Forge, and Fischer, Galvanize Louisville’s Entrepreneuer Community

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Bring together a group of people who are creative, smart, driven and passionate and you know something earth-shattering will come together.

That’s the idea behind Forge.  “Entrepreneurs like to work with one another, they like to collaborate with one another, but for some reason in cities like Louisville, or any other city besides the hot beds of entrepreneurial activity like Boston, New York or Silicon Valley, they’re separated into these desperate silos,” says Adam Fish, CEO of Forge.

This creates two problems, Fish said. It makes it hard for the people who want to get into the community and secondly the people already working in the city may be working without interacting with others.  To solve this problem Forge intends to galvanize Louisville’s network of entrepreneurial talent and create a community of like-minded people.  Judging by last night’s success, they’ve started their endeavor with outstanding success.

Forge's Adam Fish

Mayor Greg Fischer made an appearance at last night’s event speaking on his experience as a young business owner and his vision for the future of Louisville.

“Louisville’s small size isn’t a weakness—cities like Chicago, Dallas…these other cities are much bigger than we are in comparison, but that means as a city we are more nimble,”  Fischer said to a packed room of 150 in the upstairs dining area of Avalon Restaurant. “We’ve got to stop comparing ourselves to ourselves and start looking at other cities and realize where our strengths are.”

He mentioned areas such as Logistics, Advanced Manufacturing, Aging Care and Entrepreneurship as our areas of strength. “Entrepreneurship…” he continued, “requires breakthrough work, which is separate from daily work and continual improvement work.”

Forge is creating an environment to harbor such a breakthrough work climate.  Last night packed in a room filled with captains of industry, I couldn’t help but think about one of my favorite quotes by Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people could ever change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever did.”

Personally, it’s incredibly exciting to see an event like this launch with such community embrace.  An organization like Forge is exactly what Louisville needs to truly stimulate economic growth.  Adam is right, we’ve got to break down our communication silos in this city and get people to start working together, sharing ideas and helping one another.  We can rebirth the spirit of Americana, we can stimulate the economy and we can build a better quality of life with the work of organizations like Forge.  I have a hunch that Louisville, KY’s future is about to get a lot more exciting as Forge’s network grows and the brainpower of this city unites and ignites a new era of development.

For more information on Forge: http://www.forgehq.com/

Promotional video: http://vimeo.com/20357162