Startup America Partnership Q & A

Q: What is the Startup America Partnership?

A. The Startup America Partnership is a private organization working to help young companies succeed in order to accelerate job growth in America. We’re bringing the private sector together to maximize the success of America’s entrepreneurs, and augment America’s competitiveness in an increasingly global world. We are an independent nonprofit entity (NGO) that was launched at the White House in early 2011.

Q: How are you helping startups?

A: We’re bringing together some of the country’s most successful organizations to provide valuable resources to young companies with high growth potential. We are focused on providing resources in five key areas: Talent, Services, Expertise, Customers and Capital. We are also working on a regional basis to identify and help accelerate entrepreneurial ecosystems across the country. 

Which startups are you helping?

A: We’ve classified the startup ecosystem into the following groups:

     - Idea: Someone has an idea for a business but has not yet established it.

     - Startup: At least two people have created a business entity with the ambition to build a scalable company.

     - Rampup: A team of five or more people that has secured at least two customers and has a clear focus on customer growth.

     - Speedup: A company that employs at least 25 people and has established a revenue run-rate of $10MM or more.

While we celebrate and have resources for those in the idea phase, we are focused on helping young companies that are currently startups, rampups or speedups.

Q: Why just “young companies”?

A: Companies less than five years old account for all of the net job growth in our country between 1980 and 2005. These firms have the potential to one day employ hundreds, if not thousands of workers. Of course, we love entrepreneurs of all stripes, but in order to drive significant job creation over the next 3 years, we are focused on existing startups that have the potential for high growth. These high-growth firms can be in any industry (tech, education, finance, etc.) and from any region of the country.

Q: How is the Startup America Partnership funded?

A: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Case Foundation provided the initial funding for the Startup America Partnership. American Express OPEN, Dell Inc., Intuit Inc., and Microsoft are corporate sponsors. We have not received a dollar from any government organization.

Q: What is your relationship with the White House Administration?

A: We were launched at the White House in January 2011, and the Administration is a very important partner of ours with whom we work closely. However, we are not overseen or funded by the federal government. The Administration has its own Startup America initiative.

Q: Do you provide any capital or grants?

A: We are not a grant-making entity. We are partnering with a number of organizations who do invest in startups, in order to help get those funders in front of the young companies who may need their services.

Q: Who is leading the Startup America Partnership?

A: Our CEO is Scott Case, a proven entrepreneur who was the founding CTO of Priceline.com. Our Chairman is Steve Case, AOL co-founder and current CEO and chairman of Revolution, LLC, and the chairman of the Case Foundation. The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation also provides leadership to the Partnership.Our all-entrepreneur board can be seen here.

 

Q: How can potential partners get involved?

A: If you have products or services that benefit young companies, fill out our partner form and we’ll be in touch.

Q: How can startups get involved?

A: If you’re an entrepreneur running a young company, register here to access to our partner resources.