This type of outlook will benefit Tulsa in encouraging venture investing with a focus on equitable economic growth. The best way to achieve this is by seeking startups to add jobs and increase wages.
When my firm looks for projects, we look beyond the Tulsa borders to find entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities, to seek innovation and to grow the city from within and beyond our boundaries.
College degrees are not the only, or even the best, avenue by which success in the workforce is measured.
It is better to look at talent from a perspective of hard and soft skills. Soft skills show the ability to get along with others and to deliver on projects. Hard skills, which are more technical, are necessary and central to a broad swath of platforms.
Tulsa poses an attractive and viable opportunity as companies seek workforces in areas with lower costs of living. In the spirit of being equitable, we must recognize diversity from a geographic perspective. Ventures need to be focused on the entirety of our country’s landscape.
For example, Lightship Capital had a focus on flyover states and underrepresented populations now has a presence in Tulsa. We are gaining access to companies and founders that would never have considered Tulsa, until now.
Facilitating relationships and showing the rate Tulsa investors hear proposals will ultimately lead to enhanced value in the creation of a startup ecosystem in the city.
