By Chris Heivly, Managing Director at Build The Fort and Startup Community EIR @ Techstars

Spend enough time inside the leadership rooms of startup ecosystems and you'll start to see a pattern. We’ve got a strong bench of feeders — those stakeholders who support startups like economic developers, academics, and corporate innovation managers. We’ve got the passionate instigators — those folks who organize events, spark momentum, and cheer loudly from their stage. But when it comes to actual entrepreneurs leading the charge, the room starts to feel eerily light. They are not invited.

It’s not just a numbers game — it’s a signal of imbalance that holds communities back from their full potential.

Let me be clear: this isn’t a dig at stakeholders. Feeders and instigators are essential to the health and heartbeat of any entrepreneurial environment. But when entrepreneur voices aren’t equally represented in leadership, we lose the gritty, real-time insight from those in the trenches. And that insight is drastically different in different places. The folks that are actually building, scaling, pivoting, and sometimes failing and trying again — their voices are muted or silent. Their perspectives aren’t just valuable — they’re non-negotiable if we want to create ecosystems that actually work for startups.

It’s not hard to see why this imbalance persists. Entrepreneurs are busy. They’re time-strapped and focused on survival. Joining a board or steering committee often feels like a luxury they can’t afford. Meanwhile, stakeholders often have professional incentives or organizational mandates to be in those rooms. Want to fix it? They have to be invited.

But here’s the twist: an ecosystem without strong founder leadership is like an organization without a C-suite.

Over the years, when I’ve helped nurture ecosystem leadership teams, I’ve aimed for a simple benchmark: 50% entrepreneurs, 50% stakeholders. It keeps the conversation grounded, ensures accountability, and injects much-needed empathy into decision-making.

One small — but mighty — tactic I’ve used is creating entrepreneur-only gatherings. These are founder-organized, founder-invite-only meetings where no stakeholders are present. It’s not a secret club. It’s a safe space. A place where entrepreneurs can speak freely, trade notes on investor weirdness, share hiring pain, and just be real with each other without the pressure of being performative for funders or programs.

The result? Founders feel empowered. They start to see themselves not just as recipients of support but as architects of the ecosystem. And when they bring that mindset back into the broader leadership room, it changes the dynamic entirely.

I don’t just offer this as theory — I lived it. Back in 2009, as I was laying the groundwork for what would become The Startup Factory, a new accelerator in the Raleigh-Durham area, the feeders — without me — held a meeting to decide whether they would "support" me and my concept.

Let that sink in. A group of stakeholders, few of them founders, gathered to debate the legitimacy and viability of an entrepreneur-led effort without involving the entrepreneur in the discussion. I wasn't even invited.

That moment crystalized something for me: if founders aren’t in the room, the room starts to forget what founders actually need. And when decisions are made without the people most affected by them, it creates a gap of trust and a lack of alignment that’s tough to recover from.

Want to supercharge your startup community? Get more entrepreneurs in the room where decisions are made. Better yet, put them at the head of the table. Your ecosystem doesn’t just need support systems — it needs people who’ve walked the walk to help guide the talk.

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