How Can We Create an Ecosystem Building Movement?

In the article An ESHIP Summit Primer: Creating an Ecosystem Building Movement, research shows that entrepreneurs and young companies are the key drivers of economic growth, and that entrepreneurship is vital to job creation and economic progress. It has become evident to a growing number that the best way to revitalize economies is through entrepreneurship and startup ecosystem building. This is especially true in uncertain times, when innovation is essential to navigating new and seemingly insurmountable challenges. 

How is the health of the entrepreneur and startup ecosystem on the Olympic Peninsula? What is needed to keep it strong? More incubators? More accelerators? More training and support? More mentors? More networking? Maker Spaces and Fab Labs? Startup Weekends? More patient (and more local) capital? More affordable and accessible brick and mortar? More local markets and customers? All of the above?

CIE’s director Mike Skinner says “The article left me wanting. Missing was any mention of the human beings – the human development and human spirit, persistence, creativity and love that allows the human race to persist even in the face of a pandemic, widespread racial injustice, oven temperatures, fires, smoke-filled skies etc. Is there even a single mention of the words human or community in the article?”

The Intersection of Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Why would the executive director of an entrepreneurship and microenterprise development organization be interested in learning about leadership development?

Mike just completed a training by Rural Development Initiative to facilitate their Rural Community Leadership Development Course. He will be facilitating a RCL cohort in Buckley (East Pierce County), which just completed the installation of a community garden, and plans are underway for a second cohort this Fall.

At CIE, we see entrepreneurship as a strategy for developing effective leaders. The hallmarks of an effective leader are also hallmarks of an effective entrepreneur – ability to see problems as opportunities, ability to focus on things within your control, embracing failure as an opportunity for learning and growth, choosing to be the pilot in the plan instead of a passenger.

RDI shares CIE’s interest in exploring the intersection of entrepreneurship and leadership, and how combining them can power a just transition that builds sustainable, resilient and equitably shared community wealth in rural communities. We look forward to collaborating with RDI to validate this new theory of change!

Be Person-Centered and Reality-Based

This is the final post in our series CIE’s 10 Principles for Redefining Entrepreneurship. Read the previous entry, Start at the Beginning.

Challenge: With so many different types of people at so many different stages on the journey and with so many different types of businesses, how can we address each individual’s unique opportunities, challenges and needs?

Lesson #8: Focus on the Reality of Each Individual

It is not possible to help a person assess whether a living wage business is realistic and achievable without understanding that person’s individual circumstances.

• Start with the Bird in the Hand – Who are you? How much do you have to start with? Who do you know?

• Get to the Bottom Line – How much net profit from the business is needed to meet the higher of current household expenses or a self-sufficiency income? Is business net profit divided by total hours dedicated to the business more than the prevailing minimum wage?

Lesson #9: Guided Experiential Learning is Best

Get out of the classroom. Classroom learning is one-size-fits all, highly structured, and abstract. Entrepreneurs are highly individual, experiential learners, stepping into a chaotic and unknowable future. The quicker we get to one-on-one out in the real world, the quicker we can focus on a person’s specific opportunities, challenges, and needs to help them learn to think like an entrepreneur – planning in action with a Minimal Viable Product and an Affordable Loss mindset.

Lesson #10: Instead of Pushing, Let Yourself Be Pulled

The entrepreneur must be the Pilot in Plane. Do not provide the idea. Do not provide the initiative. Let the entrepreneur drive the idea, set the pace, learn to ask for help, learn to fail forward, and decide whether to go, pivot or throw in the towel. You cannot push someone into business ownership on your schedule.

Do not over teach or over structure. Just in time learning is best. Structure is the antithesis of the entrepreneur experience. And an “MVP” program is more agile, is more adaptable to community needs, and can more easily connect to and collaborate with the existing local entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Thank you for reading our series CIE’s 10 Principles for Redefining Entrepreneurship! Re-read and go back to Lesson 1, Anyone Can Be an Entrepreneur.

Respect: Yes. Gatekeepers: No.

Redefining Entrepreneurship, Lessons 2 & 3

This is the second in a series of posts sharing CIE’s 10 Principles for Redefining Entrepreneurship. Read the previous entry, Anyone Can Be an Entrepreneur.

Challenge: How can we help anyone participate in starting a business, regardless of age, education, language ability, differing abilities, type of business, stage of business, place, culture, circumstances, or background?

Lesson 2: Start With Respect

Presume everyone has the potential for redefined entrepreneurship (see Lesson 1). Presume wisdom. Honor every story. Ask, don’t tell. Listen and learn. 

Start with assets, not deficits. We all have challenges, and many of them are beyond our control. Ask every entrepreneur: What can you do with what you have and who you know? (See discussion of Bird-In-The-Hand in Lesson 1).

Lesson 3: Eliminate Gate Keepers

Open the doors wide. Let everyone in. Do not pre-judge anyone or any business ideas. 

Often the least likely people succeed, sometimes with business ideas that seem completely crazy. Think Ride the Ducks. Pet Rocks.  Tweezerman.

Instead of screening, create conditions for self-screening. Help people learn and apply business fundamentals to discover feasibility on their own.

With the right information, people will be able to determine for themselves whether to move forward – or not.  

We kiss a lot of frogs. Many opt out. At worst, aspiring entrepreneurs learn how to assess the feasibility of a business idea. And one out of ten will self-select forward.

Next up in our series, lessons 4 & 5 talk about removing two barriers that might surprise you.

Anyone Can Be an Entrepreneur

Redefining Entrepreneurship, Lesson 1

This is the first in a series of posts sharing CIE’s 10 Lessons for Redefining Entrepreneurship.

Challenge: How can we get past our myths, preconceptions and filters to see entrepreneurial potential in every person? How do you go into a new community and make change with only one staff person?

Lesson 1: Yes, Anyone

We need a new definition of entrepreneur. One that includes ordinary people with simple solutions to everyday problems.

Everyone is inalienably endowed with unique gifts. Everyone desires to productively contribute their unique gifts to their family and their community. Entrepreneurship is a strategy for doing this. 

Being entrepreneurial is not a genetic trait. It is a mindset. A mindset is nothing more than a set of beliefs and assumptions that govern decisions and actions. We are not born with a mindset. We acquire it. And that means we can choose to change it. 

5 Traits of the Entrepreneurial Mindset

There is much recent research defining the key elements of the entrepreneur mindset. And those elements have NOTHING to do with wealth, education, gender, race, creed, genes.  They are just this: 

Lemons to Lemonade

Leverage contingencies. Turn problems and obstacles into opportunities to learn, grow and find solutions.

Bird in the Hand

Start within your means. Start with what you have and who you know. Know that many things are beyond your control.

Affordable Loss

Focus on the downside risks. Make small bets knowing sometimes you may bet wrong. Fail often, fail cheap, and fail forward with new information.

Crazy Quilter

Form partnerships. Starting a business is a social activity. Build networks with stakeholders who will help you co-create your market.

Pilot in the Plane

Control rather than try to predict. Know that future is made by your actions. Get behind the wheel.

An entrepreneur mindset isn’t ONLY about creating businesses. It can be applied to anything – getting a good job, climbing the corporate ladder, furthering your education, writing the next great American novel, curing cancer – anything!  

Focusing on the entrepreneurship mindset is a potentially very empowering and very powerful form

Read the next post in our series, 10 Lessons for Redefining Entrepreneurship: Respect: Yes. Gatekeepers: No.