When Christine Neely and Melanie Richardson were working together on a literacy project for families attending a federally funded program, it quickly became evident that parents needed more support than they could provide in a 90-minute class.

That’s how these New Orleans-based education veterans came to found Training Grounds, a nonprofit that provides parent learning experiences, professional development training for early childhood educators, and operates the We PLAY Center, a safe play space for young children and their parents. Last week, Training Grounds won first place and was named audience favorite at PitchNOLA: Education. The duo plan to use the prize money to expand the operating hours for the play center and launch a mobile We PLAY Center.

There’s a big gap in early childhood education across the country, but particularly in New Orleans, where more than 3,500 infants and toddlers are on a wait-list for an Early Head Start seat.

“Early Head Start and child care subsidies reach only 11 percent of children ages 0-3, leaving many families to find other solutions,” the founders explain. “If these children are not offered an alternative they likely will end up in the 60% of American children who enter kindergarten every year unprepared and lacking the language, numeracy and social emotional skills necessary to be successful in school and beyond.”

What’s more, they say, many parents lack of clear understanding of ages and stages of development and often miss key opportunities to provide the kind of interactions that are specifically geared toward their child’s needs and capabilities. That’s where the parenting workshops come in, which cover topics ranging from coparenting to helping young kids build motor skills.

As with any startup, the rise of Training Grounds, which was founded in 2016, has not been all prizes and accolades.

All startups face challenges, and of course the biggest one is usually funding. Training Grounds received seed funding from 4.0 Schools and Camelback Ventures. This month, they’re launching an end-of-year giving campaign to secure donations to support the Training Grounds mission. The company also partners with other organizations in the community to provide services to parents and educators.

Another challenge has been “knowing how to do all aspects of running a company and doing it all well,” Richardson says. “Learning how to divide and conquer tasks like fundraising, board development, marketing and program development was essential.”

Participation in programs like Propeller’s Startup Accelerator and fellowships at 4.0 Schools and Camelback Ventures has helped them develop these and other business skills.

In the end, though, success also has a lot to do with passion: “The passion you feel for your product or service comes through every aspect of your company,” Richardson says. “Your passion is your driving force and will help you to succeed.”

Photo credit: Tracie Morris Schaefer.

The post #MyStartupStory: Training Grounds Fills Early Childhood Education Gap in New Orleans appeared first on Startup Southerner.

Smart RIA, a Knoxville-based SaaS company that simplifies and automates compliance for registered investment advisers (RIAs), has already had a busy 2017.

They started the year having just closed a $250,000 seed round, with investors from New York, Florida and California. The team got news in April that they had been selected to be part of 36|86 entrepreneurship and technology conference’s Village 36. And at 36|86 in June, CEO Mac Bartine pitched to the largest audience he’s ever pitched to, which he says was both scary and exciting.

“I had a fantastic experience, and really can’t recommend it strongly enough,” says Bartine, a long-time entrepreneur who joined Smart RIA in 2015. “During the conference, I met more than a dozen prospective investors who are either a good fit for our $1.2M raise now or will be later as we continue to grow, got to see a keynote speaker say that our industry niche in regulatory compliance is an incredibly hot and growing market, and began or grew new relationships with startup founders from all over the Southeast. In short, it was great!”

SmartRIA CEO Mac Bartine pitches at 36|86 in Nashville. Photo Credit: Haseeb Qureshi

When we ran into Bartine at the conclusion of 36|86, he said he was headed back to Knoxville immediately to start with the latest cohort of The Works accelerator, powered by the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center. His response initially surprised us, since we’ve come to see this particular accelerator program as geared to early or idea stage companies. In addition, Bartine’s been an active mentor since 2014 to several programs at the KEC, including serving as a lead mentor to a prior MediaWorks program. 

So, why is Smart RIA, an experienced company that launched its product nationwide in 2016, going through the Works accelerator? In short, the program itself chose to iterate. “When I heard that KEC’s 2017 cohort of The Works would be focused on slightly later stage startups that already have traction, I was immediately interested,” says Bartine. “The programming is designed to help the cohort’s entrepreneurs solve problems together, complete ongoing strategic planning, and more specifically to tackle one or two major initiatives during the course of the accelerator.”

Smart RIA is joined by seven other teams that all are generating revenue, including Lirio, SafeSurv, BZZR Sports, CQInsights, Unveil Events, BiT Dealership Software and Prometheus Group.

Bartine also added the KEC’s accelerator model that required less time to participate was also an added benefit, especially for “a company like ours that’s a little further along.” While the teams do not get specific cash funding during its 12-week program, the KEC values the services, consulting and other benefits from the Works to be over $50,000 per team. The teams also have a chance to showcase their products to the entire Knoxville community and beyond on their demo day, which will take place on Sept. 20 during Innov865 Week.

When asked if participating in an accelerator is a good idea for any startup, Bartine offered the following advice to those who are thinking about participating: “I would only recommend participating in an accelerator if it is a fit for where the startup is at the time. That said, if it is a fit, the benefits will greatly outweigh the costs, which should be limited to the executive team’s time. In addition to the programming and resources offered by the accelerator, participating in a cohort generally opens doors for startups who are looking for greater visibility in the press, within their industries and among investors.”

The post Knoxville Entrepreneur Center Accelerator Focuses on Growth After Traction appeared first on Startup Southerner.

By 2011, The Unreasonable Institute’s approach to training social enterprise founders on growth through a six-week program had been capturing attention, including that of the New York Times. Over the years, their curriculum that started in Boulder, Colo., has more than a proven record. Their program graduates see average revenue growth that’s sixfold within two years of completing the curriculum. And because of those social ventures, the Unreasonable Institute’s report states that 24 million lives around the globe were impacted by those companies’ missions. Regardless of the type of business, understanding the financial component matters.

Even today, getting that grasp of how to scale social ventures is still the challenge for most social enterprises around the Nashville area, says Hannah Pechan, director of the Nashville Social Enterprise Alliance. “As we talked with many social enterprises and startups over the last two years, we continually heard that most founders were not well-equipped to scale their ventures.”

And while there are programs and workshops in Nashville that address the general concepts around funding to all businesses, Pechan points that social ventures have an additional layer to scale.  “Social ventures are working to both scale their financial impact and their social/environmental impact. Because of this, we want to equip them to develop a fundraising plan that explicitly tells the whole story to possible funders.” Of course, not every impact minded entrepreneur can make her way to a 12-week program.

So when the Unreasonable Institute launched the shorter lab curriculum a few years ago, Pechan had kept the program on her radar. “They created incredible curriculum that is eternally focused on scale and impact in order to address our globe’s most pressing problems, so there was direct overlap in our organization’s missions,” says Pechan.

Now, nonprofits and social entrepreneurs in the Southeast can take advantage of the program without traveling too far. The NSEA is bringing the curriculum to Nashville for this summer, with its Nashville Funding Readiness Lab. The five-day accelerator that will take place on July 31- August 4 is open to any venture that is committed to making a social or environmental impact.  While the cost is $750 for the team, the curriculum is packed with information and hands-on instruction. The roster of mentors for this upcoming program is seasoned in creating social impact. Among the mentors is Patrick Woodyard, founder & CEO of Nisolo, a luxury leather goods social enterprise that offers global artisans access to the US market. Woodyard is also a former Unreasonable Institute entrepreneur and fellow.

The application process is open until June 21, and the program website provides more details related to logistics as well as the curriculum fit.

The post Unreasonable Institute Curriculum for Social Ventures Coming to Nashville appeared first on Startup Southerner.

When most people think about the Mississippi Delta, the 200-mile span of northwest Mississippi that is among the poorest areas of the country, entrepreneurship is probably the last thing that comes to mind. But that’s exactly the focus at Clarksdale, Mississippi-based Higher Purpose Co. Located in the heart of the Delta, this social enterprise aims to lift the local population up from the challenging socioeconomics of the area through entrepreneurship.

“We see a lot of people working a fulltime job, or even multiple jobs, and they have an idea that they want to pursue, or they’ve been working on a side business for years,” says Tim Lampkin, CEO of Higher Purpose Co. “What they want is to pursue their idea or side business full-time but they may not have the resources necessary to scale upward.”

No idea or side business is too small for Higher Purpose Co. “We’re talking about business on a micro scale, from mom-and-pop restaurants to graphic designers. They’re talented, but oftentimes the problem is, how do I monetize this in a way where I can maybe drop one of the jobs I have?” Lampkin explains.

Higher Purpose Co. helps the Delta’s budding entrepreneurs in three main ways. The first is through education, including one-on-one consultations with people to help them become entrepreneurs and “changemakers” in their communities. Lampkin says this is what the majority of Higher Purpose Co. spends its time providing. The second is through technical assistance, with things like business licensing, registration and marketing plans. The third is access to capital. Licensed as a private company, Higher Purpose Co. has the capacity to act as a trustee to match entrepreneurs and small business owners to lenders—either credit unions or a local bank.

Recently, the company partnered with Kiva Loan Program to help provide 0% interest small business loans to qualified small business owners. Crowdfunded by hundreds of lenders—some kicking in as little as $25—Kiva loans can often mean the difference between a dream deferred and a dream fulfilled.

“It depends on the business, whether we provide a seed grant or whether we get them into a loan,” Lampkin says. “Some people may not have good enough credit for a traditional lending institution, but their business is viable. We think a seed fund, in that situation, could be the gamechanger.”

Lampkin says the partnership with Kiva is just the beginning.

“We’re not a nonprofit, but we see ourselves as more of a social impact agency, there to provide help to entrepreneurs and the community.”

Speaking of impact: Higher Purpose Co. recently released its 2016 Impact Report, and the findings were impressive, especially when you consider the whole thing started as a pilot project with virtually zero funding. Two-hundred Mississippians attended the company’s four training sessions (with 87 percent saying they would recommend the trainings to their friends and family) and 75 hours of one-on-one technical assistance were provided.

But one of the most striking figures is the fact that, of all the entrepreneurs coming through Higher Purpose Co. in 2016, a whopping 85 percent were women. “To see so many women coming in, women of color, looking to be CEOs and creating their own innovative business solutions to address the needs of the marketplace, I was excited about that,” he says.

Looking ahead, Lampkin says one of the organization’s big goals will be increasing access to capital. “But we’re not trying to create a cookie cutter model, where we apply what we know to every business owner,” he says. “It depends where they are, and where they’re coming from.”

The post Mississippi Delta’s Budding Entrepreneurs Get a Boost From Higher Purpose Co. appeared first on Startup Southerner.

In recent years, Chattanooga, Tennessee, has made itself known for its creative potential and burgeoning innovations. The Company Lab Accelerator, located on the first floor of the Edney Innovation Center in the the heart of Chattanooga’s Innovation District, has played a major role in creating the city’s estimable entrepreneurial ecosystem. Since 2010, CO.LAB has accelerated more than 100 companies with their various programs and advising offerings. The CO.LAB and the revitalization of Chattanooga’s economy and community, however, did not become what it is today overnight—CO.LAB arose out of a process of growth and adjustment to the community’s unique needs.

In the rise of our post-industrial economy, the Scenic City was among the many industrial cities left struggling to maintain their place in the economic ecosystem. While known early on as a hub of entrepreneurship, the shift towards a creative, technological and knowledge-based economy brought trying times for the city. The decline of Chattanooga’s industrial economy in 1960s and ’70s resulted in air pollution, vacant and deteriorating infrastructure, and widespread suburban flight. Chattanooga was faced with a crippling need for creative innovation to revitalize its economy and community.

In 2007, Helen Johnson and Josh McManus recognized Chattanooga’s need to attract and retain talent and started CreateHere, “a nonprofit project to infuse cultural and economic life back into the city of Chattanooga by supporting the arts and creative enterprises.” In addition to artistic promotion, Chattanooga experienced technological improvement with the implementation of its one-gigabit-per-second fiber-optic internet service. In 2010, Chattanooga became America’s first “Gig City,” generating attention from investors and entrepreneurs around the world and connecting efforts within the community to global networks.

The artistic and technological uprising in Chattanooga helped pave the way for a full entrepreneurial revival by enabling both creativity and innovation. While teeming with ideas, entrepreneurs in the region found trouble manifesting, scaling and maintaining their ventures. The Company Lab (CO.LAB) was launched in 2011 to absorb and mobilize CreateHere’s projects and promote high-growth potential.

To support ventures at all stages of growth, the regional accelerator supplies networks of mentorship, talented specialists, funding and capital within their various programs.

For aspiring entrepreneurs looking to get their ideas off the ground:

CO.LAB offers various pitch competitions and in-house events. Will This Float? is an annual event that gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to present a 3-minute pitch for a chance to earn cash prizes and business service packages. Talk Shop Tuesday is a monthly lunch where community members are invited to listen to speakers among the region’s top entrepreneurs to network, learn and exchange valuable business knowledge. The Chadev Lunch hosts a weekly gathering for a community of developers, combining a wide range of expertise in software, technology and design. CO.LAB also participates in a nationwide program called 1 Million Cups, where 1-2 early-stage startups have the chance to present their company to a network of community members every Wednesday. Check out the CO.LAB event page for other opportunities to help entrepreneurs get their ideas off the ground.

For a more extensive opportunity for startup ideas:

CO.LAB offers CO.STARTERS, a nine-week program that helps to develop, critically examine and fine-tune ideas to “turn a passion into a sustainable and thriving business.” Since its beginning in 2013, CO.STARTERS has graduated more than 1,350 individuals from the program and now helps startup communities nationwide. Find more information and apply for the next cohort beginning June 5 click here.

For entrepreneurial ventures in need of scaling and funding:

The CO.LAB Accelerator offers resources such as workspace, mentorship and connection to potential investors. The 100-day program consists of “meetings and daily interactions with CO.LAB’s Entrepreneur in Residence to help you identify goals and connect with the resources needed to achieve them.”  

For entrepreneurs developing ultra-high-bandwidth business applications:

CO.LAB offers GIGTANK 365, an annual program utilizing Chattanooga’s ubiquitous 1-gig fiber network to “help startups invent new business models for the hyper-connected world.”  The accelerator has graduated 58 companies and raised $23 million in capital.

CO.LAB is taking the summer to assess and better serve regional and nationwide demands, but entrepreneurs can apply for the Accelerator and GIGTANK 365 to receive information regarding future programming.

The post The Company Lab Continues to Iterate with Chattanooga’s Changing Economy appeared first on Startup Southerner.

This post was contributed by Kathleen Hamrick, director of marketing and education at Innovation Depot. 

Alabama’s first seed accelerator, Velocity, launched in Fall 2016. Over 100 applications were received and less than 10% were accepted to the inaugural 2017 class. Each Velocity Accelerator startup received $50,000 in seed funding, workspace at Innovation Depot, over $800,000 in perks, and mentoring by proven entrepreneurs and investors. Today, at Iron City, the nine startups will pitch to investors in Alabama’s first-ever Demo Day. You can attend the event for free, but if you aren’t able to make it by in person, here’s the scoop on the startups:

Book-It Legal is an online marketplace that connects law firms to law students, previously featured on Startup Southerner. The startup makes it easy for law firms to post projects online and is a platform that allows top tier law students to commit to projects, for pay. Book-It Legal secured $50,000 from Alabama Launchpad prior to entry into Velocity.

Covalence is Alabama’s first software developer bootcamp. The home-grown program was originally founded as Depot/U and has been re-branded as it expands to markets outside of Alabama. Covalence is focused on expanding to mid-market cities (500k-1.5 million metro area). The startup is expanding to Chattanooga and Fort Lauderdale on May 30, 2017.

Delect enables automatic mobile payments at restaurants, regardless of group size.

GLOW offers on-demand beauty services. Think Uber, for hair-styling, spray-tanning, and makeup – from skilled professionals (called GLOW-Pros). In month four of operation, GLOW is serving 150 clients per month with 20 GlowPros and is in the final stages of closing a seed round with two investors.

Healthfundit is crowdfunding for research; it’s an alternative to the shrinking federal funding available to researchers and scientists commercializing technology. A recent BBJ article investigates how funding cuts may impact future biotech. Healthfundit recently partnered with the National Institute for Health (NIH), sourcing top projects eclipsed from federal funding.

Koyote is an Internet of Things startup. It’s primary product under development is Pointz. Pointz is a customer rewards system that uses bluetooth beacons to track customer flow at participating merchants’ storefronts.

Likely AI is driven by an algorithm that identifies which images most resonate with an audience.

Planet Fundraiser takes the pain out of fundraising. The startup’s app helps users raise funds for their favorite schools and not-for-profit organizations through everyday purchases. During the Velocity Accelerator program, the startup partnered with Chick-Fil-A and Shipt, and expanded to Atlanta. Planet Fundraiser recently closed on a one million dollar raise that will support its expansion into Memphis, Nashville, Auburn, Tuscaloosa, and other smaller southeastern markets. The expansion will take place within the next 30-45 days.

Quantalytix hopes to “create the Bloomberg of analytics” by offering software that assesses and analyzes risk in small and large banks across the U.S. Prior to founding Quantalytix, co-founders Chris Aliotta and William Bryant worked as analysts for Regions Bank.

The post 9 Companies Pitching in Velocity, Alabama’s First Seed Accelerator appeared first on Startup Southerner.

Startup Capital is a Tallahassee interview series and podcast focused on spotlighting and promoting the city’s growing entrepreneurial ecosystem. We’ve teamed up with Startup Southerner to bring the stories and lessons of Tallahassee entrepreneurship to you.

For Episode Two of Season Two, we decided to bring in a guest who knows Tallahassee’s community better than anyone: Mayor Andrew Gillum. While Gillum recently announced a run for Florida Governor, that hasn’t stopped him from advocating for Tallahassee startups in the meantime.

Most recently, Gillum began a community-wide initiative called the Tallahassee Innovation Partnership (TIP). Spearheaded by Gillum’s office, the TIP seeks to connect the city’s different institutions in government and higher education with innovative new businesses in town.

Tonight we launched the #TLH Innovation Partnership w/Pitch Night! Thx to all who came out 2 support TLH startups! pic.twitter.com/FZXYwV2ZsZ

— Andrew Gillum (@AndrewGillum) December 1, 2016

To learn more about that initiative, Mayor Gillum’s own experience in entrepreneurship, and local government’s role in fostering a startup community, listen to the podcast below. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe on iTunes, and follow @cuttlesoft on Twitter for more updates from the Startup Capital.

The post Tallahassee’s Mayor Talks Innovation on Startup Capital Podcast appeared first on Startup Southerner.

Population 3,392, Water Valley, Mississippi, is home to an innovative organization that is helping break the cycle of small-town youth having limited access to high-wage jobs. In May, the first graduates of Base Camp Coding Academy—a free coding bootcamp for high schoolers—will have the knowledge, skills and confidence to get employed as software developers. We talked with Kagan Coughlin, Base Camp’s cofounder and executive director and one of the reasons Water Valley is beating its small-town odds. Here’s what he had to say about the program and the impact it’s having in Mississippi:

Why did you start Base Camp Coding Academy?

Because our young people are capable, and deserve an opportunity like this. And our business community needs their talent and passion now and in the future. And if all it takes is a little coordination to bring two parties together for their mutual benefit, how could you not?

Are people surprised to learn about a coding academy in Water Valley?

Yup.

What can you tell us about Base Camp Coding Academy’s first year?

Fourteen students started at Base Camp June 1, and 11 are on track to graduate May 6. The students have been fully capable of grasping the content, at speeds that exceeded our highest expectations. Students are cycling out of the classroom to spend a 40 hour work week job shadowing at area employers, like CSpire, Renasant Bank, FNC / CoreLogic, MTrade and NextGear.  They have been actively applying and interviewing with those companies, as well as with FedEx and Howard Industries. Our hope is that each student will have a solid job offer before they graduate on May 6.

Meanwhile, the support from the business, philanthropic and educational communities has been amazing. Beyond financial support, these groups have contributed time, hosted the students at their facilities to add to the educational experience, and mentored all of us.

Since it serves high schoolers, does Base Camp Coding Academy coincide with the school year?

Yes and no. On the front end we ask the students to forego their summer vacation after graduating from high school. They work 40 hours a week through the summer, and straight through the fall/winter/spring, to graduate in the ballpark of when other educational programs are letting out for the summer, or preparing for graduation. This is the time of year when many businesses are expecting to make new hires of college graduates; it seemed like a good idea to tap into that existing behavior.

Do these types of job opportunities exist in Water Valley, or is that kind of the point of coding, that it doesn’t matter where you are?  

There may be, and certainly in the future as these students grow their careers they will have the opportunity to work remotely. At this time we are focusing on the first step of their career with a regional employer.

What are your plans for the organization in the next year? Where do you see it in three years, five years?

We are actively vetting the incoming class, and have sufficient funding to accept 25 students to begin June 1. We are working through a three-year pilot. The success of the pilot is based on the success of the graduates in the work force, which takes several years to gauge. The goal is to have clear metrics in the third year, with two graduated classes gainfully employed. At that time, if the employers are pleased and the interest is strong in our high schools, we will start the work of fundraising and growing the program.

Students are nominated, right? What’s the criteria? Do you target any specific type of student, such as girls, minorities, underprivileged?

Where do you start looking for that smart, hard-working young person who does not have a viable opportunity to attend college? It was one of the most difficult challenges we faced, and we first went to education experts to ask for their ideas. Their idea was to ask them to help identify the students, as every teacher knows a student or three that fit the criteria we look for. Once students are nominated by a teacher we conduct interviews and have them complete an aptitude test.

Every student in Mississippi falls into a category that is considered underrepresented in the tech world; minority, women, underprivileged, and/or rural. We certainly spend a little extra effort reaching out to young women, as we have some significant stereotypes to educate around when it comes to who can be a great coder/software engineer.

What role does Base Camp Coding Academy play in preparing Mississippi’s workforce for these new tech-centric jobs?

We expect our students to come to us at a zero-experience-with-coding base-line, and we will bring them up to level-1-software-developer before they leave us. Each student who successfully walks this path will at a minimum educate their friends and family that this is a career that is possible. In time we hope to see awareness translate into inspiration, and programs like Base Camp, and the software departments at our existing higher education institutions, will be scrambling to provide these opportunities to every student who is willing to apply themselves.

We can only dream of the positive impacts a thriving talent pool will have on our business community, and our state as a whole.

Are Mississippi schools doing a good or bad job preparing students for these types of jobs?

I think the hard answer here is that for the most part they are not, simply because this field has not reached the radar of most of our K-12 institutions. We did not realize when we first set out to recruit students for Base Camp that we would first need to explain to the administrators and teachers what software development and coding is.

There are wonderful organizations that are working on building awareness, like Code.org. and in Mississippi there are groups that are running pilots inside high schools to incorporate coding into the curriculum. For example, North Mississippi Community College and Mississippi State are both pushing these initiatives. In many ways Base Camp and programs like it cheat by avoiding the inertia that larger education institutions must wrestle with.

The post Base Camp Coding Academy Gives Rural Mississippi Youth Access to New Career appeared first on Startup Southerner.

Haley Blackburn is an Alabama gal. Greenville, a town of about 8,000 people, was her birthplace, as well as where she spent most of her childhood. She also graduated in 2013 from the University of Alabama with a degree in hospitality management with a concentration in event planning.  

In the last few years, she’s also become part of Alabama that has been steadily growing: the tech community. How did she make this happen? A coding bootcamp in Birmingham.

“I started my career planning weddings and special events, but soon found that wedding planning was not what I saw myself doing long term,” says Blackburn. As she began her new career search, she first landed a job at Moxy, a Birmingham-based talent and creative agency.

It was at Moxy when she thought to check out a coding bootcamp at the nearby Innovation Depot. “I had taken an HTML/CSS course in college and enjoyed it, but had never considered it as a career. I decided to take a look at the pre-coursework and ended up loving it!”

Blackburn became part of the very first cohort of Depot/U, a ten-week coding bootcamp at Innovation Depot that was developed in partnership with Platypi, a digital marketing agency with a development focus. “I was a little nervous about making a career change, but the tuition was affordable, and I thought I may never get this opportunity again,” recalls Blackburn. “So it was time to go all in.”

After completing the bootcamp, an internship with several of her classmates at BBVA Compass followed. Then came the job offer as a front-end developer at Platypi. And she is now the program director for the very program that helped her enter the tech industry, albeit with a new twist.

Since the 2015 launch of the coding bootcamp at Innovation Depot, the program has 62 graduates and boasts a 90% employment within six months of graduation. And this 10-week bootcamp model, along with a one-week front-end fundamentals course, has now been rebranded to go beyond the Innovation Depot as Covalence. The name is inspired by the covalent bonds, and just as unstable atoms share electrons to achieve balance, Covalence plans to share its coding expertise with other states in order to balance the demand for skilled employees with a highly trained workforce on a regional and national scale.

The first expansion will take place in the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and will operate in partnership with The Enterprise Center. The first bootcamp classes in Chattanooga will begin later this spring. (You can check out their free JavaScript crash course coming up on March 27.)

And Blackburn is enthusiastic to lead Covalence, especially because she understands the journey herself. “Learning to code has bettered my career in so many aspects. Taking this course was a huge risk for me, but I knew it was something I must do in order to make the change that I wanted for my career. I would not have the opportunities that I have today without Covalence.”

For anyone who is thinking about attending Covalence or any other coding program, Blackburn leaves a few words of advice: “If you are ready to make this career change, make sure you are ready to go all in. You will get out what you put in. Meet as many people in the industry as possible. Meetups, workshops and events are important, but the most important part is not only what you’ll learn but it’s the people you get the opportunity to meet and network with. The tech community is so awesome.”

The post This Birmingham-Born Coding Bootcamp’s New Name Reflects Focus on Building Tech Communities appeared first on Startup Southerner.

Startup Southerner has been desperate to connect with someone in Mississippi to talk about the state of startups and innovation in the Magnolia State. On our third attempt, we were directed to Tim Mask, a partner at the Jackson, Mississippi ad agency Maris, West and Baker, and the director of two innovation initiatives—FastForward and Mississippi Innovation Economy—designed to support the state’s efforts to boost its innovation economy. He’s a bona fide Mississippi mover and shaker, and, oh, he also has a lot to say about the state of startups and innovation in Mississippi. Bear with us (and him), it’s a long interview. But we think you’ll learn a thing or two or seven or twenty about Mississippi and the plight of the startup there.

SS: How long have you been an entrepreneur? Can you briefly describe your journey?

TM: My career path hasn’t been that of what one thinks of as a “traditional entrepreneur.” I didn’t start a company or bootstrap a new product (although I have a couple of side bets currently in development…stay tuned, America!). However, shortly after I began working in the advertising business, the entire industry was upended by seismic disruption in the media landscape, the likes of which we really hadn’t experienced since the onset of broadcast technology in the 1930s. This change hasn’t stopped; it’s accelerated, actually. We have been forced to run our 47-year-old shop less like an established firm and much more like a nimble startup. This meant that titles and tightly defined “departments” became little more than meaningless monikers. Rather than sticking to a strict set of proven business protocols we have had to make predictions, be proactive and really find new ways for building solutions.

SS: Why is supporting Mississippi innovation important to you? And what does that say about this kind of need in the state?

TM: One thing I learned that I believe is a fundamental and vital quality among entrepreneurs is that you can’t “wait around on somebody else.” As a young guy in business I was aggressive in taking ideas to those above me and waiting for a direction to implement. Sometimes that worked great. Other times, not so much. Nike built a colossus on the slogan “Just Do It.” I came to understand this wasn’t just a catch-phrase, it was a directive.

Taking a more aggressive role in building my business, I found that geography was a limitation. We’re a Mississippi company that sells creativity. This presented a two-fold problem. First, there wasn’t enough pie being baked in Mississippi for everyone in my industry to have a piece. Second, looking to go outside of Mississippi for clients, we were constantly fighting an uphill battle against negative “Mississippi stereotypes.” Some of these are justified, but many were not. I literally had the thought, “the hell with this…let’s create our own ecosystem here from which we can grow companies that can be our clients.” That’s when I really began looking into the issue of Mississippi’s brain drain: Losing more intellectual capital, in terms of knowledge economy workers, than we gain. As someone put it, we were “watering the grass” of other states. It’s not that we lack native talent to start great companies, it’s that we lose a lot of our talent.

I started something called the “Mississippi Brain Drain Commission” that eventually became Fast Forward. This initiative has come to focus on three main issues that are essential to bolstering Mississippi’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. First, advocating for policies that incentivize recent college graduates with certain degrees to take qualifying jobs within Mississippi. Second, advocating for universal coding/computer science education for Mississippi students. At the very least, we would like to see computer science in high schools count as a core math/science rather than just an elective. Another partner of mine at MWB, Randy Lynn, helped to co-found the Kids Code Mississippi project which has taken a lead on much of this aspect. And third, helping to develop a policy framework which will make Mississippi more attractive to Millennial-age freelancers and developers. Our hope would be that Mississippi be recognized as the first “telework friendly” state.

To circle back to the original question, the impetus for these initiatives never was purely altruistic. The better Mississippi does, the better my company does, and the better life I can provide for my family. But I also think that dynamic applies to most of our citizens, and thus our state.

That said, there are numerous entities in Mississippi—public, private and nonprofit—that are all working in the same direction and doing things that are absolutely essential to building this innovation/entrepreneurial ecosystem. Organizations like Innovate Mississippi are critical to helping connect would-be entrepreneurs with resources and providing incubation help. The Mississippi Development Authority’s entrepreneur center is working to create a policy framework more aligned to the needs to entrepreneurs and startup culture in general. Even private entities like Coalesce and Mantle co-working spaces in Jackson are important players in the overall scheme. The biggest issue I see is one of connectivity—being able to work outside of your own silo. And we’re getting better at this. Recently several entities have come together to initiate a knowledge economy education project that will be announced soon. The cooperation and participation in this has been very encouraging.

SS: As an outsider it’s easy to lump all startup activity together into a statewide thing. But this is probably incorrect, right? Where is startup activity most noticeable in the state? Where are there gaps? 

TM: Mississippi isn’t really a big state. Our population hovers somewhere around 3 million people. I think this can actually be a blessing for us. A smaller population means that relatively small successes can result in disproportionately large movements of the needle.

For instance, take the Base Camp Coding Academy in Water Valley. Their one-year course will graduate 11 “keyboard-ready” developers. Some of these developers will not yet be old enough to have a drink with co-workers after hours. All 11 of these students came from economically challenging backgrounds. Now many if not most of these kids (and they are kids) will be highly compensated developers in a growing Mississippi knowledge economy. Can you imagine the impact that will have for their families and their communities? Next year Basecamp is expanding capacity to take 25 students. It is truly an amazing story.

Back to your original question about startup activity across the state. The Delta region has always been thought of as economically backward. And it certainly has challenges ranging from workforce development to public health issues. But again, where there are challenges there are opportunities. You don’t need acres of land and high-priced offices to have a high-paying career, anymore. A computer, coding instruction and high speed internet access makes you employable and desirable. There’s some great work going on via the Mississippi State University’s Tech Extension Service to help educate Mississippians on the benefits of rural broadband. When completed, C Spire’s Fiber To The Home initiative will prove to be a huge asset to Mississippi’s knowledge economy infrastructure. If you think about the real future of work, Mississippi is actually well positioned to be not just competitive, but a real leader. We just need a little investment in training and education of the opportunities.

I singled out the Delta in answer to that question, but I believe that much of what I said applies to the rest of the state, as well. One thing I would say is that we should take a look at how tech transfer is treated by our major research universities. Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley because Stanford enacted a very liberal tech transfer policy. I think if our universities looked to this model, we would see a wave of startups sooner rather than later.

SS: What would you say is Mississippi’s biggest strength when it comes to startups? 

I’ve actually partially outsourced this question to my good friend and self-styled “Serial Civic Volunteer,” Jackson-area attorney David Pharr. David is a former board member of the Greater Jackson Chamber Partnership and is the license holder of the TEDxJackson event. In addition to being an entrepreneur himself, a significant portion of David’s law practice has focused on helping Mississippi startups get off the ground.

David sent me a simple message when I just texted him your question. It said, “…untapped university resources and low costs…I think those 2 are equal….”

I had mentioned previously the issue with tech transfer in some instances, and the fact that Silicon Valley is in large part an outgrowth of pet projects began by Stanford University faculty. Mississippi universities maintain world class projects and programs in biotech, aerospace, polymer science, and advanced/additive manufacturing just to name a few. WORLD CLASS. The University of Mississippi Medical Center has a working agreement with the Mayo Clinic for clinical research. One of only a handful of such arrangements in the world. And this is just one example at one university. Mississippi’s universities really are economic development giants waiting to explode, given we create the right circumstances.

To David’s second point—costs. Yep. From a startup standpoint, this really is a great deal about cost of living. You can simply make less and live comfortably here. And the more dollars you make, the further they will go. Factor into that a low overall cost of doing business, and there’s a very low barrier to entry for a startup business. It should be our goal to see Mississippi’s cost of living steadily rise, an indicator that economic activity is robust. In the meantime, there’s no reason not to take advantage of the low cost of doing business here.

SS: What are Mississippi’s biggest challenge or weakness?

TM: This is the easiest question you’ve asked today. Investment Capital. There simply isn’t enough of it here in the state. Many times when entrepreneurs do find VC from another location there are strings tied to it that require the business to relocate. And this is one challenge that is difficult to overcome as it relies on other people 1) making A LOT of money and 2) having a mindset to reinvest it in startups here. The irony lies in the fact that the cost of doing business is lower in Mississippi, so theoretically an entrepreneur would need less startup cash here. Frustrating.

Some of the group I run with have talked about the idea of setting up a “Mississippi-Expats” VC fund. Successful entrepreneurs who have “made it,” and don’t reside in Mississippi but maintain emotional ties to their home state could create a fund specifically for Mississippi entrepreneurs. It’s an idea, anyway.

SS: When we think about Mississippi, race and disparity come to mind, particularly in startups where white men tend to have a leg up, at least when it comes to funding. We have nothing to base that on beyond perception. It’s an issue everywhere, but is it amplified in Mississippi?

TM: It’s an issue, but I don’t think it’s necessarily amplified in Mississippi. As a white man, I always run the risk of speaking out of turn on a question like this. I’m in no way qualified to opine on the topic of race and disparity first hand. I just want to offer that caveat. I will say that, as I noted before, just being from Mississippi can hold a stigma vis a vis VC funding, so I’m certain that a double stigma doesn’t make a positive.

That being said, I think that there is a unique opportunity for the deep South in general and Mississippi in specific. I believe we have the highest percentage of African-Americans in the country, at around 40% of our overall population. You alluded to the fact that Silicon Valley has a diversity problem. I think the stat is something like 2% or less of SV workers are African-American…and even lower for African-American women. SV also knows diversity is an issue and practically every company has some sort of internal initiative trying to increase their percentages of non-white, non-male employees.

With a large African-American population and, as I said, understanding that relatively small investments can really move the needle, I think there’s another huge opportunity here. Why can’t Mississippi be a preferred pathway for Silicon Valley to increase their diversity numbers?

But let me digress because I can see by the look on your face what the follow-up question will be: Wouldn’t that pathway, essentially, cause brain drain and further depress Mississippi’s entrepreneurial potential?

Yes. Yes it would. Which is why I’m really torn on this. What could be a great opportunity for an individual to help change the trajectory of their entire family is not the best for the state as a whole. But you don’t want to deny anyone opportunity, right?

So what if we looked at this opportunity from another angle? What if resources were put into place to help women and populations of color 1) gain the skill sets they need to become SV employees but 2) also help them to start their own firms here in Mississippi, while 3) establishing the pathways with Techlandia for these companies to become contract firms and preferred vendors. Talent stays in Mississippi, a new wave of startups blossom, we gain knowledge economy workers, and Silicon Valley has a sustainable avenue to help with their diversity issues.

It could work. And this idea didn’t spring from just my cranium, either. I’ve had conversations with individuals and groups who are interested in working toward creating this “Mississippi to the Valley” pathway. It’s exciting.

SS: Do you think MS is undervalued as a place for startups? 

TM: I love Mississippi. I hope everyone knows that. Elon Musk wants to die on Mars. I’d like to visit Mars, but I’d rather die in Mississippi. That being said, I can’t say that Mississippi is “undervalued” for startups. I think that, in some instances, Mississippi can be considered as undervalued and in other instances, not. From the standpoint of growing a startup ecosystem, I think it’s more important that we focus on producing regular and frequent success stories than talk so much about our “potential,” if that makes sense.

The post The State of Startups in Mississippi appeared first on Startup Southerner.