Boise State Works for Idaho

Meet entrepreneurs who have benefitted from this Boise State resource

Small Business Development Center for Idahoans

The Idaho Small Business Development Center Network offers confidential, no-cost business consultations and affordable training for entrepreneurs. It staffs six regional offices in Idaho, each affiliated with an institution of higher learning. Boise State and the College of Business and Economics host both the Southwest Idaho regional office and the state office.

“We are able to tap into the expertise of the college’s faculty, talented students and innovative programs to provide exceptional support to small businesses across Idaho,” State Director Doug Covey said. “What makes this relationship impactful is how it extends our reach into rural communities, where resources can be limited.”

Closed captions are available and a text transcript is provided at the end of this page.

Read More About the SBDC

Video Transcript

[Doug Covey]: What the Idaho Small Business Development Center network is is we provide one on one, no cost consulting to small business owners throughout the state. Every state in the United States has a SBDC. We represent the whole state of Idaho. We have six locations throughout the state, and we’re hosted at higher institutions or community colleges. Here in the College of Business and Economics, we work with students and students work with small businesses on a variety of projects from marketing, to HR, to accounting, to finance. They’re really an intricate part in the relationship that we have throughout the state that really help small businesses. 

[David Hunt]: Students in my capstone marketing class, they do research on behalf of small business owners and they produce marketing plans for the businesses. So they work directly in a consultant and client relationship, and I work mostly alongside them. The students really take the lead in these projects. I work alongside them as a coach, and they really get an opportunity to work in the role of a consultant with the businesses through the Small Business Development Center. Gosh, there’s such great synergies that drive economic development in a variety of ways. The benefits of the experience and skills that students bring to the equation, the entrepreneurial energy of the business owners, and then the ongoing support of the Small Business Development Center kind of ensures that all of these plans get put into action, the proposals that our students put together are actionable strategies that help businesses grow, they create jobs and generally just drive economic growth. 

[Gundars Kaupins]: What students do is that they write the employee handbook, the complete employee handbook, based on the interviews or Zoom recordings. And then what happens at the end of the semester is that I grade their handbooks and revise them to fix any problems. I tell the clients, here’s the handbook, no strings attached. It’s all 100% free. If you want to contact the lawyers, whatever, afterwards, that’s fine. That’s your option. This is not a contract, so I don’t have to go into all those details. A bunch of students get jobs with these clients. They find out about these clients through the work, and then they discover, wow, this is a good client. I want to work there. And so they make the connections, and a lot of them happen to be in HR. So we’ve got a bunch of HR graduates coming through my program, writing employee handbooks, that are making some good money at these companies. 

[Doug Covey]: Boise State’s faculty and students really contribute in a number of ways with the Idaho Small Business Development Center. For example we actually have graduate students that work in our office that really help with, from an operations manual, to helping onboard our workforce. Without that kind of support it would be really challenging to, with our limited resources, to be able to leverage graduate students to really help with some of the administrative and the operational functionality of our reach throughout the state. – Gosh, what I love about this program is working with the small businesses. I mean, it’s just great to have that entrepreneurial energy come into the classroom and see all the creative work that is being done in small businesses in the state, but also see how students who are new in their, you know, pursuit of their career in marketing, can contribute and make a difference and an impact. So, I mean, that’s one of the things that’s just kind of been one of my favorite aspects of this collaboration over the years. (music fades)