Six Emerging Startup Ecosystems in the United States
New report from Startup Genome, with support of Kauffman Foundation, finds strong startup potential in six mid-sized U.S. cities
Startups in Springfield (MA) sell to global markets at a surprisingly high rate. Founders in Albuquerque and New Orleans enjoy supportive local cultures. Reno and Fresno welcome entrepreneurs from elsewhere. Hartford has high shares of female and immigrant founders.
These are among the findings from a new report we released today based on research that was supported by the Kauffman Foundation. You can find more detail here. Highlights below:
Ecosystem Lifecycle Phase: Each of these six startup ecosystems is in the Early Activation phase of the Ecosystem Lifecycle.
Gender inclusion: Forty percent of startup founders in Springfield, MA, are women. In Reno, Hartford, and Albuquerque, the share is one-third. Among all ecosystems in our global assessment network, the average is 15 percent.
Fresno’s youth movement: Fresno has the youngest founders among these cities, with an average age of 35. And, 55 percent of Fresno founders are over age 30, which is nearly 20 percentage points lower than the global average.
More startups needed: In all six, there is strong room for the creation of more startups. Based solely on population, Startup Output could increase by 2x to 4x in these cities.
Reno has the welcome mat out: In Reno, 14 percent of startups moved from another city, drawn especially by the lower cost of doing business. And, strikingly, 52 percent of entrepreneurs in Reno came from somewhere else — with cost of living and quality of life as the main reasons.
Calling entrepreneurs to Fresno: One-third of entrepreneurs in Fresno moved to the city from elsewhere, 4x the average among all Activation phase ecosystems.
Local Connectedness matters: When founders interact (“collide”) with each other, get to know lots of peers, and freely offer help to each other, Local Connectedness grows. This is strongly correlated with overall ecosystem performance and individual startup growth.
Collisions are happening: Founders in Albuquerque, Fresno, Springfield, and New Orleans interact with their startup communities more frequently than the global average.
Let’s help our founders: In Hartford, investors and experts provide more hours of help to founders than in the other cities, and more than the global average. (Experts include university faculty, corporate employees, mentors, and others.)
Get to know your fellow founders: In Albuquerque and New Orleans, founders build relationships with, on average, 23 and 20 peer founders respectively.
Startup community culture: New Orleans has the highest Sense of Community in this sample, with founders willingly giving and receiving help.
Hard to miss founders in Springfield and Reno: Startup Density — the number of startups per one million people — is high in Springfield and Reno.
Bringing the world to Hartford: Eleven percent of startup founders in Hartford are immigrants, the second-highest in the sample.
Read the entire report here. Thank you to all of our local partners in each city who helped with data collection!
So what’s next?
Here’s what Startup Genome is doing now:
Kicking off our next round of data collection with our Members, working toward release of the 2019 Global Startup Ecosystem Report at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Bahrain.
Launching a new research effort with Startup Support Organizations and Programs (SSOPs) to provide them insights into the precise impact they’re having with their startups. Many accelerators report (or must collect) information on companies they’ve graduated, how many survived, revenues, employment, and so on. But most accelerators, incubators, and other SSOPs don’t know what they’re adding to the local culture, or how far they’re moving the needle on inclusion. They know they’re having an impact, to be sure, but it’s mostly anecdotal. We want to quantify it.
Creating a new measurement specifically for U.S. cities and states. Get in touch and look for an announcement in early 2019.
Join us!
