When people talk about Durham, our entrepreneurs are often one of the first things they mention. How did we get here?
Right now is one chapter in a long story of entrepreneurship in Durham. It’s something that’s been a rich part of Durham’s history forever. … People started growing tobacco here, and then it turned out that it smoked really well, and that grew into an unbelievable empire. Move forward 100 years and you have the emergence of Black Wall Street, another 85 years later you get Research Triangle Park, and then another few decades later you have American Underground.
Everybody’s trying to get attention right now around entrepreneurs in their city, and part of what we love about this city is that none of that is manufactured. If the economy takes a nosedive, or if something else pops up that’s the next big thing, Durham will continue to be an entrepreneurial town. It is our industry.
What is it that’s drawing businesses to choose Durham, and to stay here?
When entrepreneurs come into Durham, they love the energy that’s here. The energy of great food, great culture, a tech scene that’s booming – all those different pieces they can see and experience that they’re not expecting. Because when you’re flying across country into a relatively small Southern city, most people’s expectations aren’t to see all that here. We have a dynamic environment that’s attracting national attention.
What’s behind the tech explosion here? How did that happen?
While the explosion is recent, the foundational pieces of that have been in the offing for a while. Case in point: Bronto Software, which was just acquired for about $200 million, started at the American Tobacco Campus in the mid-2000s. Everybody sees this story of “wow, that’s tons of money” – well, that story has been in the works for 10 years. They were built in Durham, they were grown in Durham with support from Durham entities, and now Bronto has this incredible story.
If I boil it down, the reasons are multiple: One, lower-cost real estate that startups can afford. We have a climate of landlords who understand the needs of entrepreneurs. In addition to Capitol Broadcasting [which owns the American Tobacco Campus], we have a lot of landlords around town who will do short-term leases. … The other thing is, you’ve got an increasing quality of life here. In the past, we would graduate students from Duke University, from UNC, from N.C. Central University, and they would leave. … Now they stay and decide to build a company here.
And now it’s exponential because of the density of entrepreneurs. Other cities have challenges because their entrepreneurial activity is spread out. In Durham, we have almost all entrepreneurial activity within five blocks. Entrepreneurs sitting here can walk down the street and ask so-and-so a question. You don’t get the serendipity, the easy interactions otherwise. I think that’s the secret sauce of Durham, is that kind of concentration, that kind of animation of a downtown.
Why is this growth happening now?
Talent. I think in the 21st century, the currency for business is talent. … We’ve moved into an era in our economy where businesses are driven more and more by creativity, design, aesthetics and ideas, and less on mass production, efficiency, those kinds of things. Because of that, talent plays a very important role, and Durham has talent in spades.
You’ve got the great programs at Durham Technical Community College, and then clearly Duke University is one of the top 10 universities in the country, and NCCU is one of the best historically black colleges in the country. And then new programs are popping up that are really interesting – we’re having these short-form digital classes being offered [at American Underground], and over at ATC, The Iron Yard is graduating their fifth cohort of students – there are 35 students graduating right now ready to be entry-level software developers. What we’re showing here is a real talent pipeline, and a thought-out strategy to build and retain talent for businesses located in Durham.
What’s special about our startup community?
Starting a company is hard, and there are other places like Silicon Valley that are much more attractive to startup companies than we are, so people who decide to start companies in Durham are here because they care about the city. They’re here because they want to be here.
I think it’s unique to Durham, and I think there’s a great symbiotic relationship between startups in Durham because of that relationship. … The mindset of “I’m not going to help you because you could steal my idea” doesn’t exist. People believe that better ideas come from collaboration.
I think you see that around the whole city, too. The restaurants that are here, you can trace this incredible family tree of chefs who trained other chefs who are now building restaurants next door to the restaurants they were trained at, and there’s joy in it. Nobody’s getting mad. Everybody has a spirit of, “Let’s keep building Durham. Let’s roll our sleeves up and get to work.”
Was it like that when you got here?
Yes. I noticed immediately an atmosphere of optimism and a can-do attitude. … And that has only scaled as downtown has transformed. I think there’s a lot of concern right now about how Durham is changing because it’s changing really rapidly. I think the thing that’s really critical is to maintain that deep ethos of collaboration and support for each other. We need to always maintain an openness to bringing new people and ideas in.
How does all this relate to the broader community?
A lot of our entrepreneurs here say, “I have two startups: One is my company and one is Durham.” There’s this great reason for startups to be here in addition to business – they want to be involved and invested in community. It’s an interesting development in Durham, that we have a startup community that cares about the wider community. As an example, 65 of our companies [at American Underground] are mentoring young entrepreneurs in high school. That’s not a program we have through the Underground – they just do it because they care about what’s going on here. – as told to Chelsea Kellner
