Three Reasons to Start Your Business in A Rust Belt Community
Our companies are located in South Bend, Indiana. A great rust belt town to start a business. I haven’t been asked by too many people why we would build our businesses in South Bend, but I have met a lot of people who think that they have to leave their small to medium sized rust belt community to start a business.
Here are three arguments I can think of as to why South Bend, Indiana, a fairly typical rust belt community, is a great place to start a business.
We have problems ripe and ready for startups to tackle
If you are trying to build a company, you probably want to be solving a problem…It is also ideal that you will be solving a problem in a way that people will pay you for the solution…Rust belt communities are a great place to quickly identify issues that need solving and validate an idea against those issues.
In South Bend, you can traverse the community in under a week and get a feel for where everything is geographically. After that, you can begin to find the people who have frustrations within the community that align with your areas of interest or a problem you are trying to solve.
You can tackle plenty of issues at the consumer, business, and government levels. Just dig in and get your hands dirty!
*** By the way, if you are the type of person who is craving starting your own business but you haven’t discovered the perfect problem to solve, our friends at INVANTI can hook you up. Feel free to drop them a line if you’re interested.
The financial climate is perfect for startups
We live in a time where people are trying to fund and expedite the creation of entrepreneurial ventures in rust belt towns. A lot of this has to do with the fading of a once robust industrial sector. The gap that this sector has left in terms of population and jobs has forced states and cities to get creative in how they boost the economies of these regions.
In South Bend, we have plenty of opportunities in various forms from grant dollars for those with the beginning of an idea, to newly formed pools of venture capital looking for investment in the next big idea. If cash to get your startup beyond the first step has been an issue for you before come to South Bend.
The other great thing about South Bend is that the cost of living is pretty inexpensive. We have a lot of very affordable housing and it is a great place to live if you need to stretch a dollar while you hustle to get your idea off the ground.
Our community is ready to help great startups
My favorite part about South Bend right now is the community. We have a ton of great people here who would love to help you out. If you need to network and find an individual who can answer a critical question you are probably one or two coffee meetings away from finding the person you need.
People here are also excited by seeing cool things happen. They want to see you win. They will support you on your journey to success. If you’ve heard otherwise, you’re talking to the wrong people.
If you are considering leaving your rust belt community to start a business I ask that you weigh your options one more time. If you are considering starting a business but you haven’t found the support structure you need in your community to make you feel confident about taking the jump I implore you to consider a rust belt city.
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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.
