[Editor’s Note: Kerem Durdag is an entrepreneur who currently serves as president and COO of GWI Inc.; he’s also founder of the Indus Fund, a community supported micro loan program for the immigrant community in Maine]
Twenty years ago, I was the only immigrant involved in the Maine tech startup ecosystem. The fact that still remains largely true, despite the growth of the state’s startup community and large influx of immigrants to the state in the intervening years, is a problem.
It’s impressive how far our local startup community has come in 20 years. But there is still a lot of work to do. Most everyone at the proverbial “table”—founders, senior execs, investors, ecosystem supporters, company board members, etc.—are still white. Maine’s large immigrant population, which is full of innovative, entrepreneurial, well-educated individuals, is still missing from the conversation.
We need to be intentional about this next phase of our startup community’s evolution—I call it Startup Rev 2.0. We need to continue to foster and grow our ecosystem—not just in terms of the success and scale of our companies, but in the makeup and inclusiveness of our community—in order for it to reach its full potential and help it secure Maine’s future economic vitality.
Growth requires intentionality
This is the first of three columns being published by Maine Startups Insider in which I argue that we need to be intentional about fostering a startup ecosystem that is inclusive and diverse. In this column I focus on culture and access. I will explore identity and impact in the next column and use the final column to provide a roadmap of actionable steps to elevate our startup community—and larger society—to the next level in terms of diversity and inclusiveness.
So what does it mean to be intentional about helping our community progress in the right direction? It means creating more onramps for immigrant entrepreneurs to become involved in our startup community; it means extending more assistance to local entrepreneurial immigrants and making sure the immigrant communities are aware of the abundant resources and support network that exists in Maine’s startups community; it means playing the long game and developing the pipeline of talent that already resides in Maine; it means providing assistance with job training and internships; it means recruiting employees outside the normal homogeneous circles.
There are over 50,000 immigrants in Maine generating $48 million in revenue from their businesses; 57% of them are actually U.S. citizens and 7% of them have computer or mathematical science degrees. They have $954 million in spending power. There is significant social and intellectual capital here.
Time to act
Now is a perfect time to start being intentional about growing our startup community and visualizing what we’d like it to look like in 20 years. With recent events such as the creation of the Roux Institute and Techstars launching a global accelerator here, it’s clear to me we’re at a turning point that presents a perfect opportunity to acknowledge and face our challenges.
Chief among those challenges, I believe, is dissolving the homogenous insularity of Maine.
We, as a startup community, need to provide more access points to immigrant and BIPOC entrepreneurs. In order to do so we have to reflect, acknowledge, correct, create and commit to a heterogeneous environment that is an antidote to cultural nationalism.
By cultural nationalism, I refer to the toxic trope or referring to someone as being “from away” and the absurd notion that “you will never be a Mainer” if you weren’t born here. Terms like these are a lazy weapon of exclusion and should no longer be accepted or tolerated as something “funny.” This reductive way of thinking provides an easy and admissible way for individuals, and society as a whole, to view immigrants as the “other.”
Cost of doing nothing
In the world of startups and entrepreneurship— where hurdles, challenges and tribulations are already fairly high—being marginalized is soul-crushing.
Immigrant and BIPOC entrepreneurs have not been at the proverbial table when it comes to Maine’s startup and innovation ecosystem. The access to networks has been out of reach and assimilation rather than integration has been the mode of operation for the ecosystem.
I offer two data points from a trove of life experiences which inform the above.
- I have been witness to conversations in which an immigrant entrepreneur was told, “if you can’t understand our process, then you are not hungry enough to succeed.”
- An immigrant entrepreneur reached out to me to ask: “Why will no one just talk to me and hear me about my dreams?”
Think about those two examples for a second. What is the cost of those statements? What is the generational loss we suffer as a society when we put up walls, exclude people that don’t look like most people in the community, and immediately dismiss their hopes and dreams?
I argue that those costs are inordinately high, and will continue to get higher as there is more competition for talent.
The new brain drain
The next generation of doers, creators, and impact generators are already moving to cities where immigrants are openly welcomed. That inclusive culture helps the entire ecosystem to accelerate its workforce development efforts, increase the number of companies it creates, and increase the amount of global commerce it participates in. Just look at Silicon Valley. Nearly all the biggest tech companies—Google, PayPal, Tesla, eBay, Space X, Zoom—had immigrants on their founding teams. In fact, one study from the National Foundation for American Policy found that 55% of the country’s $1 billion startups had at least one immigrant founder.
The scale of the positive results an inclusive community can create are a direct function of access to networks.
So if an immigrant and BIPOC entrepreneur reaches out, let us share our time and expertise with them. If they seek us out with questions, let us direct them to the answers. If we see they are facing roadblock upon roadblock, let us not leave them alone to just “deal with it.”
Conclusion
There are reasons the startup community in Maine is predominantly white. It is the same reason why the senior management and company boards have scant representation. Maine as a society is white. We create and sustain our ecosystems with what we know. But that does not mean it has to remain that way. In fact I joyfully posit that there are elemental building blocks of cultural diversity which already exist that we need to nurture (e.g., the second generation of Somali immigrants revitalizing Lewiston; the 60+ languages spoken in Portland high schools; the vibrancy of the 30+ nonprofits statewide that are run by immigrants for immigrants; the intentionality of individual to look head-on to prevalent racism). So we learn and evolve. Just like startups do.
If you think this is only about promoting diversity for the sake of promoting diversity, think again. This is about the future of Maine’s economy. You only need to look at the preliminary results of the 2020 census to realize Maine’s native white population is not growing and has a negative birth rate. If Maine wants to survive the 21st Century, it has to include the immigrant and BIPOC community in its society
Startup Rev 2.0 is a necessity. It is our moral and ethical imperative to form an inclusive and diverse society. It is our economic key to prosperity. It is the American ideal in its truest, honest and purest form. We must answer the call. We must.
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