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Kyle Blumin is a lifelong resident of Syracuse, an alumnus of Syracuse University and has successfully started, turned around and exited three businesses. He is also an avid observer of the changes taking place in the region’s economy, especially our emerging ecosystem for supporting fledgling companies. Like many successful entrepreneurs, Kyle can choose to live where he wants to and spend his time doing whatever he likes. What he has no control over though, are his love of startups and are powerful desire to see his hometown once again riding high on a new generation of high growth companies.
Kyle first dipped his toe into the ecosystem by agreeing to be a mentor for the Syracuse Student Sandbox. His experience at StartFast’s 2012 Demo Day convinced him to spend the next summer as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence. Throughout this time, he kept observing those around him and comparing his Upstate experiences to those in other parts of the country. One key insight was that while a lot was happening in the region, much of it was not publicly visible to the average person or even the local business leadership. This was true not just for new startups being formed, but equally true of efforts by successful entrepreneurs, investors, and expats to help these new companies grow and succeed.
Who would be better to chronicle the startup revolution than someone who has already been there and done that? And what better way to break past the bubble than to get the message straight to the region’s business leadership? Kyle reached out to Rob Simpson, President of CenterState CEO with his idea, and Rob readily agreed to be his collaborator because he too felt that not enough people were aware of the sea change under way. The result is a biweekly series of their interviews with key members of the Upstate startup ecosystem that is available in print and online editions of the Central New York Business Journal.
Below are links to recently published interviews. We will keep updating this post as new interviews are published. We also encourage you to reach out to Kyle with ideas for other interviews and follow his progress on Twitter.