简译 by 林萍地
How To Create a Sustainable Entrepreneurial Community 在波士顿生活了十二年左右，我就搬到BOULDER生活了十五年了。作为天使投资人和风险投资家，我花很多时间在硅谷。我作为其中合伙人之一的FOUNDRY GROUP在美国各地都有投资，但我经常听到“适合创办科技公司的地方就只有硅谷了。”
当DAVID COHEN 和我一起创办 TECH STARS 的时候，我们的两个目标是，其一加强BOULDER的软件和互联网初创公司企业家群体的交流。其二是让那些第一次创业的企业家更快的融入到BOULDER的企业家社区中。四年过去了，我们认为我们对如何经营企业家社区有了充分的了解。
首先必须承认硅谷是个特殊的地方。想成为第二个硅谷是不现实的。相反，我们应该认识到硅谷的强项和不足，学习他们的优点，把合适的优点融入到你的社区中，避开那些缺点。权衡你社区的自然资源，成为具有自己特色的社区。归根揭底，突出你的优势。
其次，准备好20年的发展。很多企业家社区在三到五年之后走下坡路，最后要么就停滞不前或者解体。当早期的领导者厌烦了这里，搬走了，或者富有了，目标改变了，或者不再参与到社区中去了。而成功的社区需要一群领导者（至少也要有十几个），发挥领导号召力，并连续坚持20年下去。
突出你社区的优势和持续发展20年是社区的成功支柱。但还要其他东西，在BOULDER，我们发现建立可持续性的企业家社区，还需要两个很重要的东西。
第一，创办一些让所有企业家都参与的活动。这些年来，我去过很多企业家年终颁奖典礼，鸡尾酒会。虽然这些也不错，但很容易让人厌倦。而且关键是这些聚会并没有让每个人都参与进来，最后你都是一再听固定的那些人讲那些话。你需要创办真正的互动的活动，让每一个企业家都参与并互相合作。定期见面会和开放性咖啡俱乐部是很好的开端。Hackathons, Startup Weekend, and Open Angel Forum events 是进一步的互动。企业家到学校与学生沟通互动——比如企业家不插电会议，企业家圆桌会议，也非常好。这些学生是未来的企业家。而像TECH STARS这样的项目，企业家社群每年有90年参与进来，则是好上加好的项目了。
其次，你要为企业家社区的生态系统不断注入新的血液。要让新的企业家容易融入到你的企业家社区里，能够容易与资深的企业家或投资人联系。要让新的企业家感受到，你的社区让他兴奋无比，非常欢迎他，他非常容易融入进去。现在美国上下正处在创业复兴中，期许我们能从过去的循环中学习教训，不断发展，这样到2025，美国上下就会有很多的企业家社区了，我的合伙人和我都期望能够帮助和参与推动这些企业家社区的成熟。
How To Create a Sustainable Entrepreneurial Community
Last week I posted an article on peHUB titled How to Create a Sustainable Entrepreneurial Community. Here it is in its entirety.
I’ve lived in Boulder for 15 years after living in Boston for a dozen. While I’ve spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley — both as an angel and venture capital investor — I’ve never lived there. While the firm I’m a partner in — Foundry Group — invests all over the United States, I regularly hear statements like, “The only place to start a tech company is in Silicon Valley.”
When David Cohen (CEO of TechStars) and I co-founded TechStars in Boulder, Colo., in 2006, we had two goals in mind. The first was to energize the early stage software/Internet entrepreneurial community in Boulder. The second was to get new first-time entrepreneurs involved more deeply in the Boulder entrepreneurial community. Four years later, we feel like we really understand how entrepreneurial communities grow and evolve.
First is the recognition that Silicon Valley is a special place. It’s futile to try to be the next Silicon Valley. Instead, recognize that Silicon Valley has strengths and weaknesses. Learn from the strengths and incorporate the ones that fit with your community while trying to avoid the weaknesses. Leverage the natural resources of your community and be the best, unique entrepreneurial community that you can be. Basically, play to your strengths.
Next, get ready for a 20-year journey. Most entrepreneurial communities ramp up over a three- to five-year period and then stall or collapse, with the early leaders getting bored, moving away, getting rich and changing their priorities, or just disengaging. It takes a core group of leaders — at least half a dozen — to commit to provide leadership over at least 20 years.
But these two things — playing to the strengths of your community and going on a 20-year journey — are table stakes. Without them, you won’t get anywhere, but you need more. In Boulder, we’ve figured out two critical things for creating a sustainable entrepreneurial community.
First, do things that engage the entire entrepreneurial community. Over the years I’ve been to many annual entrepreneurial award events and I’ve gone to endless cocktail parties for entrepreneurs. These are nice, but they get boring quickly. More importantly, these types of events don’t actually engage anyone in anything functional — you end up seeing the same old people and saying the same things to each other.
You need to take the next step and create real events that have entrepreneurs work together on a regular basis. Meetups and Open Coffee Club type events that occur on a regular basis are a great start. Hackathons, Startup Weekend, and Open Angel Forum events are the next level. Events at the local university, such as CU Boulder’s Silicon Flatirons programs, including Entrepreneurs Unplugged and Entrepreneurial Roundtables, involve the entrepreneurial community with students who are the future entrepreneurs in the community. And programs like TechStars — which engage the entire entrepreneurial community for 90 days a year — are the icing on the cake.
Next, you have to continually get fresh blood into the entrepreneurial ecosystem. It has to be easy for a new entrepreneur to emerge in your community and get connected with the experienced entrepreneurs and investors. If someone moves to your community, it has to be easy for him or her to engage. Experienced entrepreneurs and investors should want to work with new entrepreneurs and new entrepreneurs should have their minds blown when they move from their otherwise dull and disengaged community to your exciting, welcoming and engaging community.
We are in the midst of an entrepreneurial revival across the United States (and the world) right now. Hopefully we’ll learn from the past cycles and do things to keep things going this time around so that in 2025 there are numerous strong entrepreneurial communities throughout the United States. My partners and I at Foundry Group look forward to helping nurture many of these communities with investments and our engagement over the next 15 years.
