Creating forums for sharing.
In year two, one of the chancellors trying to figure out solutions to common problems suggested we establish regular forums to share learnings and build community across the network.

This led to the establishment of quarterly Roundtables.

These half- to full-day meetings created a place to:

• bring in experts, both inside and outside the network, to reinforce key aspects of lean startup principles,
• share outcomes of programs and events and various locations,
• highlight the benefits of an iterative process, and
• lead workshops on building entrepreneurial skills helpful to both LaunchBox staff and the individuals they serve.

Building and fostering community.
Meetings rotated from community to community and were a critical point in the evolution of the network. They moved us from a collection of independent locations conducting contemporaneous experiments, to a learning network that was working together toward a common goal.

Site visits and strategy sessions.
Starting in the third year of the initiative, a centralized support person began spending 25% of their time helping locations with programming and placemaking.

This individual traveled to locations to share network learnings and best practices for:

• identifying gaps in entrepreneurial ecosystems,
• aligning offerings based on available resources and funds, and
• creating open, vibrant, welcoming, and inclusive spaces that aligned with the LaunchBox brand and identity.

Finding gaps was difficult.
It wasn’t always clear to leadership and staff how to go about identifying gaps in services in the community.

Therefore, it was important to provide tools, templates, and guidance on exactly how to go about identifying those gaps.

These tools, along with one-on-one strategy sessions, were helpful in jump-starting the process, especially for locations that didn’t have experience with this type of mapping.

Identifying potential partners.
Mapping the local ecosystem was helpful in uncovering key influencers, organizations, and leaders who might become key partners in addressing any identified gaps.

• Working with stakeholders and local economic development organizations would maximize reach and impact—and, ultimately, be more likely to have the desired statewide impact.
• Building partnerships with individuals and organizations already supporting local entrepreneurs meant that a wider and more complete set of resources could be created to ensure the initiative’s success and increase local impact. Plus, these organizations wouldn’t see Penn State as competition.
• Mapping was also helpful in uncovering the attitudes of community members as well as the language and culture related to opportunities and challenges associated with starting a business.

Uncovering missing services and potential partners.
This process revealed common support services that were missing within LaunchBox communities, such as:

• affordable legal advice (reference chapter 3.4 to learn more about this)
• support for specific stages of businesses, such as validating early-stage ideas, and
• lack of flexible and affordable spaces for coworking and networking activities.

Bringing an inclusive lens to the process.
In hindsight, a critical component of ecosystem mapping that we missed was bringing a more inclusive lens to the process (click here to learn more).

Specifically, we needed to be more aware that groups who felt business ownership was not an option for them would be absent in a map of current entrepreneurial leaders and resources.

Helping to validate business ideas.
Since a large number of LaunchBoxes were focused on supporting early-stage businesses, we focused on leveraging lean startup tools and techniques to help entrepreneurs assess the viability of their ideas.

Quarterly roundtables and one-on-one sessions provided staff with lean startup tools and best practices to help grow this expertise across the network.

Additionally, we started a book club that included books focused on lean startup techniques, and began sharing curriculum for accelerator programs built on the lean startup process.

Helping existing businesses with new ideas.
As our understanding and expertise in lean startup grew, we began to leverage tools and techniques to help existing businesses assess opportunities to introduce new products to the market and address new customer segments.