Bloomburg Businessweek just posted their list of top 10 cities for startups and guess what? Bend comes in at #4. The list was compiled using data from ZoomProspector.com, which has some pretty interesting stats for Bend.
Personally, my gut is telling me this is a bit optimistic on BW’s part. Certainly there’s a lot we could be doing to be a better spawning ground for startups. But Bend does have a lot going for it. (I obviously voted with my feet when I moved here a few years ago so I can’t be all that pessimistic, right?) ’Would love to see comments on how people feel we compare to other cities on that list.
BTW, Mike Berkley is attributing our ranking to Dick Luebke, but I don’t know the details behind that:
All because of @rluebke RT @tomturnbull: Bend, OR makes Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s top ten cities for startups http://bit.ly/aAP2XY
Anyone out there care to elaborate on this?
[UPDATE: Dick says, "nope, not me" (see his comment below)]
This is a good example of how numbers crunched in a vacuum can lead to silly results. You’d rather start up a company in Bend (as just one example), number 4, or, um, Franklin, Tenn. (#8), than in San Francisco — #9?
I’m all for people reading the study uncritically and piling into their station wagons for Bend (including VCs), but I’m not impressed with the methodology.
Now, if we retitled the survey as “Up and Coming Small Cities for Start-ups,” it might have looked less like over-reaching.
Still, no harm working to get Bend to #4 legitimately. (And, fwiw, the BendUp Business Planning Workshop still meets every month).
Cameron
I agree completely with Cameron. But still nice publicity for Bend and Central Oregon. And for the record, it absolutely had nothing to do with me! Mike Berkley is an entrepreneur friend in Portland who’s company SplashCast won Angel Oregon in 2006 and sadly was shut down in 2009.
So what does being #4 on the start-up list really mean? I would be more interested in what the unemployment rate of the top 10 start-up cities is. Sounds to me like a reporter from BusinessWeek wanted to spend some time in fun towns.