Here's Something to Talk About...

At a recent Public Relations Society of America luncheon, several of our region's leaders (including JumpStart's Ray Leach) spoke about positive economic activity occurring in the Cleveland Plus region. At one point, the panel moderator reminded the audience of PR and marketing professionals that aside from the marketing we do as part of our jobs, we should be the leaders in telling our region's success stories every day in all our interactions, personal and professional. Truer words...right?

One thing I realized was that there is no lack of interest in telling the good stories, but perhaps a lack of facts and information. So, here you go. You will now be armed with easy-to-remember facts about the vibrancy and progress of one element of our economic activity: the region's entrepreneurial ventures.

• In 2008, more companies (73) received venture capital investment than in any of the past 4 years. This is significant because it is more likely that a company receiving venture investment (vs. one that does not) will continue growth, ultimately becoming a significant employer in the region.
• We have had nearly 90 venture capital firms from outside the region invest in a company here in the past five years. This indicates that the strength of our entrepreneurial community is competitive with investment opportunities across the nation.
• Our region's entrepreneurs are successfully innovating across a variety of industries. Not only are many companies growing in the areas of bioscience, but we also have successful entrepreneurs building companies in sectors such as advanced materials and energy. (In fact, investors more than doubled the investment dollars in companies in these industries since last year.) Often, these companies are creating "clean technologies" or solutions which are not only good business, but good for the earth too. This is an area of significant national attention, and our region is in the mix.
• In 2008, some of these entrepreneurial ventures contributed to the more than 6,000 jobs created in the region.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, so watch here for future updates on great stories. Bottom line, there is much entrepreneurial success happening here. We just need to talk about it. The sources for this data are the 2008 Venture Capital Report for the Cleveland Plus region, and Cleveland Plus Business. Cathy Belk is the Chief Marketing Officer of JumpStart. She specializes in branding, marketing communications, and business management. She brings 16+ years of experience in a variety of marketing and business roles, but gets her energy from working daily with entrepreneurs and their growing companies.