The Blog
Updates & Announcements.
Field writing from SourceLink practitioners on Updates & Announcements.
Latest in Updates & Announcements
Affiliate Summer Quarterly Conversation: Activating Untapped Entrepreneurial Potential in Your Community.
Sometimes our most innovative entrepreneurs are people often overlooked and underestimated. They represent a stage of the entrepreneurial journey that happens before people identify themselves as entrepreneurs or appear in our ecosystem—before we have a name, an email address, or a business to support. According to Andrew Button, guest speaker at our June SourceLink Affiliate Quarterly Conversation, this "messy middle" contains more potential entrepreneurs than...
Read the post →
Entrepreneurship
Affiliate Summer Quarterly Conversation: Activating Untapped Entrepreneurial Potential in Your Community
Sometimes our most innovative entrepreneurs are people often overlooked and underestimated. They represent a stage of the entrepreneurial journey that happens before people identify themselves as entrepreneurs or appear in our ecosystem—before we have a name, an email address, or a business to support. According to Andrew Button, guest speaker at our June SourceLink Affiliate Quarterly Conversation, this "messy middle" contains more potential entrepreneurs than...
Jun 30, 2026
Network news
How Maria Meyers Helped Shape Entrepreneurship-Led Economic Development
For more than two decades, Maria Meyers has helped shape the way communities think about entrepreneurship. Long before "entrepreneurship-led economic development" became an area of focus, Maria recognized that entrepreneurs needed more than individual programs or isolated resources. They needed connected systems. Communities needed shared infrastructure. Organizations needed better ways to collaborate. And entrepreneurs deserved to find the right...
Jun 26, 2026
Network news
Why You Need to Be at ICBI40 April 12 - 15
Entrepreneurship-led economic development doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built by the people behind the scenes by incubator managers, ESO leaders, ecosystem builders, funders, and program directors who design the systems entrepreneurs rely on every day. If that’s your work, the 40th International Conference on Business Incubation (ICBI40) belongs on your calendar. Hosted by the International Business...
Feb 26, 2026
Network news
Looking forward to 2026 and New Tools for Collaboration
SourceLink Affiliate Quarterly Conversation – December 18, 2025 It’s been our tradition to begin the final SourceLink Affiliate Quarterly Conversation of the year with director, Rob Williams, sharing his reflections from the past year and his hopes, inspirations and intentions for the coming year. Acknowledging the challenges and barriers 2025 brought to many of us, Rob...
Jan 16, 2026
Economic Development
Entrepreneurship Is More Than a Buzzword in Economic Development
The words communities use to describe entrepreneurs now shape who participates, who gets support, and how local economies grow. For a long time, economic development in the U.S. followed a familiar script: communities competed to attract large employers. Success was measured in metrics such as tax revenue increases, job growth, and square footage. Entrepreneurship existed in...
Dec 23, 2025
Economic Development
Santa Fe Small Business Navigator: Building Systems That Support Entrepreneurs at Scale
Across the field of economic development one truth stands out: supporting entrepreneurs requires more than good programs; it requires good systems. The city of Santa Fe has no shortage of entrepreneurial talent, committed partner organizations, or inspiring success stories. What’s harder is addressing the systemic side of the work. Becoming an entrepreneur depends on dozens...
Nov 25, 2025
Economic Development
Fueling Entrepreneurship in Rural America
Across small towns and wide-open regions, rural ecosystems grow faster when ecosystem partners invest in shared systems, transparent communication, and relationships that span towns and counties. Mark Burdette has spent more than two decades moving entrepreneurship forward in West Virginia, sometimes pushing, sometimes nudging. “Rural communities are kind of all I know,” he said. The deputy...
Nov 24, 2025
Economic Development
Ecosystem Unfiltered: Your Questions, Their Wisdom
Communities across the country are engaging in entrepreneurship-led economic development to give small businesses the best resources they need on their entrepreneurship journey. When trying to bridge gaps and solve problems, there is no “one size fits all” solution. When looking for strategies to bolster small business growth, it helps to look at those who...
Nov 21, 2025
Economic Development
Second Stage - Supporting the Types of Businesses in Your Ecosystem
This multi-part series offers ecosystem builders and economic developers insights into the characteristics of the four types of businesses in an entrepreneurial ecosystem—and targeted strategies that help those businesses thrive. Small businesses form the crux of the American economy. Recent data from the U.S. Small Business Administration shows the U.S. is home to 33.3 million...
May 30, 2025
Economic Development
Innovation-Led - Supporting the Types of Businesses in Your Ecosystem
This multi-part series offers ecosystem builders and economic developers insights into the four types of businesses in an entrepreneurial ecosystem—and targeted strategies that help them thrive. Small businesses form the crux of the American economy. Recent data from the U.S. Small Business Administration shows the U.S. is home to 33.3 million companies that qualify as...
Nov 12, 2024
Economic Development
Main Street – Supporting the Types of Businesses in Your Ecosystem
This multi-part series offers ecosystem builders and economic developers' insights into the characteristics of the four types of businesses in an entrepreneurial ecosystem—and targeted strategies that help those businesses thrive. Small businesses form the crux of the American economy. Recent data from the U.S. Small Business Administration shows the United States is home to 33.3...
Jul 30, 2024
Economic Development
Microenterprises - Supporting the Types of Businesses in Your Ecosystem
This multi-part series offers ecosystem builders and economic developers insights into the characteristics of each business type and targeted strategies that help those businesses thrive. Small businesses form the crux of the American economy. Recent data from the U.S. Small Business Administration shows the U.S. is home to 33.3 million companies that qualify as small...
Jun 05, 2024