John Fein

The Midwest is a great place to live, sure, but is it a great place to grow a startup? The answer may surprise you: an unequivocal yes. Here’s what you may not know about the American Midwest: over the past three years, startup ecosystems all over the region — in places like Kansas City, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Detroit, and of course Chicago — have experienced tremendous growth.

Startup Founders may wonder how they would benefit from being a part of an accelerator. As one who ran the Sprint Accelerator powered by Techstars from 2014-2016, I saw many examples of the ecosystem in action – it is so vast and comprised of different types of people – entrepreneurs, mentors, investors, corporate partners – the benefits of being a part of an accelerator ecosystem benefits are equally diverse.

The Cincinnati startup community may not be mentioned in the breath as Boulder or Austin – yet – but it’s a well-rounded and underrated ecosystem. I recently traveled there to lead a “Group Therapy” event at Union Hall. My friends at Cintrifuse brought 15 founders together with myself and Brad Zapp, Managing Partner at local fund Connetic Ventures. The founders were super engaged and asked great questions about raising capital in the Midwest, bringing on co-founders, and scaling.