Brenham, TX

Brenham | Washington County Economic Development, in partnership with the Nancy Carol Roberts Memorial Library, is excited to expand their small business educational workshops, originally started for participants of the YellowTruck Market retail incubator, to all county businesses with the Small Business & Entrepreneur Series.

Previous workshops covered:

• Digital Marketing Strategy and Business Growth
• Business and Sales Tax, Legal Entities, Contracting Employees
• Sales Tax Collection and Payment
• Social Media 101 and Digital Marketing
• QuickBooks Online

The series, held at the Nancy Carol Roberts Memorial Library (NCRML) is free to attendees. Librarian, Idalia Avenzuela, joined NCRML earlier this year and while she is a highly credentialed librarian, Idalia is also an entrepreneur with a passion for supporting other small businesses. She states, "The retail Incubator is a wonderful initiative, and we are very excited to be able to provide a meeting space and assistance. I believe that small businesses are the backbone of the economy, and the library is committed to supporting small business initiatives by providing resources, meeting spaces, and technology to enable their growth. This partnership will reinforce the Incubator program, and the results will in the end help strengthen the Brenham economy."

Kim Davis, Owner of Krafty Inc and participant of the YellowTruck Market retail incubator program says, “The educational classes have provided lots of information about small business and running a business in general. Classes have been a relief to a business just starting out. Classes that otherwise would cost hundreds of dollars have been provided so that money invested could be spent elsewhere putting back into the business. It’s great to see the community investing into my business and wanting it to succeed.”

Due to the success of these workshops, the Brenham|Washington County Economic Development team wants to encourage participation from businesses county wide by emphasizing that sessions are open to all. Therefore, future branding of the Small Business & Entrepreneur Series will shift away from the YellowTruck logo, although participation in the series remains a requirement for incubator participants.

Doug Peck, a local business owner, has attended numerous sessions. He mentioned, “I found the educational classes that I've attended to be very useful in my continuing education. The opportunity to meet on Tuesday evenings for a short session with a focused intent has been very effective.”

The next Small Business & Entrepreneur Series focusing on Customer Service (speaker TBA) will be held on Tuesday, April 12^th from 6:30pm – 8pm at the Nancy Carol Roberts Memorial Library.  Future sessions will be:

• May 10 – Writing a Business Plan by our local Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC)
• June 14 – Financial and Contingency Planning by our local SBDC

“I’ve walked away from every education class with more tools added to my toolkit. I’m definitely excited that I went, and I can’t wait to attend more classes.” Quoted from Sabrina Cole, who is a member of the community and works at the Brenham Heritage Museum.

Want to know about future sessions? You can follow our Facebook page @BrenhamWashCoEcoDev or webpage https://brenhamed.com/about-us/news for announcements!

Would you like to be added to our email blast about each session? Send an email to economicdev@cityofbrenham.org. We send out monthly emails announcing the next session.

For those interested in presenting future workshops or sponsoring a workshop please email Erica Warren at ewarren@cityofbrenham.org.