The Role of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Case Study — Avatech

Avatech was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the early stages of the company, its founders Brint, Sam and Jim benefited in many ways of the Cambridge ecosystem.

Part A

The founders benefited in many ways from the Cambridge ecosystem by meet-ups orientated around engineering, entrepreneurship and idea generation, the GFSA accelerator programme, and the product design and development course. The three aspects of these different activities can be defined as human capital, finance and supports.

The meet-ups provided an excellent source of human capital for Brint, Sam and Jim to find each other as a diverse group of founders with a range of business and technological skills to build a successful start-up. This was also very beneficial to provide education in the form of engineering, entrepreneurship and idea generation pitches with practical experience generating and presenting ideas. This is crucial as entrepreneurial activity does not exist in a vacuum and requires support mechanisms beyond money with particular need for entrepreneurial education to increase their chances for success (Lerner, 2009). This is particularly important to leverage the academic knowledge base to build successful businesses.

The GFSA Accelerator programme was an excellent source of financial capital providing $20,000 equity free funding giving the founders a launchpad to start their business. Not only did it provide financial capital but also provides supports such as workspaces and support professions with industry experts and experienced entrepreneurs helping to grow the business. The accelerator funded programme is certainly an outcome of a strong link between businesses, government and universities which is needed to enhance start-up activity such as Eindhoven tech city in the Netherlands (Reichert, 2007). Funding provides the resources needed to secure IP rights, develop technology and grow the business (Reichert, 2007). It is important that the funding is not attached to rigid objectives, metrics and criteria which will limit the curiosity-driven research and radical nature of ideas needed to solve contemporary problems.

The product development course was clearly orientated around helping students exercise entrepreneurial thinking. This is a form of in-direct human capital with specialised university courses to teach students to develop solutions for a given problem. The access to professor Eppinger is an additional support which helped Brint develop his protype, which was pivotal for the start of the business. It is an important initiative to encourage entrepreneurs to have relevant technical knowledge and resources to bring ideas into reality, particularly in knowledge-intensive areas (Reichert 2007).