VOL. 38, NO. 9
FEBRUARY 27 - MARCH 5, 2017
Source Lunch
Costly energy Investors are concerned about future of new power plants. Page 3
Page 23
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Local startups weigh a westward move By CHUCK SODER csoder@crain.com @ChuckSoder
Two years ago, Kyle Stalzer asked himself a question that tech entrepreneurs have been asking themselves for decades: Should I move to Silicon Valley? The CEO of Tackk knew he was going to be spending a lot of time raising capital and building relationships there, given that it’s the undisputed tech capital of the world. He thought about just catching a plane every weekend. And Stalzer said he might’ve chosen that route, if he was running a more traditional tech company, selling software to other businesses. But Tackk doesn’t fit that mold: Like many social media and consumer app companies, its first priority was to get a huge number of people to use the company’s platform (which lets users create and share digital fliers and other simple web pages). And it’s much easier to find those types of businesses — and the investors interested in funding them — in Silicon Valley. So he answered the question with a “yes.” He and his family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, but only for one year. Though Northeast Ohio has produced some successful tech companies in recent years — including a few that ended up getting acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars — it’s still pretty common for tech entrepreneurs to at least think about moving to Silicon Valley or another city with a larger tech community. But they don’t all answer the “should I move” question the same way. SEE MOVE, PAGE 13
The List
CLEVELAND BUSINESS
Largest private equity and VC firms Page 19
GOVERNMENT
Jackson stays away from center stage By JAY MILLER jmiller@crain.com @millerjh
On Feb. 14, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson went to a Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority board meeting to explain why he now favored closing Public Square to bus traffic after his Group Plan Commission’s $50 million makeover of the square. The redo, completed last summer, included pavement and a traffic light connecting West Superior Avenue with East Superior Avenue to accommodate bus traffic through it. Jackson decided to personally explain to the RTA board why he wanted to keep the agency’s buses out of Public Square. Most politicians would have issued a press release announcing his visit. That would have summoned TV cameras and put him and his position on the issue out front on the evening news.
Not Jackson. Instead, he went over and sat alone in the front row of the boardroom of RTA’s headquarters on West Sixth Street at Lakeside, waiting for the board to convene and move to the public comment portion of the agenda so he could explain his position. “I agreed to that, along with everyone else, because we had consultants that gave a rationale of why, if (Superior were closed), it would be an operational and financial difficulty for RTA,” Jackson said. “Even though it was my preference at that time to keep Superior closed to all traffic, I accepted that as the outcome.” He then spent 40 minutes discussing his position and answering questions from the board. When he was done, he left the building alone. His comments were reported by Crain’s Cleveland Business and cleveland. com. The presence of TV cameras, though, would have amplified his impact on the Public Square controversy. SEE JACKSON, PAGE 20
Crain’s illustration
Bruce Hennes is a cool hand for clients in crisis.
SPORTS BUSINESS
Cavs’ Road Trippin’ podcast is taking off By KEVIN KLEPS kkleps@crain.com @KevinKleps
“Airball!” Channing Frye — who was seated in front of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ practice courts after a recent afternoon workout — couldn’t pass up a chance to make fun of a team employee about an errant shot, even if it meant doing so in the middle of an interview.
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Frye’s teasing didn’t faze teammate and best friend Richard Jefferson, who continued to answer a question about the growing popularity of the duo’s Road Trippin’ podcast. The scene — aside from the fact that it was taking place in Independence, not in a hotel room or on the team’s private jet — was much like any of the podcast’s episodes, with Jefferson doing a lot of the talking and Frye interjecting comic relief at the most random moments. The podcast made national head-
lines prior to the NBA’s All-Star weekend, thanks to Kyrie Irving telling Jefferson, Frye and Fox Sports Ohio reporter Allie Clifton, the podcast’s host, that he believes the earth is flat. But the podcast was faring pretty well prior to the AllStar guard’s third appearance. Road Trippin’ cracked the top 100 of all U.S. podcasts four days after its Jan. 17 debut, and it has reached as high as No. 14 overall, according to iTunesCharts.net. As of Feb. 23, the first nine episodes had produced more than 400,000 downloads, and
the podcast had a 4.9 rating on iTunes’ five-star scale. The podcast’s appeal — with Irving, LeBron James, Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson and Kyle Korver already on the guest list — is obvious. But as unique as it is for a podcast to feature James, the world’s best player, talking freely about passing the “blueprint” to Irving while the Cavs’ luxury plane idles on a Dallas runway, the show’s behind-the-scenes arrangement is also distinct. SEE PODCAST, PAGE 22
Entrepreneur report Marketing the myriad microbrewers in Greater Cleveland. Page 12 Women Who Code opens a Cleveland chapter. Page 15 Five NEO startups to watch. Page 16