This Wall Street Journal article dovetails with my previous post Mentorship goes national How to Get Venture Capital to Places Left Behind – Steve Case says people outside Silicon Valley feel left out. He has a plan to change that by Deborah Gage is an interview with Steve Case about how entrepreneurship needs to go beyond the social media startups so favored by Silicon Valley to deeper more important issues such as the food we eat, the way we get around, how we consume energy and how we think about water and how we stay healthy and how our children get educated, those are more important things.
Case makes the best argument I have heard for why entrepreneurship needs to spread beyond the comfortable bounds of Silicon Valley, New York, and Boston:
I think many of the answers will be in the middle of the country, because for many of the perspectives that are needed—for instance, to reimagine agriculture—it’s helpful to be working with farmers and be close to farmers. If you really want to rethink health care, spending time in Cleveland at the Cleveland Clinic or in Rochester at the Mayo Clinic or in Texas at MD Anderson or in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins is important.
On the the issues with local entrepreneurs is getting local investment.
It’s really important that local entrepreneurs get their initial support from local investors—I think that is a signal to people in other places. If the people in Nebraska or Minnesota or Iowa or what have you aren’t investing in entrepreneurs, why should the folks in California or New York or Massachusetts pay attention?
But Steve Case is just talking about “distributed entrepreneurship” he’s doing something to make it happen with his Rise of the Rest Roadtrip to promote entrepreneurship.
Revolution’s “Rise of the Rest” with Steve Case is a nationwide effort to work closely with entrepreneurs in emerging startup ecosystems. Our view is that this is the beginning of a new era for entrepreneurship across the U.S. — high-growth companies can now start and scale anywhere, not just in a few coastal cities.
I encourage you to read the full interview with Steve Case and to checkout his Rise of the Rest tour.
