Hartford, CT
How JumpStart Helped North Central Connecticut Align Around A Cohesive Strategy
The MetroHartford Alliance is charged with ensuring North Central Connecticut competes successfully for jobs, talent and capital. The Alliance engaged JumpStart to assess their entrepreneurial ecosystem, identify the strengths/gaps and develop a plan to pursue the goals of business growth, talent retention and job creation.
Because the region already had many solid entrepreneurial support resources, JumpStart’s action plan focused heavily on aligning the many stakeholders around a common set of goals. Chief amongst these goals was the development of a cohesive shared message to spread through the Hartford region.
With help from JumpStart, a coalition was formed to examine and address the region’s entrepreneurial issues with a collective voice. These efforts led into the development of a centralized web portal that connects regional entrepreneurs with available resources while acting as a hub for telling stories and sharing positive outcomes.
Future plans for the Alliance include an expansion of the region’s entrepreneurial mentoring program, both to expand their current work with startups and also to begin serving “second-stage” companies that are ready to grow and hire aggressively in the Hartford area.