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A while ago I ran into a LinkedIn post that said there were 497 startup organisations in Denmark. That sounded like a lot; the country only has a population of 6m and hasn’t delivered that many big startup successes of late.
Whether or not that number is accurate (having spoken to a few people in the know, it seems to be a little exaggerated), it raises a good question: how many startup organisations does any country really need? And why are there so many?
I spoke to the founder of one of those startup organisations in Denmark, who thinks it’s due to three things: access to public funding; a mandate from the public sector to support entrepreneurship (every country wants to be a startup nation – not only France); and the way that “the creation of an organisation that supports startups becomes a purpose in itself — a success in itself.”
But does it help the ecosystem to throw money at startup organisations? Who knows.
Most startup organisations have KPIs — but they tend to track things like the number of startups they have been in contact with or the number of attendees at events they hold, rather than a net promoter score, according to the founder I spoke to. “I believe it is better to have no KPIs than to have those we have right now,” he says.
It is unclear exactly how much public money goes to startup organisations due to the spread of regional and state-owned agencies where these organisations can apply for funding. In the Nordics, in addition to public sector funding, there are also a range of private foundations that fund startup organisations, which is probably one reason why there are so many startup organisations in the region.
Talking to one founder of a bootstrapped startup in Denmark, he says he hasn’t made any use of the wide range of startup organisations available. Instead, he thinks coworking spaces are a key part of the ecosystem — and mentions how they’ve helped him grow his network, which in turn has been instrumental to his company’s growth.
So, what do you think? Are startup organisations key to a successful ecosystem? Should the public sector fund them? And how should their success be measured?
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