Creative-Startups

Startup Accelerators for Creators: An Unmet Need

We Need More Startup Resources for Creators

Are you a creative entrepreneur, or “creator,” and wondering where all the love is? Where are the startup accelerators, investors, and boot camps for creative startups?  Despite contributing over $700billion to the US economy, creative entrepreneurs struggle to find support that meets their unique needs as founders of high growth ventures.  As…

The Creative Economy. It’s Bigger than You Think.

How Will Your Community Compete?

Communities are experiencing unprecedented economic disruptions as interconnected digital technologies proliferate and efficiencies in global markets expands. Human creativity and ingenuity have never been more essential to the economic well being of communities. Demand for creative goods and services – and the creative economy in general – is growing by leaps and…

We Need a Creative Corp – Not a Common Core

You can PARCC this where the sun…

Today my 6th grader, who earns straight A’s and is a perfect student – maybe even OCD about it all –  was totally stressed out about taking the Common Core PARCC tests this week.  Her dad and I have said multiple times, “Don’t worry about it – just stay focused and relaxed and you’ll do fine.  These test don’t matter to your grades or anything.”  We are hoping…

Why Should Entrepreneurs Woo Other Entrepreneurs?

Short answer: Because unrequited love sucks.

If you are like most of us creative entrepreneurs, you probably spend time fantasizing about getting your label taken up by a market leader. Or getting on Target’s shelves. Or being called out at the Oscar’s as “the world’s most brilliant new designer”. Which is ok because it keeps the dream alive!  Fantasies like this give us the push we need to get…

The Death of Kickstarter (or) Why the Crowds are Dispersing

Kickstarter Should do a Campaign for Itself.

Today I sent an email to two guys I supported on Kickstarter.  They had developed a sleek wooden standing desk and I “invested” $300.  Their campaign was successfully funded and I was delighted thinking about my new desk – to be coming by mid-December.  Then in early December they emailed saying they were making a few design tweaks and the desks would…

Putting the Makers in Creative Placemaking

Creative Entrepreneurs are Creative Place Makers

The creative placemaking movement is exciting.  But it may be missing a bigger opportunity to fundamentally shift the role of creatives/artists in planning and building vibrant communities.  (If Creative Placemaking is a new concept to you, jump to the bottom of this post to read more about it.)  The individuals and teams who make creative places…

Investing in Creative Entrepreneurs

Meow Wolf “Arts” Creative Entrepreneurs

Raising nearly $3 million in private investment and support over the past six months, Meow Wolf — Creative StartupsAccelerator 2014 Top Finalist–is off like a rocket.  We made a $25,000 investment from our tiny fund.  Investments in creative startups are on the rise.  Which I guess could mean that I don’t need to make an argument on behalf of investing in…

ArtPlace, Zunis, and Pinterest, Oh My.

We (Creative Startups) are finalists for a 2015 ArtPlace grant in partnership with the Indigenous Design and Planning Institute at UNM.  So, last week the team and I spent a full day in Zuni Pueblo. If you have ever been to Zunilands you know it is nestled amongst pine covered red rock mesas, 120 miles southwest of Albuquerque.  It is the spot where Europeans first encountered Americans – in 1539

Vocabulary for Creative Startups

Vocabulary for Creative Startups (Part 1 of 10)

“We needed a vocabulary list.  I didn’t know what you were talking about when you first talked about ‘IPO’s”.

Yesterday I published a post on the definition of entrepreneurship.  And the minute I hit “Publish” I recalled the above piece of feedback we got about our accelerator.  Duh.  I should have realized that.  (One of many things we should have…

What is your definition of entrepreneurship?

It seems over the past decade the application of the awe-inspiring tag of “entrepreneur” has been cornered by those building businesses in the “high tech” fields.  Let’s set aside for a moment the notion that some of us use “low” tech to build businesses while others use “higher” (?) technologies.  I’ll write more on that later.  First, I want to…

News flash: My new blog is up!

This blog is for you.  I mean that to sound like a toast. The kind of toast you give at a wedding where you finally get to stand up and say all the things you have wanted to say to someone you love, but you have 60 seconds so you pour everything into the tone and emotion of what you are saying, you use dramatic pauses and silence, and you leave the people around the room caught up in your sparse…

Announcing the Creative-Startups top finalists! 

Congratulations to Meow Wolf, Synapse Apps, and Etkie for winning based on their business pitches to investors and their peers!

If you are working to launch or grow your business, and you are a creative or artistic person, you are a step ahead of many of us.  Working with Creatives in the range of creative/cultural fields - music, film, performance, design - for nearly a decade has demonstrated to me that CREATIVITY is the key to success as an entrepreneur.   So why do Creatives have so few choices out there when it comes to startup resources?  It seems that tech entrepreneurs are drowned in workshops, curriculum, mentors, investors.  That question has plagued/inspired (?) us for years at GCCE. So, we decided to launch a bevy of entrepreneurship resources for Creatives because we have seen the power of creative people unleashed when they successfully build their own businesses! Last month we launched Creative-Startups.org and the interest from around the world has been exciting.   Designed specifically for Creatives, by Creatives, CS is unique:

Built in collaboration with faculty of Stanford University

Pedagogy combines distance and in-person learning

1:1 Mentoring with experienced design, film, music, media entrepreneurs

Global network of creative visionaries, founders, CEO’s

Nationwide network of creative sector investors