Northeast Entrepreneur Fund

Let the Whole World Know, Duluth, MN

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For years, Carol Willoughby worked as a volunteer, making signs for her church and local PTA. Then one night she had a dream that she was going to have her own business. “It was such a strong feeling that I just thought, you know what, this is what I’m supposed to do,” she recalls.
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And so Ms. Willoughby did it. She started a sign-making business, even though she had nothing to start it with beyond a certain amount of technical skill and a capacity for hard work. To learn something about running a business, she took a class at a technical college. And she got a one-year grant to launch her company, Let the Whole World Know.

She started out small, serving other small businesses and individual contractors. But her experience soon yielded an important insight. “I learned enough to know that I really needed a lot of help,” she says. Unfortunately, help was no longer available through the technical college. Then she heard about the Northeast Entrepreneur Fund (Fund).

The Fund was established in 1989 to help people in an 11-county region of northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin to develop their ideas for starting or expanding small businesses. By offering financing as well as classes and one-on-one consulting for budding entrepreneurs, the Fund is creating an environment that fosters the growth of independence and self-determination.

At the Fund, Ms. Willoughby found all the help she was seeking. “They provided technical training and also gave me the confidence to actually think I could do it,” she says. “I would ask them for help with everything I faced, from making business cards to going to a trade show to writing an invoice—everything.” She has also received several loans from the Fund.

Today, nearly 17 years after Ms. Willoughby first went to the Fund, Let the Whole World Know is thriving. The company uses modern computer graphics and printing technology to create state-of-the-art signs for some of the biggest organizations and events in the region. With the Fund’s assistance, Ms. Willoughby has started a second business, Window Doodads, which supplies unique window appliqués to more than 600 retailers nationwide. The two companies that literally began with a dream have created six new jobs and provide a comfortable income for Ms. Willoughby’s family.