Last month we launched the inaugural Map What Matters Challenge in partnership with EcoMap Technologies. Challenge participants were given an abridged version of EcoMap’s paradigm to map out 30 key resources in their ecosystem along with the organizations that provide them. We had three organizations take us up on this challenge who all exceeded expectations and not only mapped more than the required 40 but came back with physical representations of their ecosystem as well.

Challenge Participants

“EcoMap was thrilled by the engagement we received in our inaugural Map What Matters challenge with SCN members. Each of our participants has a real passion for ensuring that their ecosystem is better understood and accessible to those seeking to navigate it, which is why we're happy to be supporting each of them with EcoMap platforms to be launched later this year. Our team is especially excited to grow this challenge at the next SCN Summit in Fort Worth this Fall - where attendees will have an opportunity to explore the ecosystem through  University of North Texas Health Science Center (HSC)'s upcoming EcoMap platform,” says Kevin Carter, Head of Business Development for EcoMap.

We took some time to celebrate the accomplishments of each participant and share lessons learned over Zoom. If you’ve been working to map your ecosystem or are interested in taking on the challenge, here are some learnings from challenge participants. 

Covid has resulted in lots of ecosystem changes 

Our challenge participants shared that Covid had definitely changed the landscape of their ecosystem. This was no surprise, however, they all found that some assumptions had been made prior that weren’t necessarily true when it came down to doing the research.

“We had a lot of resources drop out during Covid and after Covid and a lot of new ones are popping up,” says Marco Johnson. 

There were also organizations they thought had closed down but in fact came back after some time. The main takeaway here: it’s important to know how your ecosystem has changed since the pandemic to get a handle on what’s available now. You might be surprised what you find!

Discovering the depth and breadth of different ESO offerings 

Having a basic, cursory understanding of what a particular ESO may offer or do is a good start, but the process of mapping the ecosystem led to some discoveries around very valuable programs, grants, and resources that were unknown.

“I definitely found a couple of organizations that were new to me, but the most valuable pieces of information I learned were the details of the programs I already knew about. I knew what they were upfront, I knew their names and had a general sense of their offerings, but I was off on some details. For example, who would be eligible to participate in a pitch competition, how much money they gave, how many times of year they happen… Those pieces of information that help me in my fluency with entrepreneurs every day were valuable to pickup,” says Jason Griess. 

Choose your starting point and build from there

Mapping an entire ecosystem across all entrepreneurs is overwhelming, which is why EcoMap challenged our ecosystem builders to do thirty. All three participants had a starting point or focus to build from, which is a great model for those looking to do this in their ecosystem. Start small and scale.

In Pittsburgh, Jason Griess started with tech startups - a part of the ecosystem he knows well. 

“In April we released a startup database for the region. That process was similar to the idea of mapping. What we didn’t focus on were specific resources, so this exercise had me think about pitch competitions and other things that were very specific. We were really focused on actual startups and the organizations that support them, so digging into their programs was a different experience than just making sure we had the headline name and the organization there. The other big difference was just the scale. When you think about just the startups in your ecosystem - last count I had was 620 in the 10 county Pittsburg region. That comes with it a lot of pain and misery of data input and making sure things are correct whereas this one I sat down and sort of vomited all the things I already knew were happening and then went back and double-checked to make sure I didn’t miss anything,” explains Jason.

In Sacramento, Cameron started with a resource created by StartupSac (you can - and should - check it out here).

“Mapping has been taking place for a while with several trials and tribulations along the way. We tried to launch a resource navigator 4 or 5 years ago but the platform never really got launched. 

Jeff Bennett and Laura Good from StartupSac built a really nice circuit diagram map for us. It’s a static resource but a really great outline to get started with. Part of my learning with the exercise was that our current map really focuses on the startup ecosystem vs the broader entrepreneurial ecosystem. Once we start working with EcoMap, we will expand this from just the startup community to the entrepreneurial ecosystem. As I mapped our ecosystem, it was nice to see how connected our ecosystem was as one asset/resource might have multiple partners co-leading the effort. We look forward to working with EcoMap to bring a dynamic resource to our ecosystem ensuring entrepreneurs are met with the right resources at the right time.” says Cameron.

In Fort Worth, Marco started with a Customer Journey Map he created back in 2019 that he added ESOs to once he completed the mapping exercise.

“Sparkyard launched at the end of 2019 so I spent a few months before that mapping the ecosystem here not just in Fort Worth but in Dallas as well because despite the fact that Fort Worth is the 13th largest city in the country by population, our ecosystem is really underdeveloped. A lot of people end up going to Dallas because it's 35 miles down the road or Austin because it’s a startup mecca. It was really crucial for us to find out what we were working with here. That’s an ongoing exercise - you’re never done. 

One of the things that we’ve done with our mapping is creating a map of the entrepreneurial journey (called the Growth Circuit), which has been useful to explain the entrepreneurial journey to folks. Then, we took that same circuit and inserted our resource partners at the points where they help. These are both static assets but we got some grant money from EDA and we’re working on a digital version of that in the next 4-6 months,” says Marco.

What’s next

All three of the organizations that participated in the challenge will be working with EcoMap to continue the work they started so stay tuned! 

EcoMap creates data-driven platforms that help people navigate, understand, and engage with the unique communities around them. EcoMap’s proprietary automated tech enables users to quickly aggregate information about who is doing what within a given ecosystem - including resources, businesses, and people - and keep that data perpetually updated, enabling their platforms to be real-time reflections of what's going on in any community, industry, or network.

Read some of their use cases here.

“Mapping an entrepreneurial ecosystem is a critical first step to answering the question of “Who is doing what?” to support entrepreneurs. You have to understand the scope of organizations out there and the resources they’re providing in order to offer tailored support to those who can most benefit from them. Our goal for the Map What Matters Challenge is for it to demystify this process and make it easier for ecosystem builders to take that critical first step” says Kevin Carter.

If you are interested in learning more about EcoMap’s unique ecosystem mapping process + platform, book a demo here.