In the Season 1 finale of Ecosystem, Scale!, Aaron Taylor sits down with Andy Stoll, founding Executive Director of the ESHIP Alliance, for a wide-angle conversation about the emergence of entrepreneurial ecosystem building as a field of practice.

Over the past two decades, ecosystem builders across the country have been quietly working to strengthen the environments where founders turn ideas into reality. What began as scattered community efforts is now beginning to organize into something larger: a professional field with its own practices, leadership models, and support structures.

Andy offers an eagle-eye view of this movement zooming out to examine the national landscape of ecosystem building while also reflecting on the culture, relationships, and leadership required to make these communities thrive in practice.

At its core, ecosystem building is a team sport a collaborative effort to move knowledge and resources from the people who have them to the entrepreneurs who need them at the right moment.

This conversation closes the first season of Ecosystem, Scale! by zooming out to ask a bigger question:

What happens when the builders themselves begin to organize into a field?

About Our Speaker

Andy Stoll is a serial social entrepreneur and the founding Executive Director of the ESHIP Alliance, a national initiative working to advance entrepreneurial ecosystem building as a recognized profession and coordinated field. Over the past two decades, Andy has co-founded multiple social change organizations and helped pioneer community-driven approaches to entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic development.

Previously, Andy served as a Senior Program Officer at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, where he helped advance entrepreneur-led economic development and ecosystem building as an emerging practice. His work focuses on participatory, network-based approaches to social change that combine entrepreneurship, storytelling, culture-building, and community leadership.

Andy is a sought-after speaker and facilitator who has appeared at SXSW, TEDx events, universities, and conferences around the world, and his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

Connect with him here: linkedin.com/in/andystoll

Resources:

https://www.kauffman.org/ecosystem-playbook-draft-3/eship-goals/

https://eship-commons.mn.co/spaces/18645947/feed

https://www.startupchampions.co/

https://www.seedthesouth.com/

$50 off code for Seed the South Capital Summit: STS26-CEDAR-50

In this episode of Ecosystem, Scale!, Aaron Taylor is joined by Amy Beaird for a deep dive into the tools, language, and systems thinking shaping the future of ecosystem architecture.

Drawing on her background in engineering and decades of startup R&D leadership, Amy brings a practical lens to one of the field’s biggest challenges: making the invisible work of ecosystem-building visible, measurable, and defensible. Together, they explore the concept of signals — evidence of strategic progress that shows when ecosystems are moving beyond activity toward real capability and alignment.

The conversation unpacks how frameworks like the Ecosystem Edge scorecard help regions understand their stage of development, align stakeholders, and communicate long-term value to funders and partners. Amy also shares insights on governance, shared leadership, diverse funding strategies, and the ongoing tension between organic emergence and intentional architecture.

This episode is for ecosystem builders, funders, institutional leaders, and practitioners who want to move from reactive programming to durable systems — and who are looking for practical ways to strengthen alignment, storytelling, and long-term sustainability in their communities.

About the Speaker

Amy Beaird is a systems-oriented ecosystem builder and co-founder of Ecosystem Edge. With a career spanning engineering, startup R&D leadership, and regional ecosystem strategy, she focuses on developing practical tools and frameworks that help practitioners measure progress, align stakeholders, and build sustainable innovation infrastructure. Amy is also an active contributor to the broader field through initiatives like the ESHIP Alliance and her work supporting regional innovation strategies across the country.

Connect with her here: linkedin.com/in/abeaird

Resources

https://ecosystem-edge.com/

https://engine.xyz/

https://eship-commons.mn.co/spaces/18645947/feed

In this episode of Ecosystem, Scale!, Aaron sits down with Jess Edwards for a conversation that explores how relationships, trust, and lived experience shape the way innovation ecosystems actually function for sustainable ecosystem design.

Jess shares insights from her work across multiple communities, offering a “tour-guide” perspective on how ecosystems evolve, what strong social capital looks like in practice, and why sustainability requires more than programs and new funding cycles. Together, they examine how ecosystems move from connections to structure — and how intentional design can turn momentum into lasting impact.

This conversation is especially relevant for ecosystem builders, funders, and community leaders seeking to better understand how human relationships become the infrastructure that allows innovation to thrive over time.

About the Speaker

Jess Edwards is a project-based innovation ecosystem builder and systems thinker known for her work connecting entrepreneurs to the resources, relationships, and opportunities they need to grow. She has been recognized for her ability to build and leverage relational (social) capital to strengthen entrepreneurial communities and increase ecosystem interconnectedness across the globe.

Connect with her here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardsja/

Resources:

https://www.jessedwards.com/

https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/

https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/?s=entrepreneurship