Investment attraction
Test the regional strengths behind the pitch. Use the economic profile, mapped institutions, talent evidence, and ecosystem gaps to prepare for site-selector and investor conversations.
For Economic Development Officers
Economic development research workspace
Turn local expertise into priorities your board and partners can act on
The Groundbreakers Ecosystem Navigator connects investment attraction, business retention and expansion, entrepreneurship, workforce development, and strategic planning in one evidence base. Gather structured input from government, universities, investors, employers, and community partners, then see the trends and disagreements without losing months to manual analysis.
35-dimension scorecard
Regional institutions mapped
Shared evidence base
Field validation in Lethbridge County found the diagnostic closely matched a $100K government study and surfaced an angel investment gap the study missed.
Start with your place
Run your first diagnostic in five minutes
Choose a place and your role. The questions are written around the institutions and conditions in that region.
No account to start10 tailored questionsSave 2 reports free
Get the complete workspace, USD $499/year The free report
What the questions and the report look like
Each question names the institutions in your region. The report gives a key finding, a score for each stage of the innovation cycle, and recommended actions written for economic development officers.
A question, written for one place
Decatur, Georgia. The question names the City of Decatur, Agnes Scott College, Georgia State University Perimeter College, and Georgia Tech.
Key finding and cycle scores
The report names the stage where value stops moving and says why.
“Every economic development organization I know is overworked. We don't have time to dig through everything. What we need is a clean, digestible view of the priorities that came out of the expert input, something we can take to partners, council, or our own teams without losing weeks or months to waiting and analysis. That's what this platform is starting to deliver.”
Where it fits in your work
One evidence base for the five core economic development functions
Each function sees one part of the regional economy. Ecosystem Navigator connects them so a prospect brief, a business visit, a startup program, a workforce partnership, and the next strategy update all draw on the same evidence.
Business retention and expansion
See whether local firms can reach talent, research, capital, suppliers, and decision-makers. Repeated diagnostics show which conditions are improving and which constraints persist.
Entrepreneurship and startup support
Assess the path from ideas to viable companies: commercialization, founder support, mentors, early customers, growth capital, and whether successful ventures reinvest locally.
Workforce development
Connect employer demand with colleges, universities, training programs, attraction efforts, and retention. Identify where the talent pipeline loses people or misses industry needs.
Strategic planning
Turn individual perspectives into a shared analysis, investigate the biggest disagreements, set priorities, and repeat the same exercise to measure movement over time.
Common problems in economic development work
Four questions EDO directors ask about their own region, and what the diagnostic can tell you about each one.
"We invest in talent, then they leave."
Graduates leave when there is nowhere local to work, raise money, or grow. The diagnostic shows whether your region has the employers, capital, and knowledge base to keep them, or whether you are training people for other regions.
"Our CEDS looks great. Nothing's changed."
Most plans stall because the organizations named in them are not working together. The diagnostic shows which actors are not connected and where your brokering will make the most difference.
"We can't articulate our differentiation to site selectors."
If it is hard to explain why a company should choose your region over the next county, the region has not settled on what it is good at. The diagnostic shows what sets your region apart and what does not.
"The board wants ROI on our incentive spending."
Incentive packages are one tool. The diagnostic scores the whole ecosystem, so you can see whether those investments are building conditions for continued growth or buying one-off wins.
Group diagnostics
Compare how different people rate the same ecosystem
The economic development view is one part of the picture. Ecosystem Navigator collects it alongside the people who work in the same ecosystem from other roles, then shows the group where they agree, where they differ, and what to look into next.
01
Diagnose
Run a locally tailored diagnostic from your own role. The free version is 10 questions and takes about five minutes.
02
Compare
Invite people who work in the ecosystem from other roles, then see where their responses agree and where they differ.
03
Decide and measure
Investigate the evidence, share clear priorities, and repeat the same exercise to make change visible over time.
Difference from the group average
Group results in Pro. Each row shows where one place or participant rates higher or lower than the rest of the group.
What the platform gives you
The first report is useful on its own. The platform becomes more valuable as more perspectives enter the same evidence base.
A scored baseline for your region
Scores across 35 dimensions, from questions written around your region's actual institutions, programs, and assets.
Group diagnostics
Invite other stakeholders to answer the same questions so you can see where they agree, where they differ, and what each role tends to miss.
Evidence base
Each run adds answers, scores, assets, recommendations, and citations to a record of what your ecosystem looks like over time.
Reports for your board
Share links, PDF export, stakeholder briefs, and recommendations written around actions your organization can broker.
What the report says that activity counts do not
Annual reports count prospect meetings and jobs announced. The diagnostic tells you whether the ecosystem producing those results is working.
What annual reports tell your board
- Prospect meetings held: 127
- New jobs announced: 340
- BRE visits completed: 89
- Investment attracted: $12M
What this diagnostic tells you
- “The constraint is between connection and creation. Ideas and talent are entering the ecosystem, but conversion to new ventures is stalling. Three accelerators within 40km are not connected to the university pipeline.”
- “Your workforce pipeline scores 3.8 but capital access scores 1.9. Talent is staying, but has nowhere local to deploy.”
- “FDI operates as an enclave with no local supply chain integration. Consider a supplier development program with...”
Questions from EDO directors
How is this different from our CEDS process?▾
A CEDS takes months and costs tens of thousands of dollars. This diagnostic takes 5 minutes and gives you a scored baseline your CEDS process can build on. Use it to find gaps before you convene stakeholders, or to check whether your current strategy addresses the right constraints. Some EDOs run it each year to track progress between full CEDS cycles.
Will the questions make sense for economic development?▾
The questions cover talent pipelines, capital access, cluster strength, institutional coordination, business retention, FDI integration, workforce readiness, and more. Each question names your region's actual institutions, accelerators, and economic development organizations. You are rating the ecosystem you work in every day.
Can I share this with my board or council?▾
Yes. The report includes a shareable link, PDF export, and charts (scorecard, innovation cycle diagram, asset map) that work in board presentations. The language is plain and every finding cites its research basis, in the format board members and elected officials expect.
What makes this more than a general regional summary?▾
The diagnostic uses the LINK research framework, built on corporate strategy theory, Harvard and MIT economic complexity research, and more than 50 interviews with ecosystem leaders. Every question is written for your region, and the report ties its analysis to your responses, your local institutions, and research citations.
What does the free version include?▾
The free report includes an executive summary, an innovation cycle diagnosis with a score for each stage, a map of your region's institutions, scores across 35 dimensions, and the three highest-priority recommended actions with their research citations. Pro adds every recommended action, findings for each dimension, six deep-dive modules, and group diagnostics.
Can other stakeholders in my region run the diagnostic too?▾
Yes, and they should. Group diagnostics let your university VP Research, local government, investors, and nonprofit partners answer the same questions from their own point of view. You get one analysis of the same ecosystem: where people agree, where they differ, and which gaps matter most for strategy.
Run the free diagnostic for your region
Ten questions about your region. A report on where its innovation ecosystem is working and where it is not.
Get your region's free report
10 questions · About 5 minutes · No account required