Startup Communities, 2nd Edition

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION

The first edition of Startup Communities was published in 2012. As a society, we were emerging from the global financial crisis, and entrepreneurship was starting to be discussed more broadly around the world. The transition from an industrial, hierarchical, top‐down economy to a digital, networked, bottom‐up one was underway.

Economic pundits and politicians started to refer to this time as a jobless recovery since traditional employers had stagnated and jobs were scarce and unreliable. As young, talented people began looking for work, three digital technologies converged: ubiquitous high‐speed internet, smartphones, and cloud computing. Consequently, starting a digitally enabled company became much cheaper and easier to do, and it could be done anywhere. All that was needed was an internet connection, a laptop, and an imagination.

Suddenly, people around the world wanted to learn how to apply the phenomenon of entrepreneurship. What felt different about this era when compared with the hysteria of the dot‐com bubble in the late 1990s was a sense that people wanted to get things right. Instead of just making money, they wanted to understand what was going on and how to effectively build vibrant startup communities in cities around the world.

Prior to the publication of the first edition of this book, the phrase “startup community” didn't exist. Geographic areas with a concentration of innovation and entrepreneurial activity were often labeled ...