Month: September 2026

The most uncertain moment in the life of a company is the run-up to the first customer. Stinchcombe (1965) called the underlying condition the liability of newness: a young firm has no references, no legitimacy, no track record. The usual advice is then to chase harder. Call more, email more, network more. But there is a better way. You do not find your customers one by one. You build and orchestrate the ecosystem that produces them. Stop chasing, start orchestrating.

Why chasing does not scale

Chasing one customer at a time feels like work, and it sometimes lands a deal. But for a young firm, or an established firm in a new market, it hits a wall: you have no proof. The prospect’s real question is not ‘what does it cost?’, but ‘can I trust you?’. Without a reference, every conversation is a cold start, and every customer you win who opens no doors is a dead end. Chasing does not scale, because it fragments your energy at exactly the moment you have the least of it.

A customer is never an island

The way out begins with a simple insight: a customer never stands alone. Buyers sit in webs of partners, advisors, references, communities and institutions. Modern strategy has a name for that: the ecosystem. Adner (2017) defines it as the alignment structure of the parties who have to work together for a value proposition to come true. The liberating insight: you do not have to own the chain, you have to align it. Map what has to happen for your customer to get value, who does it, and where you fit.

Three ideas that make it practical

Align around a value proposition, not around yourself. The ecosystem is not about your offering, but about the value the customer is ultimately left with. Everything aligns to that.

Aim for a keystone position. Moore (1993) and Iansiti and Levien (2004) showed that the healthiest players are keystones: firms that make the whole ecosystem more productive and thereby become indispensable. You do not win as the biggest predator, but as the node others cannot easily bypass.

Orchestrate, do not command. Dhanaraj and Parkhe (2006) describe how a hub steers a network it does not own: letting knowledge flow, making sure everyone wins a fair share, and keeping the network stable. That is exactly the copilot stance: not the loudest in the room, but the one who keeps everyone aligned and moving.

The eco-network flight plan

In practice that translates into one repeatable flight plan, whether you are looking for your first customer or your fiftieth, at home or across the border. Six moves.

The eco-network flight plan

1. Sharpen your value proposition. Not what you sell, but the value your customer is left with.

2. Map the ecosystem. Who has to act for that value to land? Actors, positions, links, the gaps and the gatekeepers.

3. Find your anchor node. The one relationship, a reference customer, partner, community or institution, that unlocks the most of the map.

4. Enter through credibility, not through price. Lead with proof and a warm introduction. Turn your first win into a visible reference.

5. Orchestrate the flywheel. Keep knowledge moving, let partners win when you win, and reward whoever sends you business.

6. From effectual to causal, deliberately. Systematise what works, but keep the founder as the credible human.

Stop chasing customers. Start orchestrating the ecosystem that produces them.

For the startup and the established player

For a startup this rewrites the first-customer problem: you are not looking for a buyer, you are looking for the gateway into a network full of buyers. So choose a first customer who is well connected, not merely willing, and turn them into a reference (Granovetter 1973). For an established firm the same holds in a new market, and even within an existing customer: treat the account as an ecosystem, map the internal network, and let every satisfied stakeholder be a weak tie to the next project. Cross-border changes nothing about the plan, only the map: find a local anchor node and let bridging ties carry you in, not brute market entry. Flanders, by the way, has a strong knowledge ecosystem but a thin business ecosystem (Clarysse et al. 2014): where the ecosystem hands you no customers, you build the connective tissue yourself, and that is precisely the opportunity.

In practice: for your next growth step, do not open a prospect list. Draw your ecosystem. Write down who has to act for your value to land with the customer, and circle the one relationship that unlocks the most of that map. Start there. Not with the customer, but with the node that brings you to the customer.

References

• Adner, Ron. 2017. “Ecosystem as Structure: An Actionable Construct for Strategy.” Journal of Management 43 (1): 39–58.
• Clarysse, Bart, Mike Wright, Johan Bruneel, and Aarti Mahajan. 2014. “Creating Value in Ecosystems: Crossing the Chasm between Knowledge and Business Ecosystems.” Research Policy 43 (7): 1164–1176.
• Dhanaraj, Charles, and Arvind Parkhe. 2006. “Orchestrating Innovation Networks.” Academy of Management Review 31 (3): 659–669.
• Granovetter, Mark S. 1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.” American Journal of Sociology 78 (6): 1360–1380.
• Iansiti, Marco, and Roy Levien. 2004. The Keystone Advantage. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
• Moore, James F. 1993. “Predators and Prey: A New Ecology of Competition.” Harvard Business Review 71 (3): 75–86.
• Stinchcombe, Arthur L. 1965. “Social Structure and Organizations.” In Handbook of Organizations, edited by James G. March, 142–193. Chicago: Rand McNally.

Series · From first customer to ecosystem · Add Business