By Steve Roatch, CEO of Twentyseven Global
The high-speed power of Google Fiber may have given Kansas City entrepreneurs a boost, but a new report by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation reveals that Kansas City’s tech-driven business culture isn’t a recent phenomenon.
Read about how Twentyseven Global is supporting Kansas City entrepreneurship.
Steve Roatch, CEO of Twentyseven Global, said, “Entrepreneurs have always been attracted to Kansas City. The supportive network of investors, innovators and creative thinkers already in the region was what made Google Fiber’s success possible. Only Kansas City could have provided such a strong foundation for growth.”
“What Kansas City’s growing tech density demonstrates is that the metropolitan area had a strongly growing technology sector prior to recent milestones, such as the advent of the high-speed Internet service potential of Google Fiber,” said Dane Stangler, director of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation, in a press release.
According to the report, among large metro areas, Kansas City ranked third in high-tech startup growth from 1990 to 2010.
In addition, the report said that Kansas City’s adoption of recent entrepreneurial programs and events is “more of an indication of the underlying strength of the region and its base of talent on which those programs can build than it is a cause of startup activity.”
The report warns that regions should be careful about turning these observations into policies for their own communities, and it concludes that more research must be done to truly understand the local and regional dynamics of entrepreneurship.
