Did the pandemic break the generosity of startup ecosystems?

Over Zoom, I saw the vacation homes being renovated and new cabins spruced up. I heard about private jets and private schools. Before the pandemic, most of my time with high-growth tech founders and VCs was over lunch, drinks or at conferences or events. Then I saw inside their lives.

That was a surprise, though I always knew Technical.ly reported around wealth. But in two decades on the slow-growth journalism side of documenting startup ecosystems, there was always another promise: Founders who got rich would give back. 

Mentorship, early investment checks, introductions and community building were widely seen as the “glue” that helped ecosystems grow outside the Bay Area.

That seemed true in emerging ecosystems like Raleigh-Durham and Baltimore and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and Denver and others across the country, at least before the pandemic. Did COVID break that generosity? Is the give-back loop still working, or do new founders risk being stranded outside it?

To help answer that, I talked with Chris Heivly, entrepreneur, author of the Build The Fort series and co-founder of MapQuest, who has spent decades thinking about how ecosystems evolve.

How the give-first norm fueled ecosystems

Heivly traces his own mindset back to the early days in Raleigh-Durham, where he encountered ideas from startup evangelist, Denver-Boulder booster and Techstars cofounder Brad Feld and others who emphasized giving before getting.

Heivly has long argued that programs like Techstars mattered less for individual exits than for creating dense, repeatable networks of mentorship and trust — a reminder that ecosystems are built through behavior and relationships, not just capital or branding. (Though Techstars is now selling services for this.)

“You lean in and you’re the first one to say, ‘Let me help — what can I do to help?’,” Heivly said: “with no expectation that you’re going to get anything in return.”

That ethos, Heivly argues, was a foundational norm in many maturing ecosystems in the 2010s. It wasn’t just an ideal; it was a signal that reinforced people connecting deeply enough to build real relationships.

Research on entrepreneurial ecosystems supports that idea of reciprocal motivation driving contributions. A 2025 Small Business Economics study conducted interviews in Germany and found that entrepreneurs’ decisions to contribute back to their ecosystems were shaped by gratitude, interpersonal relationships and a sense of affiliation, not just financial incentives. Those reciprocal motivations were often stronger when founders had personal experiences of help early in their careers. 

Pandemic disruption, unless you were already connected

A recent analysis from Andreessen Horowitz argues that local tech scenes have fundamentally changed since the pandemic, with talent, capital and networks becoming more geographically fluid — weakening the automatic role that place once played in forging founder connections.

Heivly agrees that something changed in the pandemic.

“If culturally most of that mentorship and connection came through public events, we just shut that off like a light switch,” he said.

For founders in ecosystems whose primary meeting places were in-person events or coffee meetups, where weak ties could become trusted ones, the loss of physical gathering places made building those initial connections far harder.

But the pandemic also brought network expansion through remote connection, Heivly points out. For founders with existing networks, Zoom calls and virtual groups allowed them to expand relationships beyond geography. That created a K-shaped experience: People already embedded gained more connection, while newcomers in less mature ecosystems fell farther behind.

“Everything we need in a startup comes back to people,” Heivly said. Entrepreneurs already on their way saw fates accelerate in the pandemic. Others saw the door shut.

This resonates with research on mentoring and advice seeking, which shows that mentors influence entrepreneurial identity formation and business outcomes, particularly when they provide not just expertise but connections and confidence.

Entrepreneurial recycling: People, capital, ideas staying local

The “recycling” of founders — where successful entrepreneurs become mentors, investors and connectors for the next generation — is a key mechanism in ecosystem theory. Scholars describe entrepreneurial recycling as a feedback loop where knowledge, networks and capital from experienced founders strengthen regional entrepreneurial activity.

In a widely circulated Techstars essay, Heivly warned that economic development efforts often fail when leaders chase visible wins (new buildings, tax incentives, big checks) instead of investing in the slower, less visible work of founder connection and peer support.

Heivly offered two concrete examples from Raleigh-Durham:

• Joe Colipy, who after a successful exit built venture funds and a local publishing platform, channeling capital and attention back into the region.
• Scot Wingo, whose “Tweener List” and associated fund helped create a cohort of investments and community touchpoints that benefited dozens of founders.

These aren’t flashy Silicon Valley mega-funds, but they illustrate a practical, ecosystem-rooted recycling where capital and social capital are both reinvested locally.

Research agrees that angel investors contribute beyond cash. Systematic reviews show that business angels provide mentorship, networks, strategic guidance and other “value-added” support that enhances startup survival and ecosystem growth, especially where venture capital is scarce.

A reset, not a collapse

If the pandemic “broke” anything, it broke assumptions about how ecosystem interactions happen by default. Heivly describes post-pandemic ecosystem building as a reset.

“We had two to 300 people show up], but I expected a lot more,” he said of one of the first events he hosted after gatherings restarted. “People learned they could hang at home and didn’t need to connect.” 

As the ecosystem rebuilt relevance, he said, with better programming and invitations to critical audiences, attendance grew to about 1,500 per event.

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That’s an important pattern: Ecosystems that intentionally rebuilt in-person, high-value interactions began to regain momentum.

This matches what the Small Business Economics reciprocal motivation paper suggests: contribution behaviors are shaped by interactions and relationships, and those are reinforced when entrepreneurs feel affiliated and valued by their network. 

So is generosity still a thing? Yes, but it’s uneven

In another Techstars piece, Heivly makes the case that the most effective ecosystem leaders, including successful founders, shouldn’t try to be heroes, but force multipliers who make it easier for others to succeed through introductions, mentorship and shared platforms.

The evidence suggests that:

• Generosity hasn’t disappeared, but the pathways to it have changed. The cultural reset created a gap, and experienced entrepreneurs who didn’t dig back in may not be giving back.
• Regions with strong pre-pandemic social capital are rebuilding more quickly than those where events and weak-tie encounters were dominant.
• Financial exits alone don’t ensure ecosystem health. Social capital recycling — mentorship, introductions, community participation — matters just as much.

For entrepreneurs and ecosystem builders, the takeaway is clear: The give-back mindset can thrive again, but it must be intentional. Not everyone returns automatically. Ecosystems must create reciprocal norms and structures for connection, especially for first-time founders.

Generosity must be cultivated. Otherwise, too many will focus too much time on hanging paintings in vacation homes.