‘Wonderful things anywhere’: Entrepreneurs share keys to ‘Main Street’ success

Editor’s note: This story was originally published by Missouri Business Alert, a member of the Kansas City Media Collective, which also includes Startland News, KCUR 89.3, American Public Square, Kansas City PBS/Flatland, and The Kansas City Beacon.

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COLUMBIA, Missouri — When Willy Schlacks noticed what he said were inefficiencies plaguing the construction industry, he saw an opportunity. He and his brother, Jabbok Schlacks,  started building technology to solve what they called an “archaic” problem. Today, their company, EquipmentShare, reports it has about 6,000 employees and generates $3 billion in revenue.

The story of their journey from a Columbia Startup Weekend project in 2014 to an expansive enterprise was part of the finale at this year’s Main Street Summit, hosted by Columbia-based investment firm Permanent Equity. The three-day summit brought entrepreneurs and investors to downtown Columbia to share insights on building sustainable businesses away from traditional tech hubs.

“Everything we assumed was wrong, except our core values,” Jabbok Schlacks told the audience Thursday. The brothers emphasized their foundation: integrity, humility, drive and intelligence — in that specific order.

“If you put intelligence first and integrity last, you get a smart thief,” Jabbok Schlacks added, quoting famed investor Warren Buffett.

This focus on values resonated with other speakers, including Wade Foster, CEO of Zapier, another Columbia startup success story. Foster, whose company makes software to automate workflows between web applications, stressed the importance of being on the cutting edge with artificial intelligence.

“We’ve gotten to see some of the very early innings where people are actually solving mission-critical stuff,” Foster said. “That’s the stage, this early discovery stage of like, what actually is possible with the technology that we’ve got today.”

Shegun Otulana, founder and CEO of Harmony Venture Labs, speaks about innovating outside of traditional tech hubs, a common theme at the Main Street Summit; photo by Anna Sikes, Missouri Business Alert

Speakers at Thursday’s finale highlighted the importance of entrepreneurs prioritizing relationships regardless of where they build businesses.

“You can do wonderful things anywhere. At the end of the day, it’s about relationships, about doing it for the right reasons, and finding your community,” said Shegun Otulana, a startup founder and investor based in Birmingham, Alabama. Otulana emphasized that innovation isn’t confined to tech hubs.

Permanent Equity CEO Brent Beshore echoed this sentiment when discussing the ethos of the summit as a whole.

“I would say the key takeaways are being really intentional with how you spend your time and to make sure you are following your values and keeping those front and center,” he said. “A lot of the speakers really talked about (how) it’s easy to lose your way. It’s really hard to stay focused. And that is going to be hard, but good things take a lot of time.”

For entrepreneurs seeking investment, the Schlacks brothers said to look beyond raising capital as a measure of success.

“Raising money is not success,” Willy Schlacks said. “If you find yourself raising capital and you’re not successful, it probably will kill you, because you’re getting all the symptoms of success without any of it.”

Instead, speakers advocated for building uniquely valuable products and being customer-obsessed.

Perhaps most importantly, the event underscored that entrepreneurial success often comes down to resilience.

“Every entrepreneur hits a point where they hate it,” Willy Shlacks said. “The only difference between success and failure is that they’d rather die than quit.”

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