Austin the Social Startup Capital of the World?

By Nell Edgington

One of the things I talk and write about (possibly ad nauseam) is how well positioned Austin is to lead in the social innovation movement.  Our rank as the 3rd largest venture capital city in the country, our entrepreneurial spirit, our tech focus, our passion for green living and our tremendous wealth all make us uniquely positioned to capitalize (both financially and socially) on the growing movement for innovation and enterprise around social impact.

I’ve written here and here about what elements of a city’s infrastructure are necessary to catalyze social innovation.  And I was particularly excited when Nathaniel Whittemore, Director of the Center for Global Engagement at Northwestern University, described in a recent blog an ideal environment to stimulate successful social enterprise:

So here is what I’d like to see. Someone combines The Hub model of collaborative working space for social entrepreneurs with the Y-Combinator model of funding low-cost tech startups [provide promising startups small amounts of seed capital and intense mentorship and networking in anticipation of further investment ]. In this model, which is geared toward social enterprise, the Y-Combinator style investment would be focused on tech startups that are building services useful for other businesses and social startups (things like Yammer, which is great for keeping a team of volunteers or employees connected to one another). In addition to the cash investment, the tech startups get to work (and maybe even live?) in the Hub space. In return, they give up equity – but also a small chunk of their developer time (25%? 10 hpw?) to pro-bono or reduced cost projects for the nonprofit social entrepreneurs who are part of the same Hub community. This combines the density, talent and energy of the tech startup world with the mission focus of the social enterprise world. All it would take are the right partners. Sounds like a pretty good combination to me…

This sounds just like Austin.  And, in fact, we have these kind of incubators on the pure business side.  For example, Capital Factory is an Austin-based seed stage mentoring program for startups that provides a small amount of seed capital and weekly mentoring sessions by entrepreneurs who have founded successful companies.  What if there were a Capital Factory for social enterprises and social businesses?  I’m not aware of anything like that anywhere else in the country.  Couldn’t Austin pave the way in social enterprise by taking something we already do very well (venture capital, angel investing, start up incubators, entrepreneurial mentoring, etc.) and put a social spin on it? That would be truly innovative and get us out ahead of the curve of what is shaping up to be a huge movement.  And there is financial and social profit to be made.  Don’t we want a piece of that?  It seems such a natural thing to me.  What is stopping it?  And how do we overcome those roadblocks?

If you’re interested in exploring this topic more, join me and Jessica Shortall for our RISE session on March 3rd:  Start Ups with Social Impact where we’ll talk with Austin-based social enterprises and discuss what is required to make Austin a leader in this space.

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Tags: Austin, Capital Factory, Center for Global Engagement, incubator, social business, Social Enterprise, social innovation, The Hub, venture capital, Y-Combinator

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