Companies that have either been through the TSF program or are going through it now are used to me dropping cliches.  Like every day.   I can’t help myself – my father is the master of cliches, riddles, advice-in-the-form-of-cute phrases.

My startup advice cliche #1 is “crawl-walk-run”.  I hope it’s meaning is obvious but for those of you struggling right now I am referring to the idea that you have to take a phased approach to your goal(s).

My work to help build a nationally-recognized tech ecosystem follows the same advice.

Crawl.  Walk.  Run.

Today the American Underground is announcing that Google has selected AU as well as Durham and the greater Triangle as 1 of 7 entrepreneur hubs across North America.  The idea is that the 100+ companies and 300 ish that make up the AU have access to key Google resources including developers, products, tools, and expertise.

Why is this important to us?

  1. One of the Top companies in the world recognize our area as worthy of their attention.  Google.  Durham.  Triangle.  Tech.  I love those words in the same sentence.  Its validation.
  2. Second – every startup needs help.  Google is a talent machine.  Even a minimal amount of interaction between a TSF startup team and a Google person can create amazing lift.  I can’t wait to watch it happen.
  3. Lastly, it’s another step in the crawl-walk-run rubric.  We are definitely out of crawl phase and building momentum in the walk phase.  National awareness and validation goes a long way towards building momentum.

So, if you have a chance to celebrate this announcement, do what you do.  Tweet, retweet, share, post, blog, comment, email, shout – I don’t care.   Just recognize that we just “put a shot across the bow”.  (Another cliche!)

I will be tweeting during the day @chrisheivly