Bianca Noland: Coordination and Awareness

During my time in Orlando as an incubator intern at StarterStudio, I became more aware of Orlando’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. With tons of startups and businesses booming in the
Central Florida area, you would think Orlando has gotten their entrepreneurial ecosystem all straightened out. However, that is not necessarily true. When speaking with Bob Reed, StarterStudio’s program director, I recognized that Orlando’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is in need of better coordination.

With Orlando being as big as it is, there is an abundance of entrepreneurial support organizations (ESO) and resources to aid in Orlando’s local startups. However, many local startups have expressed their confusion with not knowing where to go and who to talk to when it comes to finding and utilizing these resources. Additionally, the majority of these organizations in Orlando offer similar services to entrepreneurs and their businesses, which can lead to conflicting or competitive ideas. This leads to the ultimate question: How do these organizations coordinate who is doing what to prevent confusion and competition?

Many cities struggle with not having enough resources, so Orlando does have many advantages over other entrepreneurial ecosystems. With the need of better coordination, some things that can be done to improve Orlando’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is to create strategies like possibly merging nonprofit organizations with for profit organizations to grow resources and become more effective for growing startups. Another strategy could be to create campaigns to bring awareness of the abundance of resources in Orlando to entrepreneurs that seek success, funding, and support. Nonetheless, Orlando’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is great and has room for many improvements.

Photo by Talia on Unsplash