Economic Development

The Traverse City Region – the Midwest’s Hotspot for Innovation & Growth

At Traverse Connect, our approach to economic development is forward-thinking and non-traditional. Instead of focusing all our resources on “chasing smokestacks,” we value a healthy mix of attracting new business to the region while supporting the growth of our existing companies and encouraging the creation of new industries from the ground up.

Building a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem means fostering a culture of openness and information exchange between companies and across industries within our region, from corporate headquarters and startup entrepreneurs, down to Main Street coffee shop founders. Our goal is to ignite a community of entrepreneurs and local partners who feed off each other’s talent, creativity, and support at each stage of growth. By focusing on local business conditions, we hope to create clusters of new firms and industries that ultimately produce a fertile landscape long term.

By encouraging the growth of our existing assets – healthy partner relationships, the scaling up of our existing companies – and attracting new business, we will see our already vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem continue to flourish and grow.

Measuring Success with the Scale Up Growth Barometer

Measuring Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Building can be difficult and complex, but there are key performance indicators to highlight progress. We have adopted the use of a local Scale Up Growth Barometer measurement, adapted from the Babson College Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Platform, which asks two important questions of our local business community:

Updated 2.28.24

Traverse Connect has identified target businesses and industry clusters that we believe have great potential to prosper and thrive in Northern Michigan. Our ‘place-based’ economic development strategy and ‘tech-based economic development’ approach consider the industries that we already have on our doorstep and look to our region’s unique natural resources and assets. We have undertaken efforts to outline and market to the rest of the world the unique value proposition and market opportunities of our region, as well as existing businesses, infrastructure, and cultural assets that make up our competitive entrepreneurial ecosystem