By: Brad Feld | Managing director of Foundry Group and co-founder of
TechStars
As Global Entrepreneurship Week continues,
entrepreneurship is in the air and it's everywhere. As our world and society
continues to rapidly evolve and change, entrepreneurs and innovation are at the
core of it. And creating startup communities, in every city in the world, is an
essential part of this evolution.
In 2010, when I started thinking about what had happened in Boulder,
Colo., to make it one of the most visible and powerful startup communities in
the world, I began with the premise that you could create a startup community
in any city. During the past 45 days I've been in Boise, Oklahoma City,
Chicago, Des Moines, San Francisco, Seattle, Detroit, Boston, Montreal,
Toronto, Lexington, and Louisville meeting with entrepreneurs, seeing what they
are up to, and exploring how to create vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems in
these cities.
This experience, along with the response to my recently published book,
Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City,
supports my view that a thriving startup community can be created anywhere.
Most net new job creation comes from young, entrepreneurial companies.
The age of a hierarchical society stemming from the industrial revolution is
over, as we aggressively shift into a network society that is a product of the
post-information era. And startups, and entrepreneurs, are at the core of this
reinvention of the way we work and live.
Building a vibrant and sustainable startup community is not easy and
takes a long time. I believe there are four fundamental principles, which I
call the Boulder Thesis. They are:
1. Entrepreneurs must lead the startup community.
2. The leaders must have a long-term commitment.
3. The startup community must be inclusive of anyone who wants to
participate in it.
4. The startup community must have continual activities that engage the
entire entrepreneurial stack.
While there are many participants in startup communities, including
government, university, investors, service providers, and large companies, the
startup community must be led by entrepreneurs. Not every entrepreneur needs to
be a leader, but there must be a critical mass of them or the nothing
significant will be sustained.
These entrepreneurs must have a long term commitment — at least 20
years. Startups take a long time to build, and it follows that startup
communities do as well. There are no quick solutions here — if you are focused
on "How are we doing as a startup a community?" in a year, you are
focusing on the wrong thing. Go on a 20 year journey — dedicate yourself to
creating something amazing where you live.
The startup community has to be inclusive of anyone who wants to engage
in any way. Welcome newcomers with open arms. Let new leaders emerge — there is
no "president" of a startup community — no one can control it. Use a
"give before you get" approach, where you contribute energy and resources
to the startup community, without a clear expectation in advance of what you
are going to get back.
Think of the power of a network instead of a hierarchical organization,
and encourage more and more nodes on the network. Sure, there will occasionally
be bad actors in a startup community, but as the network grows, the organism
will reject or reform the bad actors. And you'll be pleasantly surprised that
you get much more out of the startup community then you put in.
Fundamentally, every city was once a startup. There was a reason that
people decided to put a stake in the ground and start each city on this planet.
Each city has unique characteristics and strengths, which I refer to as
"natural resources," and they go well beyond the physical natural
resources that were the motivation for the creation of many cities. So the
essence of "startups" is in the fabric of the formation of every
city. Build on this and help create an amazing startup community wherever you
live.
This is a repost of an article that appeared on CNBC website on November 14, 2012
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