Stanford Entrepeurnship Center
- Published July 5th, 2007 in /dev/random
It’s kind of deceiving the lack of entrepreneurship you see across Europe. Portugal probably tops at one of the less entrepreneur countries. Is it a cultural thing? If so, why were we, the Portuguese, huge explorers in the past? That was the ancient kind of entrepreneurship since companies didn’t exist by then. Being a entrepreneur meant getting inside a boat (the startup) and see what would happen. Run the risk of being captured by pirates or simply drop the ship (bankruptcy). That never stopped us from doing anything. So what’s happening now?
I prefer to see it as a status of mind that can be reverted. Perhaps because we’ve been through an economical crisis people are too afraid of taking risks and so they prefer having a stable job. Taking a look at my University colleagues it would be really hard to count more than 2 or 3 wanting to have a company. And this is CS which is still growing a lot! Now imagine the other fields…
For those who know me for a long time it must be dully boring hearing me again with this. But I won’t get tired of this until I see at least 10% of University students in Europe starting their own company. On a recent survey on the USA, 50% of the students claimed that they wanted to open a company in the next 5 years! We’re already lagging behind and the entrepreneurship growth in the USA does not seem to be stopping any time soon. Actually, since I arrived here everyday I hear someone talking about their idea for a company! It’s staggering compared to Europe. It makes you want to pick all these people and give a brainwashing session to the Europeans!
Anyway, believing this is simply a state of mind I urge you to visit a very cool website from Stanford presenting a lot of entrepreneurs talking about the wonderful experience of running a startup. And I’d like to take the opportunity to vanish the myth about VC. In 99% of the cases the VC only comes when you have a company and a product already, not an idea. So if you’re holding yourself because there are no VCs willing to support you, you should do the work first. Money does not come out of ideas but rather inventions. Make it work and the money will come…
I do hope the videos featured on the website will be awe-inspiring to you and provide you the moral strength and inspiration you need to run the risks and ride the freakin’ boat!
Leitura obrigatória:
http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html
Contra Portugal, escolho os pontos 5, 6, 7, 8 e 10 do texto. Nomeadamente, a burocracia associada a ter uma empresa em Portugal é esmagadora. Na ptmail, estimo que perdemos duas pessoas em burocracia. Duas pessoas a menos numa empresa que está a arrancar é matar a empresa. Nomeadamente, irrita-me a necessidade de ocupar praí meia pessoa/mês a fazer cobranças. É cultural, mas em pt, se não chateares para que te paguem as facturas, perdes 50% da facturação.
Well, over here in Germany to me it looks like some kind of people’s that there is no other way of living but as an employee.
It is extremely effortful to move oneself away from the employee kind of life towards the entrepreneural one: Over and over all the people one knows, friends, relatives, strangers just met nag you why you take the risk to live as an entrepreneur. Living that way is completely out of sight of most of the people — even so far they anticipate it like going to the dogs.
In school, pupils get educated to live that way; no alternative thinking anywhere. At least for the schools I attended, it was that way.
That time I split from that common life draft, and I got barely no support from anyone. — If you imagine that might be the way for many, many others too, there’s no need to wonder why there are so few entrepreneurs over here.
(Still, I don’t have no idea what the English speaking people call the “German Angst”, but after having described the way of German thinking/living, I think that might equal the German angst — or at least be one (major) causes for it.)
Then, in Germany there is a high risk for getting sued over trademark violations. Simple to avoid, but these trademark lawsuits happen even when no trademark is involved but only something that looks similar to a trademark.
And war on terror kills off web anonymity, thus opening the door for getting sued. Currently, only when you have ads on your site, you have to add an impress. In near future that might change — effectively keeping many people from exploring the web. And achieving the skills.