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... / 2026 State of... / Strategic priorities for ESOs
2026 State of the Industry Report from Make Startups Institute
6. Strategic priorities for ESOs
The findings point to a practical agenda for the field. In short, ESOs should focus less on adding more activity and more on improving the quality, continuity, and relevance of support. The table below summarizes the most actionable priorities emerging from the source material.
| Priority | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Re-center the field on founder outcomes | Shift from activity counts to clearer measures of founder progress such as customer traction, repeat engagement, capital readiness, revenue movement, and survival beyond the first program touchpoint. |
| Build legible pathways across organizations | Clarify who serves which founder, at what stage, for what outcome. Establish repeatable handoffs, shared referral norms, and fewer duplicative offerings. |
| Stabilize the operating model of ESOs | Diversify revenue, invest in staff quality, and reduce dependence on short-term grants where possible. Fragile intermediaries cannot create durable support for founders. |
| Treat capital access as a system design problem | Pair founder education with capital pathway design, investment-readiness coaching, and stronger alignment between local funders, angels, lenders, and public programs. |
| Adopt AI as infrastructure, not ideology | Use AI to improve research, service delivery, and coordination, but keep human judgment at the center. Practical adoption should outrun hype, not the other way around. |
| Make inclusion and place-based access structural | Design around rural realities, underrepresented founders, immigrants, and nontraditional entrepreneurs rather than treating them as edge cases. |
Article Details
A practical agenda for the field of Entrepreneurial Support
| Category | 2026 State of the Industry Report |
|---|---|
| Curriculum | all |
| Created | 2026-03-11 18:01:55 |
| Last Updated | 2026-03-11 18:01:55 |
| IMI Provider | CofounderOS |
| Published | Make Startups Institute |
|
|
2026 State of the Industry Report
- Executive Summary
- SWOT Analysis: Strengths
- SWOT Analysis: Weaknesses
- SWOT Analysis: Opportunities
- SWOT Analysis: Threats
- Strategic priorities for ESOs
- Conclusion and Additional ESO Insights
- Appendix A. Methodology and limitations
- Appendix B. Cross-quadrant evidence map
- Appendix C. Selected respondent excerpts
- Appendix D. Downloads and References
Module Resources
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