Starting A Business in a High Growth Industry? Need A Mentor? SBA's New Initiative can Help.

For the past 50 years at SBA, we’ve always been proud to serve not only “Main Street” small businesses, but also the high-growth startups that drive the lion’s share of net new job creation each year in America. These startup companies often benefit from working with accelerator and university programs where they have access to mentors, untapped opportunities, and networking sessions with local capital and resource providers.  Today, we are launching the Startup America Regional Accelerators and University Initiative with our first convening in New England.

SBA will host a series of convenings throughout the country to focus on the development and support of accelerators and other mentoring services for startups.  The goal of this initiative is to see how we can “accelerate” these accelerators, e.g. create and expand the capacity of quality accelerator programs so that more startups have access to the networks and resources they need to grow and scale. By bringing together leaders and seasoned mentors in this field, we want to identify specific barriers to growth, and identify concrete solutions to these problems. We hope to not only provide a space for networking, but through these discussions we want to catalyze commitments from accelerators and codify best practices so that the entrepreneurs working in these programs can grow their companies and create new jobs. 

The mission to promote entrepreneurship is a core component of President Obama’s national innovation strategy for achieving sustainable growth and quality jobs. Here at SBA, we understand that working with high growth startups will be key to achieving this mission. We are committed to continually engaging with and developing unique opportunities like the Regional Accelerators and University Initiative that will bring together university and community partners for the benefit of high growth startups.  

About the Author

Sean Greene is the Associate Administrator for Investment and the Special Advisor for Innovation at the U.S. Small Business Administration.