1. Introduction

To appreciate what this book tries to do, the reader must first appreciate the importance of entrepreneurship to the global economy. The dynamic processes that allow promising entrepreneurs to turn ideas into successful companies also ensure the stream of new products and services that address previously unmet demands. The reader must also know that while these processes work well for certain entrepreneurs doing certain things in certain places, there are too many entrepreneurial dead spaces where local ecosystems are not identifying and supporting their most promising entrepreneurs. In these spaces, waves of impact-oriented entrepreneurs are not allowed to fulfill their dreams of building new companies. These opportunity costs multiply as we think about the potential employees and customers who will not have the chance to engage with these unbuilt companies, and multiply again as we think about the social and environmental contributions that they will not be allowed to make. To release the latent benefits that are trapped in entrepreneurial dead spaces, impact-oriented accelerators are springing up around the world. The importance of their collective mission—to find and support otherwise-marginalized impact-oriented entrepreneurs—motivates the various observations in this book, which attempt to observe and analyze the effects that accelerators are having on the ventures that participate in their programs.