Looking at the numbers, there’s something to what Klein is saying. Of the companies to come out of American Underground in 2015, for instance, about 30 percent are led by women and 22 percent are led by minorities. That’s significantly higher than most (admittedly fuzzy and tech-focused) estimates elsewhere for either group, which generally put the share of female-led ventures below 20 percent, and the share of minority led-ventures below 10 percent. When I asked Eric Toone, the head of Duke’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative about the gender makeup of student enrollment in his program, he happily reports that it’s a pretty even split thus far, and that the racial makeup falls in line with the overall makeup of the university: about 50 percent white, 25 percent Asian, 25 percent other minorities.

Toone says that Durham’s conscious divergence from other start-up hubs shows itself in other ways, too. According to Toone, the plan for Duke’s entrepreneurship lab is to teach students how to take an idea and make it into something that can tangibly better people’s lives, not necessarily to create the next Instacart or Washio. He also wants to dispel students of the notion that entrepreneurship is only for those who are interested in a tech-based solution. MATI Energy, a startup that makes health-conscious energy drinks, represents the first time a business that doesn’t quite fit into the tech mold won Google’s Demo Day. And it’s founder is a woman, Tatiana Birgisson, who started the company in her dorm room at Duke.

But the rise of Durham’s tech sector isn’t without its challenges, for both start-ups and the folks who were in Durham long before entrepreneurs headed there. The revitalization that has swept across downtown, bringing jobs, new buildings, bars, and coffee shops, also means that prices are going up. And the start-up-friendly rents that allowed burgeoning businesses to expand easily are quickly disappearing. Similarly, many of the jobs created by the entrepreneurs in the new Durham don’t exactly match up with the jobs lost in the old one. That can lead to displacement and growing pains in a city that’s still finding its footing.

And while convincing new companies to settle in the South has been successful in many regards, drawing similar interest from investors can still take some work. The heavy hitters of start-up funding have traditionally been located in places that have a proven track record of returns and success—the places that Durham is intent on not patterning itself after.

Klein says he’s optimistic, not only because of the success of the past few years, but because of the city’s history as an entrepreneurial hub that predates any of today’s popular apps. “If you go back to the origination of the city, it centered around entrepreneurship and innovation,” he says. “Now it’s just a matter of creating a center of gravity and coalescing those different forces.”