I had dinner with Ian Hathaway a few weeks ago when I was in London. It was a delight to see him in person. While we’ve been collaborating on Startup Communities 2 (which we are now calling The Startup Community Way), which will come out at the “end-of-the-year-ish,” having dinner was a delight and reminded me how much I like him.
A few months ago he wrote a post on Waterloo, and activity in Canada in general, titled The North Star. It’s a good post worth reading but reminded me of a concept that we are weaving into The Startup Community Way.
There is an increasing number of “binary star” startup communities. If you aren’t familiar with binary stars, they are a system of two stars in which one star revolves around the other or both revolve around a common center.
Boulder and Denver is a canonical example of this, where each city has developed a strong startup community, but the relationship between the two makes each stronger as they grow and develop.
Other examples that I’m familiar with that jump out at me include:
- Toronto – Waterloo
- Detroit – Ann Arbor
- Provo – Salt Lake City
- Cleveland – Akron
- Brisbane – Ipswich
- Wellington – Auckland
- Vancouver – Victoria
- Tampa Bay – St Petersburg
If you know of other binary star startup communities, especially if you are a participant in one, leave a note in the comments.