Building Startup Growth in Small Towns - Megan McKisson (St. Louis, MO)

Innovation City

“A person just in their basement working hard is great, and they might have traction and success, but if they do it’s because they’re leveraging past relationships. If you don’t have those relationships, or you need to make new ones, you’ve got to be out in the community doing that.” — Megan McKissen

Today’s guest is Megan McKissen, Director at OPO Startups and Founder and Managing Partner at Clustered Economic Development. As Director of OPO (an incubator focused on technology and design startups in St. Charles, MO) Megan helped create one of the Top 25 communities for startup growth in the entire nation. Clustered works to build inclusive, homegrown startup clusters that create high-paying jobs and attract high-growth companies in small towns and suburban and rural communities. Megan joins Innovation City today to talk about her plans for building economic growth centers in small towns across the country, share stories about fast acquisitions of OPO startups, and explain why we shouldn’t forget about the suburbs when we think about innovation.