In March, after reading a column about Milwaukee’s lack of entrepreneurial activity, Ian Favill couldn’t shake the disturbing thought that something was drastically wrong.

And as founder and president of Stack41, which gives customers recommendations on issues such as how apps should look and which operating systems they’d run best on, Favill believed he was well-positioned to help fix it.

Why not arrange to provide — for free — the essential services digital start-ups need not just to survive, but thrive?

“I realized I couldn’t afford to buy all the hardware and give it away, but I do have expertise to provide the services for the start-ups,” Favill said.

So within a week of reading the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel column, Favill sat down with Bob Giroux, chief operating officer at Potawatomi Business Development Corp. Favill was well-acquainted with Giroux. Before starting Stack41 in 2014, Favill had been vice president of business development at Data Holdings LLC, the Potawatomi’s $36 million data center in Milwaukee’s Concordia neighborhood.

Read the full Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story here.