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 Posté le: Mer Oct 16, 2013 7:42 am Sujet du message: for example |
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{How to build a startup ecosystem}
Brad Feld,[url=http://www.toms-shoes-sale.com]Toms Shoes Outlet[/url], Startup Communities: Building an entrepreneurial ecosystem in your city. Wiley, 2012.Many attempts have been made over the years,[url=http://www.toms-shoes-sale.com]Toms Shoes Sale[/url], largely government-driven, to replicate or emulate Silicon Valley. This has resulted in Silicon Alleys, Glens,[url=http://www.toms-shoes-sale.com]Cheap Toms[/url], Fens, Roundabouts, Prairies, and Deserts, as well as our own Silicon Valley North. All are pretty much pale versions of the original.However, the lessons learned from these efforts about the limited ability of governments to successfully drive the entrepreneurial process seem to be continually ignored. Note, for example, Russia’s current initiative to create its own version of Silicon Valley in Skolkovo that is said to include a technology park for 1,000 startups.In this book, Brad Feld takes on the conventional top-down approach to creating entrepreneurial clusters and offers what he sees as a blueprint for creating long-term, vibrant startup communities anywhere in the world.Startup Communities will be of interest to policy-makers, economic developers, entrepreneurs and students of entrepreneurship. The book is the first part of a four-part series on startups that Mr. Feld titles The Startup Revolution. This particular volume that I’m reviewing was one of Amazon’s top 10 business books of 2012.Mr. Feld brings a great deal of experience to this issue. He is a successful entrepreneur and co-founder of several early-stage venture capital funds, as well as TechStars, a highly emulated mentorship-driven startup accelerator.There is much to like about this book. It provides great insights into the essence of successful startup ecosystems and contains some interesting and likely controversial views about how government, venture capitalists and universities should support entrepreneurial activity.There are times, however, when its overly broad conclusions cause the reader to cringe. That being said, much of what Mr. Feld argues in this book has a compelling logic to it.The book is built around what he calls the “Boulder Thesis,” which is based on his two decades of experience as a prominent entrepreneur and investor in the Boulder, Colo. startup community, which he argues has the highest entrepreneurial density in the world.The Boulder Thesis has four key components: leadership by entrepreneurs, leaders that commit, inclusiveness and widespread engagement of the various players.Central to the Boulder Thesis is the issue of leadership. The author divides the players in a typical startup community into leaders and feeders. Leadership, he states, must come from entrepreneurs. Everyone else, including governments, investors, universities and service providers, are feeders.Both leaders and feeders are necessary in his view, but their roles are different and must be clearly understood. Unless entrepreneurs provide the leadership, he argues, the startup community will not be sustainable over time. On the other hand, he says leadership by feeders will inhibit a startup community’s success.Not only must a critical mass of entrepreneurs lead the startup community, but Mr. Feld suggests that a group of 12 is usually sufficient to start. These entrepreneurs must make at least a 20-year commitment to the initiative and be continually open to new leadership recruits.One particular area where his conclusions are overly categorical concerns university-based entrepreneurship centres. He has a low opinion of those located in business schools. Rather, he suggests that a university’s entrepreneurship centres be put as far away from the business school as possible and close to science and engineering faculties, which he sees as the key sources of innovative ideas.He also asserts that universities do not have cross-campus collaboration in their DNA. This has not been my experience. In both Ottawa and Waterloo, I have seen business schools actively extend entrepreneurship education to other faculties. Moreover, entrepreneurship training is about more than how to do business plans and investment pitches. To be successful, startups also need to have a strong grounding in fundamental business principles. Business schools and business students play a critical role here.If you are interested in startups, this book is a good addition to your library.Micheál Kelly is dean of the School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University and former dean of the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management.
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