Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="IthacaMatt, post: 1502353, member: 405"] I have counseled some of the most promising start ups to come out of Syracuse in the last 10 years, including a past winner of the Chamber's $200,000 business plan competition and several finalists for those grants over the years. One of my former clients (who relocated to NYC a few years ago) was on Shark Tank this summer. I work particularly with tech start-ups and used to be a marketing consultant to IBM's Internet and Software divisions, so if there's anybody more qualified to help people start businesses for the 21st Century in this town, I'd like to meet them (or should say, I already probably know them). Syracuse's biggest problems are: 1. Politics is a family-run business in this town, where appointments are based on who you know, not WHAT you know. This is extremely bad for business. 2. Economic development in this town is too focused on asset-based businesses, not intellectual property based businesses. It's very hard to get capital for "ideas" as opposed to brick and mortar businesses, especially through the SBA. In Ithaca, by contrast (or Rochester or Albany), there is more private capital that is not so risk averse to IP based businesses. 3. Too little investment capital, in general. 4. Inexperienced business management. Rochester, in contrast, was an IP based town when Kodak, Xerox and Bausch and Lomb were at their peak. When those businesses laid people off, they were engineers and inventors, and they knew a lot about business management. Syracuse, in contrast, was always more of a manufacturing town. When Carrier, GE, General Motors, Crucible and Allied Chemical left town or down-sized, the people who were unemployed knew how to "make things", but not so much about marketing or running a business. The quality of entrepreneur in Syracuse compared to Ithaca, Rochester or Albany is a bit startling. Even Binghamton has better management quality entrepreneurs than Syracuse does, generally speaking. 5. Syracuse is too small, business-wise, and too risk averse. In this town, there are one or two companies that dominate every market. There's not too much competition. And most of the people are conditioned that once they get a job, they do anything possible to keep that job for life, if they can, because there are so few opportunities here. Almost everyone wants to be a teacher or work at a government job where they can keep their heads down, stay out of trouble and collect a nice pension with medical benefits in 20-30 years. That is the only future people see here, not business opportunities. My two cents, after having worked in NYC for 20 years after getting out of college. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?