Startup 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.
New book · Entrepreneur ecosystems
Build ecosystems that produce outcomes, not activity.
A practical field guide for leaders who want less programme theatre and more measurable progress.
“This isn't another book about entrepreneurship. It's a blueprint for the infrastructure that makes entrepreneurship possible.”
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Three truths most ecosystems ignore.
Ecosystems need architecture.
More programmes are not enough. Stronger ecosystems arrange capital, customers, talent, trust, and timing 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.
Why this critique has teeth
Written from inside the systems it challenges.
DC Cahalane has spent nearly 20 years building, funding, and studying entrepreneur ecosystems globally, including work with founders, capital, corporates, government, and major technology companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Meta.
- Operator view: how support feels when the company is still forming.
- Investor view: where weak infrastructure turns into lost momentum.
- System view: how incentives reward activity instead of outcomes.
Free diagnostic
Before you choose a room, test the system.
Join the launch list and get the Startup Theatre Audit: a practical diagnostic for spotting whether an ecosystem is producing founder outcomes or funding startup theatre.
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.
Entrepreneur ecosystems
Field Notes
The recurring editorial reason to return: essays on Substack about replacing startup theatre with infrastructure that changes founder outcomes.
Latest on Substack
Startup 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.
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 startup theatre and ready to build the infrastructure entrepreneurs need in the AI era.
