Creating A Place To Thrive

When CEO Michael Odupitan founded Omni Circle Group in 2019, he always knew there was more to come. The Topeka-based nonprofit was started as a “one-stop community hub” and co-working space where members can work on personal and professional development.

Omni secured a grant from the Kansas City-based Kauffman Foundation in 2022. By 2023, they had put the funding toward their new headquarters at 1301 S.W. Topeka Blvd.

On February 28 of this year, the organization marked yet another milestone. Surrounded by local entrepreneurs and partners like K-State 105, Network Kansas, AltCap, Cyphr, GO Topeka, the Kansas Department of Commerce, Kansas Health Foundation and Washburn Small Business Development Center, Omni celebrated the launch of Topeka Startup Community — a networking hub where local entrepreneurs can seek support for early and mid-stage business growth.

“One of the things we recognized in the communities we were serving was that there was not a lot of economic development,” Odupitan said. “When we’re talking about sustaining and growing communities, you need a way to cycle the dollar in the community. That’s how you generate wealth.”

He adds that the organization is open to anyone who wants to invest in their personal and professional futures. Omni’s goal is to bring social and economic prosperity to underserved communities by giving residents a place where they can connect, collaborate and access business and career resources.

“As we’ve been building Omni and trying to find where the gaps resided for individuals to be able to grow and build to their full potential, that next level of leadership was to start a business,” Odupitan said.

ENCOURAGING STARTUP GROWTH

Omni’s Topeka Startup Community fills a gap in the Shawnee County business ecosystem by encouraging startup growth through connection, education and access to capital.

Officially, the group includes almost 50 business owners — from hair stylists and jewelry sellers to professional branding and e-commerce service providers. With more than 80 entrepreneurs having graduated from Omni’s business development programs over the past two years, Topeka Startup Community hopes to welcome more members as resources grow and word spreads.

“I thought it was important to be part of a group that invests in developing people and small businesses,” said Jaime McKinley, co-founder of Sparrow Coffee Co. and a member of Topeka Startup Community.

McKinley graduated in November from the third cohort of Omni’s Emerge Community Business Academy, a 12-week course that helps new and growing for-profit businesses gain the necessary knowledge and skills to succeed.

Another Topeka Startup Community affiliate is FastTrac, an educational program that teaches budding entrepreneurs how to enhance their business ideas as they prepare to launch.

“The startup community is full of diverse people who want to see each other succeed, and who show up to support each other,” McKinley said. “We all bring unique ideas and experiences to the table. We know we’re stronger together, and when one of us wins, we all win.”

Seeing Omni grow, she says, shows that people are catching on to a bigger vision of what Topeka’s small business community could be — and she’s excited to be a part of that evolution.

BREAKING DOWN WALLS

A desire to invest in themselves and a larger, collective vision is what Odupitan hopes for all startup community members, many of whom have not taken traditional routes to business ownership.

“Starting a business traditionally looks like going to college, taking a business course,” Odupitan said. “But there’s not a lot of resources that show someone [who is less familiar with business management] how to navigate from the ideation phase to developing a concept, then turning the concept into a launch. We wanted to position ourselves in that space to give individuals a clear path of how to start a business.”

He sees Topeka Startup Community as a networking group and learning community where entrepreneurs can find help, start smart and grow sustainably. By supporting Topeka’s entrepreneurs during the early stages of business growth, he hopes this will lead to fewer small-business failures and more intentional wealth creation in the city’s historically marginalized sectors.

“There is strategy to becoming an entrepreneur,” Odupitan said. “You have to be strategic about it. If you’re not, typically your business doesn’t sustain because you’re not knowing how to target the individual clientele that you’re trying to provide your service or product to. We try to provide more of that education and awareness around how to do it the most effective way.”

SEEDS OF CHANGE

According to Odupitan, entrepreneurs are like seeds. For a seed to sprout, it needs nourishment from its surroundings.

“The entrepreneur is putting their seed in the ground, but that seed needs to be in good soil. To create good soil, you have to have all the things — you have to have the water, you have to have the sunlight, you have to have the nutrients,” Odupitan said.

Omni’s resource partners represent the water, sunlight and nutrients needed to nourish entrepreneurs, so they can become part of a larger business ecosystem. Network Kansas is one such partner.

Another partner that will soon have a larger presence at Omni is Cyphr, a Kansas City-based startup that pioneers new models for capital access. Omni’s next focus is ensuring Topeka Startup Community members have more and better opportunities to access the capital they need.

“All of these different players add something dynamic to the ecosystem, and we want to teach our entrepreneurs how to take advantage of those resources so they can grow and scale to become everything they want to become,” Odupitan said. “The more resources we have in this ecosystem, the greater chances these entrepreneurs and their seeds will grow into something sustainable and strong in our community.”

Sustaining a greater number of business owners from diverse backgrounds, Odupitan says, will help to close existing wealth gaps. That’s part of the vision he sees the Topeka Startup Community fulfilling.

For Omni, community is at the heart of everything it does. The organization’s emphasis on community draws from Odupitan’s background in social service. Referring to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the psychological theory of what people need to feel satisfied, Odupitan says that everyone, including entrepreneurs, deserves to have their needs met.

“Entrepreneurship is a hard journey to take,” he said. “You need good people in your corner who are going to support you, believe in you and make sure you build your self-esteem as you develop yourself to become the person you need to become to see your business grow and scale. Community in all aspects of our lives ... is such an important piece, because we are not designed to be in this world by ourselves.”