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As I usually do, I’m writing this blog post on the fly. This morning (at 2am 
) Marc pinged me about Brad’s next book. As you might know my favorite mentor’s quote is from Yoda. Do or do not there is no try is pretty much what should leads every one who wants to make it’s community awesome! And seeing a All chapter titled that in Bard’s book got me exited!
Trying to clear my mind around such a broad subject is not easy. Many have tried and few have succeeded. Actually Brad and David are the only one I could look up to. What they did with Boulder is inspiring. We did experiment a lot too at Startup Weekend with the Startup foundation program we’ve learned a lot. Marc just wrote about it
So you want to help your community? I’d like to list a couple of import points you need to keep in mind, . Again, don’t hesitate to get involve, even the most little thing is better than nothing. So keep Yoda’s wisdom in mind while reading this.
1. Charismatic Leaders
this might look obvious, but everything depends on it. I don’t consider the government being able to have the same impact as a Paul Graham a Brad Felds or any other kind of Yoda. These leader are usually passionate people living within the community, they might do that for fun, but never the less they are passionate and committed about it. Why is this necessary? That’s a good question, I guess a leader who have been successful will be more listened than challenged. Someone who could have the right intention but no leadership will have a hard time to be respected by it’s community.
2. Doers
That goes with 1. You want to create a saturation of local events / programs that help Entrepreneurs (cf our Entrepreneurial Ecosystem model) This is only possible if a local leader is helping vs being competitive. Some eco systems might have a lot of events, but if they are all passive events, or if they all focus on only one aspect of the entrepreneurial journey then it’s almost as useful as having no events! … The good news is that anyone can just pick a fight (yes including you!) so stop complaining and DO IT! The community will help you to fix what’s wrong with the community (it’s like the force, you have to believe in it, and then you’ll fill it
3. Geographic Density of brilliant people aka build your startup church
If you’re in a city big enough to have a university you still want to create enough brain density to ignite the local Startup Revolution. If you remember your chemical classes it’s basically the equivalent of a stoichiometric ratio. What exactly is this ratio? Well there is no solid study around it, but common sens tells me that when you go to a bar and talk to random people you should be able to find a lot of engineers and passionate startupers… How to solve that? Well by having a building that attract everybody who loves startups around it. There is a lot to be said on how to do that …
4. Promote the s.it out of your Success stories
Somehow that’s it, you’ve got a success story in your city! (yeah!). Be proud of it, get the community to help, if everyone gather around one success, it will shine back on the community. This goes down to kick out of the community the “leaders” who are just using the community for their own personal interest. You can’t have only people using the community, you need people to help. So be sure you get the right amount of doers to be tight to these success stories, to inspire more doers!
5. Don’t Retain Talent.
Well this one is touchy, but let’s assume your community sux, or is not the best. Do you want to try to fight against SF? Sure SF is not perfect etc… and you should not try to be SF. But even here is Seattle, we see people living for the valley. Why? well usually just to get to the next level and raise some precious VC rounds. So you have 2 options there. Option one trying to retain people, that usually leads to them living anyway. Option 2 is to let the people go and to support them. They will not only come back as friends but they will also help back and connect the city to more people and other eco systems. Don’t isolate yourself, embrace competition!
6. Rely on the local historical strength
SF recent historical strength was Hippies and Silicon Transistors (before it was gold rush!), that has led to the silicon valley. Detroit is Car, Vegas is leisure, LA is movies etc.. It’s hard to copy SF , but it’s also hard for SF to become LA or Vegas… The Startup Revolution is reshaping the economy, and that will involve using local talent, local university, local knowledge … (I should write a book of mine about that, adding it to my giant todo list)
7. Years of works and a startup weekend.,
That might look trivial, but none community will develop itself in a few years (there is a couple of bubble community out there and I bet they will pop like bubble startups) You can’t drive a community without a couple of successful and incremental cycles. It all started back in the 80-90s and the development of the open source and internet. Each wave created a new generation, and a lot have been lost after each wave. In France I was promoting the open source from my own non-profit. Today she’s still alive, and have evolved, but I still try to help if needed. (www.iteam.org) The second wave was the blogger wave (tons of people writing on internet) this wave helped to develop online communities around non-technical /non-research oriented subjects. The third wave is the incubator and co-working one (they are now growing physical entrepreneurial communities around the world) . To me the last one is us (that might look pretentious i konw :/) but I trully think that Startup Weekends have had a strong impact on every local communities. Sure there was hackatons / foo bar / bar camps or even install party before. But for the first time, entrepreneurs from all around the world can meet under the same flag at the earliest stage and LEARN!. So be sure you have a startup weekend in you city!
8. Politics
That’s the hardest one truly. If you’re living in the US everything should be ok. But what about France? I moved to the US for that only reason. The local eco-system in Paris is amazing, and people are brilliant. The density of events is ok, and for anyone who have been to LeWeb (thx to Loic) and Paris is a great city to live in (I miss French food so much!) But let’s be realistic the political history of France makes it a Socialist Country (I’ll right about that later, but it all goes back to Saint Simon). I don’t want to launch a political discussion around Socialism here (economists / philosophers / historians would be better to talk to) But basically you can’t say that the socialism doctrine is entrepreneurial friendly (it values Social ownership vs Entrepreneurial one). If you build a huge company, you’ll have to face regulations that basically protect the employees over the employers. Companies and especially startups are fragile and governmental regulations are always challenging entrepreneurs( ie SOPA regulations in the US) . In some countries where Startup Weekend is, some entrepreneurs told us they had to be approved by the government to even think about launching anything!
So how to change that? Well in France I think Loic did the right thing (living the country but helping it by bringing awareness around France amazing eco-system.) Another option is to directly get involved in Politics, but that’s a tough move if you own a business (you will piss off 50% of your consumers who politically don’t agree with you) I think being politically neutral (helpin anyone who ask) while trying to do your best to help your country is the right move. Here in the US we’re lucky enough to work with The Kauffman Foundation who share the same spirit…
9. ”All models are wrong, but some are useful”
I love this quote from George E.P. Box. I kept that in mind when we came with this Entrepreneurial journey model with Marc. Having the right vision of who/what an entrepreneurial eco-system is helping, will lead to the right (or wrong actions). We’re here saying an ecosystem should help high growth entrepreneurs that looks obvious right?. But some other are taking the startup point of view (Investors) , or the job point of view (Politics). As Schumpeter understood entrepreneurs are the creativity the innovators / disruptors behind our economic system. Choosing of stability and statu quo over risk (look at how we react to the financial crisis) is tempting, but without innovation and entrepreneurship you’re just going to face a dead end. This is why we believe choosing entrepreneurs as our Compass / model is the right way to impact Job creation / Innovation in your local eco-system and … your country!
10. And many more … Talented and passionate people
f.
