How To vs. Experienced With: The Distinction of Startup or New Business
Monday, 06 October 2025
The opportunity isn’t that cities, chambers, and investors don’t support entrepreneurship, it’s that they have the chance to support the right kind in the right way. For decades, we’ve been celebrating every new idea in the same sandbox, mixing storefronts with startups, consultants with creators, and then wondering why only a few hold up when
- Published in Startup Ecosystems, Startups
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The Startup Frontier Hidden in America’s Supply Chain
Thursday, 02 October 2025
Imagine a modest Ozarks town (once underestimated) emerging as a national hub for retail, supply chain, and CPG innovation. Now imagine that the parent company is actively relocating talent, building a new urban HQ, and doubling down on ecosystem development. That’s Bentonville; once pigeonholed as “Walmart’s little hometown,” now staking a claim as one of
- Published in Regional Development
Bellevue, Washington: The Startup City Defining Its Shadow
Tuesday, 30 September 2025
Bellevue isn’t Seattle and that’s precisely the point. Too often, when people talk about the Pacific Northwest, Bellevue gets treated as an extension of Seattle. But Bellevue has its own history, its own culture, and critically, its own startup identity. Understanding this matters not just for Washington but for cities everywhere trying to grow deliberately,
- Published in Regional Development, Uncategorized
Why Most Accelerators Fail – And What Comes Next
Tuesday, 23 September 2025
On The Forge of the Unicorns with Michele Brissoni I’ve been in hundreds of cities working to support entrepreneurs and ecosystems. One thing I’ve seen over and over again, whether I’m in Boise, Bogotá, or Brussels, is this illusion that we can bootstrap startup economies by launching accelerators. We treat them like vending machines: plug
- Published in AI, Startup Ecosystems
How Hard Tech History Fuels Entrepreneurship – Austin’s Story
Wednesday, 03 September 2025
Amidst what seems to be a boom of chips in Central Texas, I want to share with everyone, everywhere, how the hard tech of Texas isn’t a result of a recent pivot, there is a history to study in how it grew up around Austin, a history from which we can learn how to build
- Published in Regional Development
Surfing Idaho’s Startup Wave: Boise’s Rise
Thursday, 28 August 2025
Of course, if you’re like me, when you think of Idaho the first thing that comes to mind is surfing. Sure, you might be thinking, “um… Hawaii? California?” and you’d be right too but if we’re being frank, we entrepreneurial types are a little odd and my mind thinks Idaho. What drives innovation and supports
- Published in Regional Development