Aug 12, 2026 | 2026, Alabama, Birmingham, Birmingham Funded Start-Ups List, Economic Development, Entrepreneurial Assessment, Entrepreneurialism, Football, Investing, Mid-Year Assessment, Seed Investing, Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, Uncategorized
I am not a big soccer fan. I played (poorly) for a couple of years in school, I watched (somewhat) my kids play, and every four years, I watch (in fits and starts) the World Cup. So I have no claim to being an expert. But one thing I have noticed is that you can...
Aug 25, 2025 | 2025, Alabama, Birmingham, Birmingham Funded Start-Ups List, Economic Development, Entrepreneurial Assessment, Entrepreneurialism, Exits, FAV Funds, Financing, Founders, Investing, Legislation, Mid-Year Assessment, Regional Cooperation, Seed Investing, Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, Start-Ups, Valuation
“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.” ― Carl Gustav Jung As we size up where we are mid-year with the Birmingham and Alabama entrepreneurial ecosystem, the theme that I see is: out of chaos comes order. One of the trends we’ve noticed...
Aug 9, 2024 | 2024, Alabama, Birmingham, Birmingham Funded Start-Ups List, COVID-19, Economic Development, Entrepreneurial Assessment, Entrepreneurialism, Financing, Founders, Investing, Mid-Year Assessment, Seed Investing, Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, Start-Ups
It is that bi-annual time of year when I make my usual plea that we are not providing enough equity support. Once again, this is true, but perhaps this is also time for me to offer more productive thoughts. Thanks to Will Wright, the Head of Innovation at Protective...
Jul 28, 2023 | 2023, Alabama, Birmingham, Birmingham Funded Start-Ups List, Economic Development, Entrepreneurial Assessment, Entrepreneurialism, Financing, Founders, Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, Start-Ups
Birmingham and the Best Birmingham has a strange relationship with the concept and value of “the best.” Sure, we want to be the best place to live, work, and play; to have the best schools, best jobs, best houses. We want to hire the best. To my knowledge, no one in...
Jan 12, 2023 | 2022, 2023, Alabama, Birmingham, Birmingham Funded Start-Ups List, Economic Development, Entrepreneurial Assessment, Entrepreneurialism, Financing, Founders, Start-Ups
I have said this before, and I will probably say this again, but to grow our entrepreneurial economy, we need to directly invest in companies. We do not need to blindly invest in them, but we do not need to commission another study on the ecosystem. We need to be...
