‘Unlike Anything Anywhere In The World’: Inside Towson’s Open-To-All StarTUp Accelerator

Towson University’s business school has no full-time MBA program. For aspiring entrepreneurs, what the university does offer is probably more practically — and certainly more immediately — useful.

Just off 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 really 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.”

$10 IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR EVERY $1 SPENT

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.

The accelerator works through Towson’s Strategic Partnerships and Applied Research division, which is external with business and public engagement and available to all of the colleges at TU, including the College of Business & Economics. Entrepreneurs who apply and are accepted to join The StarTUp 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.”

‘I LIVE FOR THE FIGHT’

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.”

GUBERNATORIAL SEAL OF APPROVAL

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.”

ONLINE DOESN’T WORK FOR ACCELERATORS

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.