Entrepreneurship is more important than innovation

I’m in Wilmington, NC today and currently listening to someone presenting research on innovation across the state. He’s clearly done quite a bit of research on innovation and how important it is for North Carolina’s future. It’s hard to disagree with him.

That being said, how do you get more innovation to actually happen? Talking about it is good… but what next?

Having visited 35 other cities on the tech tour this year, it seems to me that everyone keeps talking about innovation as if it’s some sort of treasure hunt or silver bullet. As if talking about it will get more people to somehow do it.

Instead of talking about innovation, we should be talking about entrepreneurship. The real question for communities across the country ought to be, “why aren’t more people starting companies?”

If moneyball for startups is about investing small amounts of money across a very large number of companies and doubling down on the best of them, perhaps moneyball for cities is about getting more people to start companies and doubling down support for the best of them.

Entrepreneurship > Innovation.

One thought on “Entrepreneurship is more important than innovation”

  1. So true Paul. We’re a start-up on the East Coast and all regret starting the business here – it seems like the “old money” here will only invest in “old companies”. We have a proven solution, users, paid users, etc. and are gaining a major account every month, but, still, no one will invest in us. We keep hearing that we have to get to $50K MRR or $1M ARR for them to even think about us. The West coast guys keep saying – if you were out here, we could talk. It sucks.

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