Check out this article from Pittsburgh Business Times about entrepreneurial activity in Pennsylvania. Spreadshirt CEO Jana Eggers talks about doing business in western PA.
Jana Eggers is the CEO of the Greensburg-based U.S. operations of Spreadshirt Inc., an online retailer and manufacturer founded in 2002 that prints T-shirts and other wearable goods using designs created by clients. She said Pennsylvania and specifically Pittsburgh has a lot to offer new entrepreneurs. But Eggers said the region may lack the historical environment that would incubate people wanting to start their own business.
“Pittsburgh traditionally had very large businesses and a lot of the older, bigger industries, people didn’t grow up with that in their culture,” Eggers said.
Eggers said Boston, where she worked before venture capitalists for Spreadshirt recruited her to Pittsburgh, had a much more active environment for business startups. She said the chief reason for that could be the more than 60 colleges and universities that dot the landscape in the Boston metropolitan area.
But she said the intensity of the competition for venture capital in Boston makes Pittsburgh look like a friendlier place to do business by comparison.
“We should play that up and say ‘Hey, we may not have all the money,’ but it’s a friendlier place where we have more cooperation and support,” Eggers said.
Lindsay Patross
Dave
It’s about time they made the news!!! I am so glad I am apart of History in the making!!!!