What companies will a rapidly growing community require in the next 20 years? What businesses and entrepreneurs can be encouraged?

• Market conditions and characteristics/interests of individuals generally determine whether or not a business starts.
• Create primary jobs that will create the wealth to support commercial and retail growth.  Basic retail and service industries tend to follow.
• Check the Yellow Pages business categories for businesses extant in the big city but not represented in the target market area.
• For an anecdotal overview of the business climate (not analytical research), describe the community, the trends, the economic development theory in play.  Identify what has and hasn't worked, and which businesses seem to be missing from the mix.
• Consult local economic development authorities. These people know the direction that the community is heading because they work with it everyday
• Calculate “pull factor” trends for the last several years, and project what they are likely to be based on your anticipated growth rates. A “pull factor” can be used as an indicator of retail capacity in an area, estimating the net proportion of local retail expenditure captured by local retailers. The pull factor is determined by a calculation that compares per capita retail sales of a target market or area to the per capita sales of a larger reference region. Service industries could be analyzed in a similar manner. This is basically a location quotient calculation that could be valuable in identifying future needs in a region.
• Consider energy efficiency. Every local economy leaks vast quantities of dollars unnecessarily spent for energy. Programs to strengthen, for instance, electrical efficiency in homes and businesses create lots of direct jobs and free up discretionary income for more, indirect jobs. A free interactive website called Community Energy Opportunity Finder is currently being rebuilt at ww.energyfinder.org  It is useful to make rough calculations of its energy-efficiency jobs potential. Community Energy Opportunity Finder is funded by EPA and built by Rocky Mountain Institute.   An energy-efficiency program in Sacramento inadvertently created 880 new jobs.
• Be selective when matching up a willing entrepreneur with a needed business.  Entrepreneurs are most successful in businesses for which they have a true passion.    
• Encourage useful partnerships, provide and follow up on resource delivery and allow market forces to work. If you think a certain business or service is needed in your area, do the due diligences in research, then identify potential passionate entrepreneurs or established business owners, from within the community or from outside, that may fill that need.
• Consider all of your resources and demographics. College students and tourists don’t appear in population data, but they may make up a significant portion of the population to support new businesses.
• Crystal Ball is a very powerful software tool that can be used to predict outcomes in complex models.

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