Building What’s Next: Supporting Creative Entrepreneurs in Summit County
For Nicole Kurtz, founder of Akron-based market research and strategy consultancy Aducate, helping creative entrepreneurs build sustainable businesses starts long before the first business plan is written. Her work connects creative vision with real-world market insights, giving entrepreneurs the tools and confidence to turn their ideas into something meaningful.
Since returning to Akron in August 2024, Kurtz has worked with more than 25 creative entrepreneurs as a market research consultant. Through this work, she’s found that one of the most important steps in building a successful business often comes down to two questions: What do you want to build, and why? And does the market actually want it?
Kurtz calls these the Internal Inventory and External Inventory. They’re foundational questions, but they aren’t always easy to answer.
Many entrepreneurial support programs in Summit County are designed for people who already have a clear business concept and are ready to take the next step. But for creative professionals, especially those still exploring their ideas, figuring out what to build and whether there’s a market for it can be a journey of its own.
That’s where Aducate comes in. What started as individual consulting sessions has grown into a broader collection of programs designed to give creative entrepreneurs the space, tools, and support to explore their ideas with intention. Through Open Strategy Labs for Groups, one-on-one Office Hours, Interactive Labs, and the weekly End the Day Come Play series, Aducate has welcomed more than 150 attendees and earned a 94% Net Promoter Score and a 95% customer satisfaction rating.
Beyond the numbers, it’s the experiences of participants that tell the story.
As one attendee shared, “I felt like it was a room full of people who were incredibly insightful and supportive…wanting everyone to not just reach potential, but smash it and cruise beyond.”
Since founding Aducate in 2021, Kurtz has worked with more than 100 clients, and one theme continues to emerge: Creative professionals rarely get stuck because they lack information. More often, they haven’t had the opportunity or structure to test their ideas against a real market before investing so much of themselves in the outcome.
For creatives, the line between personal identity and professional work can be especially thin. When someone is building something rooted in their passion, uncertainty can feel personal. Having a process to explore possibilities, gather evidence, and make informed decisions can change that experience entirely.
Musician Floco Torres is one example. Over seven sessions together, Kurtz helped Torres navigate a particularly challenging season of his life as he balanced a day job, a stalled album collaboration, and his mother’s cancer diagnosis.
Through that process, his perspective began to shift. “I was able to see the uncertainty as opportunity rather than a risk. Once that sunk in, the work started flowing again,” Torres shared. That shift is at the heart of what Kurtz hopes to help more creative entrepreneurs experience.
Torres isn’t alone. Ryan Adams of Dirty River Bicycle Works, Aujile Riley of Eat Cleanish, and the sister-founders of Wanderess Travel are just a few of the Akron-area entrepreneurs putting this approach into practice. Each is building something different, but they’re all making business decisions grounded in market research rather than guesswork.
These experiences are also helping shape a larger conversation about the future of creative entrepreneurship in Summit County. By the end of 2026, Kurtz plans to release a Field Report on the State of Creative Entrepreneurship Support in Summit County. The report will take a data-driven look at the resources currently available to creative entrepreneurs, where existing support systems are working and where gaps remain. Kurtz hopes the findings will help create opportunities for stronger, more accessible support for the people whose creativity contributes so much to the community.
That vision is already shaping what comes next. Kurtz is working toward establishing a dedicated space in Akron where creative professionals can explore ideas, conduct market research, connect with others, and build confidence in their next steps, all before they’re expected to have a polished business plan or pitch deck.
Creative entrepreneurship doesn’t always begin with a business. Sometimes, it begins with a question, an idea, or the willingness to explore what’s possible. Through her work with Aducate, Kurtz is helping make Akron a place where those ideas have room to grow.
Website: aducatedigital.com
Photographer: Nicole Kurtz/Aducate
Videographer: Adam Kurtz/Media-77
