Entrepreneurship Archive

We Need More Startup Resources for Creators Are you a creative entrepreneur, or “creator,” and wondering where all the love is? Where are the startup accelerators, investors, and boot camps for creative startups?  Despite contributing over $700billion to the US economy, creative entrepreneurs struggle to find support that meets their unique needs as founders of high growth ventures.  As professional designers, musicians, filmmakers, many creatives …

How Will Your Community Compete? Communities are experiencing unprecedented economic disruptions as interconnected digital technologies proliferate and efficiencies in global markets expands. Human creativity and ingenuity have never been more essential to the economic well being of communities. Demand for creative goods and services – and the creative economy in general – is growing by leaps and bounds. Creative startups are increasingly leading economic opportunities …

Short answer: Because unrequited love sucks. If you are like most of us creative entrepreneurs, you probably spend time fantasizing about getting your label taken up by a market leader. Or getting on Target’s shelves. Or being called out at the Oscar’s as “the world’s most brilliant new designer”. Which is ok because it keeps the dream alive!  Fantasies like this give us the push …

Creative Entrepreneurs are Creative Place Makers The creative placemaking movement is exciting.  But it may be missing a bigger opportunity to fundamentally shift the role of creatives/artists in planning and building vibrant communities.  (If Creative Placemaking is a new concept to you, jump to the bottom of this post to read more about it.)  The individuals and teams who make creative places happen are mostly …

We (Creative Startups) are finalists for a 2015 ArtPlace grant in partnership with the Indigenous Design and Planning Institute at UNM.  So, last week the team and I spent a full day in Zuni Pueblo. If you have ever been to Zunilands you know it is nestled amongst pine covered red rock mesas, 120 miles southwest of Albuquerque.  It is the spot where Europeans first …

Vocabulary for Creative Startups (Part 1 of 10) “We needed a vocabulary list.  I didn’t know what you were talking about when you first talked about ‘IPO’s”. Yesterday I published a post on the definition of entrepreneurship.  And the minute I hit “Publish” I recalled the above piece of feedback we got about our accelerator.  Duh.  I should have realized that.  (One of many things …

What is your definition of entrepreneurship? It seems over the past decade the application of the awe-inspiring tag of “entrepreneur” has been cornered by those building businesses in the “high tech” fields.  Let’s set aside for a moment the notion that some of us use “low” tech to build businesses while others use “higher” (?) technologies.  I’ll write more on that later.  First, I want …

Intrepid Creative Entrepreneurs: This blog is for you.  I mean that to sound like a toast. The kind of toast you give at a wedding where you finally get to stand up and say all the things you have wanted to say to someone you love, but you have 60 seconds so you pour everything into the tone and emotion of what you are saying, …

If you read this blog you know that I helped found Creative Startups, a startup accelerator designed for creatives.  I don’t have loads of experience launching accelerators, heck I don’t even know very much about them compared to, say, David Cohen, or Dave McClure.  So, the reflections I’m sharing here are based on relatively little experience.  But, to be fair to myself, I do make …

A week or so ago I spoke to a group of 22 Post-Doc EPSCoR students who were selected on a competitive basis to take part in a week-long workshop that aimed to prepare them for their next step as career academicians.  Or not.  The discussion I led was intended to be something of an invitation to these STEM researchers to consider entrepreneurship as a viable …