By Joe Procopio

You know why I’m pumped these days?

I’m a true-believer in the notion that you don’t scrimp, save, and fret yourself out of the tail end of an economic downturn. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m actually the first one to start sweating, cutting coupons, and sending clients large “thank you for not unfunding us” gift baskets when things turn sour, but you do this on the way down, not on the way up.

I’m not suggesting we spend ourselves out of the recession, I’m just suggesting we might want to party our way out of it. Especially here, especially now, together we can lift the RTP out of the vanilla, “quality of life” quagmire we’ve been in since the 1980s.

And no, not parties like those famous for popping down the dot-com bubble, although part of me misses the salad days, but parties like the one they threw for American Underground.

American What Now?

So American Underground is this space in the American Tobacco Complex designed to house up to 70 small entrepreneurial high tech companies with shared conference space and amenities. It opens in the fall. Oh, it also has three incubator/accelerator anchors – CED, Launchbox Digital, and Joystick Labs.

The announcement of American Underground took place in a coming-out party on July 20^th, if you can still call an 11:00 a.m. gathering of people in khakis with no alcohol or DJ a party, and believe me, we should and we will.

In fact, I’m starting to enjoy these kinds of parties even more, mostly because there’s less chance for me to make an ass of myself. Not no chance. Just less chance.

Top Secret!

Once the fanfare was over it was pretty clear that American Underground was one of the best kept secrets in the Triangle.

I first heard about American Underground months ago, and that was probably several months, if not years, late, so I’m not patting myself on the back for having cool friends or being in super-secret inner circles. I have a Discover card.

However, having spent enough time with people from CED, Launchbox, and Joystick over the last few months, these things inevitably come up. I wasn’t sworn to secrecy, no NDAs were signed. I just didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to steal anyone’s thunder.

Why? Because, like I said, this crazy army of like-minded ilk we call the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the RTP needs a little more thunder. A little zazz. A little energy.

And that’s exactly what American Underground is designed to do.

Underground Energy

Launchbox has already selected two companies on the way to filling out their full incubator lineup by August 31. These companies are being imported from California and Colorado. Imports. That’s a good sign.

Chris Heivly, who is running the thing, says he’s most excited about the energy that will flow through American Underground. With the addition of the Underground, he says, the American Tobacco Complex and Durham are the new center hub for technology and innovation in our area.

And look at Durham go. Who knew?

Energy = Synergy

Juan Benito, who runs Joystick, talks along the same lines but also adds the very good point about the additional energy thrown off as Durham evolves into a center for arts and music as well as technology.

He also points out that another very good reason to be excited is the cross-collaboration between the accelerators and the startups and even between the startups themselves.

Hub the World

While American Underground is a very good hub, remember, a hub works best when it’s spoked.

Let’s use this as a model, Triangle Tech and Startup People, to not only spoke those in the Park to American Tobacco and downtown Durham, but to create other hubs in Raleigh and Chapel Hill, and so on, until we’re not only a world class place to graduate, stay, live, and work, but a world class destination, competing with That Other Place for talent from all over the world

Joe Procopio is the founder of Intrepid Company, a technical and management consulting firm (intrepidcompany.com) that has spun out publishing company/creative network Intrepid Media and digital incubator ExitEvent. He’s asked us to add that it’s a Discover Platinum card. He can be reached at joe@intrepidcompany.com or twitter @jproco.

 

Southeast Venture Conference, February 29 – March 1, 2012 at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, VA – Where Smart Money Meets Smart People.
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Tags: American Tobacco Campus, American Underground, Joe Procopio, tech life, tech space, Underground energy, Viewpoint