You Have an Idea. Now What? How FASTER WV Is Turning Outdoor Entrepreneurs Into Businesses

Brian leads three business coaches serving nine counties in the metro Charleston and Huntington area through Advantage Valley’s FASTER West Virginia program. They don’t hand out $20,000 to start a business — what they do is work one-on-one with aspiring entrepreneurs, connecting them to the resources that actually move the needle. Technical assistance dollars that pay for a website build or a professional consult. A revolving loan fund that reloaded and kept going after a paddleboard rental operator paid back his $5,000 equipment loan. Twelve new online business fundamentals courses through Marshall University, free for program clients, backed by the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation.

What Brian keeps coming back to is the influx — a massive, not-overstating-it influx of new clients every quarter, people with ideas and drive looking for someone to help them build the foundation right before they jump. The sequencing matters more than most new entrepreneurs realize: the credit repair workshop before the loan application, the business model canvas before the first investor meeting, the coach who shows up and says come on, let’s do it. Passion for paddling doesn’t automatically translate into knowing how to run a business. FASTER WV is built for exactly that gap.

Learn more about: Advantage Valley / FASTER WV Program / Elk River Trail Foundation / Marshall University