Jared Henderson

What has WireDraw LLC been able to accomplish in the past year since the John P. Ellbogen $50k Entrepreneurship Competition, and where is your focus in 2022?

In the last year, one of the things I’m happy about was the trade show; we went to Florida for SDS2 Summit 2021, and that was really cool. We met a lot of people and contacts in the industry, so that was a big highlight. We also finished up the Casper job--that’s the one that we talked about a lot during the Ellbogen Competition--so, now we’re just maintaining that project. We’re talking to a company about a project we might be able to help with, and we’re focused on growing the customer base and building up a clientele that we can support moving forward. After we have established a clientele, we can start to expand the team further and offload some of the responsibilities that I’m upholding to be able to take on bigger projects.”

What have been your key takeaways from competing in the 2021 John P. Ellbogen $50k Entrepreneurship Competition?

The one thing that really stuck out to me was how many resources and how much support people are willing to give people trying to be entrepreneurial in Wyoming. There are opportunities here, and there are people who are willing to support people trying to start businesses here. It has been really nice to have people to fall back on, for example IMPACT 307: they’ve always been able to help me solve an obstacle or point me towards other resources or individuals. Early on, for example, I was pointed to the Small Business Development Center, which helped us get established with market research and other resources.

What would be your advice to other students or non-students about starting and growing a business in Wyoming?

I was able to meet with so many different key decision makers as we were reaching out to these different businesses, and I feel like a big part of doing work in Wyoming is putting in the effort to make those connections, put yourself out there, that kind of thing. You’d be surprised how open people in Wyoming are to meet and talk about whatever you want to talk about, and you can really open up some connections for yourself.

Thanks Jared! Best wishes to WireDraw, LLC, and we look forward to great things for you and your company.

Thank you for the interview!