Ecosystem Mapping

Ecosystem Mapping — Making the Target Landscape Legible

Random networking is inefficient at best and counterproductive at worst — it produces conversations with people who can't help and absorbs the time you should be spending with people who can. The map flips the math: you know who the players are, you know how they relate to each other, you know which conversations move the trajectory. The map takes a weekend to build and pays back for years.

Key Concepts

What Goes in the Map

For a target ecosystem (e.g., biotech VC), the map includes:

The Two-Axis Map

The strongest map is two-dimensional. For biotech VC:

• X-axis: Sector/thesis (oncology, neuroscience, immunology, platform/AI, etc.)
• Y-axis: Stage/check-size (seed, A, B, C, late-stage, crossover)

Each firm or partner occupies a position. This lets you see clusters — "here are the 6 firms that lead Series A oncology" — and gaps — "no one in my sector at this stage."

Sources for Building the Map

The Relationship Layer

The map is more than entities — it's relationships:

• Which firms have co-invested (suggests aligned thesis and shared partner relationships)
• Which partners have moved between firms (their network spans the firms)
• Which founders have built multiple companies (they're hubs of intro paths)
• Which advisors sit on multiple boards (they're cross-pollinators)

Capturing relationships matters because warm intros flow along these edges.

The Activity Layer

Beyond entities and relationships, capture activity:

• Recent deals (last 12 months) — who's leading, who's following
• Recent partner moves — additions, departures, promotions
• Recent fund raises — who has fresh capital
• Recent essays / podcasts — what people are publicly thinking about
• Conference talks — who's saying what publicly

Activity tells you where the ecosystem is now, not where it was when you last looked.

Tooling

The map doesn't need to be sophisticated:

• Spreadsheet — Lowest friction, fine for most maps
• Notion / Airtable — Better for relationship and activity columns
• Graph visualization — Overkill for most users, useful for very large maps
• Personal CRM tools (Clay, Folk, Dex) — Combine map + stewardship in one tool

The choice doesn't matter much. The discipline of populating and maintaining matters a lot.

Common Failure Modes

Self-Coaching Track

For your situation (MD → biotech VC/operator):

1. Define the target cell precisely. Not "biotech VC" but "early-stage biotech VC investing in clinical-stage assets, ideally with a clinical-development thesis." The narrower the target, the more useful the map.

2. Build the firm map first. Identify 30–50 firms in your target cell. For each: name, fund size, vintage, recent 3 deals, the partner most likely to lead in your area. A weekend of work.

3. Layer in partners. For the 30–50 firms, identify 1–3 partners each who lead in your area. For each: LinkedIn, public writing, prior career, recent deals.

4. Layer in operators / founders / advisors. People who are part of the ecosystem but not at a VC firm. Your peer cohort and one-up. These are often the warm-intro paths to the firms.

5. Layer in activity. For each firm and each partner, capture last 12 months of deals, moves, and public writing. This is where the map starts paying back.

6. Capture relationships. Note co-investment patterns, partner-moves, multi-board advisors. Build the edges.

7. Set monthly maintenance. Block 1 hour per month to refresh recent activity. Without maintenance, the map decays in 3–6 months.

8. Drive outreach from the map. Every cold outreach, every warm-intro request, every research session for an interview — sourced from the map. The map is the substrate.

Teach / Mentor-Others Track

When coaching a junior or peer through ecosystem mapping:

1. Force the narrow target cell. Mentees default to mapping too broadly. Coach: a narrow cell is a usable map; a broad one is a research project.

2. The activity layer is what makes the map alive. Many mentees build static maps (entities + maybe relationships) and stop. Coach the addition of activity — it transforms the map from reference to working tool.

3. Maintenance discipline is half the value. Mentees often skip maintenance. Walk them through scheduling a monthly maintenance window from week 1.

4. Tool choice doesn't matter; the practice does. Mentees often agonize over tooling. Coach: lowest-friction tool, start populating today.

5. Mapping is not a substitute for outreach. Some mentees use the map as procrastination from outreach. Coach: 80% of value comes from outreach driven by the map; build a map sufficient for outreach, then start outreach.

6. The relationship and activity layers are where the map outperforms. Without these, a map is no better than a list. The layered map is what makes warm-intro paths visible and outreach timing right.

When This Applies

• Starting a search in a new ecosystem
• Preparing for firm-specific interviews
• Building a relationship plan ahead of a transition
• Auditing why current outreach is converting poorly
• Quarterly map refresh

Cross-Domain Connections

• research/spelunker, source-triangulator — Map building is a research task; spelunker is the natural research substrate
• network-cultivation/cold-outreach, relationship-stewardship, introductions-and-referrals — Map drives all of these
• personal-positioning/cover-letter-craft — Firm-specific cover letters draw from the map's firm layer
• interview-mastery/vc-interview-prep — Pre-interview firm research is the map's most-leveraged use
• biotech-venture/asclepius — Sector-thesis content for the ecosystem axis
• product/the-loom — Map maintenance overlaps with decision journaling