Thoughts of Greater Palm Springs bring to mind sunshine, shopping, lush golf courses, the country’s greatest music festivals, and fine dining: the area is renowned for luxury and resort living. For years known primarily as a resort and retirement community, the region is becoming ever-more-popular as a lifestyle destination for Millennials and Gen Xers. But behind the scenes of the newfound hipness of the Coachella Valley is a burgeoning innovation ecosystem driven not by stereotypical young techies, but by experienced workers who have found better ways to do things. Theirs are the innovations – the processes, devices, and applications – that have a high likelihood of commercial success. These are the innovators who are solving known problems, improving difficult processes, preventing waste and loss, bettering patient outcomes, and enhancing engagement between businesses and consumers.
The innovators of Greater Palm Springs are hard to profile: they represent all races and ethnicities; they are men and women; they have varied socioeconomic backgrounds and family situations; they are of all ages. Many are over the age of 50: far enough along in their careers to have noticed the things around them that beg to be improved. The one characteristic that they all share is a desire and a drive to create something bigger than themselves. These are not people who are just looking to turn a hobby into a job that pays the bills: they are the dreamers and big-picture thinkers who can envision building something that outgrows and maybe even outlives them.
How do these innovators find their way to CVEP and the one of the three iHub incubators we manage? Most often it’s a word-of-mouth referral from a chamber of commerce or the economic development department of one of the Valley’s nine cities. Occasionally, someone will forward one of our Facebook posts or e-newsletters to an entrepreneurial friend. And a number of entrepreneurs have found us by searching the internet for small business resources in the Coachella Valley. Whatever their path to us, most of our innovators report feeling that once they found the iHub, they knew they’d found home.
Many business incubators approach incubation formulaically, with rigid timetables, metrics, and milestones to meet. The innovators who find their home at one of Greater Palm Springs’ iHubs have a variety of strengths and weaknesses, operate in a diverse set of industries, and will pursue different paths towards commercialization, meaning that there is not one set of metrics or one type of assistance that will work for all. We may serve one company best by making the right introductions. Another might value the benefit of office and conference room space: an opportunity to escape the kitchen table or the garage, which are so often the lonely headquarters of startup companies. Yet another entrepreneur might seek help with financial projections, a marketing plan, or public speaking. By recognizing what each entrepreneur does well, we can also recognize the areas in which we can best utilize our expertise to fill in the gaps.
In entrepreneurship, there is no perfect path. Even entrepreneurs who have worked for many years or who have been through business school can find themselves ill-prepared for the stressors of building a new business. Despite a good understanding of the business or product side of their startup enterprise, most people need a sounding board as they navigate the emotional rollercoaster of entrepreneurship. As part of an entrepreneurial community, innovators share ideas and swap stories about their struggles and challenges, relating to one another in a way that can only be done with others who are going through the same thing. These connections – and the people who make them – are the foundations of the Greater Palm Springs innovation ecosystem.
