Every ground-breaking business has to start somewhere. Often, it's born when someone stumbles across a problem and thinks that they not only can find a solution, but start a business from it. And with that, a new entrepreneur is born.
Plenty of these companies, of course, have gotten their start in Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay area. The region's track record is legendary. There's the story of the Steves (Jobs and Wozniak) creating the first Apple computer in Job's garage. Or the one when Evan Williams started to experiment with short message services to come up with something that was first called Twttr before becoming the Twitter we know today.
Those companies — and plenty more that today we call unicorns or giants or even titans — have grown into some of the most valuable and powerful in the world. As such, they've got countless reporters following their every move, eager to report what's up with famous founders like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg or Salesforce's Marc Benioff.
But this region has far more stories to tell, of young entrepreneurs coming up with the next great consumer product or an indispensable tool to help businesses run better. The San Francisco Business Times and the Silicon Valley Business Journal have always been on the lookout for these next-generation business leaders, sharing their stories in these publications, honoring them in programs like 40 Under 40 and covering them when they raise big funding rounds or when they confront failure.
Today, we're going deeper with our coverage of the region's startup ecosystem with the launch of Bay Area Inno, a joint effort by the Business Times and Business Journal. On a daily basis, we'll be bringing you stories not just of new entrepreneurs, but also of venture capitalists who focus on early-stage companies and of the numerous incubator and accelerator programs that help grow companies.
Bay Area Inno is part of a nationwide rollout of locally focused sites that all have the same mission: to identify a diverse group of ambitious entrepreneurs and their backers and to bring their stories to you. Almost every publication that is part of our parent company, American City Business Journals, either has already launched Inno or is doing so now.
Business Times and Business Journal subscribers will get access to Bay Area Inno as part of their subscriptions, and they'll find an Inno page in each paper's weekly editions. If someone wants to just get Inno news, there will be a digital subscription for them too after a period when stories are open to all readers. In time, Inno will also be putting on events with the aim of bringing like-minded founders and funders together.
To get things started, this week we're presenting the first in what will be a regular feature, Inno Under 25, that will introduce you to young entrepreneurs and the businesses they're creating. Soon you'll see other features, like Startups to Watch and Inno on Fire.
Our goal with this new product is two-fold. First, to bring readers stories of innovative new companies and non-profits, as well as profiles of the people aiming to break into the billionaire's club with their next-generation idea. And second, to help connect people in this amazing ecosystem together. Welcome to Bay Area Inno.
