The start-up business world is coming to Augusta later in 2025. Until then, leaders at Make Startups are visiting start-up incubators all over the country.
It has been almost a year since ABD first told you about a local entrepreneurial group getting ready to crisscross America to learn and share best practices.
Make Startups is based in theClubhou.se and is an offshoot of HACK Augusta. It is in the Georgia Cyber Innovation and Training Center.
Eric Parker, CEO of Make Startups, told ABD they have been visiting from the West Coast to the South and East Coast.
“Our first stop was in Reno, Nev., then we did Sacramento, then we did Oakland,” he said. “After that Birmingham and Fayetteville, Ga. We did Shenandoah Valley, Va. We did a series of episodes in Washington, D.C., where we met with the directors at the National Science Foundation, the US Small Business Administration, and then another ecosystem builder working in the DC-Maryland area.”
That was followed by stops in Baltimore and Denver. The stops are recorded and posted as episodes to Parker’s podcast.
“What’s been surprising and delightful for me is how every city we show up in, we’re really greeted, not only with open arms, but also as another subject matter expert, player, and perspective, where most of these communities end up convening large groups of their stakeholders across their entire ecosystem, so that we can provide them with outside perspective about what’s going on in their communities as well,” he said.
The visit to Reno was particularly impactful for Parker. Nevada was the first state to pass what’s called the Right to Start Act.
“What it does is it sets a legislative directive that entrepreneurship is a priority in their state, and that it’s a fundamental right of an individual to start a business,” he explained. “And, as a state, they have to take certain measures to help empower that, like directing a certain amount of state funding towards startups and even establishing an office of entrepreneurship at the state level, under the governor’s office. So, we got to meet with America’s first state Director of Entrepreneurship in that meeting.
From its inception, Parker said the road trip was to learn was does, and doesn’t work in other cities, but also to share lessons learned in Augusta.
“To try to understand how the successes of other communities can be brought to Augusta and then to also take what we’ve done organizationally in the credentialing and workforce development space around entrepreneurship and translate that back to the broader community,” he said, adding it is leading to a major event in 2025.
“One of the things that’s happening is that in the fall of 2025, Augusta has now been selected as the host city for the Startup Champions Network Summit (www.startupchampions.co/). So, we’re going to be bringing the startup community builders from across the entire country into Augusta next November and showing them Augusta as the shining example of how to build a culture of innovation and collaboration.”
Turning his attention back to Reno, Parker said that is an example of how the startup and venture capital ecosystem can grow. Like Augusta, 10 years ago the venture capital in Reno was scarce. Now the city has roughly $1 billion of venture capital invested in startups in their community.
Parker realizes Augusta has a long way to go to build the venture capital side of the community, but much has happened in the 12 years since his group began.
“I think that anybody can look and see that the importance of startups in our community has, after 12 years of hard work, become recognized, and we have a lot of things that are happening, not just with theClubhou.se now, but also with the Cyber Center, also with Augusta Technical College, also with the (Greater Augusta Black Chamber,” he said. “We’re partnering with the Aiken Chamber and the South Carolina Research Authority to also organize a regional pitch contest that’s happening next year in the spring. So, there’s a there’s a wealth of things that are beginning to take shape.”
Parker said the videos recorded on the first part of the road trip represent the first season of what Make Startups will share. The next season will kick off with a trip to Philadelphia in the spring.
“There’s a number of large conferences around this type of work. We’re going to be attending the Main Streets conference, as well as the International Business Innovation Association’s summit,” he detailed. “That is happening Masters Week, but we will be there for those because that is the core of what we do, and meeting people in those ecosystems. We are actively working right now on building a nationwide research study around entrepreneurial skills and outcomes of entrepreneurship, working with several major universities in the country on that, and so that’s going to inevitably take us to a lot of places.”
Parker said one thing that can be helpful in the Augusta area is to grow the local community of mentors.
“There’s a lot of work that exists in the middle space between having an idea and being able to articulate that vision out to the community through a value proposition that people can then pay for,” he said. “I think that for our community to continue to grow in its success, we need to have more people engaged in that process, both as founders, but also as mentors and as investors. So, if there’s anyone out there who would like to give back, who’s had some success, just reach out, because we always need more mentors in our community to help startups.”
Learn more about Make Startups Augusta at www.makestartups.org/
You can watch the podcasts at www.makestartups.org/podcast
They are also on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vU0CO70QEg and click on the Make Startups Podcast link for the full list of episodes.
