5 lessons learned by riding around the country with Steve Case

Last year Steve Case, founder of AOL and Revolution, stopped in Nashville for the "Rise of the Rest" tour dedicated to highlighting entrepreneurship across the U.S.

Many great things came from that day — investments, connections and the chance for me to join the Rise of the Rest team. Since then, the tour has taken me from Minneapolis to New Orleans, with 12 cities in between.

Here are my top five takeaways from the tour and some thoughts on how they might apply to Nashville.

1.Concentrate on your city's strengths. Every city has unique resources — mentorship, industry, knowledge, attitude — which have been constructed through years of social and economic activity.

Nashville's uniquely positioned health care and music ecosystems (among several others) make it a very attractive option for the development of new businesses in these sectors. Programs like the Jumpstart Foundry accelerator take advantage of the city's resources and leverage them to attract new businesses and talented people.

New Orleans is another great example of a community understanding its strengths. Post-Hurricane Katrina, there was an influx of Teach for America teachers, and now the start-up ecosystem is booming with education technology businesses.

2.Cities can be rising, but not yet risen — and that's OK. Cities like Nashville must never be satisfied with what they have but instead continue to learn and develop to reach their full potential and exceed expectations.

In Raleigh/Durham, N.C., the attitude is always, "What can we do better?"

The renovated Lucky Strike facility in Durham, home to tech hub American Underground, has seen the sale of six start-up companies totaling more than $1 billion in the past two years, and the city uses this success as a catalyst towards greater goals.

3.It takes a village. A successful entrepreneurial ecosystem is the effort of an entire community that requires the buy-in of everyone.

Take SXSW for example. Possibly the greatest collection and celebration of entrepreneurial activity, SXSW is neither owned nor organized by any one person or organization. Instead, the entire community of Austin, Texas, comes together to take ownership of the event and each member contributes in his or her area of expertise.

The good news is Nashville has a lot of great places dedicated to contributing to the overall goals — the Nashville Entrepreneur Center (my home), Launch TN, The Skillery, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, our universities, etc. If each of these organizations can continue to prosper while finding more and more points of synergy, the sky is the limit.

4.Diversity is key. Diversity is and will always be a necessary effort. One of Nashville's strengths is the large and growing impact of its immigrant community, and the city has a number of organizations like MBCNashville and the Nashville Black Chamber of Commerce and individuals like Renata Soto and TB Boyd III who seek to support minority entrepreneurs. The city must continue to build environments fostering equal opportunity while also integrating its diverse residents into the larger system, with Atlanta being a good example to follow.

5.True economic development involves a mixture of many resources.

With more Fortune 500 companies per capita than any other city in the U.S., Minneapolis understands the importance of engaging the community with start-ups, and one of the city's greatest advantages is its ability to foster those connections.

Nashville's business community is incredibly supportive of the efforts of new business. Several large organizations lend support and look to the start-up community as a nontraditional model of research and development. More participation from established businesses at a high level, however, is required for the entrepreneurial community to continue to grow.

In closing, Nashville is an incredible community that seems to genuinely value and support its people and businesses. It's that willingness to lend a helping hand that makes me believe that we have the potential to be one of the greatest entrepreneurial cities in America, as long as we continue to work hand-in-hand as a collective and cohesive community.

Jared Marquette, director of business partnerships at Nashville Entrepreneur Center and co-owner of Savile Cloning, is navigating Nashville as a young professional and sharing what he's learned along the way. Reach him at Jared.marquette@ec.co.