The Missing Infrastructure of Entrepreneurship: A Policy Guide for Cities and States
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
Governments keep insisting they’re “supporting entrepreneurship,” yet the tools they fund are usually the bureaucratic equivalent of a pep rally: innovation hubs with free Wi-Fi, pitch competitions, and motivational speakers who read the same three startup books as everyone else. These things create the appearance of activity but deliver outcomes only for the handful of
- Published in Economic Development, Startups
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Innovation Isn’t Real Estate: Why Startup Hubs Waste Money
Thursday, 21 August 2025
The garage myth keeps fooling policymakers Innovation is not a real estate play, and your innovation district is likely disappointing entrepreneurs. Yet cities, universities, and corporations keep pouring millions into gleaming new “innovation spaces” and “hubs,” mistaking glass walls and free Wi-Fi for entrepreneurship. To some extent, understandably; startup folklore inspires us with stories of
- Published in Economic Development, Startup Ecosystems
Bogotá, Colombia; Latin America’s Next Startup Ascent
Friday, 15 August 2025
Colombia has always been a country in motion; politically, culturally, and economically. But motion isn’t the same as progress, and progress isn’t guaranteed. For generations, Colombians have adapted to change not because they wanted to, but because they had to. It’s in this crucible of necessity that the country’s entrepreneurial spirit was forged and potential
- Published in Regional Development, Startup Ecosystems
Regional Collapse We Keep Pretending Isn’t Happening
Thursday, 07 August 2025
Something’s gone wrong in the way we structure governance; so wrong that it’s now normalized for elected leaders to turn to govern through coercion rather than consensus So wrong that the people who actually build and sustain the economy (workers, founders, educators, families) are often the last ones consulted about how that economy is governed.
- Published in Economic Development, Regional Development
Why Startups and Cities Fail Without a Clear Narrative: ACES for Ventures and Ecosystems
Wednesday, 06 August 2025
Most of you don’t fail because they lack a great product, brilliant founders, or access to capital. You fail because you haven’t worked out how to tell your story. You fail because your narrative doesn’t build trust, urgency, or credibility; three things that must happen before you ever get to the sale. This isn’t just
- Published in Startup Ecosystems, Startups
Startup Detroit: From Cranks to Code; How the Motor City Is Revving a New Engine
Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Steel-Belt Beginnings & Motown Beats: Why Detroit Built Everything from Ford to Funk Long before it became a symbol of rust a city off track, Detroit was a strategic settlement founded in 1701 by Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac at Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, a riverfront trade nexus between French Canada and the Great Lakes.
- Published in Regional Development
Botswana’s Startup Paradox: Why Africa Searches for Venture Capital
Wednesday, 16 July 2025
This is a country with the continent’s most stable democracy, solid credit ratings, one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa over the past fifty years, and the world’s largest diamond producer. Having just released our research into why venture capital avoids regions of the world, my attention turned to Africa because the continent is arguably
- Published in Regional Development