The Small City Segment

Home
Podcast
Weekly
Essays
Profiles
INVANTI
About

Essays

Recasts, Backcasts, & Forecasts
The shape of our cities' stories and our progress along them
 • 
Dustin Mix
Small Towns, Bigger Games
A guest post by Jamie Finney from Innovative Finance Newsletter
 • 
Dustin Mix
 and 
Jamie Finney
1
Angels as Activators
Founder talent may be evenly distributed, but it's culturally activated
 • 
Dustin Mix
Grow or Die is Wrong
Why Population Growth is to Capital Raised as Small Cities are to Startups
 • 
Dustin Mix
1
Did traveling salesmen help create small city niches?
Fort Wayne, Warsaw, and Elkhart, Indiana all have a traveling salesman at the genesis of their unique niches
 • 
Dustin Mix
For the Gold Mines
The Small City Segment thesis in 1859
 • 
Dustin Mix
More of Different
Why small cities should consider optimizing for weird in their entrepreneurial ecosystems
 • 
Dustin Mix
The Small City Segment
A big market with unique problems
 • 
Dustin Mix
4
Reflection Creates Direction
Reflecting on who you are as a founder makes navigating a startup easier
 • 
Dustin Mix
Big Enough, Small Enough
Founders can define their own criteria for how big and small an opportunity needs to be
 • 
Dustin Mix
Stick to Value
What is solving that problem worth?
 • 
Dustin Mix
Unlocking better tradeoffs
Startup opportunities are about finding what’s hard about offering something better
 • 
Dustin Mix
© 2025 Dustin Mix
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture