2021: The Great Acceleration of the Rise of the Rest & the End of “Silicon X Syndrome.” (Part I)
Cities are Like Startups
Cities are like startups. And like many other industries, “business as usual” has been completely disrupted by the coronavirus.
Many industries temporarily froze in March-April 2020, paralyzed by the uncertainty that an invisible enemy unleashed. But from the back half of 2020 into 2021, we are bearing witness to accelerated adoption and transformational change in industry after industry. For example, there is much talk about the “great acceleration” of trends like e-commerce and telehealth, which are driving tremendous momentum and success for well-positioned startups in industries like retail and healthcare.
I would argue that there also needs to be more talk about cities across the country — not just a select one or two — who are well-positioned to benefit from “the great acceleration” of a talent migration away from the coastal tech hubs that could drive generational change for Rise of the Rest cities. For many of those cities– who have been laying the foundational bricks of innovation and entrepreneurship in their communities for the last decade or more — this can be their moment as the tech industry’s investors, founders, and employees reimagine where they work, live and play. Like startups, there are cities in every region of this country who are hiding in plain sight, poised to become a pack of “overnight successes”, ten years in the making. In our recently published 2021 Ecosystem Playbook, we tell the stories of several of these cities across the country and how they are supporting startups in the wake of the pandemic.
Silicon X Syndrome
So if cities are like startups, what “startup-ish” characteristics might they exhibit? One characteristic I have discovered and tracked with fascination since 2016 — in the 40 cities I’ve had the pleasure of visiting for the work I lead at Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund– is what I affectionately call “Silicon X Syndrome.”
When startups are very young they are often still searching for the perfectly succinct way to explain what the business does, who needs it, why anyone should care, and how they make money. So the oft-elusive “elevator pitch” is instead replaced with a shorthand: “we are the Uber for X.” “We are the Facebook for Y.” “We are the Google of Gen Z.” And for years, cities across the country who were building their emerging tech hubs have done the same thing: I have visited or otherwise engaged Silicon Prairie, Silicon Harbor, Silicon Hills, Silicon Peach, Silicon Forest and Silicon Holler, just to name a few. When these startup hubs were still nascent, they used the “Silicon X” shorthand to signify that “there is tech and innovation happening here.” But most startups who use the “we are the X for Y” shorthand do not achieve breakout success. Often, that’s because they are presenting something that has already been commoditized as a still-new innovation or they are trying to replicate a platform for a much more niche or verticalized market. The companies that break out and scale instead find their own narrative to succinctly explain their value prop in their own words. They can stand on their own merits to explain “Why me? Why now? Who cares?”
The End of Silicon X Syndrome
But the reality — and the magic — of Rise of the Rest cities is that they are not like Silicon Valley. And that’s a good thing. That difference — the unique DNA of each city — is core to its competitive advantage. Another key principle of Rise of the Rest draws from Steve Case’s 2016 book, The Third Wave, which explains that place is a competitive advantage in the “third wave”, where digital transformation is upending traditional industries that impact all aspects of our lives. Unlike the “second wave”, which fundamentally centered around building on top of the internet (created in the “first wave”) and contributed to the rise of Silicon Valley and the app economy, in the third wave being closer to customers, having the “neighborhood” connections of a backyard industry, and the deep domain expertise of having previously worked in the legacy industry yourself, makes place matter more. As the great acceleration of the Rise of the Rest takes shape, cities will increasingly shed their Silicon X Syndrome and instead more publicly stake claim to their unique value propositions.
One city that is doing this right is Miami. I love watching the explosion of interest in the Miami tech ecosystem and more importantly — the way in which Miami’s entrepreneurs, investors, and elected officials are publicly embracing and activating this opportunity. Instead of trying to explain how they are Silicon X, they are publicly showcasing #MiamiTech, revealing that there is so much more to the city than just the hype. The Miami ecosystem, which we visited on our ROTR 8.0 road trip in 2019, boasts key ingredients for ecosystem success:
· A diversity of leadership led by many women and immigrants including organizations like eMerge Americas, Wyncode, Venture Café, Babson WIN, Code Fever, Endeavor Miami, Krillion Ventures, Refresh Miami, WhereBy.Us Miami DDA and Space Called Tribe;
· A proactive and engaged city government led by Mayor Francis Suarez; emerging microhub neighborhoods like Wynwood that marry the arts and tech to inspire creativity and community; and
· A massive higher education infrastructure in Miami Dade College, which boasts one of the largest student enrollments in the country; and a deeply committed and mission-oriented philanthropic leader in the Knight Foundation.
Every city will not succeed in breaking out of the pack. Just like every startup does not achieve breakout success. But those who do break out will hopefully become the next iconic startup cities of a new generation of dreamers, doers, investors, and pragmatic optimists.
