Get Help for Your Missouri Business on the Resource Rail

What if we said we had the answers to almost every single business question you have? We totally aren’t genies, but we are the connection to the resources you need to start or grow your Missouri business. 

Skip the storytelling and jump right here to download the MOSourceLink Resource Rail, our map to Missouri’s statewide and regional business-building resources for growing a business.

Four Founders, Four Resources, One Network

At just 23 years old, Columbia-based entrepreneur Libby Martin won over $40,000 in a student business competition to launch Calving Technologies, a veterinary tech startup that is revolutionizing how birthing cows are tracked and cared for. 

Drive 90-odd miles to Kirksville, Missouri, and you might just pass by an exotic crop of amaranth. This dietary staple of Africa, South America, and Asia is the harvest of Max Mungyeko’s Feconde and likely heir to quinoa as the next health-food trend. 

In Moberly, Missouri, Anna Haney, serial entrepreneur and founder of Noviqu, is proving that a tech startup can thrive in a rural Missouri town. To solve the pain points of facility managers, she and her husband Chad built their second tech startup, Noviqu, a cohesive platform for digital safety, maintenance and training processes. 

And hop west over to Kansas City, and you’ll find Chris Goode, owner of Ruby Jean’s Juicery. Inspired by his late grandmother who died too early as a result of diabetes, Chris is creating a business that is making being healthy more commonplace and approachable, in her honor. 

Four founders of four businesses with four very different industries, challenges and communities—and yet they all have one thing in common. 

Early in their entrepreneurial journey, they all realized they needed help to turn their ideas, technologies, products and passions into businesses. 

And they each found that help in the low- and no-cost resources that are a part of the MOSourceLink network—and listed on our new Resource Rail. 

We Help You Find What Your Business Needs

With a network of 500+ resources across Missouri, MOSourceLink is a nonprofit that helps connect aspiring and established business owners with the resources they need to overcome their challenges or reach their next milestone. Think funding, legal help, business counseling, prototype development and so much more.

MOSourceLink works with our Resource Partners (you can see and search for them in the Resource Rail or The Resource Navigator®) across communities to fill gaps in entrepreneurial services.

Ready To Get Started?

When you’re all set to reach out to the resources you’ll find on the Resource Rail, give our hotline a ring at 866-870-6500 (a real person answers!) or visit The Resource Navigator, it’s open 24/7/365. 

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How to Find Business-Building Resources on the Rail 

When you first open the map, you’ll see an illustration of the statewide resources, available to anyone, in any corner of Missouri. These are mapped along the entrepreneurs’ journey:

•  inception/idea (concept, feasibility, etc.)

•  market intro (proof-of-concept capital, etc.)

•  rollout and growth expansion (rollout capital, space)

•  growth/expansion (property development, growth capital, etc.)

The Rail illustrates stages every business takes—inception/idea, market intro, rollout and growth/expansion—and maps the statewide and regional resources available to anyone, anywhere in Missouri, by four entrepreneurial types via colored lines:

–  INNOVATION-LED COMPANIES

These companies form around a new technology or breakthrough process and have the potential for a very large market. These businesses go through the same stages as other startups, but often at a faster pace. And they sometimes need assistance with proof of concept, pitching for equity investments and building leadership teams. 

–  MAIN STREET BUSINESSES

Think restaurants, coffee shops, dry cleaners, retailers. These companies have employees, need operations support and are typically focused on sales—on getting customers in the door and getting them to come back. Other challenges include cash flow and funding.

–  MICROENTERPRISES

Most microenterprises need little capital to launch and are focused around the owner’s personal expertise—consulting, design, lawn care. Online businesses and solopreneurs also fall into this group.

–  SECOND-STAGE FIRMS

These businesses are ready to scale and needed next-level resources to help them hire, expand, export, finance or find mentors. Second-stage firms have enough employees to exceed the comfortable control span of one owner and benefit from adding professional managers. A business typically enters second stage when it approaches $1 million in total receipts and can be in any industry. 

–  FUNDING RESOURCES

The resources mapped on this line are for any entrepreneur type. The “Money Line” maps funding and financing resources, debt and equity, across the state.

Open it all the way up and you’ll find a poster that charts on-the-ground resources available by region: Northwest and Kansas City, St. Louis Region, North East and Central and South. 

Need a Tour Guide? 

These are the non profit organizations that provide business coaches and experts just a few miles from where entrepreneurs live and work. But they can still feel a mile away, so we’re happy to jump in. Leave us a bit of info here and we will get you a (free) Personal Action Plan that outlines the resources you need, right now, to get to the next step in your journey.