Communities all over the world are looking to build economies through entrepreneurship. As more entrepreneurial resources emerge from a region’s academic, business, government and nonprofit organizations, it is extremely important to give entrepreneurs fast, easy access to a “clearinghouse” that can help them find the right resource for their challenge, industry and business stage.
Many communities have an abundance of business development resources, but often entrepreneurs can’t find them or they reach out to the wrong one and have a bad experience. With the multitude of different kinds of businesses – whether they are technology, main street, second-stage or microenterprise – and a multitude of resources available to serve them, a central point for visibility and connection can help strengthen businesses and accelerate their growth.
From a basic listing to a centralized online hub, it is important to improve the visibility and value of the resources available to entrepreneurs, providing entrepreneurs and the community with:
- Access to resources
- Access to networks
- Coordinated community engagement
- Access to capital and capacity-building funding
Assessment. Over more than 10 years, SourceLink has developed robust methodologies that allow us to work with a community to quickly understand and assess regional assets available to the entrepreneur. We believe that the best way to build an entrepreneurial ecosystem is to start with the basics of knowing what you have, then understanding and filling gaps. Continuous improvement comes from reassessing and filling the next gap. Therefore our asset maps always result in gap identification and recommendations for next steps.
"Not all entrepreneurs are alike and not all resources support all of them. They cluster around the type of entrepreneur they serve."