Map of concentration of Computer Science and Mathematics jobs as a proportion of the population.
At Adjacent we believe in the American Dream. If you have a good idea, and you put in the hard work, you should be able to see it realized.
But in our research we found four key roadblocks.
1. The ability to go from idea to finished product, and on to a successful company is not evenly distributed across the United States.
The maps below show the uneveness of opportunity across three different factors----the amount of computer scientists as a proportion of the population (that are often necessary to develop a minimum viable product), the lack of high-quality accelerators to help entrepreneurs move from product to company, and the lack of Venture Capitalists in many areas that can help companies scale. All of this contributes towards making it far harder for entrepreneurs to find co-founders, build a product, and grow if they cannot afford or don't want to live in these specific geogrpahies.
Our Thesis
2. Even if you're in the right place, you might not be the right kind of person.
If you are a minority or a woman, the likelihood of you founding a start-up is far lower than that of a Caucasian male. There's several reasons for this. One is systemic socialization in the education system, to the more nebulous fact that people tend to like hanging out with people like them. Since a lot of venture capital introductions are made through personal introductions, it means that since venture capitalists are overwhelmingly white and male, it means the companies they invest in are also overwhelmingly white and male.
3. The problem of not knowing what you don't know.
Even in a world where Google has a store of