Entrepreneurship and start up activity is highly local and often the result of unlikely collaborations created through entrepreneurial collisions in the local community. In order to be successful, entrepreneurs need a vibrant local support structure with abundant connectivity to resources.
The vision behind FIND (Fueling Innovation through Node Development) is to assemble and build local assets and energize the startup ecosystem in SoCal’s most promising innovation communities. The FIND program, initiated in partnership with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), identified the wealth of assets in SoCal and identified strategies that can fill ecosystem gaps.
The BCG work identified the nodes, or communities, where the building blocks of startup ecosystems were most concentrated across SoCal. These building blocks include density of startups, investors, talent, and corporations.
The fourteen separate SoCal communities identified in the BCG analysis converged into four primary archetypes based on presence and strength of existing local resources.