Conecta Summit 2026: sharing across ecosystems
Conecta Summit 2026: a great space for sharing experiences across ecosystems
In march 2026 we were in Bogotá as panelists at the Conecta Summit Colombia, organized by Bridge for Billions. The panel was called "Entrepreneurial Colombia: what are we doing wrong and how can we do better?" and the question, far from being a formality, sparked one of the most honest conversations I've had at an ecosystem event in recent years.
I shared the stage with Isabela Echeverry from IDB Lab and Johana Urrutia from Fundación WWB Colombia, moderated by Maria Paula Godoy. Over 80 ecosystem actors were in the room: entrepreneur support organizations, foundations, impact investors, public sector representatives. The kind of audience that typically hears optimistic takes on the ecosystem. This time, the format invited something different.
What are we celebrating that isn't actually working that well?
That was the panel's opening question, and I think it captures the moment Colombia's entrepreneurial ecosystem is living. Colombia closed 2025 with over 1.8 million active businesses, a record figure. There are more incubators, more accelerators, more support programs than at any other point in our history. The Colombia Tech Report 2024-2025 showed a 24% growth in active startups, surpassing 2,100 mapped companies. From the outside, everything looks good.
But those of us working inside the ecosystem can see the cracks. The question I was asked during the panel was about why Colombia seems good at incubating but not at scaling companies, and my answer wasn't the conventional one.
We're missing the base of the funnel: real tech incubation
Traditional incubation might be in decent shape. There are enough programs to help an entrepreneur structure a business model, validate a value proposition, build a pitch. But when it comes to early-stage tech incubation, the gap is enormous. Very few programs exist that allow a tech entrepreneur to build real capabilities for creating digital products with the tools available today.
I'm talking about concrete things: understanding how to use Claude Code or Codex to develop an MVP without needing a full engineering team, how to leverage platforms like OpenClaw or whatever emerging technology happens to be available at the moment. The tech entrepreneur of 2026 has access to tools that didn't exist two years ago, but the support ecosystem hasn't updated itself to teach them how to use those tools.
That's the base of the funnel. If we don't have programs that train tech entrepreneurs with real building capabilities, we'll hardly have a good pipeline of technology companies ready to accelerate or strengthen in the future. The scaling problem doesn't start at acceleration; it starts much earlier.
Not every entrepreneur needs the same recipe
The other point I shared relates to the acceleration, growth, and strengthening programs that do exist. Many of them make a mistake that seems obvious but keeps repeating: they don't segment their beneficiaries well enough. We try to apply the same methodology to a three-employee services company and to a SaaS startup with international traction. Same number of hours, same workshops, same timeline.
More is not always better. A program offering 200 hours of advisory isn't necessarily more effective than one offering 40 hours focused on each business's real bottlenecks. The difference lies in treating what's different differently: segmenting by stage, by sector, by business model, by level of technological maturity. When we fail to do that, we end up optimizing for the average and moving the needle for nobody.
Most entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) in Latin America operate under that paradigm: we measure hours of advisory, number of workshops delivered, number of entrepreneurs served. We report activities, not transformations. Donors and funders often ask for exactly that, and ESOs, under pressure to justify budgets, optimize for those indicators instead of for real impact.
Pay-for-results as the model of the future
During the panel I raised something that generates discomfort but that I consider necessary: the future of ESOs runs through a pay-for-results model. If a support organization accompanies an entrepreneur and that entrepreneur grows in revenue, creates jobs, or reaches new markets, that should be both the success indicator and the basis for compensation.
This model already exists in other sectors. Energy service companies (ESCOs) have operated this way for decades: they implement efficiency improvements and charge based on the savings generated. In the world of business development support, the conversation is just beginning. But it's an urgent one, because the current funding model based on grants and activity execution has a clear impact ceiling.
I'm not saying it's easy or that it can be implemented overnight. Measuring results in entrepreneurship is more complex than measuring energy savings. But the direction is clear: we need to align ESO incentives with the outcomes of the entrepreneurs they support.
Artificial intelligence as an impact multiplier
The other point I shared during the panel relates to technology. Today, an entrepreneur support organization with five consultants can meaningfully accompany, at best, 50 or 60 entrepreneurs per year. The question we should be asking ourselves is how those same five consultants can accompany 500 entrepreneurs without sacrificing quality.
The answer, for us at Suricata Labs, runs through artificial intelligence. Not as a replacement for human advisory, but as a layer that enables faster diagnostics, personalized recommendations, continuous follow-up, and the ability to scale what was previously only possible in a one-on-one format. We're developing diagnostic and advisory tools powered by agentic AI precisely for this purpose: multiplying each consultant's impact without multiplying the cost.
In an ecosystem where micro and small businesses represent over 99% of Colombia's business fabric, scale isn't a luxury. It's an obligation.
What the Conecta Summit left me with
Bridge for Billions achieved something that isn't easy: bringing together actors from different levels of the ecosystem and generating a conversation that didn't stay on the surface. In partnership with ANDE, they shared findings on the state of the entrepreneurial ecosystem that provided real context for the discussions. And the working sessions after the panel opened space for organizations that don't normally cross paths to start exploring collaboration.
If I had to summarize what I took away from the event in a single idea, it would be this: Colombia's entrepreneurial ecosystem doesn't need more programs. It needs better programs, measured by what actually matters, powered by technology, and designed so the entrepreneur grows, not so the support organization can report attractive indicators. It's the same conclusion I reached after visiting South Korea with the ITC: innovation isn't something you wait for, it's something you design.
For that to happen, we need to stop measuring hours and start measuring transformations.
If your organization works in entrepreneurship support and you want to explore how to integrate artificial intelligence to multiply your impact, let's talk.
