Have any doubt that Detroit is fertile ground for startup business support groups? Here's fresh evidence:

Eight months after BizGrid was launched "to help Detroit entrepreneurs navigate the landscape of organizations providing business assistance within the city," it already has a -- ah, what's the right word now? -- rival echo competitor overlapping group local counterpart called Startgrid.

The newcomer, introduced by the Detroit Regional Chamber at its Detroit Policy Conference last Thursday, is "a message board where entrepreneurs can network," Crain's says in a brief. "Eventually, there may even be a function where biz owners can rate advice."

Startgrid, Inc. actually is a startup itself, based in Burlingame, Calif., and using Detroit as its pilot site. "We're building a collaborative community for entrepreneurs to test, share and grow ideas that will change the world," says founder Peter Gardner. 

Its local website lists five community members so far and invites visitors to "help write Detroit's next chapter."

Join the Detroit community on Startgrid and build a circle of friends, mentors and industry experts in Southeast Michigan and beyond to answer your questions and steer you in the right direction. Find nuggets of wisdom to help you with the things that keep you up at night, including:

  • Fine-tuning your idea
  • Defining your market
  • Finding great talent
  • Connecting with other entrepreneurs in your industry  

Similarly, over at BizGrid business owners or planners learn that it "features 54 organizations offering services ranging from business planning and strategy to real estate assistance, funding, co-working space and beyond." The free grid Is "enables an entrepreneur to find names and contact information for assistance organizations based on the entrepreneur’s business stage and needs."


Startgrid's site displays logos of 14 other Southeast Michigan business resource groups.

See the difference? Startgrid is online; BizGrid is on paper.

Similarities go beyond mission and target audience. BizGrid got 2013 support from the New Economy Initiative of Southeast Michigan, which now backs Startgrid to the tune of $100,000, Crain's says.

The publication notes that "there is already a BizGrid in town that lists all the resources available to entrepreneurs," and adds:

"The chamber doesn't see the two groups overlapping.

"There has been a blossoming of organizations dedicated to entrepreneurship over the past few years," said Ben Erulkar, the chamber's vice president of new development strategies. "It's not that we think Startgrid can do anything better or different. In fact, we want to help those agencies do better."

All this makes us wonder if the next new thing will be a scorecard to help entrepreneurs decide which similar support resource to use.    

Earlier at Deadline Detroit: