Rust Belt Cities and the Frontline of Entrepreneurship
South Bend is an interesting place for media focus right now. We have a mayor who is getting national attention in Pete Buttigieg. We are one recipient of a statewide economic development play that has brought millions of dollars to our region. We have a unique personality to those who are watching from the outside as being both “Nowhere USA” and a potential location for future investment from larger investment firms that might bring in venture capital from the coasts.
We get caught up a lot in the hype and speculation about what it means to live in a once primarily industrial town turned “tech hub”. It is easy to look at those things and feel as though big things are happening and we can all agree that a stage is definitely being set.
When we look at what our government, policies, and community cash bring to the table to support rust belt entrepreneurship, it is important not to overlook the most important part of all of this. The entrepreneurs.
It doesn’t do much good to have all of the pieces in place if you don’t have motivated individuals stepping up and building companies that solve real need within these rust belt communities and the greater world.
In South Bend, we’ve seen quite a few individuals step forward and take on that role. Some of my current favorites are:
- INVANTI: Started by Dustin Mix and Maria Gibbs, INVANTI is a startup generator that brings talented individuals to South Bend to build companies of their own. They’ve actually generated some other really cool companies that you can learn about on any of their social media accounts.
- West.SB: Our friend JACOB TITUS has shouldered the weight of making South Bend a cool place to live through depictions of city life on his various social media channels.
- enFocus (South Bend enFocus): A team of students who graduated from the University of Notre Dame’s ESTEEM program created a consultancy that works on solving big hairy issues in our community while also fighting to attract and retain talent in our region.
- Covur: Built by Michael Wicks and his team, Covur is a simplified digital marketing solution for small businesses on a time crunch to better manage customer communications.
The reason that I like all of these companies is because they are really great examples of small groups of individuals stepping up and taking control of their destiny. All of the people who founded these companies are insanely smart. They all have advanced degrees or are insanely creative. They could have gone anywhere and done anything, but they all chose South Bend.
If you were to ask any of the people that started or work with the people who formed these companies, “Why would you stay in South Bend and do this?” they would probably all give you different answers. However, I am going to speculate a bit and say that part of it is that all of them are a little crazy. I’ll also say that it is probably because they all like knowing that their work matters here on a level that cannot be understood in any other city out there.
Sure, maybe they enjoy the feeling of being an underdog. Maybe they like having that chip on their shoulder. Maybe they like solving big problems that don’t always have the simplest and cleanest solutions. Maybe they enjoy seeing the faces of the people they impact up close. And maybe seeing those faces makes the really bad days worth it and the really great days that much greater.
At the end of the day I think the people who created these companies enjoy having them here because our rust belt community is the frontline. The work you do makes a difference, and if you are going to go through the special kind of hell that is starting a company, you might as well make sure that you are making a difference.
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Alex Sejdinaj is a cofounder of South Bend Code School, GiveGrove, and Code Works. He loves building cool stuff that helps people.
