When putting Charlotte into perspective as a startup hub, you’ve got to understand that it’s coming from a very different place than Raleigh/Durham – or most startup hubs for that matter. I know. I started my career in Charlotte. I wore a suit every day.
Let’s put it this way: The largest tech employer in Charlotte? Bank of America – strictly by sheer size of the technical workforce therein. And while a place like Raleigh/Durham is doing moderately well attracting new technical and entrepreneurial talent, and also has a renewable resource in its plethora of outstanding universities, Charlotte’s startups are fighting with Charlotte’s behemoth corporations for the cream of technical talent.
Furthermore, because of the demographics (so to speak) of the mature companies in the Queen City, the developers that are there are usually older – meaning they’re more risk averse and they’re also probably slinging code from a bygone (or soon to be bygone) era.
Go and build a startup community out of that.
For years there was only BIG, the Business Innovation Growth Council, founded in 2006 as a non-profit org to lead development of high-impact, high-growth Charlotte entrepreneurs.
As the banking crisis unfolded – let’s say starting around 2008 – the impact on Charlotte was similar, if not as destructive, as the fall of the auto industry was on Detroit. Much like Detroit, startups began to spring up out of the talent being left behind as jobs were shed and lifelong careers in banking began looking less attractive.
“In the last two years we’ve gained five to ten years of ground from where we were in Charlotte,” says Adam Hill, director of Packard Place, one of Charlotte’s few entrepreneurial hubs. Hill also runs RevTech Labs, an incubator within Packard Place which announced their second class this week.
Hill estimates that there are maybe 300 startups in the greater Charlotte area — about the same number I’d estimate for Raleigh and Durham combined. But when I think about Charlotte, I think about Packard Place and RevTech – and that’s it. Hill is the Startup NC representative from Charlotte, and Hill is the one who comes to Raleigh and Durham for events and conferences.
So why is the community lagging the growth?
“It’s a cultural shift that needs to happen,” says Hill. “The tech scene is still young, and the press doesn’t care as much about the early stage startups.”
Unlike the auto industry, the banking industry didn’t fall off a cliff. Charlotte is dinged but still thriving. So while Detroit (and Durham, on a smaller scale) felt the need to embrace startups as a way to re-establish the city, Charlotte still has major corporations that define it quite well, thank you very much.
But the fact remains that the startups are there, they’re growing, and they’re multiplying – from Yap’s 2011 acquisition by Amazon and Peak 10’s continued strength, to the first class of RevTech that’s still chipping away at startup life.
AutoPilot is doing well (the Lees get to the Triangle every so often), and looking for a second round of funding.
Flavma, makers of iMedicare, have joined a funded accelerator for healthcare in New York.
Viddlz, is wrapping up a site and business model update and planning a re-launch.
I know, you’ve never heard of them, right? That’s probably the first thing that needs to be fixed.
While the rest of the other companies are pushing ahead, two of them failed, which is, in Hill’s mind (and he’s right) not an issue for a first class of the lone incubator in Charlotte.
“They probably failed much more quickly in RevTech than they would have otherwise,” he says.
That’s a cultural shift that probably needs to happen too. I think in Raleigh and Durham we finally stopped talking about the taint of failure roughly five minutes ago. In other words, it took forever to get over the failure thing here, so Charlotte’s got a long walk ahead of them in that regard.
The next class expands to ten companies, and Hill is excited about them.
“About six or seven of them are really ready to go, and the other three are earlier, more in the idea stage,” he says.
(You can read more about the RevTech website.).
So now there’s BIG, there’s Packard Place, there’s RevTech Labs, and we’re finally starting to hear about other programs like the Charlotte Venture Challenge and SHAPE Charlotte.
Hill is busy too. Last week, Packard Place hosted an information session for applicants for the NC IDEA grant. NC IDEA’s Andrea Cook told me that 27 percent of applicants for the last grant were from Charlotte, compared to 61% from the Triangle.
Southeast Venture Conference happens next month in Charlotte as well, and Hill was part of that, putting together an info session for startups applying to demo there.
As the second RevTech class gets underway, Hill is not only content with the how it’s kicking off but is also pretty solid on the goals for the Demo Day in April.
“The success criteria for RevTech isn’t going to be to get all these companies funded, unless that’s something they’re specifically looking for and ready for it,” he says. “We’ll define our success by how successful these companies can be when they get out.”
Like I said, things are different in Charlotte, and it looks like they’re starting to adapt to it. A successful Charlotte startup community probably won’t look anything like a successful Raleigh or Durham startup community. But there’s undeniable movement right now, all it needs is a little velocity and a little direction.
Editor’s note: Joe Procopio is a serial entrepreneur, writer, and speaker. He is VP of Product at Automated Insights and the founder of startup network and news resource ExitEvent. Follow him at @jproco or read him at http://joeprocopio.com
