Sam Davidson often underscores one observation anytime he's doing public speaking: "The height of my success is directly related to the depth of my community."
Now he's in charge of a specific community, as the newly hired CEO of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. One of his goals, he said in an interview, is expanding and enhancing what the organization can offer to founders.
"Right now, there's a prevailing story that if you have a business idea, you just need ChatGPT, an e-commerce setup, a TikTok account and you can be the next entrepreneur," Davidson said. "While that could work for some people, my experience — and most successful entrepreneurs' experience — has been that you need a community. I need to be around people smarter than me, people who have done this before, people who are at the same stage I am. I need to be around and get other resources quickly. And that's what the EC is, and what it's going to continue to be: It will be that place people can come, whether they know what they need or don't know what they need yet."
Davidson wants to sustain existing programming, such as the organization's health care accelerator. "It needs to be the best in the country. It would be a shame if the city of Nashville was not the best place to start a health care business," Davidson said. "That would be off-brand at best, obtuse or tone-deaf at worst."
Davidson also said he'll have an eye on new possibilities, citing two recent Entrepreneur Center initiatives as examples: its accelerator for financial technology startups, and its Twende accelerator for Black and Latino founders — which now has statewide reach.
"Some of it is making it easier, or taking away excuses from someone who says 'I can't do that.' I've got a family, I've got health care, I've got a mortgage, I've got a day job.' How do we remove those obstacles?" Davidson said. "It's allowing those people to keep dreaming and say 'Yes, maybe I can do this.' And part of what the EC does that isn't as vocal is helping people understand when they shouldn't start: 'Maybe that's not a full business.' That's also so valuable."
Davidson hopes to do what he can to spur more startups that go on to hit it big, reaching billion-dollar "unicorn" valuations or being acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars. Deals of that profile attract headlines and attention, and have spinoff effects in the local community.
That said, there's a whole other crop of entrepreneurs right underneath that level, and Davidson wants to spotlight them too.
"The vast minority of entrepreneurs are the Zuckerbergs, the Sara Blakelys, who are the billionaires," Davidson said. "The vast majority is the person who can pay for their standard of living, send their kids to college, go on vacation — that's most entrepreneurs. And we want to tell that story. You can be an entrepreneur in this city and do really well and have a meaningful life."
