Entrepreneurial Communities?
This post will cover the introduction to the topic of the month, focus points for anyone wanting to add to the stack and the first stack that gives more of an overview about the topic
Welcome to the first topic of What’s The Focus! We are looking to apply the concept of Focus Stacking to ENTREPRENEURIAL COMMUNITIES! Our goal is to stack layers of different perspectives and insights about Entrepreneurial Community so that if you are trying to foster one or looking to build one or even get involved with one, you have a better idea of what to focus on.
- In addition check out our first Podcast for the month — featuring Chris Wolfel, who is a guru community builder! → Episode 1 Here
- Chris dives into action focused communities, the accelerator of new communities and how technology & COVID has pushed us to innovate
What’s The Focus is a crowdsourced knowledge platform and we would love for you to contribute to the stack with your insight and experience.
- We hope that when a reader opens a Topic Page on Medium, it will be filled with insightful content on Entrepreneurial Communties from people who have experience participating in one or building one and are looking to help others navigate their experience.
- We will be covering this topic till September 12th, and then move on to a new topic around entrepreneurship. However, if you would still like to contribute to this topic after the deadline you can!
If you would like add to the stack → Click Here.
So what’s the focus?
- Building — During a time when there are more problems to solve than solutions, we need innovators to step up and have a community behind them. We want to learn about how to setup these communities that support these solutions
- Supporting Failure — But whats the point? Startups fail, everyone has heard that 90% of startups fail which is true. However, the chances of survival does increase if there is a stronger community to help support or guide these founders. There is a lot of experience out there, even from those who may have failed. Iterating on those learnings can sometimes provide the right solution or help someone else move past it.
- Diversity of Thought — One area these communities can be better in is inclusivity. It is not easy to be an entrepreneur, there is a lot of risk and if you don’t have a network the work becomes much harder. Communities that often produce the best innovation come from a diversity in thought because there are more at the table and better insight on how these solutions will create an impact. A grass root approach and ensuring that those who want to join do get an opportunity to get involved could build an Entrepreneurial Community like no other.
- Innovation — Finally, startups are about innovation and creating something new. Looking at the gaps in society’s problems and building solutions for the future. If are going to create a community of forward thinkers, the system the community is built on also needs to be able to evolve and change with the innovators over time. It should not only be built to scale but also sustain it over time.
- What we don’t know about it — There could be more this community that we have not uncovered yet, that you might have some insight on. We are looking forward to seeing new insight to it over the next month.
Creating an ecosystem and a community is not easy. It is extremely complex and Brad Feld’s urges people to took at this investment as a long term commitment. However, there are communities all over the world and we can definitely learn from individuals who have experience building or participating in them. There is never one answer to complex initiatives but sourcing a multitude of them can provide clarity
First of the Stack
Entrepreneurial Communities — What are they?
Formed by people, — startups in their various stages and various types of organizations in a location (physical or virtual), interacting as a system to create and scale new startup companies. — Wikipedia definition (The original crowdsourced knowledge platform!)
You could also define it as a concentration:
a number of entrepreneurs or involved in a startup/ population of community
The first time I have heard of one, it sounded like a utopian society where robots, flying cars and the future was made possible. It was where all the brilliant minds and inventors went to create the possibilities of tomorrow. It felt like if I wanted to be a part of building the future, it is where I had to go!
Brad Feld the co-founder of Techstars and a legend in the entrepreneurial world for creating impactful startup communities, describes these hubs as an environment that fosters innovation and drives small business creation.
Entrepreneurial Communities Vs. Startup Communities
Entrepreneurial Communities are different than startup communities. Startup Communities are purely focused around the entrepreneurs and using resources to effectively launch businesses. These would include entrepreneurs, investors, venture capital, incubators and accelerators. Entrepreneurial Communities, are a much larger ecosystem that involves players like government, universities, service providers. Even though there is a strong interest and push towards entrepreneurship in the community there are also other priorities that can pull from it. Both somewhat fit together and have great intentions but can shift focus depending on how it’s executed.
But do I have to travel all the way to Silicon Valley to be in one or even be successful through one? …
Answer in short is no…
More and more hubs have been popping up from universities to cities and even countries that are all aiming to bring innovators together. From Israel, Dubai, Sicily, to Boulder; each have their own specialty in contributing to entrepreneurship and their own story of how they developed. I highly recommend people take sometime to learn about different ones. In Brad Feld’s new books Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City & The Startup Community Way: Evolving an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem — goes into depth on how he created one in Boulder, CO and how to apply the best practices from there to others. So Silicon Valley is definitely a big hub however over the past decade investments have been made to create communities in other regions. (We’ll cover more in another post)
Intersection of players
It is a complex system that can be as big as an entire region contributing to GDP or as small as a university startup ecosystem launching the next unicorn and inspiring the next generation of founders. Like every system, there are interactions from different players and seeing the diverse stakeholders gather together and support their communties is incredible. It is one of the only places where I have seen education, government, tech, and local players be on the same page and even collaborate together at times. I believe that when done right, these inclusive communities can truly transform lives and bring people together because it thrives on diversity of thought.
Why is it important to invest them?
How much do startup hubs contribute to society?
Job creation —
Innovation —
Supports Local Economies and larger ones —
Give back culture —
Great intersection between players —
Do you like the topic we are covering and would like to add to the stack of knowledge?
Write a post, get on our podcast or get in touch with us about ideas. We want to crowdsource knowledge so readers have a diverse understanding of the concept and a stronger path to navigate to for Entrepreneurial Communities. We are going to cover this topic until September 12th.
Add to the stack over the next month
→ Click here
Need some ideas? Educate me on…
- How to build one
- Diversity and Inclusion
- How to build a sense of community
- Different types of entrepreneurial communities, education, startup hub cities, international ones, industry specific
- What does a community look like digitally and in an age of COVID-19
- History of entrepreneurial communities
- Best practices in running one
- Experiences in being apart of one
- What to look for when choosing one to setup a company or move to on?
- Challenges within the communities and externally
