If you help entrepreneurs build an ecosystem in your city, DON'T become a Bureaucracy!!!

I got a call this week from a city near Austin, Texas on how we built an entrepreneur ecosystem at the beach in Wilmington North Carolina.

WOW, how far we have come that a suburb of my FAVORITE CITY IN THE WORLD is now calling me after I have been studying how SxSW helped Austin evolve from a state capital with a HUGE university with an ambitious Michael Dell become the sexiest startup ecosystem in the USA.

Yes I studied Austin to the point of trying to convince them to let us create SxSE in another North Carolina city. I have been to TEN SxSW festivals and even welcomed SxSW Executive Director Hugh Forrest for our first venture Capital conference in 2014 called Coastal Connect.

Also this week, I attended a workshop by the SBA at UNC Chapel Hill. And as much criticism as I get in Wilmington NC, turns out we are doing ALL of the right things except for one, Finding the funding to make all of this work possible. Or as he put it, Secure Financial Resources. But we do the work anyway.

And by the way, I also know the disappointment entrepreneurs feel when working with bureaucracies. The same bureaucracy failed me three times in one month recently. So you can see your challenge when you meet a new entrepreneur who has worked with other orgs who promise to help.

How did we build this ecosystem in a SLEEPY beach town in less than ten years?

1. Respond quickly to inquiries. If you REALLY want to help entrepreneurs, MOVE FASTER. Answer their inquiries FASTER. You CANNOT be a Speedbump that slows down the entrepreneur because they will NEVER CALL you again. But if you act quickly and speak directly, you will become the FUEL for the startups.
2. Work on three challenges at a time. When I meet with an entrepreneur the first time, I always ASK them, "What are the three things you need today that would make your world better tomorrow?" Deliver on those three things and then work on the next three challenges for the entrepreneur. Walk them down the road toward success. But contact both sides of the conversation. If an entrepreneur asks for a patent lawyer, call the lawyer and ask if the entrepreneur followed up and how was the interaction. Was it respectful? If not, you know the real character of the entrepreneur and you don't have to put your name on the line for them anymore. Why only three things at a time? Because Entrepreneurs hate the OVER promise and under deliver reputation of bureaucracies. Work on the three things you can handle and they can handle. Maybe it takes longer to deliver the big thing they need like capital but deliver the other two things quickly to build trust and momentum.
3. Promote the success of the entrepreneurs in the media coverage MORE than the success of your organization. I got some bad news for you....This is a THANKLESS JOB. If you work within an economic development organization, congrats you get a paycheck. That is the only thanks you will get. I would know, I have been doing this work for 25 years. Still the right thing to do is to promote the success stories of your startups in most of the media coverage. That is how you are going to get the attention of the other entrepreneurs in the community that you haven't reached yet.

If you are saying to yourself, I don't think of Wilmington NC as a powerful startup ecosystem. Well , Wilmington is now the #1 startup ecosystem in the WORLD for small cities under 300,000 people and #2 in North Carolina according to both StartupGenome and StartupBlink. This happened in ten years.

But just in the last 3 weeks:

A. Three of the Top Ten Startups to Watch by NC Tech Association are from Wilmington.

B. A new company announced a $4.8 million SEED round this week.

C. We had a SOLD OUT and STANDING ROOM ONLY startup entrepreneur event this week with a new investor.

D. We just added a new media source who will be covering startup stories from DURHAM. Their first expansion city.

E. Our weekly newsletter now has MORE READERS than we have subscribers. That means people forward our newsletters to others because these newsletters have a tone not used by bureaucracies and useful content. The content is Not just about our organization!!!!