Here’s a fun part of my job that doesn’t get a lot of daylight. While we’re (happily) wrapped up in what’s next for the new, young, and growing businesses in our communities, we’re also building our own roadmap for where to launch next. What’s the next OrangeWIP city?
There are so many questions to answer. And, of course, there are questions we didn’t even know to ask. So, it’s list-building time. (I do love me a good list.) This one is meant to check our interests, anecdotes, and gut feelings against objective market realities.
A media company that aims to be the connective tissue for local entrepreneurial ecosystems must know which communities have the right balance of activity, momentum, maturity, capital flow and communications needs. And, we must discern what the information means for us, which data points should get the most weight. (If you smell a spreadsheet, you’re right on the nose.)
Perhaps the coolest thing about this process is that several of the insights we need come from the very people we aim to serve. And sometimes, I get to bring people who educated us behind the scenes right onto our pages and podcasts. You get to meet our smartest founder friends.
It’s a rare, happy overlap of working in the business and on the business, and I’m here for it.
