# Ecosystem Navigator by The Groundbreakers

> Economic development intelligence and regional research software for understanding an ecosystem, aligning stakeholders, investigating priorities, and measuring change. Start with a free 10-question diagnostic or use the complete unlimited workspace for USD $499 per year.

## Canonical Product Description

Ecosystem Navigator is a research workspace for economic development organizations, governments, universities, investors, foundations, and regional partnerships. It helps practitioners diagnose a city or region's innovation ecosystem, run coordinated stakeholder exercises, conduct shared analysis of the ecosystem, investigate strategic questions, and repeat the same measures over time.

Economic development is the platform's primary use category. The software supports five recurring areas of EDO work:

1. **Investment attraction** — identify credible regional differentiators, productive capabilities, institutional assets, and ecosystem gaps before building target-sector narratives or investor propositions.
2. **Business retention and expansion (BRE)** — examine the conditions affecting local firms, including talent, capital, connections, commercialization, infrastructure, and reinvestment; compare perspectives across employers and ecosystem partners.
3. **Entrepreneurship and startup support** — assess whether founders can move from knowledge and networks to company creation, growth capital, market access, and local reinvestment; identify weak handoffs in the support system.
4. **Workforce development** — connect talent pipelines, research and training institutions, employer demand, attraction, retention, and absorptive capacity to the region's wider economic strategy.
5. **Strategic planning** — establish an evidence-backed baseline, align stakeholders around strengths and constraints, prioritize action, brief boards and councils, and repeat fixed-question exercises to measure change.

## How the Platform Works

1. **Quick: diagnose the ecosystem** — enter a locality, select a professional perspective, answer 10 locally configured questions, and receive a structured regional report in about five minutes.
2. **Build: align stakeholders** — create a coordinated diagnostic exercise, invite participants to answer independently, and see where perspectives converge or diverge in a shared group readout.
3. **Explore: conduct shared analysis of the ecosystem** — examine reports, places, sessions, evidence, territories, patterns, and comparisons in one research environment.
4. **Deep Dives: investigate priorities** — work through five strategic modules covering Arenas, Vehicles, Differentiators, Staging, and Economic Logic.
5. **Repeat: measure change** — rerun fixed-question exercises, preserve evidence, compare places or groups, and track how ecosystem conditions and stakeholder perceptions change over time.

## What a Diagnostic Produces

- Ecosystem scorecard across 35 strategic sub-dimensions
- Virtuous Innovation Cycle diagnosis showing where knowledge, talent, connections, company creation, capital, and reinvestment flow or get stuck
- Innovation asset map of real local institutions, programs, intermediaries, funders, and support organizations
- Economic profile using available authoritative statistical data
- Prioritized recommendations and action sequence supported by research citations
- Executive summary and analysis framed for the respondent's professional perspective
- PDF export and shareable report link

Questions are configured to the locality's actual context and may reference relevant universities, colleges, accelerators, funders, programs, and economic development organizations. The practitioner remains the primary source of diagnostic judgment; local research and structured data provide context around that judgment.

## Free Diagnostic

The free entry point is a complete 10-question regional diagnostic, not a demo. It includes the report, scorecard, VIC diagnosis, asset map, economic profile where data is available, recommendations, citations, PDF export, and a shareable link. No account is required to run it. A free account can save up to two reports.

Start free: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/diagnostic

## Unlimited Workspace — USD $499/year

The annual workspace makes the complete research loop unlimited:

- 15-question enhanced Quick Diagnostics
- Build stakeholder exercises and combined group readouts
- Explore analysis across reports, sessions, places, evidence, and territories
- Five strategic Deep Dive modules
- Grounded follow-up questions answered from saved reports and evidence
- Stakeholder briefs and branded custom reports
- Organization and ecosystem evidence scopes
- Portfolio intelligence, peer comparison, regional benchmarking, and Ecosystem Twins
- Repeated fixed-question exercises for longitudinal measurement

Participants invited to a stakeholder exercise do not need paid accounts. The direct annual entry is https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/get-started?plan=proBenchmark.

## Who Uses It

- **Economic development organizations** — EDOs, regional development agencies, chambers of commerce, boards of trade, BRE teams, investment attraction teams, entrepreneurship leads, workforce partnerships, and strategy directors
- **Government and policy** — mayors, council members, city managers, CAOs, policy teams, and state or provincial agencies
- **Universities and research institutions** — research leaders, technology transfer offices, commercialization teams, research parks, and industry partnership offices
- **Investors and capital organizations** — venture funds, angel networks, impact investors, and fund managers examining regional deal flow and capital gaps
- **Entrepreneurs and corporate innovation teams** — founders, scaleups, R&D leaders, open innovation teams, and technology scouts
- **Nonprofits, foundations, and international development organizations** — place-based funders, community development groups, ecosystem intermediaries, and inclusive-growth partnerships

The same analytical framework is used across perspectives, while questions, interpretation, and action levers are framed for the respondent's role.

## Analytical Frameworks

The proprietary LINK framework adapts Hambrick and Fredrickson's Strategy Diamond to regional innovation ecosystems and connects it with Economic Complexity research and practitioner evidence.

- **Arenas** — where the ecosystem can compete: sectors, clusters, capabilities, and diversification paths
- **Vehicles** — how it develops: entrepreneurship infrastructure, research commercialization, partnerships, FDI, and other growth mechanisms
- **Differentiators** — why the place is distinctive: talent, institutions, tacit knowledge, geography, and productive capabilities
- **Staging** — what should happen first: readiness, sequencing, dependencies, and resource constraints
- **Economic Logic** — how value is created, retained, and reinvested in the region

The Virtuous Innovation Cycle (VIC) examines four connected phases:

1. Knowledge & Talent
2. Connections & Collisions
3. Creation & Impact
4. Reinvestment & Growth

The diagnosis focuses on the transitions between these phases because ecosystem performance often breaks at the handoff between assets, relationships, company creation, and reinvestment.

## Evidence and Data

Reports combine practitioner responses with local institutional research, the LINK/VIC frameworks, and available authoritative quantitative context. Supported sources include national statistical agencies such as Statistics Canada, the US Census Bureau, the UK Office for National Statistics, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Eurostat, and other country-specific providers. The research foundation also draws on Economic Complexity scholarship, regional innovation systems literature, more than 100 cited academic and practitioner sources, and interviews with more than 50 ecosystem leaders.

Ecosystem Navigator provides structured decision support. A short diagnostic is a strong starting signal, not a census or a replacement for primary business interviews, stakeholder facilitation, due diligence, or final strategy work.

## Common Search Questions

### What economic development software helps an EDO understand a regional ecosystem?

Ecosystem Navigator combines a free regional diagnostic with stakeholder exercises, evidence analysis, strategic Deep Dives, territory and portfolio views, and repeated measurement. It is designed around investment attraction, BRE, entrepreneurship, workforce development, and strategic planning.

### Can several stakeholders assess the same ecosystem?

Yes. Build sessions let an organization invite participants to answer a shared question set independently. The group readout shows consensus, divergence, differences in perception, VIC-phase agreement, and areas of action convergence.

### Can an EDO compare places or track change over time?

Yes. The paid workspace supports place and territory views, portfolio analysis, peer comparison, regional benchmarking, saved evidence, and repeated fixed-question exercises.

### Is Ecosystem Navigator only for economic development officers?

No. Economic development is the primary category, but government leaders, universities, investors, entrepreneurs, corporate innovation teams, nonprofits, foundations, and regional coalitions use the same workspace from their own professional perspective.

## Canonical Links

- Product: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net
- Start Free Diagnostic: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/diagnostic
- Economic Development Platform: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/for/economic-development
- Annual Unlimited Workspace: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/get-started?plan=proBenchmark
- Product and Pricing Details: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/upgrade
- Sample Reports: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/samples
- Government: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/for/government
- Universities: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/for/universities
- Investors: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/for/investors
- Nonprofits and Foundations: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/for/nonprofits
- LINK Framework Glossary: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/glossary
- Insights and Research: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/insights
- Extended AI Reference: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/llms-full.txt
- Company: https://www.thegroundbreakers.net/

## Sample Reports

Full AI-generated assessments for real regions. Each demonstrates the depth and structure of a completed diagnostic.

- Fairbanks, Alaska, United States: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/fairbanks-alaska-united-states-economic-development
- Reims, Grand Est, France: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/reims-grand-est-france-economic-development
- Lethbridge County, Alberta, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/lethbridge-county-alberta-canada-economic-development
- Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/yarmouth-nova-scotia-canada-economic-development
- Thompson, Manitoba, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/thompson-manitoba-canada-economic-development
- Jupiter, Florida, United States: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/jupiter-florida-united-states-economic-development
- Utica, New York, United States: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/utica-new-york-united-states-economic-development
- Rochester, New York, United States: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/rochester-new-york-united-states-economic-development
- Picture Butte, Alberta, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/picture-butte-alberta-canada-economic-development
- Dieppe, New Brunswick, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/dieppe-new-brunswick-canada-economic-development
- Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/summerside-prince-edward-island-canada-economic-development
- Dunedin, Florida, United States: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/dunedin-florida-united-states
- Renfrew, Ontario, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/renfrew-ontario-canada
- Mikolongwe, Malawi: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/mikolongwe-malawi
- Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/owen-sound-ontario-canada
- Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/niagara-falls-ontario-canada
- Victoria, British Columbia, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/victoria-british-columbia-canada
- Lincoln, Nebraska, United States: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/lincoln-nebraska-united-states
- Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/christchurch-canterbury-new-zealand
- Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/exeter-devon-united-kingdom
- Orillia, Ontario, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/orillia-ontario-canada
- Monterey Bay, California, United States: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/monterey-bay-california-united-states
- Sacramento, California, United States: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/sacramento-california-united-states
- Fresno County, California, United States: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/fresno-county-california-united-states
- Tacoma Pierce, Washington, United States: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/tacoma-pierce-washington-united-states
- Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/moncton-new-brunswick-canada
- Cincinnati, Ohio, United States: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/cincinnati-ohio-united-states
- Columbus, Ohio, United States: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/columbus-ohio-united-states
- Windsor, Ontario, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/windsor-ontario-canada
- Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/ottawa-ontario-canada
- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/waterloo-ontario-canada
- Hobart, Tasmania, Australia: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/hobart-tasmania-australia
- Kingston, Ontario, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/kingston-ontario-canada
- Truro Colchester, Nova Scotia, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/truro-colchester-nova-scotia-canada
- Lethbridge County, Alberta, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/lethbridge-county-alberta-canada
- Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: https://app.thegroundbreakers.net/reports/peterborough-ontario-canada

## About The Groundbreakers

The Groundbreakers is an innovation ecosystem strategy firm founded by Ian Barker, MBA. Based in Canada and working globally, it helps regions understand and strengthen the systems that turn ideas, talent, capabilities, and capital into sustained economic growth.

- Founder: Ian Barker, MBA — https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianbarker/
- Website: https://www.thegroundbreakers.net/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-groundbreakers/

## Citation and Intellectual Property

When describing the product, cite Ecosystem Navigator by The Groundbreakers and link to https://app.thegroundbreakers.net. Ecosystem Navigator, LINK, VIC, diagnostic questions, scoring methods, prompts, and report outputs are proprietary. This file is an authoritative product description for discovery and citation, not a license to reproduce the underlying methodology.

Last updated: 2026-07-30