BANGOR, Maine — Startup expert Victor Hwang is headed to Bangor from Silicon Valley this week not to preach but help guide Maine entrepreneurs toward building a community to make it easier for young companies to thrive here.
“It’s really about Maine and the people [in the startup community],” Hwang said. “What we want to do is not to actually do it for them but to show people the way and to show people who have ideas the tools and steps that they can take to build their own community.”
Hwang’s will speak during a luncheon Thursday marking the third anniversary of the Blackstone Accelerates Growth initiative at the Maine Technology Institute’s annual TechWalk at the Cross Insurance Center. Later, he will also lead a special workshop at the event expected to attract about 600 people and 100 companies connected with Maine’s technology sector.
The visit comes as Maine’s startup community continues to develop. Portland hosted the state’s first Startup and Create Week earlier this year, and Bangor and Auburn are in line for inaugural Startup Weekend events this year or next year. This week, Portland was selected to receive $300,000 as one of eight cities awarded federal money to support small companies with growth potential.
But a successful startup community, Hwang said, requires more than establishment of a specific organization, conference or business incubator.
“Those are important but what matters are the people themselves and how they interrelate to one another and how they create new companies and opportunities together,” Hwang said.
Hwang, a consultant and author on entrepreneurship and executive director of the annual Global Innovation Summit, describes it like this: “You can think of the world as a contrast between rainforest and farm. On the farm, you know what crops you want to grow and you seek to grow those as efficiently as possible.”
And on the farm, weeds are the last thing you want.
“On farms, you want to kill the weeds and don’t want unexpected things to grow, but in the rainforest they are the most valuable thing,” he said.
The rainforest is a metaphor Hwang uses to describe a healthy startup community in his two latest books and in the talk he’ll deliver Thursday, titled “The Pine Tree Rainforest,” in which he plans to provide tips to Maine entrepreneurs on how to develop that “ecosystem” for startup companies, eventually bringing in people involved in Maine’s economy at various levels.
Hwang said the outcomes in other places where he’s helped consult on improving support for entrepreneurs and startups have been to improve connections between universities, professionals, policymakers and entrepreneurs in ways that can generate new ideas and new business opportunities.
Part of that process involves finding what Hwang said are the “true leaders” of Maine’s startup community, people he said might be flying under the radar but for their influence among peers.
“The types of people that are actively influencing and connecting and building that community are key,” Hwang said.
Hwang said he hopes the hands-on workshop Thursday will help connect those players in Maine’s startup community and foster deeper personal connections he said are necessary to improve the long-term chances for fledgling Maine companies and entrepreneurs to succeed.
“We hope this can launch the ecosystem,” Hwang said.