Economic Development is a bit of a stretch for entrepreneurs except that there are a lot of programs in the community that offer support for fledgling startups.  These folks get funding from grants and sponsors and the way they track progress is through measuring things like jobs created, revenue generated, investments awarded, etc.

In that world, there are a lot of stakeholders each after the same results and often in competition for resources.  In other words, COMPETITION!

The point for the entrepreneur is this:  being part of a community requires relationships of all sorts.  Many of these relationships will pull you along in directions that suit their incentives.  Here’s a good example: in order to win the cash prize for the pitch competition, you have to attend the 13 week accelerator program.  There’s nothing wrong at all with this model until you get to the point where you are going around trying to win competitions.

When the time come to go raise your funding, focus on that rather than the noise that goes on around you.

Phillip Singerman spoke at the SSTI Annual Conference in 2013

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