Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

BOTTOM UP VERSUS TOP DOWN

Entrepreneurs work bottom up and government works top down. When entrepreneurs start a company, they do all of the work. They don’t have resources, staffs, structure, or a framework for what they are going to do. They just go do it. Government is exactly the opposite—there is a well-defined hierarchy, existing infrastructure, staff that persists from one administration to the next, and clear rules of engagement for getting things done.

Once again, we visit the theme of networks versus hierarchy. Entrepreneurs operate in a networked world; government operates in a hierarchical world. When these collide, it can be immensely frustrating to entrepreneurs as they watch government be ponderous, slow, and completely ineffective at handling issues that entrepreneurs could get done in a day. Entrepreneurs have little patience for this, especially when they see obvious decisions get tangled up in politics about other things that make no sense to entrepreneurs and have nothing to do with the issue at hand.

The solution for startup communities is to simply create a parallel universe of activity. Government is going to do whatever it is going to do around startups, entrepreneurship, and economic development. Some of this will be helpful; much will be a waste of energy. Entrepreneurs should engage in government-related things they believe will be valuable and that they find stimulating. However, they should not rely on any particular outcome from these activities or ...