Ideabroker: Europe's Entrepreneurial Climate

Europe's Entrepreneurial Climate

Check BusinessWeek's excellent article on Europe's hot growth companies!
Some excerpts:
"Think Europe is inhospitable to small businesses? Think again. Thousands of entrepreneurs behind small, fast-growing companies are showing that good ideas, energy, and luck can overcome typically European burdens on entrepreneurship such as high taxation and heavy regulation" and " For the first time European governments -- from pro-business Netherlands (yeah right..!!) and Ireland to even the more state-heavy economies of France and Germany -- are starting to think seriously about how to unshackle the potential of these kinds of growth companies.

For example, Germany's Saarland, a region dotted with abandoned coal mines and foundries, is encouraging local university scientists to commercialize their discoveries by providing cheap office space, access to lab equipment, and crash courses in business fundamentals.
France has dramatically cut down the time and red tape it takes to start a business, and is giving tax breaks to jeunes entrepreneurs indépendents. It's the same story in Britain, where corporate taxes for small business where cut to 19% from 23%.

Even with all the changes, Europe has much catching up to do. For one, entrepreneurship is not a cultural norm: There are only half the number of companies in Europe as in the U.S. relative to the population, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, a research consortium. "Young people in Europe don't get encouragement from family and friends if they want to become entrepreneurs," says Paul Reynolds, an economist at Florida State University "And even if a family wants to help, they don't know anyone who has been an entrepreneur. There just aren't many examples."

So to help entrepreneurship along : Come on Mum and Dad , don't buy everything for the little rascals, but have'm sell lemonade, trade cartoonmagazine’s, anything to encourage them to make their own money!
And all you high and mighty governmental officials, cut the bullshit reports for a change, get away from behind those desks and start earning your money by helping your local entrepreneurs: ( swap places for a day with them for starters!! ), really stimulate innovation, and DO something!

NOW is the time!

Update: I just recieved this idea from idea-a-day.com: Introduce a 'Success Class' to high schools. The class would teach kids how to start a business and run one effectively, pointing out where regular school subjects such as math, languages and science can help. The class might also identify what each kid is truly good at and devise coursework to encourage these skills....These orgs are doing it already! Great!

2 Comments:

Thank you for this article, and yes we may also mention that US are more quickers to put money into start up company.

By Anonymous, at 6:48 am
For some time I had considered how the school system could develop a culture of entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurial High School diploma

A serious deficiency in the curriculum of the average high school has to do with the lack of economic/business studies.

Since every student in the education process will ultimately end up somewhere in the economy, they should be fully conversant with the demands of it.

How could this be done in the junior high and high school curriculum? Perhaps the easiest would be to overhaul the social studies program. The new focus would be the entrepreneur and how s/he functions.

I've chosen the entrepreneur because regardless of the specific direction an entrepreneur takes, they are forever considering the economic viability of that direction. They understand how governments and other social mechanisms work, they know that even the most peculiar interest can have an economic existence if approached correctly, and they will use as many skills as they can (including everything learned in school) to get them where they want to go. Furthermore, they will pursue more skills to help them in their quests.

Most importantly, there is an empowerment in this kind of focus: a young person can be made to feel that they are the masters of their own destinies, and not simply cogs begging for any work in order to fit into the economy, or they study trusting that there will be a well-paying place for them eventually.

Finally, all of those drudgerous subjects like the maths and sciences have considerably greater importance when viewed from an entrepreneurial perspective.

I'd like to propose this as a subject for consideration. Making the whole of the school curriculum tie together with an entrepreneurial focus allows even the most archane subject to have a viable place in the job market.

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I've since discovered that there already exists such a school in my community (Toronto, Canada)

Scarlett Heights Entrepreneurial Academy
Scarlett Heights Home page

I recall discussing this with a teacher from Tasmania who said they also try to include entrepreneurial skills in the curriculum.

By Joe Visionary, at 3:10 pm