Do you have a Linkedin profile? What about facebook?
Now think... Linkedin and Facebook would not be possible without one thing...
Can you image what it is?
Reid Hoffman, the founder of Linkedin says an entrepreneur is someone that jumps of a plane and builds the parachute on the way down.
The Wikipedia has a somewhat more formal definition “An entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture or idea and is accountable for the inherent risks and the outcome.”
Putting it simply, and entrepreneur is someone that starts a new company and makes it work!
To me, personally, entrepreneurship is a voyage, full of discoveries, new paths, hardships, and happiness, my mission, as I work with entrepreneurs, is to help them in this voyage, to help them write their own map of the way!
Hummm…
So… Why is this important? Why should you care about entrepreneurship?
Well, 1st of all because according David Audretsch, who had been considered one of the 60 most influential economists of all time, entrepreneurship is a driver for economic growth.
If we measure economic growth as, for example, the capability of companies to generate profit and consequently to pay taxes, the picture in Portugal is very, very bleak…
37% of all the taxes collected in Portugal were collected from 90 companies, I’ll say that in a different way to make it clear – there are 90 companies that pay almost 40% of all the corporate taxes in Portugal (this is 2009 data).
Amazing isn’t it?
So does this mean small companies are irrelevant? No! On the contrary!
Everything starts small, the biggest pine tree starts with a single, tiny pine seed!
To have more BIG companies, countries need lots of small companies! In the USA 90% of all companies are small, 85% of new jobs are created by new, nascent companies. And that is why Prof Audrestch considers entrepreneurship to be the driver of growth.
In Portugal, only 4 in every 100 people are entrepreneurs. 4 in 100 is below the European average… and 3 times less than in the USA were the number is more then 12 in every 100 people.
Why is this? And what can we do about it?
There is a study, the Global Entrepreneuship Monitor that says Portuguese culture is not prone to entrepreneurship because
1. Entrepreneurship takes lots of responsibility, individual responsibility, it demands taking responsibility for our actions and results, being able to plan, to execute and to follow through with your commitments. And according to that study, we Portuguese are not individually responsible people.
1. Entrepreneurship takes lots of responsibility, individual responsibility, it demands taking responsibility for our actions and results, being able to plan, to execute and to follow through with your commitments. And according to that study, we Portuguese are not individually responsible people.
This means that to foster entrepreneurship we need to foster responsibility too.
So, from today, something you can do is – everytime something you don’t like happens – take the responsibility to change it! This can be small things like if you see something out of place, put it back, don’t use the traffic to excuse you for being late anymore, leave 10 minutes earlier! In the small things, and in the large things, take responsibility.
2. Entrepreneurs are risk takers – they jump of the plane! Statistics from the USA show that after 10 years, only 30% of companies are still in existence. That means 70% fail, are sold, stop existing somehow.
Have you considered lately what risk you could take in your life? Could it be asking for a raise? Telling someone you love him? Go back to school even though you’re not sure if you’ll success? Small and big risks are in our lives everyday! Take them! Try it! Test it!
Like this a new culture of entrepreneurship may be born in our country! And with it a new possibility for economic growth!
Movies like “The social network” have shown us the potential gains of taking responsibility, of taking the risk.
Facebook had 18.000 dollars to start with, it is now worth more then 30 billions dollars.
30 billion! 24% of this still belongs to Mark Zuckerberg the founder, and more or less 30% belongs to the staff – to the people that believed in it from the start!
30 billion! 24% of this still belongs to Mark Zuckerberg the founder, and more or less 30% belongs to the staff – to the people that believed in it from the start!
So it can be worth it!
And this takes me back to my initial question… What made Linkedin and Facebook possible?
My answer is: their founders, the entrepreneurs behind the idea that had the passion and the guts to follow their dreams! These websites or should I say services, networks, enablers... could not exist if their founders had decided it was too risky, too hard, it would take too long to build them! They would not exist if the founders had not committed themselves to building their dream! And I tell you more – Zuckerberg and Hoffman probably had no idea how big their companies would grow to be!
And this is a really important too – to create a company, does not mean it has to be Facebook – aim high! But do not let the big things that have already happened deter you!
Remember the seed – all the big trees start as tiny seeds and grow, step by step, inch by inch.
Remember the seed – all the big trees start as tiny seeds and grow, step by step, inch by inch.
