Don’t forget the Community (4)
There has been a lot of great chatter going on the last few days regarding the best way to turn the ignition on Canada’s Startup engine. So much so that it has prompted me to dive in with a guest post here on MTW.
I’ve heard similar ideas spreading at local events, private meetings, and captured in Heri’s post a few months back (A plan for digital creativity) Here are a few thoughts:
- Newbie’s need a lot of hand holding and support to be…
- Promising players need special teams with more practice time and better coaching to be…
- Stars need funding to free up time to learn specific tactics and benefit from strict guidelines to be…
- Superstars need exposure, a national playing field to show there stuff.
This is a big part of why hockey works in Quebec, or football in Texas. One system feeds the other; none can exist without the other. As Chris posted, it is about the “eco-system” or “about fostering the community of start up/entrepreneurial spirit”.
The problem is how do we build a “business model” to support an eco-system that will unavoidably flow investment to many entrepreneurs that aren’t cut out to make it? VC’s understand the probabilities of the best of the best providing a return is near to 2 in 10. Can one truly expect a return on helping everyone?
Does the answer lie with:
- Government support?
- The BDC?
- Angels and VC’s donating time, space, or money to the community?
- Successful entrepreneurs sticking around to support the system?
The fundamental question is: what kind of risk/reward curve do we want? It shapes the support systems we need to put in place. Do we want a majority of losers, and a small minority of super-rich? That’s what we have now. Or do we want more than half the people entering the ecosystem to be millionaires and most making out just ok?
Looking at the track record for YCombinator, it seems your odds there are much better than 1 in 2 to get bought out, but their median exit is tiny by typical VC standards. Those whose startups fail don’t seem to fare too badly, either.
I prefer the YC odds. From an economic development standpoint, it would make far more sense for Montreal. And it means we different kinds of support – perhaps much cheaper than might otherwise be assumed.
Or we can continue with our silicon inferiority complex.
Don’t forget the Community http://tinyurl.com/ckjpva
[mtw] Don’t forget the Community: There has been a lot of great chatter going on the last few days regardin.. http://tinyurl.com/ckjpva
The good thing is unlike pro sports there is much more room at the top in business. I’m not sure that the end goal necessarily needs to be creating multi-millionaires, but allowing people to do what they love to do while living a comfortable life and creating jobs for other people to do what they love to do.
I can’t believe that anyone is advocating trying to foster newbiepreneurs from grade school, but there must be some level before “farm team” before “techstars” that can benefit from the collective laser specific knowledge of seasoned entrepreneurs to build profitable ventures.
Unless we leave it up to our Universities?
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