Now, Its Startup Scene Is Making a Remarkable Transformation. South Carolina makes its three-city debut on the Surge Cities list this year, with hospitality, tech, and advanced manufacturing on the rise.
When Scott Millwood was growing up and going to college near Greenville, South Carolina, he says, “I didn’t see it as a place where I’d want to live.” With the textile industry moving its mills to Asia, “the city faced a really tough transition.” Millwood remembers the grand old Poinsett Hotel, erected in 1925, sitting vacant downtown. “There were no windows, and homeless people were burning trash-can fires in the fourth-floor ballroom.” Today, Scott is the chair of Next, a networking and mentoring organization for Greenville entrepreneurs, and the founder of an A.I.-powered digital-assistant startup called Yesflow. It’s the second successful tech company he’s started in the area. (Customer Effective, his first, was a five-time Inc. 5000 honoree that eventually sold to Hitachi.) As for the Poinsett, it, like the rest of downtown Greenville, has been handsomely restored and is thriving. It’s a Westin now. Over the past three decades, Greenville has completed a remarkable transformation.