Charlotte is a friendly town for corporations, but not so much for entrepreneurs. This is one of the realizations we were struck by during the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance®’s recent Exploring Economies trip to Austin, Texas. Austin pulled back the curtain in the form of programming and tours for 120 of Charlotte’s regional business and civic leaders and revealed the way in which they’ve built their entrepreneurial ecosystem. The upshot of this experience? There’s a lot that Charlotte’s business and civic community can learn from Austin and their intentional strategy for fostering homegrown enterprise.
Austin leverages their renowned university system, cultivates incubators such as Capital Factory, and partners with collaborative networks like their thriving Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO). EO Austin has figured out how to invite founders at all levels ($250,000 in revenue and above) into a supportive community with peers and mentors where business builders experience purposeful interaction,thoughtful programming, and even free real estate to help develop networks and inspire innovative ideas.
I (Bryan) was privileged to lead one of the Exploring Economies sessions from the auditorium at the University of Texas Austin’s McCombs School of Business joined by panelists representing successful entrepreneurs, investors, incubators and accelerators. These experts unanimously acknowledged the critical role that the corporate community must play to leverage their expertise, resources, and supply chains to help entrepreneurs scale up. And while the session revealed the distance we must still bridge in supporting Charlotte’s entrepreneurial community, it also revealed the hope that we can have in doing so with the help of our strong but underutilized corporate community.
From experience, we know it can be difficult for an early stage entrepreneur to find where or how to plug in with peers, seek mentors, and access capital. Charlotte has a highly trained and educated workforce of potential business builders and innovators, but we are not yet effectively fostering the environment that will inspire them to start anew, take risks, and access the resources they need to build the next “big thing.” And when they find success, we have few examples of founders and boot-strappers inclined to stay in Charlotte to impact the next generation of business builders.
To improve this ecosystem, we don’t have to start from scratch – there are seeds already planted. Like Austin, EO Charlotte’s Accelerator offers classroom-style content and qualified coaches to help early stage businesses exceed the $1 million annual revenue mark. The Charlotte Regional Business Alliance® Foundation is supporting minority-owned businesses through its Scale Up CLT program, in partnership with EO (Entrepreneurs’ Organization) and the City of Charlotte. Ventureprise, UNC Charlotte’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, works with students, faculty and community members on commercializing their research, elevating their ideas and incorporating entrepreneurial thinking into the campus academic experience. Aspire Community Capital is an incredible organization that supports micro businesses who are at an earlier stage than $250k in revenue to grow to the next level.
But there is more we can do to help the entrepreneurial community thrive in CLT.
- Offer our time and energy to support entrepreneurs directly. Consider our expertise in supply chain, operations, marketing and sales as a resource that will help them grow.
- Financially, we can sponsor EO Accelerator, Scale Up CLT or similar programs to improve the entrepreneurial ecosystem with content, curriculum, coaches, experiences, work spaces, scholarships and administrative support.
- Buy local. We can champion a reform of corporate procurement programs that allows for small businesses that are typically left out of diverse vendor programs.
The Charlotte Region is a rapidly expanding southeast powerhouse with enviable economic development successes to flaunt, but to reach the next level, we have serious work to do in cultivating and strengthening our entrepreneurial ecosystem. We must learn from Austin’s strategy and commit to providing education, connectivity, space and opportunity, and of course capital for businesses founded right here at home.
Janet LaBar is president and CEO of the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance®. A seasoned regional economic development leader with strong communications, strategy and operations skills, LaBar has led the CLT Alliance since April 2019, working to ensure the Charlotte Region is the most vibrant, innovative, and healthy economy in the nation.
Bryan Delaney was the co-founder and executive vice president of Skookum, a digital innovation and transformation firm based out of Charlotte. After exiting Skookum, Bryan has focused his efforts on helping CLT’s small businesses scale past $1m in revenue as the chairman of EO Accelerator – Charlotte.
