Support providers are public and private actors catering support services directly for business creators, often initially free or for nominal fees, subsidized by public funding or big organization.
Most organized Support Providers are providing their support as a primary role, while some have overlapping roles as Business Creators like; investors, board members, accelerators etc., or as Ecosystem Developer like; universities, incubators, big companies, etc.
Good Support Providers focus on providing support for a specific need at specific stage of the development, to help venture move forward. Support is aimed to be effective, in depth and valuable process, and is meant to serve a volume of Business Creators during a relatively short timespan. The earlier the development phase, the higher is volume of ventures needing support. So then hands-on support is lighter and/or time spent is shorter.
In earlier phases support providers also help "substitute" for roles to provide external perspective, before the Business Creators team have “built-in roles” for external/strategy perspective ie. board members, advisors, investors.
Support Providers gain a lot of "holistic" understanding and contacts relevant to specific development phase related challenges and as such are valuable for Business Creators, because they see a variety ventures with variations of their challenges and mix of teams. Those Support Providers who cater for various different support functions over multiple different development stages over time, develop very valuable knowledge and networks within their ecosystem and beyond. This also helps in creating necessary talent for ecosystems. Some support providers eventually join startup teams or become founders or other Business Creators themselves.
The key difference between Business Creators and Support Providers is that Business Creators focus on one, or a maximum of a few, ventures at a time for longer periods of time, and they possess direct stakes (equity positions). Where Support Providers mainly focus on specific needs of business creation at a specific phase of the venture, without direct stake in the outcome. This also gives them more neutral and unbiased positions in their support perspective.
Most organized Support Providers are providing their support as a primary role, while some have overlapping roles as Business Creators like; investors, board members, accelerators etc., or as Ecosystem Developer like; universities, incubators, big companies, etc.
Good Support Providers focus on providing support for a specific need at specific stage of the development, to help venture move forward. Support is aimed to be effective, in depth and valuable process, and is meant to serve a volume of Business Creators during a relatively short timespan. The earlier the development phase, the higher is volume of ventures needing support. So then hands-on support is lighter and/or time spent is shorter.
In earlier phases support providers also help "substitute" for roles to provide external perspective, before the Business Creators team have “built-in roles” for external/strategy perspective ie. board members, advisors, investors.
Support Providers gain a lot of "holistic" understanding and contacts relevant to specific development phase related challenges and as such are valuable for Business Creators, because they see a variety ventures with variations of their challenges and mix of teams. Those Support Providers who cater for various different support functions over multiple different development stages over time, develop very valuable knowledge and networks within their ecosystem and beyond. This also helps in creating necessary talent for ecosystems. Some support providers eventually join startup teams or become founders or other Business Creators themselves.
The key difference between Business Creators and Support Providers is that Business Creators focus on one, or a maximum of a few, ventures at a time for longer periods of time, and they possess direct stakes (equity positions). Where Support Providers mainly focus on specific needs of business creation at a specific phase of the venture, without direct stake in the outcome. This also gives them more neutral and unbiased positions in their support perspective.
Image: Paul Graham talking about Prototype Day at Y Combinator Summer 2009. Source Wikimedia Commons.
Support Providers Within Local Ecosystem
Support Providers focus on providing support services; like mentoring, workshops, advisory, training, incubation, acceleration etc. to support business creators and business creation process at various development phases.
Click slides below to see how other ecosystem key actors and applications relate to Support Providers.
Click slides below to see how other ecosystem key actors and applications relate to Support Providers.
Part of Ecosystem Key Actor Segments -presentation. Download PDF.
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