The Startup Checklist

8Network Effectively Within the Entrepr eneurial Ecosystem

While it may take a village to raise a child, every entrepreneur knows that founding a startup can be one of the most intensely personal and lonely challenges on the planet. As Tara Hunt wrote in her classic presentation “So You Wanna Do a Startup, Eh?”:^*

• Startups are hard.
• Startups are really hard.
• Startups are heartbreaking.
• Startups are soul crushing.
• Startups are life shortening.
• Fact: You will wake up in a puddle of your own sweat several nights a week because you realize you are completely fucked.
• So why are we doing this again?
• (Because) I can't imagine doing ANYTHING else. It's an unhealthy, but beautifully necessary obsession.

It is precisely because the startup game is so personal and lonely that you must take it upon yourself to reach out and connect with the rest of us who are pursuing parallel paths. While it is not unusual for a startup founder to feel isolated and alone, we are actually surrounded by a much larger ecosystem.

The entrepreneurial ecosystem is the collection of people, companies, organizations, venues, activities, and government agencies that surround and support high-growth startup companies in a given region.

It includes startups themselves (and their founders, employees, and contractors), the angel investors and venture capitalists who fund them, and the incubators, coworking spaces, and accelerators that house them, along with the business plan competitions, universities, educational ...