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Tech Wildcatters Founder: Focus on Your Strengths

2 min read

Gabriella Draney, co-founder of the Tech Wildcatters startup accelerator in Dallas, on Wednesday in Little Rock advised entrepreneurs to play to their strengths and not worry so much about their weaknesses.

Draney presented a lunchtime address, “Building World-class Ecosystems with Technology Startups,” as part of the Clinton School of Public Service Speaker Series at the school’s Sturgis Hall in the River Market District. 

Tech Wildcatters is a B2B-focused accelerator started in 2010. Earlier this year, it was named the 8th best startup accelerator in the country by TechCrunch. Draney and her team launched Health Wildcatters, an accelerator program focused on health-care startups, in 2013.

Draney explained the B2B and health care focus resulted from identifying what the Dallas startup ecosystem does best.

“Don’t focus on making your weaknesses better, but on increasing your strengths,” she said. “You’re always going to have weaknesses.”

Draney suggested that too much emphasis on being well rounded isn’t a good, long-term strategy.

“Focus on what you’re good at,” she said. “When we launched Tech Wildcatters, we decided to do B2B only — that’s where we can win.”

Draney said innovation ecosystems consist of startups, universities and corporations, and those systems are fueled by capital, talent and ideas. They’re “greased” by media, government, service and training providers, she added, and “We need lots and lots of grease.”

Draney wants Texas — not just Dallas, but the entire state — to market itself as one entity when it comes to innovation. Austin may come to mind when most people talk Texas and tech startups, but Draney believes a regional approach is the key to long-term success. She’d like to see regional innovation take hold in the form of a tech triangle with Dallas, Austin and Houston as its sides.

She cited San Francisco and Boston as examples. In the aftermath of World War II, innovation-related government funding flooded both cities, but San Francisco took a more regional approach and Silicon Valley was born.

“You’ve got to work together as a region, or else San Francisco never would have become Silicon Valley,” she said. “There’s a more collaborative environment in Silicon Valley. Innovation in Boston is still very heavily siloed. So Boston didn’t become Silicon Valley.”

Draney said if Arkansas wants to emerge onto the national innovation radar, it needs to stick with the regional approach adopted by innovation leaders in central and northwest Arkansas. She noted the expansion of the ARK Challenge accelerator, founded in Fayetteville but expanded this year to Little Rock. 

“It’s about collaboration,” she said. “Innovation is all about collaboration.”

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