Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

by Brad Feld

EXPERIMENT AND FAIL FAST The phrase fail fast is used throughout the startup ecosystem and has come to encapsulate the notion of continually trying new things, measuring the results, and either modifying the approach or doubling down, depending on the outcome. Eric Ries in his book The Lean Startup and the corresponding activity around the lean startup methodology has recently popularized this. This approach is a key attribute of vibrant startup communities. 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. It’s not that you should fail fast across the entire startup community; instead you should fail fast on specific initiatives that don’t go anywhere, attract little interest, or generate no impact.