Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

by Brad Feld

For starters, fully embrace the notion of increasing returns. The goal of everyone in the startup community should be to create something that is durable for a very long time. Although ups and downs with individual companies will always happen, view the startup community as a whole entity. If there is more startup activity, this will generate more attention to the startup community, which will generate even more activity. View the percentage of your local economy that the startup community contributes as its market share. If the macro environment gets better, so will the overall dynamic of the startup community. The macro cycles are unpredictable, but these up-and-down swings will likely only have impact on the overall macro. During downturns, there are actually opportunities for the startup community to gain market share of the local economy.