Across the country, cities just like Boston have been asking, how can we help foster the kinds of eye-popping innovation for which Silicon Valley is famous?
Meanwhile, startups are chomping at the bit to break into highly regulated industries, such as healthcare and energy, that have the power to transform lives. Yet, they don’t know where to break in and how to get started. An entrepreneur’s success relies on making the right connections, but all too often those connections are left to chance.
These are solvable problems. In fact, they have to be, if we’re going to rely on startups to help us transform our cities’ most important industries.
Startup incubator 1776 and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent six months doing research in cities just like this one. They interviewed hundreds of entrepreneurs, business leaders and local governments to figure out exactly what’s working — and what’s not.
The results of that research — Innovation That Matters — were released last week, and it offers a powerful framework to help cities think about how to drive civic entrepreneurship.
And while the report — a first-of-its-kind effort from 1776 and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its Foundation — makes clear exactly how important our strong talent base is for our growth, it surfaced a key area of opportunity, too: enhancing support for local startups from serial entrepreneur leaders, local corporations, angel investors and community incubator programs.