Within the past month, three different local Atlanta groups brought up the question, “What does the Atlanta startup community need most?” Now, I don’t have the answer, but I’ve heard a number of suggestions.
Here are a few ideas that were brought up for the Atlanta startup community:
- More Risk Capital – Additional idea and seed stage capital to address the earliest and riskiest startup stages
- More Growth Capital – Additional growth capital for local startups that have already de-risked most of the equation, have north of $5 million in recurring revenue, and have a shot at being a home run (growth capital is already readily available since it is so mobile, but the challenge now is that most of the value created from big wins goes to investors in other parts of the country)
- More Modern Entrepreneur Training – Too many programs are geared towards traditional ways of thinking about entrepreneurship including business plan writing and getting ready to raise money without having customer proof points — there’s a need for lean startup, customer discovery, and business model canvas training
- Major Annual Tech Startup Conference – Similar to SXSW in Austin, the idea is to bring together a number of events into a packed week and draw attendees from around the country
- More Community Coordination – With all the organizations and events in town, there’s overlap and competing agendas, which is to be expected, leading to some desire to more centrally coordinate things
If I had to pick one, I’d choose more modern entrepreneur training. With more modern entrepreneur training, there will be more lean startups, which will result in more compelling startups, which will result in more success stories. More successful startups is what Atlanta needs most.
What else? What are your thoughts on these ideas for the Atlanta startup community as well as other ideas?
David Cummings on Startups 
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