Making It in Asheville

054 - Jeff Kaplan of Venture Asheville & The Best Chamber of Commerce in the U.S.A | Season 4

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In this episode, we interview Jeff Kaplan, the Director of Venture Asheville and founder of Just Kibbitz. In our own opinion, Jeff is as close to the gravitational center of Asheville’s startup ecosystem as you can get.

Here's some background on our guest, Jeff Kaplan. For as long as he can remember, Jeff has been fascinated by entrepreneurship. Prior to becoming the Director of Entrepreneurship at Venture Asheville, he graduated from the University of Florida with a Master’s degree in Entrepreneurship. He’s taught entrepreneurship, written a book about entrepreneurship, and has even is an entrepreneur himself—selling one of his startups about 2 years ago!

Considering we’ve had a podcast about Asheville-based entrepreneurs for over a year, we’re about a year late in having Jeff on the show. We hope you'll agree that the wait has been worth it.

Here’s What You’ll Learn in this Episode:

  • Jeff’s background story and many entrepreneurial endeavors
  • How Venture Asheville fits in Asheville’s Chamber of Commerce (literally, America’s top Chamber of Commerce)
  • What Venture Asheville is, how it helps new businesses scale, and its three main programs, including mentorship, funding, and events
  • The core competencies of successful entrepreneurs based on real case studies that Jeff and his team have conducted
  • Resources for Asheville-based entrepreneurs and which ones are best for different stages of the business
  • What the goal of The Asheville Impact Micro-grant is and how to apply
  • Jeff also shares his pitches for three businesses he’s worked on in the past (and one he is currently working on now)

    • We hope you enjoy this episode with Jeff!

    For complete show notes, including some supplementary information from this episode visit: MakingItInAsheville.com/054

    To see our upcoming social events and workshops, visit: MakingItInAsheville.com/events

    To recommend an interviewee, visit: MakingItInAsheville.com/podcast

    Shoutout to this season's sponsor: Range Urgent Care. The team at Range is offering a special promotion to Making It in Asheville Podcats listeners. To learn more, visit: MakingItInAsheville.com/range. Or use 'makingitinasheville' as your coupon code!

    Curious to learn more about what we do? Making It Creative is a boutique marketing agency in Asheville. We are dedicated to working with small business owners that are deeply passionate about what they do by helping them build and improve their sales and communication strategies. Learn more here.

    Music by Commonwealth Choir

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    Making It in AshevilleBy Making It Creative, LLC | Sarah and Tony Ubertaccio