Join readers of Ecosystem Edge for tips, strategies, and resources to launch, grow, and sustain your innovation ecosystem.
Your Region Isn't Behind, It's Just Different
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"The map is not the territory." — Alfred Korzybski Welcome to Ecosystem Edge, where we cut through the noise to deliver battle-tested strategies for regional innovation ecosystem builders. This edition explores why your region's "disadvantages" might actually be your greatest strategic assets, and why Silicon Valley's playbook is the wrong map when you need real-time GPS. You're Not Behind. You're Different.A quick note: Startup communities matter. They’re vital engines of creativity, talent development, and entrepreneurial energy in every region. Nothing here is a critique of startups or founders — it’s a reminder that they operate inside broader systems with different conditions than the coastal tech hubs. Great startup communities look different depending on where they grow, and that’s not a weakness. It’s a design reality. Here's the thing ecosystem builders hear constantly: Your region needs to be more like [insert world famous tech hub here]. More like Silicon Valley. More like Austin. More like Boston. Build more accelerators. Court more venture capital. Create a "startup culture." Import their frameworks. Adopt their metrics. Measure yourself against their benchmarks. And when your automotive manufacturing legacy doesn't transform into software startups overnight, when your land-grant university doesn't spin out unicorns like Stanford, when your tight-knit business networks don't suddenly embrace Silicon Valley's culture of constant churn, they'll say you're failing. But what if the problem isn't your approach, or your region? What if the problem is you're using a static map when you need a dynamic GPS? Static Maps vs. Dynamic GPS: Why Real-Time Context MattersThe innovation economy has a template problem. Every framework, every benchmark, every big consulting firm's slide deck treats regional context as noise to be eliminated rather than a strong signal to be amplified. Think about the difference between a paper map and a real-time GPS. A map shows you where Silicon Valley is and the route they took to get there. Dynamic GPS asks: Where are YOU starting from? Where are YOU trying to go? Given YOUR current position and YOUR destination, what's YOUR best route forward? Maps are static. Real-time navigation adapts to current conditions and crowd-sourced intelligence from people actually driving your roads. Silicon Valley had defense contracts that seeded early tech companies. Your region may have an automotive manufacturing legacy with deep expertise in complex systems, supply chain orchestration, and precision engineering. They had Stanford spinning out companies in an ecosystem designed for commercialization. You have land-grant universities with world-class research capacity and a mandate to serve regional industry, a different model, with different strengths. They built loose-tie networks optimized for collisions, rapid recombination and job-hopping, fast and disposable. You have tight-knit business networks where trust accumulates over decades, deals happen on someone's word, and partnerships outlast individual projects because relationships matter more than any single transaction. They attracted aggressive venture capital chasing 10x returns in seven years. You have access to long-horizon, relationship-based capital: family offices, regional banks, legacy wealth, and industry-aligned investors who prioritize durable growth over rapid churn. None of this is a deficit. It’s a different operating environment — one with real strengths when you design WITH them instead of against them. But here's what happens when you use their map instead of your own navigation system: You spend decades trying to import strategies from a playbook designed for someone else's assets, someone else's history, someone else's vision of success. You measure your region against benchmarks that weren't built to capture what you're actually building. You communicate your progress using language that makes your wins look like losses. And without context-aligned strategy, regions often overlook the opportunities right in front of them — and momentum resets with each shifting priority. You're stuck running programs instead of building regional innovation platforms for compounding value. You're measuring innovation theater instead of tracking actual innovation flow. You're in reactive firefighting mode instead of proactive regional navigation.' And here’s the truth we don’t say often enough: culture isn’t something you flip like a switch. It shifts slowly, through accumulated behaviors and shared incentives. The faster path isn’t fighting to change the culture, it’s designing strategies that work with the culture you already have.” What This Actually Looks LikeConsider two regions, both working to transform their economies. Region A spends five years trying to build a venture capital ecosystem where none existed. They host pitch competitions, create accelerators modeled on Y Combinator, and recruit coastal VCs to "discover" local startups. The metrics look disappointing: deal flow is thin, exits are rare, founders leave for bigger markets. They're following Silicon Valley's map, trying to retrace someone else's steps from a completely different starting point. Region B looks at their actual capital landscape (family offices that have funded local business for generations, real estate developers who think in decades, regional banks with deep industry relationships) and asks: "What would transformation look like if we leveraged THIS capital structure instead of wishing it were different?" They build investment vehicles that match their capital's actual appetite: growth equity for established companies adding technology, real estate development tied to innovation district strategy, loans for companies commercializing university research. They create long-term metrics that capture what their capital actually does: jobs created per dollar invested, regional supply chain integration, knowledge transfer between university and industry. They're using real-time navigation. They entered their actual starting coordinates and their actual destination, and they're following the route that makes sense for their terrain and current conditions. Ten years later, Region B has created twice as many new startups, created four times as many jobs, and built infrastructure that compounds rather than depletes. Not because they had better assets, but because they stopped treating their assets as handicaps. They set expectations based on their own starting point and destination, not someone else's. Region A is still trying to become someone else. Region B became the fullest version of itself. More importantly, Region B shifted from siloed, political decision-making to coordinated, intelligence-driven action. They moved from grant dependence to strategic stewardship of regional prosperity. Their ecosystem builders went from exhausted and frustrated operators to supported strategic leaders whose labor is finally recognized as the catalyst of measurable impact. What This Means For Your Work1. Start by identifying relationship strengths and gaps. Before you import another coastal framework, establish YOUR starting point. Not what you wish you had, what you actually have. What industries anchor your economy? What research strengths exist in your universities? What kind of capital is available and what does it naturally fund? What networks already function well? Ask yourself: If I designed a transformation strategy specifically for THESE assets, what would it look like? Who's not yet at the table? This is how you calibrate your navigation system. You can't get real-time directions to your destination if you don't know your starting point. 2. Define success in your own context. Silicon Valley's metrics measure Silicon Valley's version of success: venture deals, unicorns, IPO exits. But what if your version of success looks like supply chain integration between startups and legacy manufacturers, knowledge transfer that makes existing companies more competitive, or patient growth that creates sustainable middle-class jobs? Stop letting others define your goalposts. Build measurement frameworks that capture the transformation you're actually orchestrating from where you are today . This is how you set your destination in the GPS. Where are YOU trying to go and by when? Not where did they go twenty years ago. 3. Establish realistic expectations with funders and partners without apologizing for it. Yes, you still need to report to funders, boards, and elected officials who often default to those coastal benchmarks and expect quick wins, but there's a way to communicate value while honoring context. Frame your work this way: "We're not building a venture ecosystem, we're building an applied innovation ecosystem that leverages our manufacturing legacy and capital structure to transform existing industries. Here's how we measure that over time..." Translation makes your work long-term fundable. Apology makes your work invisible. 4. Find the systematic approach hiding in your specific context. Every region has patterns that show where the successes and gaps are, you just have to look for them. Who is engaged in your ecosystem? What value and needs do they bring that convert transactional engagement into strong relationships into business outcomes? Where is there aligned action happening? What outcomes are already emerging that could be the first signs sustainable transformation is possible? Document those patterns. Build systems around them. Make them repeatable and scalable. That's how you move from running isolated programs to a regional innovation platform with compounding value. That's how you move from following someone else's map to navigating your own route. The Real WorkYour region doesn't need to become Silicon Valley or Boston. It needs systematic approaches that honor what makes it different while still delivering measurable transformation. Understanding which practices actually serve your context and which ones measure you against someone else's assets makes the difference between borrowed frameworks that deplete your energy and native approaches that compound your impact. The invisible infrastructure you're building deserves better than borrowed benchmarks. It deserves frameworks designed for your regional context, measurement systems that capture your actual progress, and support for the strategic leadership you're providing. This week, try this: Take one initiative you're working on and ask, am I measuring this against what we're trying to become, or against what someone else already is? Am I using their map or my own GPS? The answer might change everything. Hit reply and tell us: If you designed tomorrow’s actions around your region’s real starting point and real strengths, what would shift? Your region's best path forward isn't on anyone's map yet. Let's build it together. Amy Beaird, PhD & Dawn Haynes, MBA Funding Opportunities for Ecosystem BuildersHere are several funding opportunities aligned with ecosystem-building work. We've successfully navigated foundation and federal grant development across multiple agencies, reach out if you'd like to explore these together.
Technology Discounts for Ecosystem BuildersTake a look at your tech stack and if you are non-profit or affiliated with a non-profit research institution, be sure you are leveraging these savings so you can deliver more impact! Our Favorites
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Ecosystem Edge
Join readers of Ecosystem Edge for tips, strategies, and resources to launch, grow, and sustain your innovation ecosystem.
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