One of the Best Places on Earth to Be an Entrepreneur
Thursday June 14, 2007
What's so favorable about our small business climate? Like the other top business-friendly countries, it takes only days to start a business and five or fewer steps. We also have relatively low marginal tax rates.
And we have a goodly number of high-expectation entrepreneurs, people who "become entrepreneurs because they see a chance to build substantial companies". High-expectation entrepreneurs are responsible for 70% of the jobs produced by small business.
Lewis posits that the reason we have so many high-expectation entrepreneurs is that entrepreneurs are "culturally supported" here. Being an entrepreneur is a respected career choice, there are plenty of entrepreneurial role models and failure is not severely punished; a failed business is not considered a family disgrace or a 30 year struggle to pay off creditors here.
But still, we are number three, so obviously there's still room for improvement. What do you think is the best way to encourage entrepreneurship? Vote in the poll to the right. (And if you choose other, please add a comment that says what it is.)
More About What it Takes to Be an Entrepreneur
Comments
Fascinating! Wish I lived in Canada. I had to start a blog in an attempt to change (in my small way!) UK attitudes to business failure.
I did something counter-intuitive to someone from the UK when my business failed and I rasied a phoenix from its ashes - told everyone rather than hide away.
It seemed to bring out a latent “back the underdog” level of support lurking underneath the national psyche.
While my blog is still an unfolding story, I am hoping by talkingabout it, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And then, if I fail in my mission to at least change some attitudes, it’s a one-way ticket to Canada for me!
At my university, everytime someone mentions that he is thinking about starting a business, everyone stops what they are doing, gather around him and ask him question; where is he in the project, what he wants to do, how he plans to do it. Then everyone discuss their own business ideas - because everybody has one - , and where they are at. It’s really like a religion here.
The thing that made me laugh is the last paragraph, saying that we are 3 so there is obviously room for improvement… It seems every seminar given at my university is about emerging markets and how to improve our competitivity by encouraging people to start business (because obviously too few people wants to - sight). I wonder how many countries below the top 15 are having these discussions, if at all. My point was that top 5 countries are having these discussing while below than 10 may not even have them, which shows the difference in mentalities very clearly.