Entrepreneurial Goldmine

As a native New Orleanian, I know what a warm, friendly city feels like and can see the stark contrast when I visit beautiful, but cold-shoulder transient cities like Atlanta, LA or New York.  I’ve been living in Texas for almost 10 years and as weird as it feels to write this, there is this undeniable attraction about the entire state of Texas.  And I am not the only one who seems to think so. Texas boasts 3 top 10 cities and 5 top 20 cities (with El Paso sitting at #21, Texas would have 6 cities in the top 20 if you consider that Dallas and Fort Worth are one in the same), with the population growth of the state growing faster than any other state in the union.  So What?  Let’s peel the onion back and figure out if you were going to start a business tomorrow, why should you do it in the secessionist state. 

If you haven’t read my top 8 opportunities, this would be a good time to review.  There will be a test later! (Ten – Entertainment, Nine – Franchises, Eight – Home Schooling, Seven – Digital Signage, Six – Baby Boomers, Five – Business Process Improvement, Four – International Trade and Three – The Power of Green)

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While on the west coast last week visiting a number of clients, partners and prospective partners I heard an interesting entrepreneurial claim.  An employee of a well known national business magazine suggested that most of the entrepreneurs in the United States live on the east and west coast (including chicago).   The statement alone was harmless, it was the premise that caused me to pause.  His thinking was that most of the entrepreneurs are on the coast because the best minds in the country are near the water (or the coast).  Oh, and by the way, the after thought was to include Texas and the Gulf South since we were from Houston. 

On the one hand I thought his perspective was completely absurd, while on the other hand I found myself  increasingly fascinated by the premise and thought that just as Gladwell  compares and contrasts cimcumstance and luck in Outliers , how has circumstance and luck played a role in the lives of entrepreneurs on the east and west coast compared with entrepreneurs in the mid-west , great-plains  and other parts of the internal US.

While I agree that the amount of new startups that originate in Silicon Valley  and Boston outnumber those in Boise and St. Louis, isn’t that a factor of the population?  Although the total population of entrepreneurs in the former  probably exceeds those in the latter, isn’t it just a basic math equation of percentages?  Just because most of the money that funds new ideas originates from the finance industries created or companies in New York and California, isn’t it a function of the financiers staying close to their investments.  I could go on and on, but does all this really mean that the best minds are near the water?

What do you think?