Enterprise zones in the UK are typically based in depressed urban
areas hit by the decline of traditional manufacturing industries, places
that most people aspire to finally escape from, one day. However, there
is a different model that can potentially deliver even better long-term
results.
The city of Kelowna is less than an hour’s flight east of Vancouver
in the Central Okanagan region of Canada, an area of outstanding natural
beauty next to a 72-mile lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Its
fruit-growing industries were declining, so local entrepreneurs shrewdly
switched their crops and the area now boasts several award-winning
wineries.
The region might have remained a tourist and retirement destination
but for local entrepreneurs Lance Priebe and Lane Merrifield who had the
idea for Club Penguin, an on-line social network for children. Riding
the first wave of Internet adoption, they soon had 3.9M users before
being purchased by the Disney Corporation, who still maintain a
350-strong operation in Kelowna.
Once the city’s credentials as a new media hub had been established,
the Central Okanagan Economic Development Commission resolved to attract
more hi-tech businesses. Since 1998, Robert Fine has been Executive
Director, which involves constant local networking, the promotion of the
area internationally and the essential ability to encourage funding and
tax breaks from local and national politicians.
The result is a region that punches considerably above its weight.
Entrepreneurs have low-cost access to Accelerate Okanagan, a
purpose-built incubator that provides membership, networking and
serviced office space, as well as practical training, consultancy and
market research services.
Unlike the incubators that emerged in London during the dot-com boom,
Accelerate Okanagan is not run by venture capitalists focused on
generating deal-flow geared for a quick and lucrative exit. This
incubator works more like a social enterprise, providing long-term
mentor-focused nurturing on a not-for-profit basis.
Government funding meets the basic running costs of Accelerate
Okanagan, but the incubator also has commercial targets, with profits
recycled to improve and enhance the various programmes.
Ambitious entrepreneurs always crave worldwide fame and fortune, so
Fine and successful technology entrepreneur Steve Wandler launched the
Metabridge Conference, now in its third year. This attracted venture
capitalists and successful entrepreneurs who made their fortunes in
successful hi-tech start-ups such as Google, Facebook and Electronic
Arts.
These were the conference VIPs who delivered keynotes, appeared on
panel sessions and acted as judges for the pitching competition. The
conference numbers were deliberately kept small, with 14 companies
pitching to twenty VIPs. This enabled all the aspiring entrepreneurs to
have quality networking time with world-class business mentors in the
relaxed atmosphere of a golf course or boat trip.
This year, two companies won a two-day facilitated tour of
influential companies in Silicon Valley. These were Connection Point,
whose product FundRazr is a next-generation fund-raising application,
and Xomo, who develop mobile applications for live events, including the
2010 Winter Olympics and the Isle of Wight Festival.
As the winners were chosen by some of the most astute technical and
funding experts in North America, their future looks bright as well as
for the place where they got their big break.
As the Metabridge entrepreneurs and investors grow their companies, I
am sure they will look to Central Okanagan not only for good staff, but
also as somewhere they can enjoy the more enhanced and relaxed quality
of life they will have earned after their own successful exits.
Perhaps this is a better definition of the perfect enterprise zone;
not an industrial urban sprawl that most people aspire to escape from,
but instead an attractive location to relocate to, once you have
achieved success.
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