Designing the Ecosystem of the Future

Brad Feld famously said that building an ecosystem takes 20 years. As I think about what is important to me and doing work that matters, I want to focus on the next 20 years for our ecosystem here in the Research Triangle Region of North Carolina, and beyond.

Ecosystems at one point just meant entrepreneurs and the things around it and the things that came with it.

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Leaders were Entrepreneurs — entrepreneurs have and need ideas, access to talent, access to research, access to capital.

Feeders were the things and entities around Entrepreneurs — lawyers, CPAs, mentors, contractors, seasoned execs, etc….these were things that would help the Entrepreneurs be successful.

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For the ecosystem to work, both of these need to be in place, and Capital would need to be injected into the Entrepreneur who then leverages resources in their ecosystem including but not limited to from Feeders.

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When the ecosystem works, there is innovation, job creation, economic development, increase in disposable income to be spent at local small businesses, increased TBJ readership, and more.

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The above is a bit of a generalization, glossing over the detail that Mr. Feld…