendance.

Piedmont Business Associates is currently seeking new members to expand their group.

Finally, the York County Chamber of Commerce offers monthly Newcomers meetings and more on their calendar page: York County Chamber Events.

If you’re striking out in the Rock Hill job search and don’t feel a calling to Entrepreneurship, there’s still an opportunity to boost your job skills and find employment. York County Tech offers Tech Boot Camps and approximately 80 Continuing Ed and Bridge programs for today’s working adult. If you have experience but need a management course or an official certificate, York County Tech can help.

Still overwhelmed? Stop by the SC Works Rock Hill Center and ask for some help. While they’re traditionally a blue collar job referral partner, they also offer job seeker services such as career assessment, assistance with resumes, and more.

Finally, don’t forget to treat your job search or business building research like a job itself. If you struggle to carve out time to dedicate to the task, feel free to check out our FlexSpace at Collision. We offer monthly and daily rates, a modern, inviting workspace with a stocked coffee bar, high-speed secure internet service, conference rooms for meetings, and a friendly environment on Main Street, Rock Hill. You don’t need an appointment to check us out; stop in during normal business hours and see it for yourself.

The post Rock Hill Jobs and Entrepreneurship first appeared on Collision Cowork.

Jarrus is a York County native. He went to school at Norfolk State University where he began studying architecture. After leaving school he moved to Brooklyn, New York where he found a job in construction. Soon into the job he got into drafting construction documents and concluded that he was in the wrong place. Doing the same thing repeatedly, day in and day out, took away from the meaning of his work – everything felt “cookie cutter”.

After this realization, he took some time to do field assessments some engineers which allowed him to learn about quality control in the construction industry. This led him to starting his business in 2011 in New York City where his first job would be inspecting Freedom Towers, also known as the One World Trade Center. On this particular job, Jarrus ran ultrasonic testing on the blast plates under the building which are in place to ensure that anything that happens underground doesn’t damage the building. Eventually he left New York after deciding it wasn’t the place for him and returned south to the Carolinas where he landed a job working on on non-destructive testing for buildings. He took these same principles and applied them to a manufacturing environment and then opened the NDE Institute to certify and train others on Catalyst in Charlotte which are luxury high-rise apartments in uptown. He was responsible for testing every facet of the building that required construction materials inspection. Jobs like this are what Integrity Special Inspections tackle every day, which led Jarrus to his next business venture – the NDE Institute.

When he was in New York, Jarrus noticed there were incredible opportunities to train people how to complete these inspections. What’s more is that there are no other programs that exist like the one offered from the NDE Institute. Many of the trainings people receive for non-destructive inspections are done in-house by companies making the knowledge and processes all proprietary and exclusive to that company. It also means that if the company doesn’t need a certain type of inspection, then they won’t teach it. Jarrus’ course gives a wider range of knowledge arming his students with the ability to do multiple types of inspections. The course is 33 weeks – a quarter of the duration it takes to receive an associate’s degree in other similar programs.

“When people complete our program, they can step onto a job and say, ‘I am qualified to do this inspection and I can do that inspection’ making the transition to employment seamless” says Robyn Fryer, the senior administrator for Integrity Special Inspections and the NDE Institute. Even better than that, the program costs less than a traditional college degree and is completed in a fraction of the time.

Now, the NDE Institute is looking to expand into technical colleges like York Tech to make the certification more accessible and puts it within the realm of continued education programs. This also brings non-destructive testing certification out of the private-sector increasing its accessibility to everyone. Jarrus wants to bring non-destructive testing to the mainstream and bring it to the realm of STEM careers making it one of the few vocational STEM avenues. What’s better is that the market for these kind of jobs is everywhere – everywhere there is construction.

The NDE Institute also works with the Austin Wilkes Society, a government organization that aimsto rehabilitate criminal offenders, at-risk youth, veterans, the homeless, and families in crises to get them back on track to a more balanced life. The people who receive the certifications through NDE Institute have the credibility of their certification, the Austin Wilkes Society, and their probation officers to soften the intimidation of their criminal record in hopes to get them a job in the field and a chance to turn a new leaf.

“People do things for different reasons and when they get caught up in negativity it could be that they were trying to do something positive and didn’t receive the proper feedback which caused the negative outcome. We try to give the positive feedback and turn around that outcome here” says Jarrus. One his success stories is of a man with a criminal record who had been working at BiLo for 15 years and never seen more than maybe $10.00/hour. After working with Jarrus and the NDE Institute, he was able to complete his certification and take his first job making nearly double what he was making at BiLo at $18.00/hour with a firm in Lancaster, SC. A number this man never thought he would see in his life. This man is now the head inspector for this firm and has been there for three years. The NDE Institute changed his life forever.

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