We explore emerging models shaping innovation ecosystems and startup communities, with the leaders scaling their growth.
As an educator-turned-entrepreneur, I've spent 20+ years building startups, organizing communities, developing innovation hubs, and mobilizing capital. These journeys have taught me that most approaches to building innovation ecosystems get it backwards.
A few years ago, I started compiling experiences and working theses into Scaling Ecosystems—a comprehensive paper exploring how mid-sized cities build thriving startup communities without major metropolitan advantages. The framework is shaped through six pillar themes and three operating system models that challenge conventional top-down ecosystem building.
The six pillars position entrepreneurs centrally, develop people holistically, multiply growth leaders, leverage private sector leadership, establish anchor institutions, and build trust for capital mobilization. These come to life through three integrated operating systems—Community OS, Venture OS, and Funding OS—that create sustainable innovation environments.
Who is Scaling Ecosystems for?
Our audience includes entrepreneurial leaders, economic developers, innovation funders and venture investors at work in emerging cities.
I created Scaling Ecosystems for two reasons:
First, as a journal to share insights from the thesis alongside real-world applications. You'll find methods for accelerating relationship density, building long-term performance pathways, and creating trust-based architectures for sustained ecosystem regeneration.
Second, as a community platform focused on sharing and reshaping new development models, in collaboration with experts, colleagues and friends leading innovation ecosystems and startup communities around the world.
Why now?
I believe that entrepreneurial success comes from who you build with, not just what you build. As a fierce champion of founder-led startup communities, I've watched Canada's innovation ecosystems remain frustratingly fragmented despite significant investment—not from lack of funding, but misaligned efforts, entities and focus. The most cities achieve critical mass when experienced founders reinvest experience, capital, and relationships back into their communities, driving the self-reinforcing cycles that separate thriving ecosystems from struggling ones.
But things are changing. More entrepreneurs and builders are taking the lead, with multiple unicorns and billion-dollar companies now active across the country. This didn't happen through government programs—it’s developing through local leaders connecting dots, bridging communities, and mobilizing capital with the understanding that ecosystem strength comes from sustained relationship-building across generations.
Scaling Ecosystems is about letting entrepreneurs lead, letting investors invest, and letting performance define our global competitiveness. There's still work to overcome decades of fragmentation, but mid-sized cities can transform startup communities into innovation powerhouses with the right frameworks and long-term commitment.
Thanks for subscribing—let's get to work.
- Ken Bautista
