The Towson University StarTUp, a business accelerator, during the 2024 StarTUp Accelerator Showcase, celebrating the success of participating businesses. Towson photo
Towson University’s business school has no full-time MBA program. For aspiring entrepreneurs, what the College of Business & Economics does offer is probably more practically — and certainly more immediately — useful.
Just off the university campus in the suburbs north of Baltimore, Towson’s StarTUp Accelerator is a co-working hub based in a 26,000-square-foot former National Guard building that has been retrofitted to include more than 6,000 square feet of co-working space, including six conference rooms, plus a second floor of office space. The Armory is big, it is brightly lit — and it has a Starbucks, too.
What sets Towson’s StarTUp apart: The co-working space is free to use and open to all, not just Towson students. “I have toured dozens of other accelerators and can attest there is absolutely nothing like what we do,” says Patrick McQuown, executive director of entrepreneurship and founder of The StarTUp, which launched in September 2021. “No fee, no membership, and no affiliation to TU needed. We have VPs from healthcare companies to solo business owners and everything between that use it daily. It’s open five days a week, 8:30 to 5:30. And it’s awesome.”
The StarTUp’s seven state-of-the-art conference rooms host more than 500 organizations annually, from local nonprofits to Fortune 100 companies. On the Armory’s second floor is a suite of offices reserved for ventures accepted to the accelerator program; this year they number 16.
Entrepreneurs who apply and are accepted to join the accelerator get $10,000 equity free and eight weeks of programming each summer to help get their ventures launched. In its first two years after opening, The StarTUp sponsored ventures that raised $29 million — compared to only about $3 million in operating expenditures.
McQuown says the cost to operate, staff, and run the building is around $1.5 million annually, or about $3 million for its first two years. Meanwhile the accelerator brought in $12 million in its first year and $7 million in its second — plus one venture that raised no money before selling to a Fortune 500 company for $10 million cash.
Put it all together and in two years The StarTUp generated nearly $10 in economic development for every $1 spent.
“This is a building unlike anything anywhere in the world,” McQuown tells Poets&Quants. “We get the best ventures from Johns Hopkins, we’ve had Harvard JDs, Stanford MBAs, medical doctors and Towson students all be a part of it.”
Patrick McQuown speaks at the 2024 StarTUp Accelerator Showcase in September. Towson photo
McQuown is quick to note that he is not a professor at Towson. What he is: an entrepreneur who knows that it takes to create a successful business. He started his first venture as a student at George Washington University and sold it eight and a half years later for eight figures. He’s also been a mentor and adviser at Yale, Brown, and most recently James Madison University in Virginia, where he took on his first executive directorship running the school’s Center for Entrepreneurship, a role he filled for three years before joining Towson in 2020.
So why Towson, a small school whose College of Business & Economics has fewer than 3,000 students, of whom the vast majority are undergrads? There is no full-or part-time MBA program, but the school does offer four specialized master’s and a trio of graduate certificates. Towson is more on the map for its undergrad program, which has four majors and eight minors across seven departments, including Finance, Management, Marketing, and Business Analytics & Technology. In 2023 Poets&Quants ranked Towson No. 70 among all U.S. undergrad business programs.
“I got asked that exact question when they were interviewing me,” McQuown says of why he chose the school, which is 8 miles north of Baltimore, Maryland in an unincorporated corner of Baltimore County. “I had a blast at JMU before this. That was where I was the first ED and I loved the mission of JMU. But Harrisonburg was not for me. It was a predominantly white university. I come from a mixed-race family. My dad died when I was 8 and when my mom remarried, I had a mixed-race family. This is a majority-minority school.
“I love the state of Maryland. I’ve lived here for many years. And then, I live for the fight. You know what I mean? We’re never going to eclipse College Park and we’re never going to eclipse Hopkins, but I always like to say we can close the gap to Hopkins easier than Hopkins can close the gap to Harvard. You know what I mean?”
Ultimately, he says, the community of entrepreneurs at The StarTUp have as many good ideas as any other group of business creators. His mission is to get them the respect — and outcomes — they deserve.
“I think ultimately it is to get the respect that TU as a university and their students and alumni should get,” he says. “Look, I’ve taught at the Ivy League and I’ve taught at state schools, and the absolute brightest of TU can keep pace with the absolute brightest of Harvard. I will die on that hill against anybody.”
Startups that joined Towson’s accelerator in 2024 included Advance Sports AI, Obafemi Ayanbadejo’s predictive sports analytics company; Somnair, Mitchell Turley and Dr. Anders Sideris’s company that boasts “the first non-invasive neurostimulation solution for sleep apnea”; MIVA Recovery, Dustin Hux and Michael DeFeo’s company that produces a “patent-pending combination sports roller and water bottle in one”; and Truuce, Nancy Johnston and Kerry Roberts’s company that is “reinventing the ever-frustrating duvet cover.”
What does The StarTUp look for in a venture?
“We look for companies that are just getting into the market and are getting ready to raise,” McQuown says. “We don’t look for just tech startups — we typically accept a social venture and a consumer packaged goods.” Entrepreneurs have The StarTUp on their radar, he adds, in part because in 2022 it was awarded the top university economic development initiative in North America by the University Economic Development Association.
More good press came when newly elected Maryland Governor Wes Moore paid a special visit when he took office in early 2023, selecting The StarTUp to host his first cabinet meeting. It wasn’t just a photo op. After the meeting, the governor “had them learn for four hours what we do,” McQuown says.
“He’s very involved in entrepreneurship in the state. There’s nothing this guy does that isn’t intentional,” he says. “And he picked this building for a reason, knowing he could have had anything.”
Patrick McQuown has a few words of advice for those looking to bring their idea to an accelerator. The number-one thing to avoid, he says, is “anybody that’s going to charge you.” It’s so common that “even when I pitch The StarTUp, they then go, ‘How much does it cost me?’ I go, ‘We give you money.’
“Number two, I would avoid the ones where they’re for-profit under the guise of not-for-profit, and they’re putting you through just to take a look at you and then do an investment. And number three, if it’s virtual and all the curriculum is online, it’s not an accelerator.”
To truly work with a startup and accelerate its growth, McQuown says, he has to be in the same room with them. “There’s a reason it’s called an accelerator. We get their revenue up, we get everything up, and you have to do that by in-person,” he says.
“Every Friday we do milestones, which is where are you going to be come September. That’s revenue, product features, fundraising, all that type of stuff. And in ours, you have to stand up in front of everybody and say where you are, and then we tell you how we can help you, and maybe you have to redo your milestones. Bring them down or something. That’s a big difference between typing into a computer where you are. Big, huge difference.”
See the next page for a Q&A with Patrick McQuown, executive director of entrepreneurship and founder of The StarTUp, edited for length and clarity.
Patrick McQuown at The StarTUp during the Accelerator Showcase in September. Towson photo
P&Q: If you could sum up the mission here, how would you sum it up? What are you hoping to accomplish?
Patrick McQuown: I think ultimately it is to get the respect that TU as a university and their students and alumni should get. Look, I’ve taught at the Ivy League and I’ve taught at state schools, and the absolute brightest of TU can keep pace with the absolute brightest of Harvard. I will die on that hill against anybody.
They don’t have a monopoly on the smart kids, right?
They do not have a monopoly on the smartest. When you get to the middle, there starts to be separation obviously, but at the top there is none. Nevertheless, I see, and have seen, what the top of the TU has to do to either get that job in venture capital, or to raise money, or whatever — versus the top of the Ivy League, or Johns Hopkins, or whatever. They just get to say, “Oh, I went here” and it happens.
So TU students have to work harder.
They’ve got to work harder. And so I would say ultimately that is kind of what the mission is.
On top of which, you’re helping a lot of people accomplish their dreams.
Look, I’ve got the best job in the world. I get to say yes rather than say no, which is what virtually everybody else does, venture capitalists and all that. I get to say yes. And when they “win,” meaning they get the contract, or they get the fundraising, or they win a competition, if they’re up here in happiness, my happiness is right there.
So this facility is open to all and free to use for most of what you offer. How does the financing work in terms of the award money that you give? Where does the money coming from?
Yeah, good question. The university funds the operation of the building. They don’t fund any part of the accelerator. So the bulk of that money comes from Baltimore County Economic Development.
So it’s Baltimore County. So Maryland runs on county structure, not town. So it’s called Baltimore County Economic Development, Economic and Workforce Development, of which I’m on the board. And so they initially had given the money for us to hire people and work in Baltimore. I then threw it over to the accelerator and then when they saw what we did, they doubled it. So they give about $120K to fund these companies. We have other funding, alumni funding, and we have a law firm that gave us kind of carte blanche money that we can put towards a venture, put towards food, put towards whatever we want to do. And we’re getting more of that now.
With your background and experience you could be doing a lot of things with your time, and your money, and your energy. Why Towson? Why here, why now?
I got asked that exact question when they were interviewing me. I had a blast at JMU before this. That was where I was the first ED and I loved the mission of JMU. But Harrisonburg was not for me. It was a predominantly white university. I come from a mixed-race family. My dad died when I was 8 and when my mom remarried, I had a mixed-race family. This is a majority minority school.
I love the state of Maryland. I’ve lived here for many years. And then, I live for the fight. You know what I mean? We’re never going to eclipse College Park and we’re never going to eclipse Hopkins, but I always like to say we can close the gap to Hopkins easier than Hopkins can close the gap to Harvard. You know what I mean?
Just in terms of overall perception, yes. But program to program, Towson could be the best in any one thing.
And so let us be the best in this. Let us excel in this. And so leadership’s behind it. I love it. Our former president that hired me leapfrogged and went to Louisville. And if you see when they said, “Hey, she’s from Towson, here’s why she’s coming to Louisville,” it didn’t say she upped enrollment or she got higher on Poets&Quants. No, it said, “She helped start The StarTUp.” That’s what it said. That was the selling point. And that’s a pretty big leap. You’re going from this to an R-1 school that’s in the SEC and all that type of stuff.
Now with that said, the question was why here, why now? I love it. I love the job. I just love the energy of the building. Who doesn’t want to be here every day?
Founders during the Towson StarTUp Accelerator Showcase in September. Towson photo
When you look around at what other accelerators, other startup hubs or startup labs are doing, do you say “That’s a good idea and maybe we can incorporate that,” or are you just doing your own thing?
I’ll tell you instead what we don’t do: What virtually all of these programs do, whether it’s tech stars or universities, is they say, “Okay, you’ve got to set up office hours with your mentor.” I always like to say, you’re thinking about your business 24 hours a day. And the problem is that you go to these meetings, and they’re thinking of your business two minutes before you walk in the door. And then they sit there and say, “Well, you should do this and this and this and this. And you’ve got your head down, tail up trying to get in the market doing what you need to do. And it just burns bandwidth that you don’t have.
So we are very, very, very guarded about, everybody comes to us and says, “Oh, I want access to the accelerator.” And I say, “Great. Sign up for the showcase. That’s when you get to meet them.” The only people we bring in are somebody from TEDCO because that’s state money. And so they talk about TEDCO. We do bring in the law firm for, they get about three hours to talk about legal stuff, and then they do office hours for free with them, which we found beneficial. Then the only other one is Ethan Garr, who’s somebody that I mentored and I’m friends with. Ethan, in 2017, had the number one free iOS app, called RoboKiller. Sold that to IAC, Barry Diller’s group. The number two app had raised $220 million.
So we’d rather be the number one with no money raised or $220 million, right? So he is very, very, very good — exceptionally good at what’s called product market fit, which is always really important. And so he comes in, we kind of tell stories about him and I, we’ve known each other since the ’90s, and then he spends the night, and what he does is, he does an hour of one-on-one with each of the companies doing product market fit. Now, if I was a privately held for-profit accelerator, he would probably charge $50,000 and be worth every penny of it.
Those are the only people that get access. Other people are like, “Well, I want to talk to them about marketing.” It’s like, “No. They know about marketing. Unless you’re going to give your best engineer that can help them figure out an Instagram algorithm, you’re going to waste their time.” And so we don’t do any of that stuff.
And then the last thing I’ll say is like, dude, my curriculum, I got to upkeep it all the time. And not to badmouth academics, I’m not. I’m in academia for a reason. But people would be like, “Should I major in marketing?” I’m like, “No, it’s going to change four times over from the time you’re a freshman to a senior.”
If not more.
If not more. And the faculty can’t keep up with the technology. Go fill a room with 100 people. You’ll learn more about marketing.
Even when I was at Brown University, they had the first CS department in the nation. Their students were like, “No, this curriculum’s not doing it for me. It’s already past that.”
Say I come in and I’ve got an idea. I want to get into the accelerator. What’s the process? What’s the first thing I have to do?
What I always tell people is two things. One, I don’t care about your idea and you probably shouldn’t pitch me, because I’m probably not your target demographic and all that type of stuff. So your best chances of getting into the accelerator are that you are just starting to get into the market and you have something that’s kind of different from everything else out there. And so going back to consumer product goods, we took a woman who redid the duvet cover. I don’t know if you’ve ever made a duvet. Hers effectively has zippers and then these tuck-in things where it doesn’t go and just get lost. She’s got a patent on it, the whole nine yards.
And so outside of just getting in the market, we want to see if this is a scalable venture that can be done. But not just scalability in the sense of ones and zeros. Have you ever read the article, “Do Things That Don’t Scale”? That’s required reading in the accelerator, and that’s Paul Graham. And so he talks about Airbnb back in the day. It’s a blog post. It takes no time. He would knock door to door, and then if people said yes, he’d go back and take a picture himself because he was from RISD. New design was important. So scalability, not in the traditional sense of like MBA schools where they’re like, “Oh, it doesn’t have ones and zeros. It’s not scalable.”
You were here when Maryland Gov. Wes Moore visited. What made his eyes light up? What interested him the most?
Well, he’s very involved in entrepreneurship in the state. And so he and I rubbed elbows in Techstars. We didn’t know each other, but we rubbed elbows. There’s a July 4th parade that ends right down there, and it’s actually a pretty good July 4th parade. And so the building was brand new. And I said, “Let’s have the building open so the public can come in, get some AC, get some water, use the restrooms.” And so Artis and I opened the building, and every gubernatorial candidate was in it. There was like 60 backed up.
And so when Wes Moore came, he broke out of line, came over and shook my hand and was like, “I love what you’re doing.” I’m like, “Oh shit!”
I’m like, “I’m going to be voting for you, bro.” Right? That type of deal. And then I got that notice, and I can tell you, I had three people from his cabinet come up to me and say, “There’s nothing this guy does that isn’t intentional. And he picked this building for a reason, knowing he could have had anything.” And so we gave a dog and pony show.
Like I said, he’s heavily involved in the entrepreneur thing. I think the other thing is, everybody talks a DEI game, and it is a meritocracy to get into the accelerator. But if you look at our cohorts, we had one cohort that only had one team that was standard-issue white guys. The rest were all minority founders.
If I’m an entrepreneur and I want to find a place to help my business, what should I be troubled by if I see it at a different accelerator? What traps should I avoid?
Number one, you should definitely stay away from anybody that’s going to charge you. Even when I pitch The StarTUp, they go, “How much does it cost me?” I go, “We give you money.”
Number two, I would avoid the ones where they’re for-profit under the guise of not-for-profit, and they’re putting you through just to take a look at you and then do an investment. And number three, if it’s virtual and all the curriculum is online, it’s not an accelerator. Sorry. It’s just not.
There’s a reason it’s called an accelerator. We get their revenue up, we get everything up, and you have to do that by in-person. Look, every Friday we do milestones, which is “Where are you going to be come September?” That’s revenue, product features, fundraising, all that type of stuff. And in ours, you have to stand up in front of everybody and say where you are, and then we tell you how we can help you, and maybe you have to redo your milestones. Bring them down or something. That’s a big difference between typing into a computer where you are. Big, huge difference.