Activity theatre is expensive.
Too much startup support is measured by rooms filled, reports published, and programmes launched rather than companies formed, customers found, or friction removed.
A new book — Nov 2026
We're doing
this wrong.
How to Build Entrepreneur Ecosystems That Actually Work
A field guide for governments, corporates, and entrepreneurs who want startup ecosystems that produce outcomes, not activity.
Billions are being wasted on startup programmes that create impressive activity but deliver too little impact. We're Doing This Wrong exposes the uncomfortable truth: governments arrive too late, corporates miss the moment they can help most, and founders lose time in systems built for another era. The answer is Ecosystem Architecture: infrastructure for entrepreneurship in the AI age.
“This isn't another book about entrepreneurship. It's a blueprint for the infrastructure that makes entrepreneurship possible.”
Start Here
Three truths most ecosystems ignore.
Ecosystems need architecture.
Regions do not win because they run more programmes. They win when capital, customers, talent, trust, and timing are designed around the founder’s real path. Deliberate design instead of direct control.
AI changes the geography of advantage.
As companies become faster to build and scale, the places with better entrepreneurial infrastructure will compound advantage while others watch talent move elsewhere.
Who this is for
Choose the room you are trying to change.
Different institutions waste effort in different ways. Start with the room closest to your work, then use the book’s Ecosystem Architecture framework to turn the critique into a better design brief.
For governments, universities & policymakers
Economic development, university innovation, and local government teams frustrated by poor ROI on startup spend, and ready to move from programme proliferation to infrastructure that changes outcomes.
- Read the case for funding formation-stage support.
- See where policy spend becomes ecosystem theatre.
- Use the Monday-morning questions for economic development teams.
- Prepare better briefs for city, regional, and national programmes.
For corporates & enterprise leaders
Corporate leaders and innovation teams that want authentic startup partnerships, not another showcase programme that misses the moment when the company can actually help.
- For corporate innovation teams that need more than pilots.
- Audit where partnership activity is not changing founder outcomes.
- Design infrastructure that entrepreneurs can actually use.
- Reframe startup engagement as capability, not sponsorship.
For entrepreneurs
Founders and early-stage entrepreneurs tired of losing time in fragmented support systems that offer visibility and advice, but not the infrastructure required to build.
- Read the founder view on what support should actually do.
- Use the checklist before accepting the lanyard.
- Separate useful infrastructure from attention and optics.
- Find the questions that reveal whether a programme is built for you.
The core framework for designing systems around formation-stage support, not demo days, vanity metrics, or grant optics.
About the book
A blueprint for Ecosystem Architecture.
Billions are being spent on startup support that looks impressive, fills rooms, produces reports, and generates activity. Too much of it delivers virtually no impact.
We're Doing This Wrong argues that entrepreneur support has been built backwards. Government programmes arrive too late. Corporate partnerships miss their moment of maximum impact. Entrepreneurs waste precious time navigating fragmented systems built for industrial-era thinking.
Drawing on two decades building startup ecosystems across three continents, and working with companies including Google, Microsoft, and Meta on ecosystem collaborations, DC Cahalane introduces Ecosystem Architecture: the practical discipline of designing innovation infrastructure for the AI era, before momentum, capital, and talent move somewhere else.
“The AI revolution is here. Architect environments where entrepreneurship thrives, or watch it happen somewhere else.”
Entrepreneur ecosystems
Field Notes
The recurring editorial reason to return: a weekly argument about replacing innovation theatre with infrastructure that changes founder outcomes.
Issue Nº 14
No.14
Innovation theatre is expensive. The real work starts before the accelerator.
Walk into any innovation district and the scene looks right: gleaming hubs, keynote stages, demo days, lanyards everywhere. But too often the system meets the entrepreneur after the decisions that matter have already been made.
Thesis: the best ecosystems are not louder. They are earlier, better timed, and designed for the founder's moment of maximum need.
No. 13 — Essay
Accelerators that don't accelerate.
Why so much startup support measures activity, attendance, and optics while missing the moment when a founder actually needs architecture.
No. 12 — Field noteFormation is the forgotten stage.
Most support arrives once the pitch deck exists. Ecosystem Architecture begins earlier, when the company is still being shaped.
No. 11 — InterviewThe entrepreneur is not the decoration.
If the only people not paid to participate are the entrepreneurs, the ecosystem is serving everyone except its customer.
Reports & ebooks
Practical tools for building ecosystems that serve entrepreneurs first.
Policy white paper · 110 pages
The Entrepreneurship Economy
The Entrepreneurship Economy
An international policy white paper for governments worldwide on why countries need twice as many companies and the policy architecture required to build them.
White paper · 49 pages
Lost at Scale
Lost at Scale
A corporate white paper for CEOs and programme leads on why scaled startup engagement stopped engaging founders and how to rebuild it for long-term value.
White paper · 35 pages
The Equity Trap
The Equity Trap
Why university startup engagement is optimising for the wrong outcome — and how to rebuild it for founders, research, and long-term value.
Waitlist
Join the launch list.
Get the weekly essays, launch updates, pre-release frameworks, and early resource drops that sit around We're Doing This Wrong. The list is for people who are done funding activity theatre and ready to build the infrastructure entrepreneurs need in the AI era.
