Ecosystem Navigation Learning Report
Collider Foundation was honored to be a 2019 recipient of an Inclusion Open grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. This two-year grant supported a pilot Ecosystem Navigator Program to provide historically under-resourced entrepreneurs in Rochester, Minnesota with the networks and frameworks to launch or scale their business in the community.
To begin this work, we performed 100 listening sessions between the fall of 2019 and winter of 2020, as part of a “discovery phase,” to better understand ecosystem gaps and to inform the work to be done through this pilot Ecosystem Navigator Program. In addition to validating a need for this work, these listening sessions suggested three groups to center the pilot: Female, Black, and Latinx entrepreneurs and starters.
Our Ecosystem Navigator Program launched in September 2020 with three passionate Ecosystem Navigators. These individuals worked to identify current or aspiring Female, Black, or Latinx entrepreneurs and to actively listen to their needs. The Navigators then rapidly connected entrepreneurs to the right business resource at the right time to overcome a barrier these individuals were facing.
From the start, this pilot program faced several barriers including trust-building, connecting with entrepreneurs and starters in the middle of a global pandemic, and creating a structure to rapidly communicate solutions to entrepreneurs.
This program met its goal to assist 50 Female, Black, or Latinx entrepreneurs in July 2021, 4 months ahead of schedule. In the end, the pilot greatly surpassed this goal, assisting 102 historically under-resourced entrepreneurs by December 2021.
Most individuals served through this program were at the idea or the scaling stage of business development, where they were running a business 5 years or less in age. A majority of these businesses were in the service industry. Top barriers faced by these starters included: connection to the entrepreneurial ecosystem, finding business education, locating technical assistance, or accessing business financing.
In total, the pilot Ecosystem Navigator Program removed or reduced a barrier for 91% of the entrepreneurs it served and had a net promoter score of 92.6. Entrepreneurs who participated in this program created at least 40 jobs in the community between October 2020 and December 2021.
In addition to these outcomes, Collider’s three main Ecosystem Navigators were also honored by Rochester’s economic development entity, Rochester Area Economic Development Inc., in November 2021 for their support and advocacy for Rochester entrepreneurs as R.A.V.E. Warriors.
This pilot work uncovered remaining gaps in the ecosystem, especially around business education for starters with multiple business ideas. To help overcome this barrier, Collider aims to bring CO.STARTERS, a proven network to help communities thrive through entrepreneurship, to Rochester in 2022.
Through the Inclusion Open funding, our 3 Ecosystem Navigators were supported for 15 hours per Navigator per month. We knew this was not enough, but it was a sufficient start to prove this program could work. This pilot uncovered a hunger for this type of service in our community. We believe that entrepreneurs and starters need even more of it to be seen, heard, and guided to help take their idea into reality or scale their current business to the next level.
The impact of this program spurred a community desire to invest further in these efforts, expanding this work from 45 technical assistance hours per month to 80 dedicated hours per month in 2022. We believe that this increased time will allow for more interactions between entrepreneurs and starters with Collider team members to continue to build trust and serve as a reputable community resource for these individuals as they pursue their business passions.
