The Startup Community Way

CHAPTER SIXPUTTING THE SYSTEM BACK INTO ECOSYSTEM

Startup Community Way Principle

Openness, support, and collaboration are critical behaviors in a startup community. Collaboration is essential to a startup community. This requires an open mind, porous boundaries, acceptance of the uniqueness of others, and a sense of duty to support the startup community.

A startup community is best viewed and acted on through the lens of a system. While this may seem obvious, we frequently hear people refer to a “startup ecosystem” with one breath, and then with the next breath, suggest actions that are in direct conflict with how a system works. The system part of ecosystem is important, but it's treated too casually.

While the disconnect between systems language and systems practice is not intentional, a collective misunderstanding and lack of awareness about the systemic properties of startup communities inhibits progress and creates problems. Systems thinking is difficult in practice because it is often counterintuitive and runs against natural human desires to control things and avoid uncertainty.

Startup communities are complex adaptive systems—a particular type of system with nonlinear and dynamic properties that can easily confuse people. Over the next few chapters, we'll explain what that means, what the key characteristics of complex systems are, and how startup communities exhibit complex patterns. Most importantly, we will discuss the practical implications and strategies ...