We Already Know How to Do This: Stop Reinventing Startup Development Organizations
Friday, 11 July 2025
Recently, someone asked me, “How do you make a training center for entrepreneurs to be self-sustaining and not just dependent on investors?” And I nearly threw a stapler. Not because the question isn’t valid, because it is, but because we’ve been answering it for decades. The model exists. It’s tested. It’s been done over and
- Published in Economic Development, Startups
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Startups Are Not Small Businesses: A Texas Startup Policy Blueprint for Unlocking Capital
Tuesday, 08 July 2025
Published in collaboration with the TexCap Policy Institute, this new white paper is more than another call for “more startup support.” It’s a public policy intervention – one Texas desperately needs if we want to lead the nation in innovation, venture capital, and the next generation of job creation. We titled it plainly:Startups != Small
- Published in Economic Development
Aerospace Adelaide
Monday, 30 June 2025
Adelaide’s not merely dipping a toe into space, it’s building its own launchpad, and during a recent whirlwind tour of the United States, I had a chance to share some thoughts with a few of the startups making the rounds and decided to dig in deeper to some possibilities. Under the radar, this ecosystem has
- Published in Aerospace, Regional Development, Startup Ecosystems, Uncategorized
Why Cities Should Invest in Startups: The Key to Economic Growth
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
Why Startups? Let’s Distinguish Why City Officials Should be Focused on Strategic Investment in Innovation-Driven Ventures (and why most are failing despite trying) It’s one of the most misunderstood yet consequential distinctions in economic development today: the difference between startups and small businesses. Cities talk about “entrepreneurship” like it’s a monolithic idea, but if we’re
- Published in Economic Development, Startup Ecosystems
Building a Tough Tech Venture Studio
Tuesday, 17 June 2025
Welcome to the frontier of innovation that doesn’t get VC Twitter likes or SXSW panels, the mud-covered, steel-reinforced, and sometimes radioactive frontier of “Tough Tech” (my word, I’m trying to come up with something to distinguish not-consumer, not-university, not just-apps). This isn’t SaaS, crypto, or your fourth AI wrapper for ChatGPT, this is the real
- Published in Economic Development, Startups
Abilene Grit, Grid, and Genesis
Tuesday, 10 June 2025
Abilene, Texas, on the surface, might seem like the set of Fallout where a now-restored Texas Film Industry needs a set for a post-apocalyptic Western — a flat, dusty military town with a church on every corner and a Dairy Queen next to it. Scratch that desert veneer (and lack of nuclear fallout) and you’ll
- Published in AI, Data, Regional Development
From Texas to Tulsa: How Innovation Shifts to Opportunity
Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Differentiation If someone told you Tulsa was the next hub for startups, your first reaction might be to squint and wonder if they meant it ironically. Tulsa? Really? Isn’t that where Route 66 nostalgia and oil wealth go to retire? Here’s the thing: the people still asking that question are the same ones who laughed
- Published in Regional Development