Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

Today, we are in the midst of a massive shift from the hierarchical society that has dominated the industrial era to a networked society that has been emergent throughout the information era.

In the physical world, much of this energy, activity, and innovation occur in small geographic regions, which I call “startup communities.”

The idea that people are always more important than institutions is fundamental to creating a healthy startup community.

the magic comes from a few dozen entrepreneurs deciding that the success of the greater startup community is worth their investment of time and energy.

Think of your startup community as a lean startup—one that needs to try lots of experiments, measure the results, and pivot when things aren’t working.

External economies of scale lower certain costs; meanwhile, network effects make co-location more valuable.

Turns out that, earlier that week, a local startup had decided to shut down and the “wake” was the startup community’s way of showing these young, fragile entrepreneurs that it was okay to fail—that the honor was in trying.

This dynamic is analogous to startups—it’s okay to try things that fail, and the startup community must recognize when something isn’t working and move on.

Emerging companies need certain common inputs—for example, infrastructure, specialized legal and accounting services, suppliers, labor pools with a specialized knowledge base—that reside outside the company. Companies in a common geographic area share the fixed costs of these resources external to the company. As more and more startups in an area c