The San Antonio Ecosystem

This is What Collaboration Looks Like

Have you heard? We’re headed to San Antonio for the 2020 Spring Ecosystem Builders Summit! San Antonio, also known as “Military City USA,” is the 7th largest city in the U.S. 

Its major industries include healthcare and bioscience, new energy, aerospace, and information technology and cybersecurity. 

The city has one of the largest concentrations of IT, Information Assurance (IA), and cybersecurity professionals in the U.S. and has the highest concentration of cybersecurity and intelligence professionals outside of D.C. There’s also a diverse mix of nationally-recognized healthcare systems, research institutions, and biotech companies. In addition, the bioscience and healthcare industry is a dominant force in the city's economy. In terms of major corporations, San Antonio is home to supermarket chain H-E-B, USAA, Rackspace, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Clear Channel Communications, Valero Energy, Whataburger, and many more. Amongst the major corporations that call San Antonio home, the city has a burgeoning, rich, and collaborative entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The city’s startup scene is robust with more students jumping on the startup bandwagon to become founders, an increased amount of coworking spaces (27 with two coming soon), and plenty of programming designed to support startups in multiple niches. For example, The Rosie Network helps military spouses become a successful entrepreneurs; VelocityTX programs focus on biotech and technology startups; and UT Health San Antonio’s new TechNovum technology commercialization accelerator helps faculty researchers interested in developing their inventions for the market.  

San Antonio has unique, diverse capabilities between its growing number of entrepreneurs in multiple sectors. According to Startup San Antonio, the startup scene also saw more investor interest last year, which is a great sign of ecosystem growth. In fact, Summit partner Geekdom is one who committed more capital to local startups in 2019 out of its Geekdom Fund. Here’s a look at Startups San Antonio’s Ecosystem Map.

Collaboration in San Antonio

One unique trait among ecosystem players in San Antonio is collaboration. According to Summit host Krista Covey, that’s a strength that can sometimes be a challenge for entrepreneurs who are trying to navigate the ecosystem. 

"We have a lot of collaboration. We’ve got a lot of people who just love to work together. In recent years, it has become crowded in some respects, making it challenging for entrepreneurs to navigate through to find their pathway to success. We can help mitigate that, however with collaboration by the entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs). If the ESOs work together and make it easier for the entrepreneur to find the right resources, it’s a win for everyone, and they don’t waste their time on programs (or bad actors) that are not a good fit for growing their ventures.”

San Antonio has a robust Entrepreneur support organization (ESO) network that gets together to discuss challenges and opportunities regularly. 

“[We] get together once a month and talk about our challenges and opportunities even though we have different programs - it’s almost like ‘Co-opetition’. We’re all friends and we all work so well together. I think that that really does so much good for our ecosystem.”

Ryan Salts, Director at Launch SA says that nothing that is done in San Antonio is done without some level of partnership. 

“We do our best to collaborate with each other as the scene isn’t huge but if we work more in unison then we have better exiters and participants within it.” 

He describes the ecosystem as having a “small town feel” despite being the 7th largest city. 

“With small towns,” he explains, “you have this comradery and community buy in where everyone wants to support and help. You can have conversations with people at the upper end of our business ecosystem. They are only one or two people away and they are more than willing to share their insights. It’s the way that we’ve been able to build such a strong mentorship community because the citizens that are here are willing to participate. We all buy into this idea that rising tides lift all boats. If we can work together in unison to support each other, that creates more wealth to spread rather than seeing each other as competitors.”

[Photo credit Launch SA - #SAEW Mentor Rounds Event]

Charles Woodin, CEO of Geekdom compares the city’s collaborative spirit to its pro basketball team, “The biggest strength in this ecosystem is that our city’s culture seems to play like its sports team.” 

Compared to the San Antonio Spurs, San Antonio is...

Oddly enough, when interviewing our Summit partners both compared the ecosystem to the city’s beloved basketball team, The San Antonio Spurs.

“No one person typically rises ahead of another,” says Charles. “It’s a team effort. Everybody serves their role within the team in order to make it a winning dynasty. Even competitors seem to find a way to work together here and share successes. We see that play out within our four walls, we see that play out throughout the city limits. When you have companies working together and individuals willing to break down barriers and work to connect them to other successful opportunities it’s really empowering to see.”

Ryan frames it a little differently to show the city’s strengths and weaknesses, “The San Antonio Spurs have been known for being boring yet they go about their business and do pretty well most years. For the past decade they’ve been one of the top achieving teams in the nation. That’s a really easy way to see San Antonio. You don't really have to know much about us but we tend to go about our day and do really amazing things. For what it’s worth I guess we don’t see much need to talk about it. That can be a gift and a curse. It would be great if more people knew how great we were but on the other end it’s great that they don't know because we can keep going forward.”

San Antonio collaboration on display

“I was in the military for over 8 years and traveled throughout the country and I’ve never seen a city that was as unique as this when it came to businesses working together,” Charles Woodin.

This year’s Summit theme is centered around collaboration. What it looks like, how to foster it, and what outcomes should be expected in a healthy ecosystem. In true collaborative form, Krista and the planning team have worked with Launch SA and Geekdom to provide three different locations - one for each day of the summit.

“We have a lot of collaboration going on in San Antonio. Summit attendees should expect to see good examples of what collaboration looks like so they can be inspired to take some things we are doing here back to their own communities,” says Covey.

In addition to diving deep to see that San Antonio collaboration first hand through case studies, panels, and workshops, we will all have a chance to form our own collaborations - through conversations and through our Day 3 activity facilitated by several SCN members. You will get a chance to partner up with other like minded members to create action plans related to topics you are passionate about within your ecosystem or within SCN. 

“I think with most of these conferences you hope to take away something tangible but really I think it’s about bolstering your network and knowing who can call on later if you have questions. That's the inherent value.”

Do you have your ticket to the Spring Summit yet? Get it here.