The study of Innovative Entrepreneurship Ecosystems uses the same logic applied to the classical study of natural ecosystems to understand how innovation emerges from the interaction of different factors related to entrepreneurship. In other words, in the best Cartesian style, it is possible to isolate the different actors involved, detect their contributions to the network they are part of, and understand how the interaction among them generates an emergent pattern that we identify as “Innovation,” similar to what ecologists do to understand the factors that sustain the most varied “Ecosystem Services.”
The relationship between Entrepreneurship and Innovation descends from a culture that has been forming since the last decade. With the consolidation of globalization, companies' concern to grow within increasingly competitive markets found a path when Apple launched its first iPod in 2001, making the concept of Innovation gain relevance. Since then, the appreciation of creativity and the application of good ideas in products and services triggered a series of movements, such as the establishment of laws that encourage technology transfer between universities and companies [1]. Subsequently, theories like “The Blue Ocean Strategy” [2] brought the vision that to grow in this highly competitive environment, companies should create new markets through innovation in business models, which was consolidated in 2011 with the emergence of tutorials like “Business Model Generation” [3] and “The Lean Startup” [4]. With these tools in hand, the possibility of creating innovative businesses with a high competitive advantage stimulated many people to put their best ideas into practice, generating the great wave of entrepreneurship we see today.
The entrepreneurs who emerged from this new wave have as their main characteristic the ability to create businesses that explore new markets or new possibilities within known markets, facing risks and using the resources available in their network to generate not only economic value but often socio-environmental value as well. Within this behavioral pattern, it is possible to identify four profiles: the Digital Services Entrepreneur, who develops new services on virtual platforms; the Technology-Based Entrepreneur, who creates new products with large-scale replication technology; the Creative Economy Entrepreneur, who offers new products or services with artistic content; and the Community Entrepreneur, who incorporates traditional knowledge into local replication technologies to market products with the best use of the resources at their disposal.
To varying degrees, all of them need five basic competencies to move their ventures from Idea to Start-up and from Start-up to Scale-up: Know-how, Business Management Knowledge, Communication and Design Skills, Financial Resources, and Infrastructure. Since it is difficult to have all these competencies at hand simultaneously, the entrepreneur relies on actors such as investors, incubators, accelerators, support institutions for entrepreneurs, universities, banks, or government agencies to access them, and sometimes this occurs in a coordinated manner by these actors, as seen in initiatives like Startup Brasil [5] and Criativa Birô [6].
Today, large companies participate in these ecosystems by adopting entrepreneurs as new suppliers, investing in or acquiring innovative businesses (the Buscapé model [7]), or viewing the entrepreneur as a new client who can develop their business from a platform offered by the company, as Amazon does [8]. All of this builds a scenario that facilitates the visualization of possible interaction paths with these ecosystems to leverage Innovation in an open and collaborative way.
Felipe Morillo is a biologist graduated from USP - São Paulo. He currently works in the area of Open Innovation, studying new audiences and prototyping partnership management tools.
Contact: felipemorillo@natura.net
References:
1. INNOVATION LAW. Available at: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2004-2006/2004/lei/l10.973.htm. Accessed on: 28/05/2013.
2. KIM, W. C.; MAUBORGNE, R. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant. Harvard Business Press. 2005.
3. OSTERWALDER, A.; PIGNEUR, Y.; SMITH, A. Business Model Generation. Alta Books. 2011.
4. RIES, E. The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. Crown Publishing. 2011.
5. STARTUP BRASIL. Available at: http://startupbrasil.mcti.gov.br/. Accessed on: 28/05/2013.
6. CRIATIVA BIRÔ. Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/LucianaGuilherme1/criativa-bir. Accessed on: 28/05/2013.
7. BUSCAPÉ COMPANY. Available at: http://www.buscapecompany.com/pt/. Accessed on: 28/05/2013.
8. AMAZON WEB SERVICES. Available at: http://aws.amazon.com/pt/. Accessed on: 28/05/2013.
