The Nine C’s of the Atlanta Tech Village

Johnson Cook put together a great presentation about the Atlanta Tech Village for the AIM Speak Easies: Rapid Talks From Brilliant Minds series in Omaha. I’m borrowing the nine C’s from his presentation and presenting my own thoughts on them here:

• Core Values – Everything starts with the core values. For us, they are the following: be nice, dream big, pay it forward, and work hard / play hard. We can’t pick winning ideas but we can set the foundation with strong core values.
• Curated – We have an application process for membership that starts with a tour of the Village. As part of our focus on building the best place possible for startups, it’s critical we curate membership.
• Collaboration – Creating an environment that promotes serendipitous interactions increases formal and informal collaboration. Startups helping startups increases the likelihood of success.
• Chaos – Having so many different entrepreneurs under one roof, combined with the desire to push the limits, results in chaos on a regular basis. We roll with the chaos and are constantly improving.
• Concentrated – Assembling 100+ startups under the same roof makes for great density, which increases the efficiency and economies of scale for everything.
• Colossal – Our goal is nothing less than creating 10,000 new jobs in Atlanta over the next 10 years. Go big or go home.
• Community – The core of the Village is the people and we have an amazing community. Community is the main differentiator from a standard office building.
• Control – Owning the physical real estate, making investments with a 20 year horizon, and not having external investors allows us to control the entire experience. We’re not perfect but we strive to be great.
• Celebrity – Spotting several Tesla Model S electric cars in the parking deck and bringing by CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are two ways we incorporate a little celebrity excitement in the Village.

So, there you have it — the nine C’s of the Atlanta Tech Village. What else would you add?