Just north of Charlotte, nestled by the side of a lake is a once-sleepy Southern town turned booming startup ecosystem. Davidson, North Carolina and Lake Norman haven’t always been the hub of entrepreneurial innovation, but organizations like Davidson College, Flywheel Coworking, and LaunchLKN have worked hard to change that over the past five years.
Especially since the Hurt Hub@Davidson opened in July 2018, the area has seen tremendous growth and is slowly staking its claim as an extension of the Queen City’s thriving startup community. For key stakeholders, the area’s success is easily attributable to two things: collaboration and serendipity.
Slow & Steady Southern Living
Davidson and Lake Norman are notoriously desirable places to live. Not only home to a thriving community of lakeside recreationists, but the area’s affordability also offers residents a higher quality of life. These factors combined with beautiful surroundings and a slower pace make a strong case for those coming to the area from other, more chaotic startup destinations.
“There are two brothers — Chris and Jon Boggiano — who are based here at the Hub and started out in Palo Alto, graduating from Stanford,” says Julie Goff, general manager at the Hurt Hub @ Davidson. “They said to themselves, ‘Why would we want to stay here when the cost of living is so exorbitant?’ When they weighed all their options, they chose this area and that was it for them.”
The Boggianos aren’t alone in their desire to live life lakeside: Population in Lake Norman has increased by 831 percent from 1990 – 2010. However, despite a rapidly growing community, entrepreneurs and investors alike found themselves in isolation without a means to network effectively with one another.
“The problem was when people moved here from somewhere else, they’d still invest in companies in the areas where they came from and not in Lake Norman, because they weren’t connected,” explains Erica Madden, executive director of LaunchLKN. “But that was something that rang out loud and clear during initial discussions: The people moving here wanted to give back to the local community.”
Great Minds Think Alike
Both Madden and Goff recognized the need to foster connections between like-minded individuals in the area. As the two worked separately to combat this issue, they would soon be drawn together by both happenstance and a shared desire to elevate the startup economy.
“There are a lot of happy accidents responsible for the success in Lake Norman,” Madden recalls. “LaunchLKN was in its early infancy stages just as Davidson was launching the Hub, and the right people were tied into all of these conversations. And because the right people were involved in the right conversations, it allowed us to move much faster.”
Davidson College acquired the Hurt Hub in 2014. It's a 23,000-square-foot building once part of the Davidson Cotton Mill. Its current use as a base for startup innovation is a true testament to the area’s evolution. Prior to this acquisition, others in the area attempted to build makeshift coworking spaces in an effort to build the community they desired. However, the size and resources the Hub offered quickly brought these separate efforts together.
“We’re currently up to 160 coworking members and when we opened our doors last July, we had about 40,” Goff says. “Having a physical location has been really powerful because now people see each other on a daily basis and are building a community, which is really important.”
Hidden Gems of the Queen City
The Hub and LaunchLKN have worked hard to not only expand and empower the startup community around Lake Norman, but to position this ecosystem as a further extension of the larger Charlotte entrepreneurial environment. Charlotte Angel Fund and Pitch Breakfast in particular have collaborated in providing access to valuable educational, mentorship and capital raising opportunities that were previously in short supply. The area now plays host to quarterly Pitch Breakfast programs and Charlotte Angel Fund programs for those who don’t want to brave I-77 during rush hour.
“Besides space, we offer classes and workshops, such as the six-week class on lean startup methodology,” says Goff. “On top of the classes, we also have a mentoring program spearheaded by LaunchLKN.”
These programs have already made an incredible impact on local entrepreneurship: The Boggiano brothers have already started and sold their first company, VersaMe, a wearable device for parents to teach language skills to their children, and purchased back their original company Everblue.edu. That company focuses on training in sustainability and energy efficiency.
“I’m also really impressed by Lucid Drone,” Madden notes. The student-owned startup connects power-pressure washers to drones for safer cleaning of building exteriors. “They’ve embraced mentors, which has been really fun to see. They’re seeking their advice in ways where it’s like, if they didn’t have that, who knows where they’d be?”
Feeding the Entrepreneurial Soul
As LaunchLKN and the Hurt Hub look to the future, the organizations are actively thinking of ways in which they can further enrich the startup community.
“We’re currently envisioning how the program will evolve over the next few years,” Madden says of LaunchLKN. “We’re doing educational programs and interest groups which may continue, but we’re constantly having the conversation of what does this feed? What does the community need and how are we feeding these needs?”
One way Davidson College is looking to satisfy these needs is through its recently created Gig-Hub program that matches Davidson students with startups on short-term projects.
“We’ve found that it's a pretty low-risk, low-cost way for startups to get help and students to get good experience,” Goff says.
"The people moving here wanted to give back to the local community.”
As members of the startup community, one becomes accustomed to a world of uncertainty. But in this booming environment, one thing holds true: without effective collaboration, none of this would be possible.
“The most important part is the collaboration,” says Madden. “If we as a greater Charlotte startup ecosystem community evolve over the next five years and do so in ways that are collaborative, we can do wonders for Charlotte as a whole.”
