Entrepreneurs should “Embrace, Extend and Extinguish” Atlanta’s Startup Reputation
As I thought about the local startup scene this weekend at the SoCon07 event I recalled a phrase from the 1990’s. The alliteration in the title comes courtesy of the Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Microsoft and struck me as particularly relevant in a twisted way to the way I see the local environment for startups. I see it as a positive approach for startups in Atlanta.
One stereotype in particular relates to the fact that we are not the home of exciting consumer focused technology startups. MySpace, YouTube, and Flickr, we are not. Security, logistics, and telecom we are. Well we are who we are. We live where we live. Change agents are great but true entrepreneurs seek opportunities and find them wherever they exist, and plenty of opportunities exist here in Atlanta in Business to Business technology and services. There is ample opportunity for would be startups to embrace the local business climate and focus their efforts on solving business wants and/or business needs. You don’t need to worry about being “sexy” here in Atlanta. When it comes to business software and services Atlanta is the new Peoria.
You can chart your own course here in town, you can chart your own course out of town. There are plenty of problems to be solved, opportunities to be exploited, dreams to be realized. But when I hear someone say in a blanket statement that Atlanta is not a good place for a startup, I refute that with the fact that Atlanta is an ideal place for some startups. As the successful entrepreneurs of B2B focused startups here in town extend their success in the next phase of their careers you will see more diversity in the types of startups that are successful, and perhaps we will extinguish the stereotypes about Atlanta’s startup climate. But I don’t care right now. There are plenty of things to accomplish, plenty of ideas to germinate, and a fertile though occasionally frustrating environment in which to be successful. You can teach the VC’s and businesses in this town to dance and it would be great if they would. But by embracing then extending this town’s reputation we will one day extinguish the stereotypes. And with this approach each step along the way plenty of startups will be successful.
