5 days ago
Startup leaders kick off national ‘America the Entrepreneurial' campaign
A new initiative rooted in the aspirational goals of the Declaration of Independence places entrepreneurs at the forefront of the country's semiquincentennial celebration.
In 1893, the United States was in the midst of an economic depression that contrasted gaudy, gilded-era wealth with struggling labor. Emerging communications technology mesmerized and threatened jobs, powering an insurgent populist political movement. Americans debated over the country's global role and confronted the vile stain of racial inequity, just a generation removed from a Civil War.
That summer, New England professor Katharine Lee Bates took a wagon trip up Pike's Peak in Colorado. So moved by the view, and overcome by a sense of ideals amid a storm of unease, Bates wrote what would later become an enduring patriotic ballad: 'O beautiful for spacious skies / For amber waves of grain / For purple mountain majesties / Above the fruited plain!'
This July 4 will mark 130 years since 'America the Beautiful' was first published. Right to Start founder Victor Hwang has another anniversary on his mind:
To mark next year's 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, his national nonprofit launched on Thursday a new campaign: America the Entrepreneurial.
'The country we are in is different than the country we are told we are,' said Hwang, drawing from three cross-country road trips visiting entrepreneurs. (No bus was involved) 'It's a more hopeful one. More need that chance.'
The campaign was announced in a crowded rooftop bar near the Indianapolis Convention Center, where Global Entrepreneurship Congress is being held in the United States for the first time since its founding in 2009. (Full disclosure, this reporter had four arancini and an extra shrimp cocktail.)
Like Hwang's Right to Start, GEC is part of a suite of initiatives spun out of the Kansas City-based Kauffman Foundation, which funded a generation of pro-entrepreneurship research. Hwang was once a Kauffman vice president credited with championing much of 'field building' for what insiders call 'entrepreneurial ecosystem building.' Now he leads Right to Start, which is guiding policymakers on entrepreneurship-boosting policy — and moonlights as a podcast host.
Hwang developed the new initiative with his board member and former White House policy advisor John Bridgeland, and it will be led by Right to Start's COO Kim Lane.
'America was made by builders, dreamers, and risk-takers,' Hwang said. 'Yet today we have a system that too often works against entrepreneurs.'
The campaign outlines three key actions:
Creating a level playing field: Tackling outdated regulations, inequitable access to capital, and procurement rules favoring large incumbents.
Spreading entrepreneurial knowledge: Offering nationwide access to skills training, practical education, and community networks.
Supporting entrepreneurial households: Advocating policies that ease healthcare, childcare, and financial burdens for entrepreneurs and their families.
'The most courageous startup the world has ever seen'
To be clear, entrepreneurship is already booming in the United States, at least compared to pre-pandemic trends. That boom in business starts is being led by women, especially women of color.
But Hwang, like his tribe of Kauffman-affiliated spinouts, thinks in terms of a much more sustained and complete change of economic development and policymaking at all levels. Sounds like a revolution.
'In 1776, America didn't just declare independence,' Hwang is credited with saying in a followup press release. 'America launched the most courageous startup the world has ever seen — a country conceived and dedicated to the promise of opportunity, enterprise, and self-determination.'
The 'America the Entrepreneurial' campaign plans to mobilize more than 250,000 Americans in coalitions spanning all 50 states by the end of 2026. Engagement will be facilitated through local events, storytelling initiatives and a comprehensive toolkit available through the campaign's website, per the group.
For Hwang, this initiative builds on decades of foundational work advocating entrepreneurship and ecosystem-building. He routinely cites two cornerstone bits of research: that new business drives all net new jobs and that every 1% increase in entrepreneurial activity in a state correlates with a 2% decline in poverty.
'This is effectively saying the whole country, all of society, should care about entrepreneurship and be involved in it,' Hwang told before the launch. 'We've been missing that message because it's effectively been a conversation amongst ourselves.'
Entrepreneurship, Hwang argues, is more than just economic activity — it is central to America's identity and future. I've spoken with Hwang about 'America the Entrepreneurial' a half dozen times in the last couple months. Each time he says the name with an uplifting tone, raising his hand to match. At the launch he joked that he hears music when he does.
'If you want a strong America, you have to have strong entrepreneurship,' Hwang said. 'When the entrepreneurial spirit thrives, America thrives.'More details about the campaign are available at americatheentrepreneurial.o rg.
