Chris Heivly released Build the Fort: The Startup Community Builder’s Field Guide. I encourage you to get Chris’s book if you are a startup community builder or are interested in startup communities.
When Ian Hathaway and I started working on The Startup Community Way: Evolving an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, we initially talked to Chris about writing a few chapters. Chris became an extensive thought partner with Ian, and we eventually decided to write two books. The Startup Community Way would be conceptual but filled with examples to make our points, and then a second book would be a practitioner guide.
Writing a book is difficult; eventually, Ian and I decided one book would be enough for us. Chris was enthusiastic about writing the practitioner guide, so Ian and I strongly encouraged him to proceed.
I met Chris a dozen years ago when he wanted to learn from my experience in Boulder as he began to help build the startup community in Raleigh-Durham, NC. He visited me in Boulder in late 2016 as he was thinking about helping the 15+ cities within a 4-hour drive from his home in Durham, NC, build startup communities. David Cohen and I had discussed something similar for Techstars. In our conversation with Chris, we proposed that he join Techstars to work on this together.
Chris led an effort at Techstars that evolved into the Techstars Ecosystem Development process. He immersed himself in this and has spent much time bridging theory and practice.
Chris – thank you for writing the second book I didn’t have the energy for.