Start-ups are everywhere

images-1I continue to think about Launch Tennessee where I recently spoke and attended.   It was really an incredible event on so many levels.

Start-ups are being built everywhere. There is this vibrant vibe from new ideas that generate excitement and growth around the community.  There are components to growing companies forward from the idea to the jobs created to the people who can write the check.  You need them all to create these start-up hubs.

I hear from people in different parts of the country from Chattanooga to Nashville to Cleveland to Miami to Phoenix to New Mexico to San Diego.  Launch Tennessee has shown how to support the SouthEast how to support that area so people can live, work and create companies.

I’d like to see large companies spend more capital and time trying to support all of these different areas vs staying in the hub of the technology community.  Building accelerators in Detroit or Cleveland will have a more powerful effect than building another accelerator in Silicon Valley or NYC.

I really applaud the group behind Launch Tennessee.  I am sure there are more organizations out there in different parts of the country doing the same thing and we should all be cheering for them to succeed.  It is good for all of us.

Comments (Archived):

  1. Kirsten Lambertsen

    You see so many ideas. Do you ever catch the bug and start thinking about your own startup, despite the fact that you have a lot going on (which never stops some of us, for better or worse!)?

    1. Gotham Gal

      Wefestival is my start-up. ?

      1. awaldstein

        heard nothing but good things about this btw.

        1. Gotham Gal

          It was very impressive.

  2. pointsnfigures

    I was in Detroit a few weeks ago for their Startup Week. There are some good things going on there. It’s a small, but tight knit community. Ann Arbor, Champaign, Kansas City, Austin, Minneapolis, Omaha/DesMoines, Indy, Madison/Milwaukie, St. Louis, Cincy all have startup communities that are growing.What do they lack? Density. Capital. Mentorship.My experiences with corporations, corporation spending on startups is less than stellar. I think you have a good idea when it comes to corporate spending. However, the corporate types just don’t get it-they are very out of step with the operations of a small startup. They want extensive reporting, structure, and all kinds of things that startups just don’t do at early stages-and shouldn’t do.

  3. Filippo Lubrano

    Absolutely Joanne! we came from Italy to set up ours: us.eattiamo.com . A subscription box model of the most authentic Italian food straight from the producers in the peninsula… we would love to get in touch with you and maybe meet here in NYC. Would you like to drop by our accelerator Food-X, @ 55 Broad Street? Let me know! thanks in advance!

    1. Gotham Gal

      great site. not for me as an investment but do love what you are doing.

  4. P Donohue

    When I reflect on the startup space, I inevitably come back to “The Valley’ and “Shores of the Charles River”. From what I have gleaned from studies done, the common denominators are their centers of gravity, the universities. People graduate and don’t want to leave. The wealth in the community fund and endow Chairs and research. Alum give heavily, not for athletics, but the school within the university that gave them the tools to make their money.They say California is a terrible place to start and run a company due to its business environment. Yet, California has more startups that grow to unicorns than any another place in the world. Why? I believe that it is because they have world class universities, Stanford, Cal, UCSF, UCLA, UCSD, Cal Tech, UCD, plus many others. Look around the Bay Area, companies come there to get the talent they need. They open offices and research labs. Because they know they need a presence. The same is true for the Boston/Cambridge area.Of course there is another thing, the government funding of research. If not for the Cold War/Space Race, Silicon Valley would not be what it is today. For the CIA, NASA and DOD has had no problem dropping all kinds of money into the Valley over the years.