The entrepreneur-boosters of Boulder were always adept at packaging their story.
Over my years organizing while reporting on startup communities in the U.S. mid-Atlantic via the news org I founded Technical.ly, I understood a cohort of entrepreneurs and investors told a compelling story for their swath of Colorado. They packaged processes (an ever-evolving accelerator program called Techstars) and developed an outsized stream of software companies, alongside that state’s evolving economy.
Among the messages coming from their work that I personally believe in: “Quantity based approaches operate on the assumption that averages, not outliers, drive system value. That is incorrect.”
A “more of everything approach doesn’t work. Instead, an economy that is more accessible and dynamic requires a complex system of overlapping networks that rewards emergence and expects low probability events that have outsized reruns. The trouble is that economies and local policies are typically run by people motivated by linear progress.
That message is neatly described and navigated in The Startup Community Way, a 2020 revision with researcher Ian Hathaway of a 2012 book initially written by Brad Feld, an investor-organizer most associated with that Boulder, Colorado startup community and Techstars. Feld’s initial book became a common starting place for “entrepreneur ecosystem builders,” and he is a prolific writer and speaker, introducing and crediting himself with concepts, including the phrase “startup communities.”
This edition is the right place to start, and I enjoyed it. Given Colorado’s statewide economic story in the Mountain West, and Feld’s position, this book has particular authority and insight. Keeping with his “give back” mentality, working with many hands, the book includes a dozen or so page-length essays from contributors and longtime collaborators across the United States. Hathaway injects the growing research on the importance of entrepreneurship.
Their success lifts a tide that helps many boats, including places and subjects important to my work. I thank them for it. As per usual, outside my own journalism and organizing, here on my personal blog, below I share my notes for future reference from a book I enjoyed.
Continue reading Lessons on entrepreneurial ecosystem building
