Monica Selby
There’s a lot of buzz in the startup world about how startups stimulate job growth. A healthy company that employs dozens to hundreds of people works wonders for a local economy and culture. See Zappos and Las Vegas.
With that in mind, a lot of organizations are popping up in different regions with the goal of encouraging entrepreneurship and stimulate economic growth. We’ve written a lot about Start Co, recently about their partnership with the Ohio-based Jumpstart America.
Yesterday, Start Co and Jumpstart America unveiled a plan to increase entrepreneurship in the Memphis area. Called MEMx the plan includes several regional leaders in business and the local community.
Memphis regularly lags behind the rest of the nation in economic indicators, and much of the money injected into the city are “poverty dollars.”
Start Co and their partners are determined to change that.
“MEMx plan partners have an aligned vision to advance entrepreneurship in Memphis through this new approach that encourages an entrepreneurial mindset and appreciation across the community,” Start Co’s co-president Andre Fowlkes said in a statement. “To help Memphis establish the building blocks of a thriving economy, it’s absolutely critical that we’re deliberately inclusive in our efforts.”
MEMx will seek to build on Memphis’ unique strengths and opportunities, find the region’s entrepreneurial potential, and continue to learn how to best grow the Memphis economy. The next steps include fundraising and expansion of some current initiatives already in place, like the local accelerators, which are currently accepting applications.
In the startup tech world, we often get very focused on individual companies and their products. Start Co is unique in that they are thinking about how to best help their city first and are leveraging local tech entrepreneurs to do it.
At Nibletz, we are very familiar with the city of Memphis and the Memphis startup scene. It’s a great city, with so many exciting growth opportunities. In recent years the food scene and the live music scene have both exploded, bringing health and vitality to areas that many people had given up on. The success of MEMx could help Memphis grow its economy as quickly as its culture has grown in the last few years.
By the way, there’s another great startup event happening in Memphis this spring:
The “Must-Attend Conference for Entrepreneurs” Everywhere Else Tennessee is headed back to Memphis this Spring. We’re releasing the first 50 tickets for 50% off exclusively to our newsletter subscribers on Jan 13th. Don’t miss your shot by signing up here!
