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 Entrepreneur. It’s an excellent, comprehensive review that includes a summary of the key points in Chapter 6: Classical Problems.
- The Patriarch Problem, when those who made their money many years ago are still running the show.
- Complaining about capital, because there will always be an imbalance between supply of capital and demand for capital.
- Being too reliant on Government. This is self-explanatory, but there’s a whole chapter on it entitled: “Contrasts between entrepreneurs and government.”
- Making short-term commitments. Well, it takes a long time to build a startup community. Twenty years to be exact.
- Having a bias against newcomers. Instead, swarm the newcomers.
- Attempt by a feeder to control the community. Why? Feeders retard the actual growth of the startup community.
- Creating artificial geographic boundaries. They don’t matter much at all at the state and city level. Waterloo-Toronto: are you listening?
- Playing a zero-sum game. This means stop thinking that “Our community is better than yours”.
- Having a culture of risk aversion. Make sure you learn something from what didn’t work.
- 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.