Place-Based Venture — Reef Coast Futures' 12-Month Mandate

A four-round, intermediate simulation in regional economic development and entrepreneurship ecosystems, set inside Reef Coast Futures (RCF), a not-for-profit regional development agency in Townsville, North Queensland, running on an A$8M annual program budget for a region of 230,000 people.

The region has the highest small-business formation rate in regional Queensland but one of the lowest survival rates (42% at three years versus a 55% national benchmark), and a prior A$1.5M generic 'accelerator' produced just 3 survivors in two years because it imported a capital-city playbook into a place it did not fit.

On 21 January 2026 the region's largest employer announces a 600-job wind-down (~900 indirect), and the state makes A$3.2M (40%) of next year's grant contingent on demonstrated 12-month outcomes — ventures activated, jobs created, and funding leverage (currently 0.4x against a 1.5x target) — while comparing RCF to a rival region for a larger future allocation.

Playing the new CEO with a place-based mandate, you apply Barrett's context-dependent view of entrepreneurship.

Round 1: read the place — diagnose its distinctive assets (marine science, renewables, agtech adjacent to sugar), its constraints (thin capital, distance to markets, narrow talent), why the imported model failed, and whose talent (Indigenous enterprise, an under-utilised young workforce) a place-based read must include.

Round 2: allocate the A$4.8M discretionary budget across a 10-venture pipeline, confronting the concentration-vs-spread tension (the thin-spread trap repeats the accelerator failure) and whether to prop up the dying anchor employer or fund transition into new place-fit enterprise.

Round 3: choose a development-program model fitted to place versus re-running a generic accelerator, prioritise the two or three ecosystem partners that actually bring co-investment (the primary lever to move leverage toward 1.5x), and fund a genuine community-enterprise and Indigenous-business stream.

Round 4: deliver 12-month outcomes, decide what to double down on and cut, and make the case to the state funder with outcomes and additionality.

The math wires the concept's numbers and five common errors into sticky run-defining penalties: imported playbook, thin spread, funding the decline, trophy partners, and ignoring inclusion each measurably underperform and gate the top verdict, so a blind click-through of error-leaning defaults cannot win.

Final KPIs track ventures activated, jobs created, funding leverage (toward 1.5x) and an ecosystem-engagement score against the state's targets. Currency throughout is the Australian Dollar (A$).

An intermediate simulation for participants who already know the core concepts of the subject, designed for master's and MBA programmes.