• As seen in Technical.ly’s updated Ecosystems Map with info about all 50 states, innovation and entrepreneurship are no longer nice-to-have and instead are a core strategy for regional economic dynamism.
• The field is maturing and the questions are evolving from “Who’s doing what?” toward coordination and accountability, with strategic decisionmaking that helps data-backed policy and investment decisions.
• There’s no universal playbook, but a shared framework that starts with taking inventory and adapts to local conditions, while the hardest part is sticking with it long enough for the work to compound.
For most of the last 20 years, local entrepreneurial ecosystems have been understood in fragments.
A city here. A state initiative there. A conference circuit where “ecosystem building” believers swapped best practices and war stories. Meanwhile, traditional place-based economic development kept inching toward a reality it can’t ignore: innovation and entrepreneurship are no longer nice-to-have. They’re a core strategy for regional economic dynamism.
That’s why the newly updated Technical.ly Ecosystems Map matters.
For the first time, you can step back and see the whole field: all 50 states, at least one ecosystem per state, plus the strategies, institutions and narratives shaping how entrepreneurship actually happens on the ground.
This isn’t a rankings project. It’s closer to a Michelin Guide. It’s not telling every region to become Silicon Valley, but documenting what excellence, experimentation and ambition look like where they already exist.
When you view the country all at once like this, one conclusion becomes hard to deny: Entrepreneurial ecosystem building is now a national system, not a coastal niche.
“This is happening where you live, whether you know it or not,” said Sherrod Davis, CEO of EcoMap, whose team works in 30-plus US states at the city, regional and statewide level. They sell software for economic developers and so-called “ecosystem builders” to track and analyze programs and resources (Think like a CRM for a loosely affiliated collection of local efforts).
Davis’s vantage point is different from mine, but complementary. Technical.ly is interested in how places describe and pursue ecosystem strategy. EcoMap is watching, in real time, how regions operationalize that strategy, what tools they adopt and what questions they ask next.
Together, it’s a picture of where entrepreneur-led economic development is heading.
The field is maturing and the questions are evolving
When EcoMap started in 2018, Davis said the core challenge was basic but hard: Who’s doing what?
That question still matters, but the work has matured. Though hotly debated, more federal dollars have been authorized for place-based economic development in recent years than ever before. Longtime champions of “ecosystem building” are professionalizing the field. The emphasis has moved from activity to infrastructure.
Coordination and accountability are now the new baseline, Davis said. Funding partners increasingly want to know:
- Who is serving whom?
- Are programs duplicating each other or reinforcing each other?
- What, specifically, changed because this money went out the door?
That pressure can be uncomfortable in a discipline built on long time horizons and emergent outcomes. But it is also a sign of professionalization.
“This stuff does move the needle,” Davis told me. “We just need to tell that story better.”
From visibility to coordination to intelligence: EcoMap’s 3-year trendline
EcoMap’s team identified a recent three-stage evolution among their clients over the past few years.
2024: ‘Where are my resources?’
Ecosystem leaders were focused on visibility and discoverability. The priority was building directories, mapping assets and making support organizations easier to find. The questions were foundational: What exists in my region? How do entrepreneurs find it?
2025: ‘How do we coordinate?’
The focus shifted to coordination and relationship management. Leaders wanted to track who was serving whom, manage referrals between organizations and reduce duplication across programs. This was the year the firm shifted clients to its “Ecosystem Relationship Manager” system.
2026: ‘Where should we focus?’
EcoMap expects the next shift to be strategic decision-making powered by continuous intelligence. Leaders will want to spot emerging trends, respond to competitive shifts in real time and make data-backed policy and investment decisions. The firm is adding “ecosystem scorecards” that turn static annual reports into always-on intelligence systems.
“Regions moved from resource directories to relationship management systems that track how support moves through their ecosystems,” said Davis in a followup email. “In 2026, the most competitive ecosystems won’t just be the ones with the most resources.”
They’ll interpret data (or what the firm calls “continuous intelligence”) to “spot emerging trends, benchmark against peer regions and make faster, data-backed decisions about where to invest and advocate.”
Economic development orgs spent a lot of money on data and tools in the 2010s. They didn’t always do anything with that information. EcoMap is betting more actionable information will help. In our own way, Technical.ly is doing the same with our Innovation Ecosystems Map. When every state and most regions recognize entrepreneurship, science and technology are necessary for economic growth and opportunity, what matters most is how you interpret and put into action what works.
No universal playbook, but a shared framework
There’s a recurring temptation in ecosystem work to demand a single best practice. A checklist. A template that can be copied from a top-tier region and dropped into a smaller one.
That’s not how this works.
Davis offered an analogy I like because it’s humble and practical: You’re trying to bake a cake. Step one is not the recipe. Step one is taking inventory.
“What ingredients do I actually have in the cupboard?” he said.
That’s why ecosystem strategies look different in rural counties, industrial metros, college towns and global cities. They should. But the shared framework still exists. Across our Ecosystems Map, the patterns recur:
- Entrepreneur support organizations acting as connective tissue
- Universities playing uneven but critical roles
- Workforce, capital and narrative gaps repeating across regions
- Leadership turnover disrupting momentum more than a lack of ideas
The hardest part is rarely knowing what to do. It’s sticking with it long enough for the work to compound.
One of the quiet truths in this field is that momentum is fragile. New director. New mayor. New agency head. New “signature initiative.”
“The challenge isn’t starting,” Davis told me. “It’s handing the baton.”
