There are short-term startup community goals and there are — and should be — long-term startup community goals and both of them require a resilient mindset. Many of us put our heads down under the “get stuff done now” mantra, and of course that has real value. But, as you begin to stitch together a series of events, an angel fund, and a destination space, there will be a natural plateau that occurs when it seems like progress has stalled. Just like scaling a company, startup communities have natural peaks and plateaus as well. How you manage through those plateaus determines the resiliency of your startup community. Building a level of resilience to muster through the plateaus, and the inevitable valleys as well, is the key to your long-term success. In the upcoming book The Startup Community Way by Brad Feld and Ian Hathaway, we talk about a startup community or entrepreneurial ecosystem as being a system. As you begin to understand the characteristics of a system, one thing becomes quite clear: good systems are resilient. Applying Lessons from Psychology to Community Resilience is mostly a trait attached to a person rather than a community, however, we can borrow from …
Category: Community
Entrepreneurial ecosystems are made up of people, and the success of every entrepreneurial ecosystem depends on the level of people’s connectivity to each other. That is the fundamental principle at the core of our Ecosystem Development practice at Techstars. But why is connectivity so important in the first place? And what does connectivity look like in this age of social distancing? The entrepreneurial journey is a twisting, roller coaster ride, complete with the hard work of chugging your way to the top of some milestone only to quickly come hurtling down to a valley of uncertainty, anxiety, and a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. Sounds like every day in our households today re: COVID. The work to build our communities does not stop. There really is no real pause button. So what do you do as a community builder? The parallels to the founders we all support are strong. And so are the ideas on how we keep building our entrepreneurial ecosystems. Reach Out – – This is a crucial time to reach out and spend a few minutes with your local investors, program operators, co-working spaces, and economic development enthusiasts. Your agenda is simple — just ask …
Like startup companies, startup ecosystems invariably get stuck. This can be frustrating to both the community leaders (those who are working tirelessly usually without pay to stand up those events) as well as the entrepreneurs who need access to resources to grow their company. There is one simple, subtle, little trick borrowed from motivation experts that can unstuck your ecosystem – a reignited passion for forward motion. Seth Godin recently posted a blog piece about breaking free of the status quo. This phenomenon happens to us as individuals in their marriage or their job and it certainly happens to companies which usually results in loss of market share, people, and revenue to call out a few of the biggies. And it also happens to entrepreneurial ecosystems too. Is your ecosystem stuck on status quo? What are some signals? The same 25 people show up at every event with no net/new members There has not been a new event in over a year or two Everyone is rallying around that one breakout company with no chatter or support for the next generation of companies The newspaper is writing the same story over and over again To continue this riff with the …
