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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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
Innovation Isn’t Real Estate: Why Startup Hubs Waste Money
Thursday, 21 August 2025
The garage myth keeps fooling policymakers Innovation is not a real estate play, and your innovation district is likely disappointing entrepreneurs. Yet cities, universities, and corporations keep pouring millions into gleaming new “innovation spaces” and “hubs,” mistaking glass walls and free Wi-Fi for entrepreneurship. To some extent, understandably; startup folklore inspires us with stories of
- Published in Economic Development, Startup Ecosystems
Why Startups and Cities Fail Without a Clear Narrative: ACES for Ventures and Ecosystems
Wednesday, 06 August 2025
Most of you don’t fail because they lack a great product, brilliant founders, or access to capital. You fail because you haven’t worked out how to tell your story. You fail because your narrative doesn’t build trust, urgency, or credibility; three things that must happen before you ever get to the sale. This isn’t just
- Published in Startup Ecosystems, Startups
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
The Startup Scorecard: How Governments Can Unlock Trillions in Innovation and Economic Growth
Tuesday, 04 February 2025
Nations that adopted startup-friendly policies mid-1990s or early 00s, and consistently implemented effective measures, are now reaping the rewards; seamlessly transitioning into digital economies and enjoying long-term benefits. Conversely, those that dragged their feet on economic development of startup ecosystems are now grappling with how (and in my experience, for the most part, are failing,
- Published in Economic Development, Startups
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