We need an entrepreneur-led community, not a nonprofit-led community

Are "feeders" sucking up all the oxygen?

Twice in one week, I’ve heard from other ESO leaders that they feel like there are too many ESOs running things and not enough entrepreneurs running things. I fully agree.

I run Venture Café which is considered an ESO — an entrepreneur support organization. St Louis is full of ESOs — perhaps too many. St Louis is filled with nonprofits — perhaps too many.

Why is it important for entrepreneurs to run things? Because they actually know what they need. And if they run a thing it will directly help the people who need that thing.

ESOs are constantly making deals with funders to get paid which serves their funders more than it does the entrepreneurs. Whoops.

There’s a reason ESOs are called feeders in Brad Feld’s book Startup Communities. They’re necessary but shouldn’t run the community. I’d love to see ESOs figure out ways to support entrepreneurs to let them run supportive (or tangential) programming. Can we be platforms or even backups? When an entrepreneur needs to move on can ESOs be backstops? (See: 1Million Cups STL.) Or, can we be used as platforms for entrepreneurs to plug into?

I’m willing to lend Venture Cafés platform to support more entrepreneur-led initiatives without having to run them.