It’s not often that an announcement of someone quitting their job is met with resounding applause. And yet that is what happened at a recent 1 Million Cups Bismarck when an attendee announced he quit his job in order to work full-time at his startup company. It was a moment of success for Garrett Moon and Justin Walsh, co-founders of Todaymade and CoSchedule, who have recently dedicated their efforts to growing the startup community in Bismarck.
Garrett Moon (left) and Justin Walsh (right)
That’s right, Fargo is not the only place crazy about startups. Last week, 1 Million Cups Bismarck had their one year anniversary, a Startup Weekend is slotted for January, and a TEDx event is currently in the works. At the helm of the event planning is a group started by Moon and Walsh, called Start Bismarck. Their mission is one that we share: create the ideal community.
For Moon and Walsh, starting a company wasn’t enough. They realized that to truly create a desirable work place, they needed to create a desirable living community for their employees as well.
“We have a pretty big need for talent, a pretty big need for developers and designers and creators. Bismarck isn’t necessarily right for those types of jobs right now,” Walsh said. “We want the people who work here at our companies to enjoy living in the town they work in. Having things to do, and having fun events, and having a fun culture that you live in…we’re trying to foster that in any way we can.”
The two also hope to draw in more candidates from out-of-state, a goal that Bismarck shares with the state of North Dakota as a whole. With 20,000+ open jobs, the cities are ripe for growth, making quality of life a crucial component.
“How can we get people from out of state to decide to move here? Well, we have to create an environment and a culture and a city that’s fun, healthy and safe,” Moon said. “And part of a city that’s fun is a vibrant startup community.”
This need led the duo to start holding monthly meetings this past June for people interested in developing a startup community in Bismarck. Monthly turned to weekly, and soon the group had a name and a website.
“It’s kind of a behind-the-scenes group that helps make sure that events are happening and stuff’s moving forward, and volunteers are getting lined up, and coordination is happening,” Walsh said.
The efforts have so far been successful. One of their first projects as a group was to rework and relaunch 1 Million Cups Bismarck, a move that has since tripled the attendance. The group is also working to obtain a TEDx license, as well as organizing the Startup Weekend being held on January 23-25, 2015.
Another simple but effective way that Start Bismark engages the community is through a weekly newsletter that includes upcoming events.
“It allows us to unify the community around that newsletter, so nothing goes unnoticed,” Walsh said.
The work that goes into this is purely voluntary, Moon explained. The group is composed of about 8-10 active attendees, all driven by their own personal desire to see the Bismarck community grow.
“It’s really just morning coffee,” Walsh said. “We all get together, have a cup of coffee at a good coffee stop downtown, and go over the progress of planning.”
“The midwest and North Dakota can be very independent, and we tend not to reach out or work with groups,” Moon added. “So it’s a good reason to get us all there in the same place in the right mind at the table, and begin talking about a focused subject – building the startup community.”
At their meetings, the group asks questions like, how can they support the community as a whole? What does the Bismarck startup community look like? What makes it unique?
The latter question is an important one, as Moon and Walsh continue to draw ideas from neighboring cities that are doing similar work, such as Fargo. While startup communities are growing across the nation, each city has a different culture to which these ideas must adapt.
“We spend a fair amount of time looking at what Fargo’s doing,” Moon said. “But we have a very different type of community.”
Team members from Coschedule and Todaymade
Some of the things that make Bismarck stand apart from other North Dakota cities is the absence of a large student population, like that of Fargo or Grand Forks, and the heavy presence of government – both an advantage and a challenge, Moon said.
The city also has many successful global companies that have existed for a while without making too much noise. For instance, a Bismarck-based company is a major contractor of bulletproof armor that is currently being used to protect American soldiers, Moon said. This success Moon attributes to Bismarck’s history of innovative hard-workers, those who are out doing the work while also thinking of how they can make their work more efficient.
“We have a community of inventors,” Moon said. “People who have a history and family lineage of inventing things on the tractor, inventing things out of the oil fields, or in the energy industry.”
As the team at Start Bismarck continues to foster that innovation and create a vibrant startup community, they have one request to Fargo: keep doing what we’re doing.
“As far as how 1 Million Cups is implemented, Fargo and Emerging Prairie are really leading the nation,” Moon said.
The two agreed in thinking that not only Bismarck, but other US cities have benefited from the successful format of Fargo events. As more and more attention is drawn to the job opportunities and energy that exists in an unlikely place like North Dakota, the community-building efforts in Fargo and Bismarck become increasingly important.
“What Fargo can do is continue to lead the way,” Moon said. “Continue to be a community of risk-takers that tries new things, and helps train and teach and demonstrate to other communities how to make it happen.”
