The story below is from our May/June 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Everybody has a seat at this table.
Lindsey Hull
Williamson Road is home to numerous international food trucks, restaurants and grocery stores, showcasing the diverse nature of Roanoke’s population.
A decade ago, a group of Roanoke industrial manufacturing proponents sat across the table from a contingent of Blacksburg innovators. Some have described that meeting as a showdown between those who wanted to persist in pursuing industrial and large-scale employment projects and those who wanted the region to shift its focus to technological and medical innovation. Maybe it was. But, if so, then the outcome was no worse than shooting the dirt.
That’s because everyone has a seat at this table.
Courtesy of Angelia Vernon
Roanoke City Executive Performance Administrator Angelia Vernon, Mayor Joe Cobb and WSLS Journalist Keisha Lynn at the 2025 Roanoke City Mayor’s Business Summit.
Healthy economic ecosystems need large-scale employers to create new wealth in the community, says then-Botetourt County economic development director Ken McFayden. They also require small businesses — everything from local restaurants to mom-and-pop shops to biomedical start-ups — to circulate those dollars through the local economy.
“Small business is integral to the vibrancy of the Roanoke region,” says Pete Eshelman, Roanoke Regional Partnership senior director of creative strategies. Small business owners live in our neighborhoods. We see them and we say, “that’s our friend down the street.”
A Diverse Mix
A lot of small businesses fall into the service sector, McFayden says, in addition to retail, restaurant and hospitality. Roanoke has become a hub for technology and life sciences founders who are attracted by the Fralin Biomedical Institute, Virginia Tech Carilion Medical School and Carilion Innovation, according to Erin Burcham, CEO and president of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Innovation Alliance.
“It’s really an interesting cross section of small businesses, and they really kind of support each other,” says Roanoke City Mayor Joe Cobb. “It reflects our diversity.”
Our small business owners help define the region. We are welcoming. Creative. Innovative. Diverse. Civic-minded. Connective. Urban. Rhythmic. Artistic. Rural. Outdoors-oriented. These businesses put the magic in the Magic City.
“Drive up and down Williamson Road, and you see the international flair. In terms of small businesses, we have a really diverse mix, from art galleries to local niche like boutique shops,” says Cobb.
“The more diverse and unique offerings we have, the more attractive the community becomes,” Eshelman says.
Filling the Gaps
In March, Roanoke City held a mayor’s summit on the topic of starting and developing small businesses. The purpose of that event was to help entrepreneurs take a seed of an idea and start or expand it, according to Cobb. “What are the steps you have to take and then how do you sustain it?”
Localities should make efforts to understand the barriers small businesses face and provide support systems to help regional small business owners grow, according to Brookings, a non-profit Washington, D.C.-based research organization.
Lindsey Hull
Erin Burcham, CEO and president of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Innovation Alliance and John Hagy, director of the Roanoke Accelerator and Mentorship Program.
One of those barriers is a lack of capital. While the region’s start-ups benefit from the presence of investing groups like Commonwealth Angels and VTC Ventures, which includes the VTC Seed Fund and VTC Innovations, one of the region’s stumbling blocks is a shortage of private capital, says John Hagy, director of the Roanoke Accelerator and Mentorship Program, part of RBIA. He has facilitated a small business owners’ trip to Durham, North Carolina, to pitch their opportunities to investors, and has plans to make a similar trip to Washington, D.C., this fall, he says.
Another notable barrier has been a lack of real estate suited for tech companies’ specified needs. In order to manufacture their innovative exosome product, biomedical start-up Tiny Cargo sought a building with a clean room. The Roanoke Regional Partnership helped the company’s founders identify a local industrial building that could support the construction of a clean room, preventing FBRI’s first significant manufacturing spin-off from potentially relocating outside the Roanoke region.
The Roanoke region’s many organizations focused on small business growth, networking and education provide other forms of assistance to small business owners. Through regional organizations like The Advancement Foundation, Small Business Development Corporation, Get2KnowNoke, RBIA and co-working establishments, and initiatives focused on improving the region’s livability, there’s a team of small business first responders who are attuned to the barriers and needs faced by founders and ideators in a multitude of small business sectors.
Why? Because small businesses are vital to a city’s economic ecosystem. “If there’s not a small business ecosystem to keep those dollars local, to keep those dollars in the community, that wealth escapes, and then a community is less prosperous,” McFayden says.
An Open Field
Candace Monaghan’s family owns Beaver Dam Sunflower Festival, located in Botetourt County.
Her father planted the sunflowers in 2015. “There was no festival idea. My dad liked sunflowers,” Monaghan says. “Before you know it, there were sunflowers popping up everywhere,” she says.
In 2016, 1,600 people visited the one-day festival.
Monaghan entered TAF’s Gauntlet competition in 2021 because she felt compelled to get the farm’s affairs written out, as a sort of contingency plan “if something were to happen,” she says.
For over ten years, the Gauntlet has inspired entrepreneurs to refine their business’ visions and align themselves with scalable growth models.
Monaghan had never seen a business plan, but she wrote one with the help of The Gauntlet’s mentors. She pitched her plan alongside other business owners during the competition’s final week. And, she won.
Last year, the farm saw 21,000 visitors over a nine-day period. Visitors participated in sunset yoga during the week. They sat down to four-course dinners, hosted by a church to benefit its missions program. A local Future Farmers of America chapter parked cars on the weekend as a fundraiser. Monaghan hosted 115 vendors, who made more than half a million dollars combined. Those funds cycled back through the community.
“Botetourt County is now recognized nationally as a place for sunflowers… It’s a tourism draw, it’s a community get-together, and it’s like an old-fashioned barn raising,” McFayden says.
Risky Business
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Courtesy of Cairina, Inc
Caleb Stine and Jessica Cunningham, chief science officer for Cairina, (left to right) are two of Cairina, Inc.’s five founders, three of which are affiliated with the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute.
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Lindsey Hull
Mike Abbott, Roanoke Accelerator and Mentorship Program lead instructor, kicks off a RAMP bootcamp meeting.
The Small Business Development Corporation, funded in part by the Small Business Administration, provides workshops, research and free advising for small business founders in the greater Roanoke and New River Valley region. Last year, the corporation served 980 businesses, according to executive director Amanda Forrester.
“A lot of people come see us because they’re thinking about starting a business, which is very different from starting a business,” Forrester says. Out of the 375 people who sought input on starting a business from the SBDC in 2024, Forrester says perhaps 30 to 35 founders have been able to move forward so far. They might not be ready; they might not have the capital.
Starting a business is risky — up to 90% of start-ups fail within their first five years.
“Our goal is to make this ecosystem viable, in the sense that anything a founder needs, they can find here,” says Hagy. That includes academic research partners, health systems, real estate, talent and private capital.
Caleb Stine is a postdoctoral fellow in Jennifer Munson’s Virginia Tech Lab. Together with Jessica Cunningham, Chief Science Officer for Cairina and Beckman Research Institute’s Russ Rockne and Ryan Woodall, the team founded Cairina, Inc. to move to market a product that will help oncologists better visualize where the cancer cells are and where they might recur so that the physicians can treat it better.
In 2023, the Cairina team participated in RAMP. They benefited from having a one-on-one business health consultant, Stine says. Through the program, the team focused on customer discovery and product market fit. As a RAMP cohort, they also received funding to attend conferences to connect with neuroscientists and brain oncologists to learn more about their field of research.
“We got to meet a lot of people and make a lot of connections to the local, entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Stine says. “I’ve learned that one of the biggest things when you’re starting out is making connections with people who can help out in areas you might not have expertise in.”
“You get ongoing support,” he says of life after RAMP. At first, “I wasn’t actually aware that was in place in Roanoke at all. I tend to think of Silicon Valley, West Coast, Boston for those kinds of things. But Roanoke actually has a really good ecosystem here… a lot of different pieces.”
The story above is from our May/June 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!