This document summarizes a study that assessed the entrepreneurial ecosystem in San Luis Potosi, Mexico in order to help policymakers create programs and strategies to encourage the creation of high-impact businesses. The study analyzed factors like regulatory environment, support infrastructure, access to finance, human capital, and culture that affect the creation of high-impact projects through interviews, surveys, and secondary data from universities, entrepreneurs, institutions, and the entrepreneurial community in the region. The goal was to provide a model that could be replicated in other parts of Latin America to compare local ecosystems and their impact on entrepreneurship.

1. Assessing Local Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in
Mexico: The Case of San Luis Potosí

2. San Luis Poto what?
Economies cannot be competitive by just focusing on external investment and low cost labor.

3. Overview
- Business environment is very different in Latin American Countries
- Historically there is not enough data on public policies impact on entrepreneurs
- Ecosystems are local, each city has different policies, rules and incentives
- To help encourage the creation of high impact businesses in Latin America
- Every study that we found is not suited for Latin America business culture

4. Impact and desired results
- Assist policy makers on creating programs and strategies that work
- Help them measure and assess what works and what don’t
- Provide a model which can be replicated and adapted to other sub regions in
Latin America
- Enable the comparison among local ecosystems in Mexico or Latin America
- Asses the entrepreneurial ecosystem in San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

5. Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Definition
Hwang W. & Horowitt (2012): ‘… is a human ecosystem in which human creativity,
business acumen, scientific discovery, investment capital, and other elements come
together in a special recipe that nurtures budding ideas so they can grow into
flourishing and sustainable enterprises’
Literature Review
‘Many governments take a misguided approach to building entrepreneurial
ecosystem. They pursue some unattainable ideal of an ecosystem and look to
economies that are completely unlike theirs for best practices’ (Isenberg, 2010).
You just can’t copy!
Five most important approaches on analyzing entrepreneurial ecosystems or
business environments: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,
Babson Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Project, World Economic Forum, World Bank
and The Aspen Institute.

6. Theoretical Framework
Institutions are the ‘rules of the game” that reduce uncertainty and govern, shape,
and influence human interactions in a society.
(North C., 1990)
Formal rules: Political and judicial rules, economic rules, and contracts, created,
communicated, and enforced through channels widely accepted as official…state
institutions, state-enforced rules…’ (Helmke & Levitsky, 2004, p. 727).
Informal constraints: Culture, values, traditions (North C., 1990), which are usually
unwritten and created, communicated, and enforced through unofficial sanctioned
channels (Helmke & Levitsky, 2003; 2004; Hwang W. & Horowitt, 2012).

7. Research Question
Which are factors that affect the most on the creation
of a high impact project at subnational level?

8. Determinant that affects the creation of high impact projects
Regulatory
environment
Support
infrastructure
Access to
finance
Human
capital
Culture

9. Elements of study
1. Universities (personal interviews to the top 5 in the state).
2. High Impact Entrepreneurs (Pre test to more than 5,000).
3. Public and private institutions (Secondary data).
4. Entrepreneurial community (focus group with champions on the environment)

10. Acknowledgments
This study is funded by a grant from the National Institute for Entrepreneurs
(INADEM) in Mexico and Escuela Bancaria Comercial EBC.
www.inadem.gob.mx
www.ebc.mx
This study and grant were co-authored by StartupLab MX
Contact Information:
Pedro Martinez-Estrada | pedro@startuplab.mx