I wrote a post in October about a little speech Brad Feld gave about how to build an entrepreneurial community.  He went on to expand his thoughts in an article for the publication Private Equity Hub (and then reproduced it on his own blog).  In the expanded thoughts he breaks up a similar list of requirements in to two essential categories.  First, the things that are “table stakes”, that you absolutely must have people willing to do.  The second are the things necessary to make the community sustainable.

In the “table stakes” category he lists playing to your strengths and identifying at least a half dozen leaders of the community who will be in place for at least 20 years.  I’m not sure it’s possible for Pittsburgh to know exactly what leaders will be in place for the next 20 years, but we have way over a half-dozen potential leaders and, of them, hopefully at least 6 will be around for the duration.  Who do I think of when I think of leaders in the Pittsburgh Entrepreneurial Community?  There are at least two (one, two) in AlphaLab, at least two at InnovationWorks (one, two), One at MBVC, at least one at CMU, one running Project Olympus, two in the Pittsburgh Technology Council (one and two), there have to be at least a couple a Blue Tree but I don’t know where to point for them, one at Pitt, three blogs that I know of one (me), two and three, one entrepreneur that I know is dedicated to the Burgh, and two in the press (one, two).  That’s 17 or 18 right off the top of my head and I’m probably missing at least a dozen that I’m just not (yet) aware of.  The city is also making strides to take advantage of its assets.  I think locating AlphaLab in the trendy South Side was smart, projects like Olympus that help meld in to the universities, Innovation Works taking advantage of a state that loves to give grants and more.  The question is, now that we have a head of steam, what should we do?

Well, Feld has two recommendations there.  First, he suggests doing things that engage the entire entrepreneurial community.  He divides this engagement in to three levels.  First, are get-togethers. Pittsburgh does well here with Open Coffee Club, a bunch of good Meetups, PTC Events and many others.  Where Pittsburgh starts to struggle a little is in the second level of events; hackathons, angel forums, startup weekends.  I think we have this level of interaction from time to time, but probably not often enough.  Lastly, he has programs like Tech Stars which are designed to bring together the entrepreneurial community for several months at a time.  I think AlphaLab may be headed in that direction with programs like the one they had last week, but there is likely still further to go as the community matures.  Though I think Feld, a founder of Tech Stars, potentially over states their value.

The other suggestion he makes is that you need to get fresh blood in to the system and help it find resources to get going.  As we grow as an entrepreneurial community, this is something we will have to get better at.  I have said before in this space that it’s not healthy for an entrepreneurial community to lament entrepreneurs who have left, but instead to focus on how to entice ones that are preparing to leave other creative centers.