Since last month I have committed myself to Wilmington, NC for at least the next 2-3 years because this is where I want grow my companies and help take the startup ecosystem to the next level. Recently Ive met with more than 40 local entrepreneurs, investors, business executives and members of the startup community. Ive learned a lot about whats going on here and whats still missing. In order to really elevate and accelerate the Wilmington startup community there are 5 major things that need to happen: 1) We need to recruit more successful entrepreneurs and fast growing companies to Wilmington because this is a wonderful place to live and work. Wilmington is a very adorable place to live and grow a company, especially compared to the big tech cities. We certainly need more talent down here but that will grow in time as companies move here and subsequently increase hiring and job relocations. Im sure theres plenty of talented employees through NC that would gladly move to Wilmington if they had a job opportunity with decent pay. 2) We need more large companies to relocate their main offices here or open up satellite offices in Wilmington. We need these companies to be active and supportive of the startup community. It would be wonderful to not only see companies coming from Charlotte, Raleigh and Durham but also coming from the bigger startup hubs around the country. We also need more companies like CastleBranch creating spaces like TekMountain which is exactly what this community needs as its already happening on every block in Silicon Valley and Boston. 3) We need to create a startup accelerator program similar to TechStars, Ycombinator, TechWildcatters, AngelPad, BetaSpring and the dozens of other accelerators in the most entrepreneurial cities. We would run two classes per year with 8-12 startups per class and invest $25,000-$50,000 for 5-10% equity, then end them with a big demo day with a room full of media people and potential investors. 4) We need to create an angel fund or micro-VC fund with $10-20 million from individuals and institutions to not only invest in local startups but also invest in startups throughout North Carolina and around the country with the primary goal of relocating them to Wilmington 5) We need to create more strategic partnerships with UNCW and Cape Fear to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. I love what Jim Roberts and the CIE are doing but we need to keep looking for every possible opportunity to get students interested. We need more mentors from the local business community. We need more pitch competitions with more sponsors and bigger prizes. We need more support and incentives to encourage our young soon-to-be entrepreneurs to think about big ideas which means identifying a problem around them and then creating a company to solve that problem (this is how the most successful companies got started ie Uber, Dropbox, Twitter, Airbnb and the list goes on). 6) We need more startup events. These events need to include more panel discussions with founders, more networking with entrepreneurs and investors, more pitches and demos from local companies (similar to Web Innovators in Boston but obviously on a smaller scale) Ive met so many awesome people and been introduced to so many great companies over the past 6 weeks. There are some really cool things going on in Wilmington and a bunch of startups that are really driving innovation within their respective industries. Wilmington has incredible potential so I want to do whatever is necessary to make sure this area can remain a very desirable place for entrepreneurs to start and grow their companies. With all that Wilmington has to offer, theres no reason why we cant be one of the best startup hubs on the East Coast within the next few years. As always, feel free to comment and provide some feedback. Youre also welcome to share your thoughts with me privately if youd prefer. My email is jonahlupton@gmail
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 21:15:46 +0000