<![CDATA[Anika Horn

<![CDATA[Anika Horn - Blog]]>Tue, 30 Jun 2026 20:49:12 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[At the crossroads of ecosystem building and social change]]>Tue, 29 Jan 2019 20:13:20 GMThttps://www.anikahorn.com/blog/at-the-crossroads-of-ecosystem-building-and-social-change

“The essence of an entrepreneurial ecosystem is its people and the culture of trust and collaboration that allows them to interact successfully. The ecosystem allows for the fast flow of talent, information, and resources so that entrepreneurs can quickly find what they need at each stage of growth.”
Ewing Kauffman Foundation

Sounds pretty straight-forward, doesn’t it?

Those of us who work to see purpose-driven entrepreneurs thrive like to think that we collaborate for the greater good, that we put entrepreneurs front and center of our efforts, and most definitely don’t feel threatened by other programs that may have more funding, better mentors, hipper workspaces, more promising founders. Or do we?

I hate to be the one breaking this to you, but humans are competitive by nature. As Hwang and Horowitt explain in The Rainforest: “...remnants of our primitive past make human beings wary of one another.[...] Innovative behavior is generally so risky and unrewarding that it does not make rational sense in most cases. As a result [...] forces that push people apart are far stronger than the forces that pull them together.” In short: Overcoming our own bias of collaborating with others is incredibly hard. Collaboration and successful interaction - the key ingredients for a culture of trust - take a lot of self-discipline and requires us to push ourselves out of our own comfort zones. All the time. In essence, we have to consciously work against our instincts to help nurture ecosystems. And that gets messy quickly.

Victor Hwang Kauffman Foundation EShip Summit

Victor Hwang at the inaugural EShip Summit 2017

War stories on the cutting room floor
During my first six months living in Toronto, Canada, I set out to interview actors in the social enterprise and social innovation space. My intention was to get a sense for what was happening in the ecosystem, learn who the key players were, what challenges they were facing and what trends they were seeing (take a look at my research approach here). Thanks to several years of working in ecosystem building and being familiar with the most common frameworks, I was going to gather all the information for a complete framework of the social impact ecosystem. And after 30 interviews using the same questionnaire, I was at a complete loss. The stories I heard varied so greatly that I sometimes wondered whether we were talking about the same Toronto. Which goes to show how complex and messy this business of ecosystem building is.

I have participated in, and seen the results of, a number of ecosystem studies and analyses. After weeks of thorough stakeholder consultation and economic development data analysis, the presenter was able to produce a report that scored the maturity of the ecosystem on a scale from one to ten; he did the same for talent, mentorship, funding accessibility… you get the picture. What I have found through my own research in Toronto is that there is so much more to it. Data tells only part of the story. And if you try to deduct general conclusions from dozens or even hundreds of interviews, there is a lot of information that ends on the cutting room floor. I have come to believe, however, that it is these personal experiences and stories that reveal the key to that helps us become better at what we do at the level of an individual ecosystem builder.

Organizations like the Kauffman Foundation, Startup Champions Network and InBIA do a formidable job recognizing and analyzing macro-trends, communicating best practices and creating tools and platforms for the field of ecosystem building. If you haven’t yet, head over to their websites, subscribe to their newsletters, get your head in their game!

Startup Champions Network, Fargo Summit 2017

Diving deep
My quest, however, takes me to the very micro-level of the individual ecosystem builder (Social Venturer) who works to create and deepen the positive social impact of purpose-driven entrepreneurs in her/his/their community. I am curious to hear about the good, the bad, and the ugly of this Sisyphean task. What is working? What is frustrating? And what does success look like for a dedicated ecosystem builder?

Too many times I have witnessed politics, culture, mindset, and interpersonal histories within a community stifle progress for the greater good. And while - as ecosystem builders - we strive to operate above such grievances and frustrations, they are part of our everyday work and therefore, deserve to be brought to light. For a first taste of such stories, head here!

I want to peek under the hood of ecosystem building for social impact and peel back the layers of stories that tell us more about the characteristics, skills and experiences of competent, effective ecosystem builders. This time, I am not setting out with the goal of finding best practices (which I did for Social Venturers). On the contrary, I am on the hunt for war stories; stories about struggles, failures and hardships of the modern day ecosystem builder who aspired to drive social change. If this is you, get in touch!

Phase I of Social Venturers took me across 7 European countries to interview 27 social venture support organizations.

The deets
Let’s be honest, ecosystem building still is very nascent and even more nebulous of a term (for a collection of definitions from practitioners, read this recent post by fellow Startup Champion Jeff Bennett). Therefore, I am steering my curiosity toward ecosystems for, by and around purpose-driven entrepreneurs.

Purpose-driven entrepreneurs is a term I use to describe entrepreneurs who pursue both profit and a positive impact (social and/or environmental). That includes social business after Muhammad Yunus, certified B Corps and social enterprises. I do not conflate it with nonprofits or charities, nor with companies that attach CSR activities to their otherwise unsustainable main business (as noble as these efforts may be).

(Social) Innovation: Innovation, and social innovation in particular, are incredibly exciting topics when it comes to solving some of humanity’s biggest challenges. While I agree that tackling long-persisting challenges in new ways is a great approach to solve hard problems, I am not solely focusing on innovation ecosystems. Thanks to my work as a B Corp community builder, I have experienced first hand what simple measures existing small- and medium-sized companies can take to use their business as a force for good. Paying a living wage, recycling office waste and training teams of culture diversity is a far cry from innovative. It’s good business practice.

Startups: I absolutely love working with startups and have done so for many years. But to my earlier point, you don’t have to be or work with startups to create a positive social or environmental impact.

In short, I am interested in exploring the world of individuals who - in some meaningful capacity - work with purpose-driven entrepreneurs and nurture an ecosystem in which they can thrive.

Jumping off a cliff, one step at a time
… if only that was a thing! This next chapter of Social Venturers feels like jumping off a cliff with no idea what I will be landing in or how long the journey to impact will be. It’s all I can do to not hold my breath and stiffen my body. Because if I have learned one thing in self-managing long-term research projects, it’s that they succeed one tiny step at a time. But you have to keep at them and make something happen. Consistently.

I have lined up my first interviews with ecosystem builders for social change and am constantly reaching out to more. In parallel, I am combing through academic literature, blog posts, white papers etc. while exploring neighboring academic fields to see whether they are relevant to my research.

How can you help?
I am so glad you asked! If you work in this field, or know someone who does and think you can contribute, then by all means, please reach out! There is a lot I don't know, the world of ecosystem building is big and sometimes overwhelming so if you know about organizations and ongoing research in this field that I should be aware of, let me know!

More so, I myself will benefit from a community of like-minded ecosystem builders, researchers and startup champions who are passionate about social impact and purpose-driven entrepreneurship. If there is one thing I have learned from my solo research adventure Social Venturers, it's that these explorations are so much more fruitful if you don't do them alone. I am looking for values-aligned partners who work in the field of ecosystem building for social impact and are keen to further collective knowledge in the field, professionalize the occupation and build deeper ties among ecosystem builders.

If none of this is the case, but you're still thinking "But I want to do something!": I am always looking for cheerleaders and awesome individuals who are interested in working on great ideas. So, if you're awesome, a hard worker and keen on rolling up your sleeves, we will make it happen! Get in touch!

]]><![CDATA[Toronto Life: The first 6 months]]>Thu, 06 Dec 2018 15:30:24 GMThttps://www.anikahorn.com/blog/toronto-life-the-first-6-months

If you read The Intentional Life: A Toronto Blueprint you know that I was… well… intentional about discovering our new city and settling in. It has been six months folks! Time for a little recap on all things house hunt, everyday life North of the Wall, finding my tribe and easing back into work!

House & Home
Over the summer, we lived in a rental house of two artists who spent the warmer months in their cottage up north. Between May and September, I spent every Friday afternoon with my realtor looking at houses. I was hellbent on buying. Even though the market was, and remains, inflated. For months, my very first instinct when I woke up in the morning was to grab my phone and scroll through the newest listings. Our price point painfully crept up at about the same rate of my expectations sinking. Over the course of the summer, I looked at over 60 houses. In mid September, a place in particularly poor shape (we’re talking mold, human hair (I hope!?), rotting wood panels, exposed wires and a kitchen ceiling about to collapse) broke the camel’s back. My realtor and I walked back to the car in utter silence and I caved: “Let’s look at condos.” Within three days he had found the perfect place for us: Large rooms, a complete window front facing south overlooking a park with a beautiful conservatory, with a view of Lake Ontario and CN Tower, two-sided wood-burning fireplace, sauna, pool, underground parking. I was - and am - ecstatic. The whole house hunt didn’t work out as I had planned but I am starting to think that maybe it was my plan that was the hold up.

The view from our new home in Cabbagetown

Personal Life and Wellbeing
Workout
When we first got here, I was determined to try different gyms and not stick with the first best option. In our first neighborhood, I found out about Philosophy Fitness, a well run and affordable gym that offers small-group classes with top notch instructors, great equipment and a fantastic atmosphere. Leaving the St Clair West neighborhood meant that my days with Philosophy were numbered.
I tried F45 - a chain of gyms that offer 45-minute Tabata sessions. Not my cup of tea.
So I quickly moved on to Crossfit which I had always wanted to try and - no surprise here - I absolutely love it. Not only is it a great workout to build strength and endurance, but it is putting me back into a learning mindset. I am a beginner and I enjoy slowly building up my weights and working on my form.

Biking
Here’s a fun fact about Toronto: The police won’t come out for any theft of less than $5,000 value. How do I know that? My bike was stolen the one night I left it locked up outside our building. Up until then, I was biking whenever I was sans bébé. And let me tell you, it’s a different ballgame in a city this big! To its credit, Toronto has bike lanes on most major streets but unfortunately this still doesn’t guarantee safety. I am currently only riding to and from CrossFit which has me off the road by 6.45 a.m. before rush hour. I think more experience and figuring out the best routes will go a long way.

Hale Coffee, the Junction

Shopping
I am surprised by how few consignment stores I have come across up here. We were lucky to have a well stocked children consignment store in St Clair West (Twice as Nice) and I came across Little White Sneakers which focuses on upscale children’s wear. Other than that, I have found exactly one Salvation Army store and one equivalent called Young Street Mission. What’s the deal with the lack of consignment up here?

Food Shopping
Things are looking much brighter on the food shopping side of things! We now live a mere 20-minute walk from St Lawrence market - an indoor food market with stalls selling foods from all corners of the world. We also have convenient access to a large Loblaws supermarket two blocks from us located in the Old Maple Leaf Gardens (a former arena for ice hockey games). In terms of coffee shops, I am still looking to find a place that is stroller-friendly, makes decent americano and is in walking distance. My discovery of patisseries, however, is going strong (Fleur du Jour all day long)! And on weekends, Evergreen Brickworks - which is a 45-minute walk - hosts a farmer’s market.

Green Spaces
The amount of traffic, sirens and horns we hear all day long takes some getting used to. The more excited I am about having access to a park right across the street including a dog park and playground for different ages. Most importantly, however, it is the home to a conservatory from the nineteen-hundreds that has proven a great nature escape on grey and cold days (of which we had many in November). Besides, we are still fairly close to Toronto Island and can walk to Riverdale Farm - an actual little farm nestled near the Don River Valley Parkway.

Toronto representation of the Coaching Fellowship

People & Community
This might be my biggest lesson from the first six months in Canada: I underestimated the importance of finding your people.

Meeting people and making friends has always been a natural side-effect so I didn’t overthink it when we first arrived. Being self-employed and still somewhat on maternity leave, I obviously don’t have a job or office to go to. On top of that, we were on the road in the States or Europe almost a week each month since our move which hasn’t left me with too many opportunities to connect with like-minded people.
If you read Toronto’s Ecosystem for Social Innovation, you know that I have been meeting with ecosystem builders and entrepreneurs in the social impact space. To date, I have had coffee with over 20 individuals to hear their take on social innovation and entrepreneurship in Canada. And while grabbing coffee and talking shop is super fun, building friendships - for obvious reasons - takes more than that. And I’m determined to invest more time and energy in the new year (more to come on this).

I am lucky to have a great community of cool people at my Crossfit gym. And I met some - surprise! - German moms through baby swimming at our JCC, and a few more through the toddler hang-out at the German School of Toronto. So yes, making friends is work in progress.

Startup Champions Network strategy session

We took co-working to the next level during our strategy session for Startup Champions Network

Work
I am not sure what my professional future in Toronto looks like. The last months have allowed me to explore the who is who in the Toronto impact space while spending lots of time with my daughter, house hunting and traveling. I love maternity leave. There, I said it.
I recently picked up some contract work with an organization that I really enjoy working with so I have started working about two days a week - spread across naps and playtime. It’s not an ideal solution but until the little one can start daycare at 18 months, we’ll find a way to muddle through.

So what’s next?
It is comforting to know that things a) take so much longer than I thought and b) pan out differently than expected. In the end of the day, the best we can do is be intentional about the places we choose to live in, the environment we create for ourselves and the people we surround ourselves with. And I think I’m getting most of these parts right, most of the time. For now, I plan no further than three months which means making it through our first Canadian winter. Somewhere in there, I hope to see family and friends, celebrate our daughter’s first birthday (my eyes just popped!), and continue to explore this city.

I am excited to see what Toronto has in store for us!

]]><![CDATA[Canada's next social innovation ecosystem builder]]>Tue, 04 Sep 2018 16:50:11 GMThttps://www.anikahorn.com/blog/canadas-next-social-innovation-ecosystem-builder

We made it to the other side of summer! As Labor Day came to a close last night, I lay in bed restless. We had had the most relaxing weekend and yet I lay awake tossing and turning.

A week ago, I came across a job posting that I just couldn’t ignore. I thought I would never apply for a job again. Let’s just say that I do good work, for as many hours as needed, to get the job done. With all due humility, I am the best employee some of my previous bosses have ever had. To my own detriment. Which is why I eventually started working for myself. If I was going to bring excellence to everything I do, I decided I may as well pour all that good stuff into my own thing. And it has served me well.

But after reading the job opening as Social Innovation Ecosystem Director by the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) and the Social Innovation Charitable Foundation (SICF), I couldn't shake the feeling that this was a role investigating further. And since I am already in the process of discovering Toronto's social innovation space, I embraced the opportunity to dive deep into what I hope to achieve over the coming months and years here in Canada.

Ecosystem Playbook version 1.0, Kauffman Foundation 2017

The pro-side: National-Level Collaboration, Inclusivity, Speaking French and a Heart-Felt Hallelujah!
Having been part of Startup Champions Network and working alongside other ecosystem builders through Kauffman Foundation’s EShip Summit, I have lived and breathed the incredible power of collaboration in a non-hierarchical network. Providing people who share a vision with a space to share knowledge, tools, connections, resources is so freakin powerful, it still gives me the chills! We used to joke that we were all part of “Ecosystem Builders Anonymous”, only it wasn’t that far-fetched. Many of the challenges we faced were - if not identical - at least similar across location or industry, and we ourselves were in the driver seat of offering advice in a field that is so nascent it comes without a manual.

I have begun my own explorations into the social innovation space here in Toronto to learn who the key actors are and what the social fabric of the ecosystem looks like (read more here). It’s fair to say that it’s been slow but steady. I would love nothing more than to take these conversations to a national level, in particular to get more insight into

The high-level questions of social innovation and ecosystem building
Rural areas and their challenges of adopting innovation to address local issues
Environmental issues in the Great White North.

The job description reads that they are trying “to make the hiring process as inclusive as possible” looking for “unusual suspects”. That just makes me want to meet the other applicants! Can you think of a more intriguing dinner party than a bunch of ecosystem builders from all walks of a life with a shared purpose of catalyzing social innovation in Canada?! Exactly.

What I can tell about their process so far is that they have interviewed stakeholders from the social innovation space to assess their needs. Fantastic. I loathe, and I repeat, L.O.A.T.H.E. so-called “solutions” that were dreamed up by some well-meaning bureaucrats and theorists in some office downtown far away from the messy and difficult herding-cats kind of action of ecosystem building. The fact that CSI and SICF consulted with actors within the ecosystem across Canada, across industries, and across subjects on what it is that they need to do their job more effectively speaks volumes to their understanding of human-centered design and co-creating solutions with beneficiaries. I can get behind that.

This next one sounds minor, I know, but sometimes that’s where the magic happens! Every time a convening organization like CSI or Kauffman pays attention to the importance of helping “innovators tell their stories, aggregate their data and drive more resources and energy” towards their work, I want to jump on a chair, throw my hands up in the air and exclaim “Hallelujah!”. If I had to pick one sentence from this job description/proposal that got me pumped up about this role, this is it. I believe that stories are the most powerful tool to not only connect people with the work we do, but to make them see what we see, make them care, and make them act. Stories mobilize the masses. But anecdotes about the little social enterprise cafe around the corner (as noble as it is) aren’t cutting it anymore. Which brings me to my next point:

Equipped with long-term data on outputs and outcomes (and eventually impact) we will be able to

Tell more powerful stories of social innovation
Mobilize thousands of supporters to help manifest that change sustainably, and
Assess what works and what doesn’t when, where, how, and why.

Here's the thing: There is so much we don’t know yet about how to scale and sustain social innovation, and effective ecosystem building for that matter. If we are able to collect data from different ecosystem builders across the country (as we do within Startup Champions Network), we will gain deeper insights into the inner workings of social innovation at scale. Academic institutions, send me your proposals ;)

Talking of minor pros and magic: The job description mentions bilingualism as an advantage. And I would love nothing more than to dust off my rusty French and stumble through meetings with my terrible German-English accent!

Startup Champions Network Summit in Fargo, ND, 2017

The Con-side: Also Inclusivity, and Motherhood
I have learned the hard way over the last four years that being “as inclusive as possible” is not good enough. I have come to understand that we need to be radically inclusive in our ecosystem building efforts, and that means going out of our way to seek insights and understanding, and hopefully. Maybe. Somewhere down the line, collaboration with groups within our communities that have not been invited to the table for decades. This is NOT the downside of this job. On the contrary. I have much to grow in that area and this would be a welcome opportunity to do so. Based on my experience in the B Corp world, Kauffman Foundation and very honest conversations during Summits of Startup Champions Network, I know that this road is very long and even rockier. It takes a lot of listening, understanding and reflection - in short a ton of energy - to navigate these muddy waters of creating a truly inclusive and equitable culture in which every participant has the power to speak, and the willingness to listen.

Secondly, I am on maternity leave. Our little Viking turned eight months old on Labor Day and I was committed to fully enjoying at least her first year until she goes off to daycare. One of the entrepreneurs I work with once put it like this: “When your next best alternative to a new client or job is spending time with your children instead of getting on that plane, the stakes for what makes an intriguing offer are very different.” Amen.

And as I lay out all of these pros and cons, I keep coming back to the single most important argument that close to outweighs the negatives and reinforces the positives: The opportunity to create national-level impact. No matter how hard I work, I - by myself - can only do so much. But this role puts whoever ends up filling it into a prime position to really move the needle for ecosystem builders around the country. And how intriguing is that?

Building on a Strong Foundation
How often do you look at your LinkedIn profile and get truly excited about what you see? I keep mine as a running list to remind myself what year I graduated from my masters, but that’s about it. Writing a CV, consequently, was a pretty exciting exercise! To keep it to two pages (do people still do that?), I had to omit a few roles and even worse, had no space to mention any of the fun stuff I got to work on (RVA BiscuitLove, RVA Women’s Day, VCU pre-accelerator, etc.).

But even with the roles that did end up on my CV, my eyes grew wide and my chest proud. I kept checking the dates because it still seems impossible that we launched Unreasonable Lab VA only two years ago, and that RebelleCon was nothing but an ambitious idea this time last year.

Whether I get this role or not, this process has made me realize that I have build a strong foundation. I feel equipped to achieve whatever it is I set my mind to and I know I have the skills and experience to forge ahead. With my intention to help grow and build Toronto’s, or even Canada’s, ecosystem for social entrepreneurs and innovators, the right opportunity to create impact and move the needle is out there waiting to present itself. And I can’t wait to see what that looks like!

If this is your first time here, I assume all that language around social innovation and ecosystem building can be a little... overwhelming. If you're curious to learn more, head over to the Library and check out some of these resources:

Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Building Playbook 2.0
Centre for Social Innovation, make sure to head to their thought leadership section!
Community, by Peter Block (thanks Andy for the recommendation)
The Rainforst Book, Victor Hwang (see his TedX talk here)
Startup Communities by Brad Feld

]]><![CDATA[The Rules of Modern Motherhood]]>Thu, 12 Jul 2018 18:27:47 GMThttps://www.anikahorn.com/blog/the-rules-of-modern-motherhood

… do not exist. You do you. And that’s it.

When I found out I was pregnant, I did what most self-employed Millennials do. I googled for support. And came up short. With a growing number of mothers who are entrepreneurs and/or self-employed, why wasn’t there a go-to resource to help us navigate this chapter of our lives that is already filled with financial insecurity and overall uncertainty about the choices we had made in life so far? My initial plan was to wait for Katherine Wintsch’s forthcoming book “Slay Like A Mother” and have her tell me how to do this. Then I found out it wouldn’t hit the market until early next year, and I had to come up with an alternative. And this is it:

The term “mompreneur” has always made me cringe. If you love and associate with it, great! And no offense. Simply not my cup of tea. My friend Ashley once pointed out “We never talk about dadpreneurs, do we?” And yet, I feel there is a difference. I don’t like the language of “lead parent” or “primary caregiver”. It’s possible I just don’t care for these types of labels. In the case of my family, I have been spending most days with our baby girl while papa goes off to work. I genuinely and deeply enjoy it. Everyone assures me that these first years will fly by and - since this might be our only child - I am hanging on to these many sweet moments for dear life.

Advice. Unsolicited.

As soon as people found out I was pregnant, everyone had advice for me. I heard first hand stories of labor that lasted sixty hours and was guaranteed I would be unable to work out or wash my hair or feed myself for the first year of my daughter’s life.
With 32 short years of life experience I knew better than to buy into all these nightmares and freak out preemptively. I listened to all of them (not that you have a choice), took what advice I thought made sense, and generously ignored the rest. I figured I would have enough time to lose my cool once she was born. And as it turned out, none of these horror scenarios came true for us (yet).
Disclaimer: I do not attribute our current quality of life to my badass skills as a mother whatsoever. It turns out my daughter loves to sleep and eat (she takes after me in that regard), and is a happy camper most of the time. Compared to working full time during my pregnancy, I suddenly found myself having time to cook, read and mentally prepare myself for our upcoming move to Canada. Were she a baby that doesn’t sleep through the night, gets sick a lot or doesn’t eat, this blog post would sound very different or - more likely - wouldn’t even exist for lack of sleep and sanity on my part. But she is she and that how we find ourselves here.

The Business Side

My early research left me with the conclusion that in order to take maternity leave as a self-employed woman, I had the option to sign up for short-term disability insurance (too late when I found out) or work extra hard throughout my pregnancy. Let’s pause her for a second. Not only was I repulsed by the idea that maternity leave qualified me as “disabled”, but I would have had to sign up for this insurance months before I found out I was pregnant. And trying to cram three+ months worth of work into a schedule that was already bursting at the seams was Out. Of. The. Question. I couldn’t even put my second shoe on without breaking into a sweat.

Instead, I started hamstering my money. I spent hours finagling financial models for different scenarios of maternity leave. How much would I need to take three months off? And five months? I chose wisely what to spend money on and got a kick out of watching my bank balance grow.
Further, I didn’t tell anyone when I would be back. I simply didn’t know. And I wanted flexibility once she was born. If being home with a newborn all day turned out to make me miserable, I wanted the option of going back to work. And if I enjoyed maternity leave so much that I never wanted to work again, I wanted to keep that option open, too. Being two extreme ends of a spectrum, I suspected the truth to lie somewhere in between. And it did.

You do you.

Friend number one went back to work when her son was eight weeks old. She said being home with a baby all day every day was not her happy place and she missed working. So they found a daycare solution and she went back to work. Awesome.
Friend number two went back part-time after three months and when it became clear that her role couldn’t be done part-time during their busy season, she decided to leave and stay home with her little man. Awesome, too.
Friend number three has a baby that requires more care and medical attention than other babies. She went back full time after three months and is logging a few days per months from home. Totally. Awesome.

A tip of the hat to all three of these mothers. They figured out what they needed to be happy and followed through on it.

As for me, we moved from the U.S. to Canada when our daughter was four months old. If you know anything about me (or read this blogpost) you know that I thrive on structure. When we arrived in Toronto, I set myself three goals to keep me focused throughout the ups and downs of everyday life:

Get back in shape (I am running a Spartan Super seven months postpartum).
Find us a home (We are renting over the summer).
Start building my professional network to launch my business up here.

And here is what that looks like in real life:

I am finally trying Crossfit and I have also joined a gym that is walking distance from our current house. I work out four to six mornings a week while my family is still asleep.
I check new house listings every day. I look at potential candidates with my realtor every Friday. I manifest the heck out of my dream kitchen.
I set up a meeting or two per week with people who work in social entrepreneurship here in Toronto (read more about it here). My daughter will either come with me, or she stays with her dad, or her blue-haired Italian babysitter. We have created options.

Do I ever get impatient about not working harder? Absolutely.
Do I grow concerned every time I check my once promising bank balance? You bet!
Do I wish we had family or friends up here that I could turn to for help or advice, or a simple chat over coffee? A full-throated YES!

But I know that doubts and fears don’t help me move forward. I also know that they will pass if I stare them down long enough without giving in. And on the occasion that I risk spinning out of control, I remind myself that I have never heard a parent say “I wish I had spent less time with my daughter/son when they were little.”

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the support of my wonderful husband who keeps me grounded, reminds me of what matters and has my back with everything I do. Thank you.

]]><![CDATA[Toronto's Ecosystem for social innovation: preface]]>Thu, 28 Jun 2018 13:46:38 GMThttps://www.anikahorn.com/blog/social-innovation-toronto

Eship Summit 2017, Kauffman Foundation

In love with research, not academia

The idea of researching best practices for supporting social entrepreneurs through structured programming (think incubators, accelerators, etc.) had been steeping in the back of my mind for over a year when I suddenly found myself in a position of no permanent address, house key, job or place I needed to be.
Similarly, I had been mulling over the idea of applying for a PhD program. After speaking to several professors in PhD programs I decided that - if getting a PhD meant you had to be an academic afterward (which is the short of it) - I didn’t want to go for a postgraduate degree. But damn, had I always enjoyed researching, exploring and analyzing the very bones of a system or situation I so desperately wanted to understand!

Instead, I designed what I called “My Personal PhD” (it always remained a working title). From January through June 2015, I launched phase I of what would later become Social Venturers. I spent the first weeks frantically reading every research paper I could find on social enterprise acceleration. I researched support organizations for social entrepreneurs country by country. I designed my research framework to allow me to collect consistent data across countries. I reached out to dozens of support organizations across Europe to schedule interviews with program managers at each organization. And I spent six months interviewing the first thirty social venture support organizations of many more to come. Read a recap of phase I here.

Assessing Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Actors and Playbooks

Fast forward three years and we find ourselves on my front porch in St Clair West, Toronto, Canada. My six-months old is snoozing by my side while the rain is drumming on the porch roof. We moved to Canada in May 2018 and I have spent the last two weeks sketching out how to best explore the social enterprise landscape in Toronto. Since the launch of Social Venturers, I have a three years of ecosystem building experience with Startup Champions Network and the Kauffman Foundation under my belt. Based on these experiences and the insights of ecosystem experts like Brad Feld and Village Capital, I am going to explore Toronto’s social enterprise scene to find answers to these three questions:

Who are the key players in the social enterprise ecosystem?
What are the key attributes, challenges and success stories of purpose-driven entrepreneurs in Toronto?
What is the glue that keeps it all together? In other words, what do the culture, the relationships and the stories people tell themselves about their ecosystem look like?

Startup Communities, Brad Feld
To categorize key players I am borrowing a framework from Brad Feld’s book Startup Communities who lists leaders and feeders as

Entrepreneurs
Government
Universities
Investors
Mentors, and
Service Providers.

Based on my experience, I am adding to that list

support organizations (such as accelerators, incubators, startup weekends, etc.) and
facilitators (organizations that promote entrepreneurship, raise awareness, and tell the stories of the ecosystem and its entrepreneurs).

Playbook for Ecosystem Builders, Kauffman Foundation
The Kauffman Foundation is developing a playbook for ecosystem builders and takes a slightly more nuanced approach by identifying not only key players but structures and “the glue” within an ecosystem:

Entrepreneurs
Talent
People and Institutions with knowledge and resources
Champions of the entrepreneurs and their ecosystem
On-ramps (access points) to facilitate participation
Intersections through which people, ideas and resources interact
Stories that people tell about themselves and their ecosystem
Social Capital (a culture of collaboration, cooperation, trust, reciprocity and focus on the common good).

Why the heck, Anika?

Allow me to elaborate: Entrepreneurs need different types of support along their journey. No single organization or person can provide all of it, nor should they. As the Kauffman Foundation puts it, ecosystems help entrepreneurs thrive at each step allowing talent, information and resources to flow quickly as they are needed by founders (source).

If you have read this piece, you know that I feel called to help purpose-driven entrepreneurs thrive. As part of this new-to-me ecosystem, I feel the urge to understand exactly who is doing what, how effective it is and what is missing to see the Toronto ecosystem thrive.

Let me throw this out there: Toronto is bustling with activity in the social enterprise space. After three years in a mid-sized city that was grappling with the notion of social enterprise, I am T.H.R.I.L.L.E.D. to be in a space that is this progressive. Yay!

The short of it is: With a clear understanding of actors, challenges and the culture of the social enterprise space, I will have a clearer sense of where to spread my wings and how to best serve purpose-driven founders.

Research Objectives

Until the end of the 2018, my research objectives are to

Speak to as many purpose-driven entrepreneurs as possible to get their perspective on what’s working and what not.
Interview support organizations to learn about their work and its effectiveness.
Learn from impact investors how they assess the maturity of the space, and understand their investment approach.
Explore the different programs, courses and extracurricular activities that universities deploy to build entrepreneurs and the talent needed for a thriving startup community.
Find out what on-ramps and intersections are currently available to join the ecosystem and facilitate exchange.
Hear the stories that leaders and feeders tell themselves about the social enterprise community.
Peel back the layers of relationships within the ecosystem to assess the level and quality if social capital.

I plan on interviewing as many local actors as possible to collect enough data to be able to assess how healthy and mature the ecosystem is. As the cherry on the icing I hope to gain insights into some of these questions:

What services are missing?
Where is innovation taking place, what (who?) is hindering it, and what seedlings are growing in the niches of the ecosystem?

In short, what else does the ecosystem need to help social entrepreneurs thrive?

Expect monthly updates on the conversations I have with social entrepreneurs, B Corps, ecosystem builders and champions, facilitators, investors, educators.

Join my newsletter list or check back here next month!

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