Chris Heivly says communities need to focus on disruptive entrepreneurs
He says, ""We need to stop building start-up communities that look good on paper and start building ones that are messy, real, and honest."
“In too many cities I have worked in — especially in developing or nascent start-up communities — I sometimes observe that the entrepreneurs who get the most support are the ones who disrupt the least,” Chris Heivly writes in this recent post on Techstars titled “Memo to Ecosystem Builders: Rebels Make the Best Founders.”
He says that they are “the ones who play nice. The ones who fill out the forms correctly, show up to every pitch competition in a blazer, and know how to say all the right buzzwords in all the right order. In other words, the ones who fit the mold of what some outdated playbook says an entrepreneur should look like.”
Heivly co-founded MapQuest, is an angel investor, ran a corporate venture fund and two micro venture funds, and was most recently Senior Vice President of Innovation with Techstars. Today, he’s Managing Director at Build The Fort and a start-up community Entrepreneur-in-Residence with Techstars.
He concludes with this advice: “We need to stop building start-up communities that look good on paper and start building ones that are messy, real, and honest. So this is your call to speak up. If you’re an entrepreneur who doesn’t fit the mold — don’t shrink. And if you’re part of an ESO (Entrepreneur Support Organization), ask yourself if your systems are serving entrepreneurs or just serving your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Disruption doesn’t come from comfortable systems. It comes from rebel thinkers who dare to push us to uncomfortable places.”
Like what you've read?
Forward to a friend!