Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Building: Co-Creating Solutions in South Africa

Despite an abundance of incubators, grants and training schemes, many entrepreneurs in South Africa’s Western Cape still cannot find the right help when they need it. To understand why, we combined 13 semi-structured interviews with key ecosystem actors and two rounds of collaborative workshops involving 32 practitioners, funders and policymakers. Using thematic coding and supplemented by descriptive frequency counts, we traced three persistent bottlenecks: fragmented service delivery, policy processes that are hard to navigate, and funding rules that sideline women and young founders. We then co-created a practical roadmap that centers on a single digital growth hub, streamlined “trust-based” financing that accepts alternative documentation, and peer-led mentorship circles. Together, these measures turn scattered resources into a coherent support system without demanding large new budgets. Although grounded in the Western Cape, the framework speaks to other emerging regions where coordination failures, rather than resource scarcity, hold back entrepreneurial activity. By showing how local voices can shape ecosystem design, the study offers scholars fresh empirical material and gives policymakers a people-centered template for building more inclusive, resilient entrepreneurial environments.