Xconomy sends one of its Boston writers to Metro Detroit so she can take a comprehensive look at southeast Michigan's entrepreneurial ecosystem. One of the first places she went is to Ann Arbor to speak to Scio Security's Dug Song.
Excerpt:
Last week I headed to the Detroit and Ann Arbor area to make my first visit to one of Xconomy's newer outposts. I spoke with entrepreneurs and industry veterans, as well as academics and investors looking to jumpstart the region's innovation engine. Some of what I saw and heard on my trip stood in stark contrast to the Boston technology landscape that I am accustomed to covering—and some was quite familiar. Read on for some of the key insights I took away from the trip.
1) Southeast Michigan lacks a well-connected, grassroots entrepreneurial culture.
It's not that Detroit is lacking entrepreneurial talent, says Bill Volz, a business professor at Wayne State University and executive director of the Blackstone LaunchPad, an entrepreneurship program founded recently at the school. "The entrepreneurial community here—they don't know each other at all," Volz says. "They're bright people and they’re interesting people. But they don't know each other."
It's one thing that Detroit seems to have in common with Ann Arbor. And formally orchestrated business accelerator programs that put startups together won't necessarily do the trick if the mindset isn’t there, says serial entrepreneur Dug Song, who's currently CEO of Scio Security, a stealth-mode security software startup. "We don't do nearly enough to help connect people here," he says. "There's not enough grassroots stuff going on. There need to be more opportunities for serendipity to happen."
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