What makes some cities flourish with entrepreneurial activity while others struggle to get started? This episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast dives deep into that question, as host Marcia Dawood welcomes back Nicola Corzine, CEO & Executive Director of the NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center, to reveal powerful new research on the factors that drive innovation economies forward. Nicola Corzine is a leader in helping entrepreneurs worldwide, with a decade of experience in building communities, designing free programs, and rallying support from top foundations. In this episode, she shares the Center’s latest findings from a five-year research journey, spotlighting the data and stories behind the top-performing U.S. regions for high-growth entrepreneurship. Listeners will hear the real ingredients for building a thriving innovation ecosystem—from angel investor networks and supportive policy makers to the vital role of education and industry diversity. This episode is a must-listen for anyone who cares about entrepreneurial success, economic development, and creating communities where everyone has the chance to rise. Listen until the end to see if your city made the list!
What makes some cities flourish with entrepreneurial activity while others struggle to get started? This episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast dives deep into that question, as host Marcia Dawood welcomes back Nicola Corzine, CEO & Executive Director of the NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center, to reveal powerful new research on the factors that drive innovation economies forward.
Nicola Corzineis a leader in helping entrepreneurs worldwide, with a decade of experience in building communities, designing free programs, and rallying support from top foundations. In this episode, she shares the Center’s latest findings from a five-year research journey, spotlighting the data and stories behind the top-performing U.S. regions for high-growth entrepreneurship.
Listeners will hear the real ingredients for building a thriving innovation ecosystem—from angel investor networks and supportive policy makers to the vital role of education and industry diversity. This episode is a must-listen for anyone who cares about entrepreneurial success, economic development, and creating communities where everyone has the chance to rise. Listen until the end to see if your city made the list!
To get the latest from Nicola Corzine, you can follow her below!
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Nicola's Previous Angel Next Door Episode - Revolutionizing Startup Support: Insights into Angel Investing and Entrepreneurial Empowerment
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Marcia Dawood [00:00:02 - 00:00:05]:
Nicola, welcome back to the Angel Next Door podcast.
Nicola Corzine [00:00:06 - 00:00:13]:
Oh, it is so good to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me to be back. We've got a lot to talk about and a lot has changed, obviously, since. A lot.
Marcia Dawood [00:00:13 - 00:00:26]:
No, I love it. I love it. I can't wait to hear all about the data and all the things you've been doing and the research. But first, let's tell our listeners a little bit about the NASDAQ Entrepreneurial center and all the amazing resources that you have for entrepreneurs.
Nicola Corzine [00:00:27 - 00:01:10]:
Oh, thank you. Yes, we are in business of supporting every single entrepreneur in the world to maximize their potential. We've been doing that now for 10 years. We're an independent 501C3, started with a very generous gift by NASDAQ foundation and now supported by many of the leading foundations worldwide, all with a mission of ensuring access and knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship is available for everyone. And today that means we learn beside a community of 125,000 entrepreneurs from all parts of the world, domestic and international, what their biggest barriers are and how we can overcome them. Whether that's through education, mentorship, resources or support, all of which are provided for free. We charge nothing. We don't take any equity.
Nicola Corzine [00:01:10 - 00:01:22]:
It's all based on a very real pay it forward approach to entrepreneurship, which means that every entrepreneur that we support is going to turn around and support other entrepreneurs in their communities and we're going to build forward a better innovation economy for all.
Marcia Dawood [00:01:23 - 00:01:56]:
Oh, I just love that so much. And when we had you on the show the last time you told us all the details, we're definitely going to put a link in the show notes to the previous episode. So if people want all the nitty gritty details on all the amazing things that the NASDAQ Entrepreneurial center does, they can get that. And of course, your website is very robust and has lots and lots of information, so we'll make sure to link to that too. But tell us a little bit about give us the sneak peek. By the time this episode airs, the cat will be out of the bag about what's happening with the research and the data you've been collecting.
Nicola Corzine [00:01:57 - 00:02:38]:
Thank you. Well, I'm going to start by stating the obvious, but it's sometimes the obvious that runs away from all of us. Despite all the reasons to not pursue entrepreneurship each and every day, we're inspired by all those who say, I'm still going to give it my best. I'm going to put it all on the line and build for a brighter tomorrow. Whether that brighter tomorrow is for their family, generational wealth, for their community, for social capacity, for innovation at large, and for our world. They are what makes our place a better place to live. And where they build really matters to them. And yet place has sometimes been left behind in the equation of understanding what is actually happening.
Nicola Corzine [00:02:38 - 00:04:11]:
That's allowing some entrepreneurs to flourish in their places and for others to really sadly be felt left behind. And if we are all about increasing GDP for everyone to benefit, then it makes sense that we ought to try to understand not just the first smile of starting an innovation economy, but the next mile that unlocks and really creates capacity for all entrepreneurs to rise. So five years ago, we actually started on a learning journey as we heard from our entrepreneurs deeply the challenge of how not everyone had fair access to resources or support systems. Where were support occurring and what was driving that to occur? We started at a very macro level, right? If you think of place and space in entrepreneurship, still to this day I say we all fall guilty of thinking through, oh, Silicon Valley or New York, maybe London, maybe some of the other international places and spaces. But we have a place in mind and it's always equally distributed. So we wanted to look at international and domestic insights to understand was it equally occurring or where was it maybe going faster outside of those coastal environments that we often spend a lot of time looking at. And in that process we discovered some fascinating findings. We discovered that not everybody was moving forward faster, not surprisingly, but those places that were actually having shifts occur much faster than one would expect.
Nicola Corzine [00:04:11 - 00:04:54]:
So a lot of the time if you're thinking of high growth enterprise, you usually think, oh, we have to wait a decade or more to see signals of opportunity that are actually unfolding. Increases in valuation x number of funding, financings and fundings that are occurring in those markets. And in some places they were performing at very different rates than others. And so we started to go a little bit deeper in the following year to say, what can we learn in the United States? Because that macro view, it was almost too big. And the United States, not surprisingly, was a dominant market in and of itself. So we said we need to look at the US alone. And again, let's strip out our coastal environment and look at where is entrepreneurship advancing for all. And we did this with the hardest of missions in front of us.
Nicola Corzine [00:04:54 - 00:05:36]:
No, no pun intended. But data in this space is not the best. No, let's be honest, we both know this. It's very difficult. You spend a lot of time realizing we don't look at identity in the ways that other places necessarily do. It's very hard looking at when are you talking about like returns occurring? How are we even going to measure apples to apples in this field? And fortunately, we worked beside a couple of incredible think tanks. We worked with Heartland, Ford and Penn State University who were able to normalize things relative to policy indicators. So Penn State University looked at 7 million policy briefings.
Nicola Corzine [00:05:36 - 00:05:40]:
Bless them for doing that work. Something very much that I'm glad that I didn't have to.
Marcia Dawood [00:05:40 - 00:05:42]:
Seven million, oh my goodness.
Nicola Corzine [00:05:42 - 00:06:16]:
Over the course of a decade. And in that environment, they actually surface. It's the most bipartisan issue of all. And I think we take away anything from this. There is that silver lining. Like no matter the world, no matter the moment, everybody is committed, passionately believes in the power of opportunity that is uniquely unfolded through entrepreneurship, and believes in the importance that everyone has access to that. It's not something that only one side feels or something that another side feels. It really is a unifier which perhaps more than ever we can appreciate in these moments.
Nicola Corzine [00:06:17 - 00:07:37]:
The other side of the house was to say, okay, well if capital is not equally distributed, which I know you and I could talk about for days or weeks at length on that, then how do we start to think about what other signals indicate high growth founders? And sadly, the only unifier that we could actually all collectively agree on as a starting line was income. Because if you say, what is the point of entrepreneurship, opportunity or necessity? Entrepreneur, at the end of the day, it's to be able to create some level of wealth, generational wealth, that is allowing them to pursue that and not to have to pursue some other option out there. And so that income metric became a level set to say, okay, well if we can't just look at like how much money is flowing into companies because some founders have been left out of that opportunity stack, then we're going to have to start to look at are these founders producing high growth companies by the rate of which they're performing above national salary average? And that is available inside of census. And that was available to then look at an identity layer because again, remember, we're not just looking at a certain type of founder. We're seeing for everyone, for all identities, for all socioeconomic levels. So we had to normalize in that environment. And again, data in this space, super gnarly, very difficult to do. But that was our baseline.
Nicola Corzine [00:07:37 - 00:08:33]:
And in that body of work, seven states emerged as what we called our equity innovation leaders. These are the states that are performing above and beyond what other states were able to do when it came to this field. And of course data alone is not going to tell you the narrative of then doing the what. And all of this was with a goal to say, okay, seven states doing it well, what can all of the rest of us start to apply to inspire and continue to involve an innovation economy where all can participate. And so in that process, we started to do deep qualitative layers of research with at the time about 22 different stakeholders. Those range from policy leaders, as you would expect, a lot of entrepreneurial support organizations, the heart of the community in many ways. We looked at capital allocators, angel investors, VCs, the traditional banks. We understood the role of service provider is right.
Nicola Corzine [00:08:33 - 00:09:49]:
It takes a village always in entrepreneurship. And many of the early villages support are the law firms, the banks, the accounting firms that are leaning in almost a little pro bono to ensure the enrichment of that high growth basis support. And there was some amazing findings that came through from that allowed us to have a first level of this blueprint of the innovation economy. But even in that moment we were like, it's still so highly nuanced. We wanted to go a level deeper. And as part of their commitment to supporting the work, NASDAQ foundation and also JPMorgan Chase foundation had said we want to get down to an MFA level three letters that really stand for a metropolitan regional level of insight. We didn't know at the time nobody could have read the tea leaves, obviously the importance of being able to go down to that level of granularity. Because as we've all witnessed in the last couple of years, there's really been a very big decentralization of like federal choices and powers of the innovation economy and whose getting resource allocations as a result being driven a lot more from the groundswell, the locations of choices, very hard budget times, very difficult moments in general to navigate through.
Nicola Corzine [00:09:49 - 00:11:10]:
And so as we started this year's journey, this fifth year's journey into saying what is going on at the metropolitan statistical area region? Who are those performers? What was really great to see is that some of the states that we expected were absolutely covered on this list, but some of the places that were not in the state level were still rising at the regional level. And the importance of that again comes down to the fact that despite all the challenges of not having an affluent budget, of not being recognized at a national level, there were towns, there were regions that were performing faster than others that were doing innovative piloting of ideas, new capital formation structures, a real collective, invigorated stance, believing in the Power of entrepreneurship and what it meant for them and what it meant for their key stakeholders in that grouping. So that's where we are. That's what this research is all about. Was now looking at these 20 MSAs who are shaping a different stratosphere, honestly, of like fast forwarding progress in innovation, really moving to that next mile of the innovation economy, seeing and keeping, being the operative word, great talent within those places, entrepreneurs can rise and thrive, and that it's inspiring other generations to go seek that same opportunity for themselves.
Marcia Dawood [00:11:11 - 00:11:57]:
Wow. Okay, so let me see that. I got all of this. That was a lot. So you first started out by looking for the entrepreneurs that were producing the levels of income that would warrant saying, hey, this is really a thriving or successful endeavor. And then from there started to wheedle it down to, okay, where is it? What are the areas, the metropolitan areas? Or in this case, maybe they're not so metropolitan. Maybe they're in a rural area, or maybe they're in a region that you wouldn't necessarily think of. I know I first started angel investing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and I certainly didn't think that Pittsburgh was a big hub for entrepreneurship, but it turned out it was very up and coming and nowadays is like really thriving.
Marcia Dawood [00:11:57 - 00:12:07]:
So interesting dynamics, but. So that's how you got to where you got to these 20 places that you think are like hotbeds.
Nicola Corzine [00:12:07 - 00:12:16]:
Yeah, exactly. So we looked at 250. So the teams of Heartland Forward and Penn State university looked at 250 and they dispersed it down to these 20.
Marcia Dawood [00:12:17 - 00:12:17]:
Wow.
Nicola Corzine [00:12:17 - 00:13:19]:
Forming MSA regions. Looking at that normalized layer. And then again we came in and said, okay, great, we've got a, we've got a good line of sight in 20. What's going on there? And then we did 41 qualitative interviews that really informed in eight unique regions, this blueprint for advancing innovation economy and understanding what was happening there, what were the effects, the push pull tensions, if you will, that were really moving that needle. So we wanted to understand education, we wanted to understand quality of life effects, we wanted to understand migration, mobility movements. Certainly over the US Post Covid, that's been a very dominant theme of is this a situation where people are moving into an area and that's having this beautiful morality of encouraging endorsing more innovation within that region or not. We wanted to look at capital, the flows of capital. Obviously this is all about capital in many ways and understanding what is the sources of unlocking faster innovation in regions.
Nicola Corzine [00:13:19 - 00:14:01]:
Who is doing that? There was a lot of stakeholder analysis and some of the findings that I'm sure we're going to get into next were radically surprising. And many of them are wonderfully nurturing. Because again, if I think back to like, how accessible is this for any region in America to put into action tomorrow, the good news is pretty darn encouraging. These are not things that you have to wait for. Magic skies opening, unicorns and ponies emerging, and suddenly one day it all comes together. Like, we can take these steps, we can take these actions. We can lock the innovation advancement almost immediately with just a few couple of clear changes. So I hope it's inspiring.
Nicola Corzine [00:14:01 - 00:14:28]:
I think all of us that were involved in the study walked away with a more compelling sense of appreciation for the influencers of the innovation economy and the many moving parts of who's involved in it. And also really what it's taking to drive that forward for so many populations who have historically not been included in that advancement. And I think now are driving a much brighter future where we're deeply appreciative of all that they're doing to build better for everyone.
Marcia Dawood [00:14:29 - 00:15:03]:
Yeah, I love that. Radically surprising and wonderfully nurturing. You can't get much better than that. Right? So, all right, so tell us what, what. And basically what you're trying to do now is make a blueprint for the future. So pretty much any city, any town, anywhere really could take this and say, hey, these are the things that you really need. You want to have a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem, you can't just maybe say, yeah, we'll take a maybe D. Pick a couple.
Marcia Dawood [00:15:03 - 00:15:06]:
No, you have to have the. You have to have the blueprint.
Nicola Corzine [00:15:06 - 00:16:16]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think, I want to say that every single region that we looked at has areas of strength. And I think all of us, again, and I'll call myself into this, like when I first started and I'd seen the propagation in a really positive way of the number of YCs, Y Combinator accelerators or the number of entrepreneurial startup organizations focused on specific nuances, be the industry, be they identity, be they stage. And I was like, oh, it's just going to end up being like, you need to step and repeat and do that and attract those types of people here. And then that's what's really going to build better. And it certainly helps, but it's not like that's the only way to get there. And I think what we do in this field, and I think we both agree on this and the challenge of this for the last couple of decades, even though the field itself is only 50 ish 60 now, 60 years old. Modern day entrepreneurship and certainly the capital markets in America, we haven't been able to pattern match ideally to understanding where history has actually created an unlocked opportunity versus where it's like doing it again.
Nicola Corzine [00:16:16 - 00:17:05]:
And we haven't really changed the ingredients in the cupboard, but we're hoping for a different output, really want to hope for a different output. We need to better analyze and understand what are the ingredients in the cupboard that we actually have to make a delicious meal. And that's going to inform and guide us on like then going, oh, I'm out of salt, I can't make that right now, I need to go get salt. Right. And it's not saying you don't have great ingredients in your cabinet, you do. But you need to know what's really going to change that marker based on the depth of learning and historical context. Which again, if we go back to the problem of data in this field and the fact that none of us have had a real good inventorying system of what's working and what's not working, it's been limited with that perspective. I think everyone's heart's in the right places, but we tend to step and repeat the same experiments over and over again without really yielding or seeing a different change.
Nicola Corzine [00:17:05 - 00:17:15]:
So that's our goal. Everyone's dollars and time is so precious. We just want to get them to go as far as they possibly can without feeling like they're consistently reinventing the wheel over and over again.
Marcia Dawood [00:17:15 - 00:17:23]:
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Get as far and as fast as they can. So it's not taking forever for them to build these companies. Right.
Nicola Corzine [00:17:24 - 00:18:02]:
So let's talk about what emerged. I'm going to hit on maybe 1, 2, 3, 4 main points and then we can dig into any of those areas because they all work together. It's like a cog and a flywheel effect, surprisingly so. These are clear within all of these 20 MSAs. And so again, if we go back to the MSAs, they're not all concentrated in the Midwest, they're not all concentrated in any one location. This was like surprising to us. What emerged as sources of truth across such wide and diverse and beautiful pieces of America that's driving the innovation economy forward. First and foremost, the barbell effect of capital.
Nicola Corzine [00:18:02 - 00:18:59]:
In fact, we're going to talk about the barbell effect in many ways as we go through today. The barbell effect of Capital showcased three fascinating pieces. All 20 of these MSAs had access to early stage high growth capital in the formation of angel groups. And when I say angel groups, I don't just mean a loosely affiliated environment of people coming together and investing. These are investors that have made an intentional decision to collectively come together to learn how to be great angel investors, to contribute to the field, if you will, and to be part of an accredited system. So in the 20 MSAs, which again 250 MSAs in America, 20 of these MSAs that rose to the top held 60% of the total accredited angel groups in America.
Marcia Dawood [00:18:59 - 00:19:01]:
Wow. Wow.
Nicola Corzine [00:19:03 - 00:20:00]:
On the other flip of the bible, all of these 20 MSAs had exceptionally strong 504 loan support systems. Now, 504 is important. Like when does that fit in the capital sack? I myself have never gotten a 504 loan. What's really fascinating, and this is going to get to the industry barbell effect that's coming next. 504 loans are really good for those companies that are looking to scale infrastructure and scale facilities and scale investment in almost place and space coming together. So typically you would get a 504 loan if you were in manufacturing. You might get a 504 loan for clean tech types of experience and enhancements in your company. But you're really doing it with a lens of either a different sector that's covered around the high growth environment, or you're doing it to improve and grow and scale up your business through headquarters, through locations and through place and space.
Nicola Corzine [00:20:01 - 00:21:04]:
When you look at the composite of these two things together, that means that 70% of all high growth industries are covered with this Barbell effect of 504 and Angel Capital. So it negates this idea, which again we've heard folklore for periods of time of well, should I just go deep in one industry? Should my region just be all in on AI? Sorry, how to use a bladder jam. Should we just go all in on that? And what is true when we look back, and again this data looked back over a 10 year period. So we weren't just looking for blips in a market. In a moment we were trying to take a little bit more of a judicious approach. Longitudinal effect, 10 years of data. It became clear that indexing to a singular industry was not catalytic to an innovation economy. The success was diversification of both that talent spectrum, meaning 70% industry coverage which was afforded uniquely through a greater support system of early stage capital coming through.
Nicola Corzine [00:21:04 - 00:21:20]:
Angel groups, not venture firms. Yay. Good news. Everybody needs a sandhill road in their backyard, right? Angel groups and these 504 loans. So the traditional banking partners coupled with a collective support system of angels.
Marcia Dawood [00:21:21 - 00:21:42]:
So let me just go back, make sure I understand. So the. Of all of the angel groups that are in the US that have. Are full of angel groups, usually, of course, all accredited investors. You're saying that 60% of all the angels were actually in collectively in these 20 MSAs.
Nicola Corzine [00:21:42 - 00:21:44]:
Correct. Wow.
Marcia Dawood [00:21:45 - 00:22:03]:
So all 20 had a significant presence of angels credit angel groups. And but if you added up just from the 20 out of the 250, you actually got 60% of the angel groups in the U.S. in the U.S. wow, that's powerful.
Nicola Corzine [00:22:04 - 00:23:31]:
And I think what's lovely then. So if you'll indulge, I'm going to pop over to education because I think what we're doing is we're unraveling this powerful influence of support system that has sadly gone under the radar screen. And yet again, you and I both know that because we're on the angel spectrum a little bit. But the power of support and the power of capital and the power to change community in place through that landscape of who are those individuals that are investing early and honestly investing out of their own pockets? Right. They're not beholden to others. So it's just an interesting field. So on education, what emerged very strongly is that in all of these 20 MSAs, they had both access to an R1 institution, which is a research one level, and they had extremely strong community college and or technical college fields where entrepreneurship was taught by professors of practice. And while I can't yet say with a shadow of doubt, the expectation and where we're just going to our last line of learning is to expect that many of those angel investors who are in those communities are both mentoring, showing up at those pitch competitions, supporting those practices that is occurring within those college campuses, both at the research level, but also bringing them forward into pathways of future of work opportunities for community college level students and technical college professionals too.
Marcia Dawood [00:23:32 - 00:23:58]:
Amazing. Yeah. And that makes so much sense. I watched it when I lived in Pittsburgh. I didn't really know anything about entrepreneurship angels, anything. When I was introduced to this whole world and we had Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, big research areas or universities, and they were just doing so much to help get the ball rolling for a lot of these entrepreneurs.
Nicola Corzine [00:24:00 - 00:25:41]:
And then I'm gonna, I'm gonna round this out by saying that the other fascinating piece to me, not to stop politics, but one has to speaking of AI, beside AI is gonna be politics, but on a very positive level, there's this read that I've gotten to appreciate where it's almost like a sentiment index, if you will. So people try to understand how frequently are local politicians or state level politicians talking about an issue on the state legislative floor and they have an index for measuring that. And in our case, when we looked at the level of analysis relative to entrepreneurship by the number of bills that were being introduced, and not just bills that were being introduced, but the influence and the effect of a bill on the field of entrepreneurship. The top 20 MSAs with scoring a 3 out of 5. So this is a baseline of 5 being highest that you could get 3 out of 5. By comparison, all the other regions were usually scoring a one or a two. What told us when we dug into it meant that those legislative officials in those places were consistently going to entrepreneurs and deeply understanding and being curious to ask and know what was the effect on anything that they were putting forward in the lives and the value systems of entrepreneurs. So there wasn't anything that was going on there where they didn't slow, I shouldn't say anything, but the majority of time they were slowing down to ask themselves if we pass this, if we change something on the budget, if we do these things, how will it affect entrepreneurship within our region? And that's pretty powerful to know.
Nicola Corzine [00:25:41 - 00:26:58]:
Again, yeah, individuals learning from, well, chances are the influencers to the community. Which means again the power not just of our angels, but the entrepreneurs themselves, those that have the lived experience and the appreciation, the respect and the understanding and the direct connectivity between those stakeholder groups. It wasn't a them and us moment. Right. There was this joint line of support that was going forward from entrepreneurial support organizations all the way out. So those level of insights, again I'm going to come back to saying like I think gives us all hope, then it doesn't have to be a one size fits all or this affluent basis of if we don't have X VC firms that come to our region or we don't have Y research institutions that we get to call home, or we don't have this effect of the best and the brightest policymakers. These are all within our reach to be able to understand where we sit within that framework and to also know that the individuals who can shape the communities can actually do that all the way up this ladder of support system. Building these angel groups with intentionality, making sure that they are open and a part of the community and seeing this support system that exists across all of those service provider stakeholders too.
Marcia Dawood [00:26:58 - 00:27:20]:
Amazing. So you mentioned like the four things. So that would be the 504 and the angel groups and Then also the diversification, making sure that you're not just all basically concentrated in one industry, the education piece, having a research university in the area and now technical college and.
Nicola Corzine [00:27:20 - 00:27:21]:
The community college needing.
Marcia Dawood [00:27:21 - 00:27:22]:
Oh, okay, all right.
Nicola Corzine [00:27:22 - 00:27:38]:
If you think of the talent pipeline. So the reason I should slow down a little bit there. But one of the challenges has often been, and again, maybe more mythology than reality is we're digging into this, that companies can only go to a certain size and then they have to leave.
Marcia Dawood [00:27:38 - 00:27:39]:
Right, right, right.
Nicola Corzine [00:27:40 - 00:28:26]:
To attract talent where there's this groundswell effect where like honestly, entry level talent. If you think of all of us that go back to startups and you think of those first key hires and those first 20 people, the exposure to entrepreneurship, the exposure to the innovation economy is critical in your early hires. You can't necessarily take someone from industry and expect them to perform well in the startup mentality. That isn't fair to them and it's not, it's fair to the founder. So you need to have this baseline awareness and understanding of the risk, the vulnerabilities, the opportunities that come with that and make sure people have a learning, a fertile learning ground from which to apply those insights and perspectives. And that's where the community colleges and the technical colleges really come into bear. Because you can't just hire everyone at research institution. Right.
Nicola Corzine [00:28:26 - 00:28:51]:
And you may not have enough exit companies, if you will, that are allowing enough talent to be on the marketplace when you're looking to hire a few early employees. So, so the diversification of the talent pipeline through the educational system that equally is inspired by the research institutions but supportive at the early entry level systems is very important too. Or at least it showed up very dominantly in the top 20 MSAs.
Marcia Dawood [00:28:52 - 00:28:57]:
Wow, that's so interesting. So, okay, give us the big reveal. Where are the places?
Nicola Corzine [00:28:58 - 00:29:27]:
Fine. At the. Well, there are a lot of wonderful places I'm going to go through. It is, it is a big list to say the least, but I think it's also an incredibly inspiring one. So let's start with. This is alphabetical order. So it's certainly, it's hard to pick favorites in these. So we have Albany to Troy, out of New York, we have Austin to Round Rock out of Texas, we have San Diego to Carlsbad, out of California, Oakland to Hayward, out of California, of course.
Nicola Corzine [00:29:27 - 00:29:30]:
Maybe one of your favorites. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, of course.
Marcia Dawood [00:29:30 - 00:29:31]:
Yes.
Nicola Corzine [00:29:31 - 00:30:10]:
And Atlanta and Sandy Springs and Roswell. Out of Georgia, Charlotte to Concord to Gastonia, North Carolina and South Carolina. But one of those links across the saloons we got a lot of deep levels of learning when that happened. Columbus, Ohio, Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue, Washington, Baltimore, Columbia and Tilson, Maryland, Virginia beach to Norfolk to Newport News, out of Virginia and North Carolina, SUNY Albany. We have ut, Texas and Tesla. Oh, yeah, the anchors. Sorry, I'm doing the anchors. Out of those, we have Riverside to San Bernardino in Ontario, Los Angeles to Long beach and Anaheim.
Nicola Corzine [00:30:11 - 00:30:40]:
New Orleans, which is where we released our report, which is very exciting. So we got to focus on NOLA. The New Orleans, Richmond, Virginia, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Bloomington, Minnesota to Wisconsin, Washington, Arlington, Alexandria, out of D.C. areas. Orlando to Kissimmee in Florida. Florida was one of our top seven states and it was interesting to see where within sight of Florida would not have been my guest that really emerged as a dominant Ms. Portland, Vancouver and Hillsboro, Oregon and Washington.
Nicola Corzine [00:30:40 - 00:30:44]:
And last but definitely not least, our incredible Kansas City.
Marcia Dawood [00:30:45 - 00:30:50]:
Yes, Love that. And that's where the Angel Capital association is originally based.
Nicola Corzine [00:30:51 - 00:30:52]:
The home base.
Marcia Dawood [00:30:52 - 00:30:56]:
Yeah, back to the home base. Back to where the Kaufman foundation started everything.
Nicola Corzine [00:30:57 - 00:30:57]:
Exactly.
Marcia Dawood [00:30:58 - 00:31:07]:
Amazing. Oh, my gosh, so many great, great areas. And I know so many of the angels that are in those areas too, which is so fun.
Nicola Corzine [00:31:09 - 00:31:40]:
And that's really where we want to go a little bit deeper now is learning from them and taking these stories of narrative and understanding the considerations of what they're most excited about and how they put into practice this incredible system of support that's allowing entrepreneurship to really rise and thrive in these areas and again, hopefully inspire another 20 MSA. Nothing will make me happier than next year if you'll have me back again for me to go. Yes, we could get 20 that. And now we've got 40 MSAs that are all performing in that same level. Right.
Marcia Dawood [00:31:41 - 00:32:20]:
Oh, my gosh. So good. Just from my own personal experience watching Pittsburgh become what it is today, it was really. Katherine Mott was one of the pioneers putting together the very. Really the kind of the first angel group in Pittsburgh and how just all the entrepreneurs were rallying around Carnegie Mellon and University of Pittsburgh and now like all the big tech companies have offices there. They all want to hire out of that area. There's like tons of innovation going on. I remember areas in the surrounding Pittsburgh area that were maybe not the greatest and they're all thriving now.
Marcia Dawood [00:32:20 - 00:32:31]:
Been totally. It's just really amazing to see a lot of people still have a perception of Pittsburgh being a steel town. It's dirty, it's beautiful, and it is really thriving.
Nicola Corzine [00:32:32 - 00:33:40]:
And I think again, we maybe angels also uniquely understand this. Right. Unlike a lot of jobs. Entrepreneurs often don't leave that job. They're thinking through it 24, 7, 365. And so the ability to breathe and on the hardest of days still keep going often comes down to looking up and looking out and looking up and looking out is totally tied to place and the loved ones that they have around there and the connectivity they see for building there and the reasons to keep going even on those hardest of days. And I that just, that seeds so much into the heart and the soul and the opportunity that is unveiling within these places. And to your point, not being just a singular expectation of, oh, well, this was once a place that could help, or this was once this type of a town, but really this dynamic environment where entrepreneurs see themselves so uniquely being supported that they're willing to take that bet and stay there.
Nicola Corzine [00:33:41 - 00:33:59]:
And they don't follow mythology, but they like see themselves as uniquely being able to build what they dream their biggest of aspirations in that place, in that zip code, in that state. State. And that is America's national treasure right there. 100% kind of soapbox, but that is America's national treasure right there.
Marcia Dawood [00:34:00 - 00:34:08]:
That is amazing. All right, so where can people find a copy of this research? How can they learn more about the NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center?
Nicola Corzine [00:34:09 - 00:34:56]:
Please come see us at nasdaqcenter.org you can download this report, you can share it on. We hope you'll join us for a lot of the unveilings and these learning tours that we're doing via webinars to inspire and go deeper with angels in these communities, with leaders within these communities to go even further than what we can do ever justice in a report, no matter how good a report it is, you gotta hear from people and you gotta, you gotta start to think about the ingredients that you have in your own blueprint. So we want to hear from you, we want to learn from you. If you're inspired by this, please share it on, please pass it on. And we're looking forward to continuing to track and create more velocity around accessible data that can actually inform and guide us all on really advancing this innovation economy that we're all committed to.
Marcia Dawood [00:34:56 - 00:35:02]:
Oh, wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing all this amazing data and we will be sure to keep following.
Nicola Corzine [00:35:02 - 00:35:06]:
Thank you so much and thank you for the work that you're leading. Russia is so incredibly inspiring.
Marcia Dawood [00:35:07 - 00:35:07]:
Thank you.