Ecosystem builders are problem solvers, especially when it comes to having social impact. An example of this is emerging this week in the way that ecosystem builders are rallying to help entrepreneurs due to the COVID-19 outbreak and resulting impacts.
The fast-developing impacts from event cancellations, supply chain shortages, social distancing, and economic downturn amid the COVID-19 threat are hitting entrepreneurs and small businesses hard. Many entrepreneurs rely on sales of their products and services to event organizers and attendees—from local food cart vendors who rely on business from attendees at cancelled events to tech startups relying on exposure and funding from cancelled demo days. It didn’t take long for a group of ecosystem builders to come together to figure out how to address this developing crisis.
It started on an ESHIP Meetup call for ESHIP Goal 4, Connected Networks on Wednesday, March 11. An idea was suggested to create and circulate a short survey to collect information from entrepreneurs about how they’re being impacted by COVID-19 and ultimately spotlight those impacts and collect suggestions and resources for how people can help to support entrepreneurs and small businesses. Ideas for this are being crowdsourced in this document.
Shortly afterwards, ESHIP community organizer Cecilia Wessinger created a Facebook group, the Ecosystems UNITE Facebook Group, for people to post resources to support entrepreneurs (and small businesses) that are specific to coronavirus/CORVID-19 crisis.
The ideas and resource suggestions began to roll in immediately. If there’s an upshot to this current state of uncertainty and stress, it’s seeing how ecosystems builders, large corporations, governments, and communities are rallying and collaborating to find ways to support entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Find helpful resources and join the discussion on the Ecosystems UNITE Facebook Group
