The Network is the Strategy: How Innovation Ecosystems Turn Good Ideas Into Lasting Solutions
When Kelsey Underwood encountered the TorchTech team through an SPN LaunchPad Accelerator, both organizations were addressing economic mobility. They were simply working on different parts of the problem.
TorchTech had developed a financial-literacy tool to help people understand their income, expenses, and financial choices. The Georgia Center for Opportunity had spent years modeling benefits cliffs:the points at which an increase in earnings can cause a family to lose public assistance, sometimes leaving it temporarily worse off despite earning more.
Kelsey listened to TorchTech present its work and asked whether the team had considered how benefits cliffs might affect the financial decisions of the people it served. TorchTech understood the issue but did not have GCO’s level of policy detail.
That question opened a practical connection.
TorchTech did not need to become a policy research organization. GCO did not need to recreate TorchTech’s direct-to-consumer platform. Each held a capability the other lacked. Ultimately, Kelsey facilitated the integration of GCO’s benefits-cliff information into TorchTech’s calculations.
The result was a more complete conversation with families. Instead of advising someone to accept a raise based only on additional income, the tool could show whether the raise might create a temporary gap in benefits. That information could help the individual prepare for the transition.
“I would have never known about TorchTech ever, unless I had met them at this LaunchPad event,” Kelsey said.
That is what an innovation ecosystem should make possible. It does more than place interesting people in the same room. It helps them discover where one solution ends, another begins, and a meaningful connection could make both more useful.
Build Around the Missing Capability
Founders often approach networking by asking,“Who should I meet?” After more than five years of working with innovators across the LaunchPad Innovation Ecosystem, I have found a more productive question: What can the people we serve not yet accomplish through the solution we have built?
That question moves the founder’s attention away from collecting contacts and toward identifying missing functions. The need may be policy expertise, technology, distribution, community trust, evaluation, funding, or operational capacity. Once the missing function is clear, the founder can search for someone already doing that work well.
Turn Connection Into Coordinated Action
The Center for Poverty Solutions at Illinois Policy Institute experienced a different version of this process. Eddie Kornegay and a colleague entered an SPN LaunchPad Accelerator with an ambitious goal: contribute to reducing poverty in Chicago by 5% by 2033.
The goal was clear. The route was not.
“I’m not going to say we didn’t have an idea, but we were kind of all over the place,” Eddie explained.
At the workshop, LaunchPad Advisors supported the team through a co-creation process, helped it identify Block Clubs as a starting point and develop a 30-, 60-, and 90-day plan. The engagement produced more than validation and encouragement. It produced sequence.
During the first 30 days, the Center met oneBlock Club leader and identified three others. Community conversations created a feedback loop between neighborhood leaders and policy experts inside Illinois Policy Institute. Those discussions surfaced potential policy responses involving safe passage for young people seeking education and apprenticeships, transportation to jobs beyond existing transit routes, and pathways for developing local leadership. SPN’s Pathways to Prosperity Prize then provided capital to advance the work.
Different participants contributed different capabilities. Block Club leaders brought proximity, trust, and knowledge of the barriers residents faced. Illinois Policy Institute brought research and policy expertise. LaunchPad Advisors contributed process and outside perspective. SPN supplied the convening infrastructure and a funding opportunity that helped move the work forward.
Make the Connection Produce an Outcome
If you are building a local solution, begin by defining the problem your organization cannot solve alone. Identify the missing capability, not merely a person you hope to meet. Look for a complementary solution already operating, make each party’s contribution explicit, and assign a next action, owner, and timeframe. Then trace what changed after the connection.
Return that learning to the ecosystem. A useful lesson should not remain trapped between two organizations. It should help another founder adapt an approach, another policy leader recognize a recurring barrier, or another community begin with more knowledge.
Before requesting another introduction, name one outcome your current model cannot produce alone. Then identify the capability standing between the people you serve and that outcome. That is where the next relationship should begin.
Amanda Pascale is a strategic growth partner and founder of Lionhearted Enterprises, where she advises founders and CEOs navigating consequential growth and building the organizational capacity for what comes next. Her 25-year career spans business, entrepreneurship, public policy, philanthropy, and social impact.
Related in Tools for Scaling Solutions
The Network is the Strategy: How Innovation Ecosystems Turn Good Ideas Into Lasting Solutions
8 min read
When Kelsey Underwood encountered the TorchTech team through an SPN LaunchPad Accelerator, both organizations were addressing economic mobility. They were simply working on different parts of the problem.
TorchTech had developed a financial-literacy tool to help people understand their income, expenses, and financial choices. The Georgia Center for Opportunity had spent years modeling benefits cliffs:the points at which an increase in earnings can cause a family to lose public assistance, sometimes leaving it temporarily worse off despite earning more.
Kelsey listened to TorchTech present its work and asked whether the team had considered how benefits cliffs might affect the financial decisions of the people it served. TorchTech understood the issue but did not have GCO’s level of policy detail.
That question opened a practical connection.
TorchTech did not need to become a policy research organization. GCO did not need to recreate TorchTech’s direct-to-consumer platform. Each held a capability the other lacked. Ultimately, Kelsey facilitated the integration of GCO’s benefits-cliff information into TorchTech’s calculations.
The result was a more complete conversation with families. Instead of advising someone to accept a raise based only on additional income, the tool could show whether the raise might create a temporary gap in benefits. That information could help the individual prepare for the transition.
“I would have never known about TorchTech ever, unless I had met them at this LaunchPad event,” Kelsey said.
That is what an innovation ecosystem should make possible. It does more than place interesting people in the same room. It helps them discover where one solution ends, another begins, and a meaningful connection could make both more useful.
Build Around the Missing Capability
Founders often approach networking by asking,“Who should I meet?” After more than five years of working with innovators across the LaunchPad Innovation Ecosystem, I have found a more productive question: What can the people we serve not yet accomplish through the solution we have built?
That question moves the founder’s attention away from collecting contacts and toward identifying missing functions. The need may be policy expertise, technology, distribution, community trust, evaluation, funding, or operational capacity. Once the missing function is clear, the founder can search for someone already doing that work well.
Turn Connection Into Coordinated Action
The Center for Poverty Solutions at Illinois Policy Institute experienced a different version of this process. Eddie Kornegay and a colleague entered an SPN LaunchPad Accelerator with an ambitious goal: contribute to reducing poverty in Chicago by 5% by 2033.
The goal was clear. The route was not.
“I’m not going to say we didn’t have an idea, but we were kind of all over the place,” Eddie explained.
At the workshop, LaunchPad Advisors supported the team through a co-creation process, helped it identify Block Clubs as a starting point and develop a 30-, 60-, and 90-day plan. The engagement produced more than validation and encouragement. It produced sequence.
During the first 30 days, the Center met oneBlock Club leader and identified three others. Community conversations created a feedback loop between neighborhood leaders and policy experts inside Illinois Policy Institute. Those discussions surfaced potential policy responses involving safe passage for young people seeking education and apprenticeships, transportation to jobs beyond existing transit routes, and pathways for developing local leadership. SPN’s Pathways to Prosperity Prize then provided capital to advance the work.
Different participants contributed different capabilities. Block Club leaders brought proximity, trust, and knowledge of the barriers residents faced. Illinois Policy Institute brought research and policy expertise. LaunchPad Advisors contributed process and outside perspective. SPN supplied the convening infrastructure and a funding opportunity that helped move the work forward.
Make the Connection Produce an Outcome
If you are building a local solution, begin by defining the problem your organization cannot solve alone. Identify the missing capability, not merely a person you hope to meet. Look for a complementary solution already operating, make each party’s contribution explicit, and assign a next action, owner, and timeframe. Then trace what changed after the connection.
Return that learning to the ecosystem. A useful lesson should not remain trapped between two organizations. It should help another founder adapt an approach, another policy leader recognize a recurring barrier, or another community begin with more knowledge.
Before requesting another introduction, name one outcome your current model cannot produce alone. Then identify the capability standing between the people you serve and that outcome. That is where the next relationship should begin.
Amanda Pascale is a strategic growth partner and founder of Lionhearted Enterprises, where she advises founders and CEOs navigating consequential growth and building the organizational capacity for what comes next. Her 25-year career spans business, entrepreneurship, public policy, philanthropy, and social impact.