The best-connected person in your ecosystem might be its biggest weakness

Entrepreneurial ecosystems around the country often have one prolific connector who’s driving everything. Someone who knows everyone, organizes the meetups, makes the introductions, gets the calls.

Is that bad?

On a recent episode of Builders Live, I put that question to four ecosystem leaders: Victor Hwang, CEO of Right to Start; Rae’Mah Henderson, a venture investor who recently joined Innovate Alabama; Taylor Eubanks, formerly of the Kansas Department of Commerce and now supporting the Midwest House; and Hollie Mackey, a Northern Cheyenne citizen who leads the NSF-funded AgTech Engine in North Dakota.

Their answer was consistent — and uncomfortable for anyone who’s built an identity around being indispensable.

“It’s natural human instinct to look to the hero,” Hwang said. “But it’s actually not how entrepreneurial ecosystems prosper.”

The problem isn’t that connectors don’t add value. They do. The problem is when a system comes to depend on them.

“If you’re hanging your hat on the charismatic personality of one person, you’re actually distracting from what should be happening,” Mackey said. “If we’re ego building, then you’re not really ecosystem building.”

There’s a version of this that feels like praise: You’re the one everyone calls. You’re the one who gets things done. You’re the one holding it together. Henderson, who’s in her mid-20s and has organized events across Birmingham, described the trap clearly.

“If you’re a champion in your local ecosystem, you either end up as a big fish in a small pond — which is great but also scary — or you end up feeling majorly unsupported or feeling used by your ecosystem,” she said. “I’ve seen it go both ways.”

Eubanks put it more bluntly: “Authority really isn’t enough here. The hero isn’t enough to close the gaps that we need.”

The instinct to hold on is human. As Mackey noted, “It is human nature to like the attention… to want to have your name on the stage. And it can be intoxicating.”

But ecosystems that rely on one person have a single point of failure. When that person burns out, moves away, or simply gets busy with something else, the energy dissipates. Hwang has seen this play out across decades and geographies. The strongest ecosystems, he said, are the ones where individuals can step away and things keep going.

“You succeed when you know that you can step away and things keep on going,” Hwang said. “The best ecosystems take on a life of their own.”

Build the bench, not just the brand

So what’s the alternative? Eubanks pointed to succession planning. Not as a corporate formality, but as a core discipline for ecosystem work.

“We need to build succession plans with an ecosystem,” Eubanks said. “We should have documentation logs. We should have a ‘how we did it.’ We should be communicating those things back.”

She cited the Kansas Leadership Center’s framework, which reframes leadership as an activity anyone can exercise, instead of referencing titles or positions. “It really gets us away from that single point of failure.”

In an “ecosystem,” a metaphor meant to refer to many overlapping species of various sizes and temperaments, this can feel especially tricky. By definition, no one person or entity sanctions leadership. Instead, the importance is openness: Encourage many flowers to bloom, because one just might end up playing a bigger part than expected.

Influenced by “ecosystem building,” traditional economic development is bending this way. In last year’s annual industry report, 3 of 5 economic developers said establishing and maintaining partnerships and networks is a core part of their work, a shift the surveying trade group describes as moving toward “systems stewardship.”

The only role that scored higher was business retention and attraction. That sounds a lot like developing a professionalized system for “ecosystem building.”

Mackey used a sports metaphor: “You have to have a bench on ecosystem building, and you have to have a deep bench that goes back generations.” That means actively creating space for others to step up, even when it feels like letting go of something you built.

I’ve experienced this myself. In Philadelphia, where I spent the first 15 years of my career deeply involved in ecosystem work, I’ve stepped back as Technical.ly expanded to other markets. What I’ve seen since: an incredible flourishing of new people, doing new things, in ways I wouldn’t have predicted. I just had to get out of the way.

Henderson offered a practical suggestion for the organizationally inclined: ESOs could offer “changemaker in residence” arrangements; for example, free office space or event hosting for emerging organizers who haven’t yet found institutional backing.

The real measure of success

Hwang offered a reframe that stuck with me.

“The individuals that tend to be really good at leading are those that don’t just build programs or change policies directly,” he said. “They actually shape the air itself. They change the way people think.”

That kind of influence doesn’t require staying in the center of the room forever. It requires doing the work long enough (and well enough) that others carry it forward. Or as Mackey put it: “You don’t have to be the face. You can sometimes be supporting cast.”

For anyone building an ecosystem, the question isn’t whether you can become essential. It’s whether you can build something that doesn’t need you to be.