As part of the work we are doing on the Small City Segment, we send out a brief weekly post of thoughts, links, and research in progress that reflect the week’s work. I’d love to hear from you if you have any thoughts, questions, disagreements, or things to add. Please forward this on to people you think might enjoy reading it.
A Customer of Entrepreneurial Culture
The weirdest idea I’ve had so far on how a small city can kickstart a change in entrepreneurial culture is to start by being customers of entrepreneurial cultures.
In our experience, founders at the very early stages have an interesting relationship with their early customers and champions. It is common for these early customers to not only be excited about the product for their own interests, but to be interested in the founder’s story, their vision for the future, and seeing what building a company feels like. This is an opportunity for spillover effects.
Every small city has potential customers - we have companies, governments, organizations, and people who have problems to be solved. Bringing innovation to them, no matter where that company is based, can be a way to import entrepreneurial culture, alongside the obvious benefits of the innovations themselves. And in exchange for bringing a startup customers, they are often open to taking on investment from you as well. (There could be a lot of secondary benefits to this dynamic that I hope to write more about in the future.)
If the old formula of see one, do one, teach one holds true for becoming a founder, being a customer of an entrepreneurial culture may be one way to jumpstart it.
Links
Tell Me More: What Does It Take To Make It In America? - Deep Dive with Pete Stavros on Sharing, Kelly Corrigan Wonders
“A company being more of a community. Where everyone’s on the same page, everyone pulling together, and then everyone participating. … The feeling was - this is what it should be. This is what companies should be like.”
Maria and I have been following the private equity firm KKR’s push, led by Peter Stavros, into widely held employee ownership in their investment model. There is so much to learn from how it’s worked as small cities think about the type of companies they want to build in their communities - and how those companies can mean more than just higher wages, but also mean real wealth and community building opportunities.
America's Evolving Geography of Innovation: How the Heartland Region Can Lead the Way on Industry Transforming Technology, Richard Florida & Karen King, Heartland Forward
Develop and Attract Entrepreneurial Talent: Entrepreneurial talent – the ability to define and implement commercial priorities – is scarce, critically important, and distinct from technological talent. Programs that work with existing entrepreneurs, universities and colleges can help identify and develop it. Most regions have diasporas of entrepreneurs that can be lured back or tapped for advice, investments and other kinds of support.
There is a lot of great information in this report - and to be honest I’m still working my way through it. But I love the specific call out here that “entrepreneurial talent is distinct from technological talent.” As we’ve talked about, we need more ways for activating and attracting this talent.
Opinion: Population growth isn't the path to change Northeast Ohio needs, Joanna Ganning, Crain’s Cleveland Business
Planning is not ideology. There is no silver bullet of economic development. John D. Rockefeller is not going to reappear, and history suggests that that era of city-building had deeply unequitable outcomes anyway. We have given growth goals many decades to bear fruit since deindustrialization. It is time to focus instead on improving economic development from the inside, through entrepreneurship, training, network building, community building and equity-focused investments.
If growth follows, let it be on our terms: of improving quality of life for Clevelanders.
This article echoes some of what we talked about in Grow or Die is Wrong. I agree with a lot of what Joanna is talking about here - but I do think there is more attention to be paid on what the economic drivers of growth are going to be. Community infrastructure is required - but entrepreneurial infrastructure needs to be present to. If we want to focus on the farm team, we need to be just as intentional about building the companies that are going to employ people, pay them decent wages, and hopefully give them an opportunity for wealth building.
If you…
are interested in building for the small city segment…
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