The paper aims to understand the impact of the entrepreneurial ecosystem on entrepreneurial motivation. While it is well documented that the entrepreneurial ecosystem is crucial for startup success, there is a great deal of ambiguity on the exact way in which the ecosystem is perceived by the entrepreneur. The paper considers incubators as ‘an ecosystem within an ecosystem’ and presents the entrepreneur’s perspective of the ecosystem. The study has adopted the semi-structured interview method with both incubator leadership and incubatees to obtain insights into their experiences. The findings of the study indicated that incubators have been successful in motivating and nurturing entrepreneurs by adopting the latest trends and technologies and promoting innovation through collaborations and support. The study also revealed that the entrepreneurs depend on incubators for funding, mentoring, and risk mitigation. The study offers practical suggestions on how incubators can act as bridges between the entrepreneurial ecosystem and entrepreneurs, thus helping startups make better use of available resources.
Kompella et al. (2025) studied this question.