[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]There was a great article in The New York Times about Midwestern cities that are growing entrepreneurial communities. Describing them as “Comeback Cities,” it highlighted Detroit, MI; Youngstown and Akron, OH; South Bend, IN; and Flint, MI as hotbeds for start-ups.
This comes in parallel to a lot of talk about “Silicon Prairie” that touts emerging entrepreneurial cities including Lincoln, NE; Des Moines, Iowa, and Kansas City, Kansas. With my own personal favorites being Boise, ID and St. Louis, MO.
This shows, once again, that there is no such thing as flyover country. Traditionally, start-ups and venture capital have been centered in either California, Massachusetts, or New York with these states garnering about 75% of all venture dollars. This is no longer the case.
Some reasons for this are more prescribed. For example, Steve Case, one of the founders of AOL, has raised a $150M “Rise of the Rest” seed fund to invest exclusively in the Midwest and other underserved areas. Similarly, Stanford is so committed to having people go back home post-MBA that they even have a special scholarship to send mid-westerners back to the mid-west when they graduate.
Other reasons are more mundane, like the fact that living in San Francisco is becoming a real bummer. Even well-to-do tech workers are priced out of a reasonable place to live and everyone is completely overwhelmed by the people and traffic. (Most don’t realize that San Francisco to Silicon Valley takes over an hour with no traffic. But there’s always traffic.)
So what does this mean for the aspiring MBA with an entrepreneurial bent? Well, a few of things.
Go home to work.
A career trajectory that includes getting a top degree from a top tier school and then returning home to build a business will not only be appealing to business schools but could be a great path to follow personally. From the admissions committee perspective, who is more interesting: another would-be-entrepreneur with their eyes set on getting a job in the valley? Or a business builder returning to places like Youngstown or Detroit to build a life and a community? Easy choice.
Go to an entrepreneurial place to be an entrepreneurial person.
If you want to focus on biotech startups, like Accuronix Therapeutics or arch oncology, the place to go is St. Louis, and the business school is WashU Olin. Software startups are the name of the game in Lincoln where one of the most successful sport software companies ever, Hudl, is building its new 84,000 square foot world headquarters. A lot University of Nebraska – Lincoln MBAs will be walking around that building, maybe you should too. If you are looking to disrupt health care you couldn’t find a better place than the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt. Nashville is home to a $38 Billion health care industry, including Jumpstart Foundry, a seed-stage healthcare innovation fund with more than a few investments in its own backyard. And the list could go on and on to include schools like Boise State, Ohio State – Columbus, UT – Dallas, UT – San Antonio, Maryland, and more, each centered in areas that will be the foundation of the next wave of entrepreneurship.
So would-be Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerbergs, recognize that your path to fame and fortune need not go through San Jose, Cambridge, or Silicon Alley. Rather, a career focused on building the next generation of mold-breaking businesses can get started anywhere there is an entrepreneurial community with a complimentary business school. Now just figure out where you want your future to be.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]