Can't wait for central government

At the Aurora Climate Tech Summit in July, the political panel got spicy. I had said to a few people that I thought central government was missing from the puzzle when it comes to supporting startups. One person pushed back and said:

“the government of the day's job is to set the box. The founders' job is knowing how to work within it, and around it.”

I've been sitting with that one since, and am thinking it applies well beyond startups.

Government is one piece of a much bigger business puzzle, not the missing piece. Funding programmes matter, especially for work that takes longer to build and doesn't pay off fast enough for most private investors. That support can be the difference between an idea staying an idea and a team getting the time to prove it out. But it's one input among many, alongside customers, capital, talent and timing.

There's a difference between support being available and a business depending on it, whether that's direct funding, ongoing grants, or work that only exists because of how procurement is structured. A boost is fine. A foundation is a risk.

Post COVID, a lot of government money was put into business, keeping things moving through some tough and unknown times. Short term, it did what it was meant to do.

I think we're feeling the other side of that now. That level of support put a lot of businesses in a false economy, one that was never sustainable medium to long term. When the support eased off, businesses that were built around it were left exposed, not because they necessarily did anything wrong but because what they were standing on was never going to last.

The businesses that do well treat government support as useful when it's there, not as the plan. They know it's one piece of the puzzle, and build something that can stand on its own alongside it.

I've heard versions of this same tension come up in a few recent conversations. It's not going away soon.

I wrote a bit more on the funding side of this: how money gets spent without a clear purpose, if you want to keep pulling on that thread.

Photo by Ricardo Arce