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Startup Communities: Creating A Great Entrepreneurial Ecosystem In Your City

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I’m deep into writing my latest book. For now, the title is “Startup Communities: Creating A Great Entrepreneurial Ecosystem In Your City.” I’m open to different titles – if you’ve got ideas just put them in the comments.

Following is the current table of contents. It’s still pretty dynamic as I’m adding stuff while I’m writing. I’ve also got a bunch of guest sections coming from all over the US (I’ve got a dozen so far) so as they come in, I’m trying to fit them in (which often generates a new, or different section). If you are a leader in your entrepreneurial community and have something you want to add, email me 500 – 1000 words.

I’m looking for feedback on this table of contents. If anything jumps out at you as wrong, unclear, in the wrong place, or missing, please leave me your thoughts in the comments.

My current goal is to have a first draft ready for circulation finished by 12/31/11. I plan to have the book published and available by 2/29/12. I’m self-publishing this one so there will be no delay in getting it out. I also plan to price it low so it has the potential for broad distribution.

Comments of any sort are welcome and encouraged! The table of contents, as of today, follows.

Foreword

The Boulder Entrepreneurial Community

  • Boulder As A Laboratory
  • Before the Internet (1970 to 1994)
  • Pre Internet Bubble (1995 – 2000)
  • The Internet Bubble (2001 – 2002)
  • The Beginning of the Next Wave (2003 – 2011)

Principals of a Sustainable Entrepreneurial Community

  • Led By Entrepreneurs
  • Have A 20 Year Commitment
  • Welcome Everyone Into The Entrepreneurial Community
  • Engage The Entire Entrepreneurial Stack

Leaders vs. Feeders

  • What’s A Leader?
  • What’s A Feeder?
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Mentors
  • Government
  • University
  • Investors
  • Service Providers
  • The Importance of Both Leaders and Feeders

Keys of Leadership Culture

  • Inclusive
  • Mentor Driven
  • Non Zero Sum Game
  • Porous Boundaries

The Power of Accelerators

  • The Story of TechStars in Boulder
  • TechStars Impact on Boston
  • TechStars Impact on New York
  • How Accelerators Are Different Than Incubators
  • Why Incubators Don’t Work

Classical Problems

  • Patriarch Syndrome
  • Complaining About Capital
  • Reliance on Government
  • Short Term Commitment
  • Bias Against Newcomers
  • Feeder Control
  • Artificial Geographic Borders
  • Risk Aversion
  • Fear of Failure
  • Zero Sum Game

A Different Example of University Involvement

  • Silicon Flatirons
  • The Components of CU Boulder
  • Why They Don’t Work In Isolation
  • Why The Community Matters Most
  • The Real Value – Fresh Blood Into The System

Entrepreneurs vs. Government

  • Bottom Up vs. Top Down
  • Micro vs. Macro
  • Action vs. Policy
  • Impact vs. Control
  • Self Awareness

Boulder’s Great, But What Are It’s Weaknesses?

  • Parallel Universes
  • Integration With The Rest of Colorado
  • Lack of Diversity
  • Space

Community Power

  • Give Before You Get
  • The Power of Apprenticeship
  • Everyone Is A Mentor
  • Embrace Weirdness
  • Be Open To Any Idea
  • Be Honest

Myths About Entrepreneurial Communities

  • We Need To Be Like Silicon Valley
  • Venture Capital Matters
  • Angel Investors Must Be Organized

How To Get Started

  • Do or Do Not, There Is No Try
  • Resources

Related posts:

December 18th, 2011     Categories: Entrepreneurial Communities     Tags: , ,
← Older Comments
  • Jonathan Sides

    Thank you for writing this book!  I’m anxiously awaiting its release.  You, Paul, Fred, and Mark are influencing far more than just your corners of the world.  For example, we are organizing the first Startup Summit in Birmingham, Alabama in April.  It is modeled after the Startup Bootcamp at MIT and YC’s Startup School.  We took a local twist on those events by highlighting founders of local high-growth companies.  We want the attendees to be able to identify with the speakers and think, “I can do this; I am going to do this!”  We are also planning on a lot of interaction between the founders on stage and the current or aspiring founders attending the event so hopefully some mentoring connections can form.  It is turning out to be a lot more work to get the event organized than we originally thought but I think it will be worth doing this each year going forward.  Finally, we are trying to write down the “recipe” for holding a local startup summit so we can publish it out similar to how Ignite has published its recipe.  We hope that other communities can then do their own startup summits.

    Thank you for your continued inspiration!

    • http://www.feld.com bfeld

      You are welcome. And thanks for Just Doing It!

  • Casey Rondinella

    “Boulder’s Great, But What Are It’s Weaknesses?” and “Classical problems”. These are powerful!!!! So many times readers just hear the positives. They get the same old sunshine everything will be great if you follow these steps. These two ch. will help generate more perspective on the subject. 

    • http://www.feld.com bfeld

      Cool – I’ll have plenty of critical stuff in there – it’s the most powerful to learn from.

  • http://petegrif.tumblr.com/ Pete Griffiths

    It looks great.  I believe this book may well prove to be seminal.

    Particularly cool looking chapters

    Classical Problems – looks great

    University Involvement – should be interesting – curious to know if you will discuss (a) design schools as well as engineering and management, (b) curricula re startups.  Courses such as those run by Steve Blank at Stanford are rare.  Most univs other than Stanford have traditional business curricula.

    Myths – great

    looking forward to it

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Brad Feld

Hi, I'm Brad Feld, a managing director at Foundry Group who lives in Boulder, Colorado. I invest in software and Internet companies around the US, run marathons and read a lot.

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