Aug 15 2012

Review of Startup Communities by William Mougayar

I’ve gotten to know William Mougayar through his new company Engag.io. I’m a huge fan, use it daily, and have given him plenty of feedback. He asked me for a pre-release copy of Startup Communities and I happily sent it to him.

His review is up on the StartupNorth blog and titled Book Review – Startup Communities: It’s About the EntrepreneurIt’s an excellent, comprehensive review that includes a summary of the key points in Chapter 6: Classical Problems.

  1. The Patriarch Problem, when those who made their money many years ago are still running the show.
  2. Complaining about capital, because there will always be an imbalance between supply of capital and demand for capital.
  3. Being too reliant on Government. This is self-explanatory, but there’s a whole chapter on it entitled: “Contrasts between entrepreneurs and government.”
  4. Making short-term commitments. Well, it takes a long time to build a startup community. Twenty years to be exact.
  5. Having a bias against newcomers. Instead, swarm the newcomers.
  6. Attempt by a feeder to control the community. Why? Feeders retard the actual growth of the startup community.
  7. Creating artificial geographic boundaries. They don’t matter much at all at the state and city level. Waterloo-Toronto: are you listening?
  8. Playing a zero-sum game. This means stop thinking that “Our community is better than yours”.
  9. Having a culture of risk aversion. Make sure you learn something from what didn’t work.
  10. Avoiding people because of past failures. Rather, embrace the failed entrepreneur because it encourages more entrepreneurs to take more risks.

William – thanks for the review. I look forward to heading up North and seeing you again soon.