Do Entrepreneurs need support?

By Eline Poels
On Thursday, October 29th I took part in the Entrepreneurship Development Conference in Rotterdam. Presented by SPARK, Triodos Facet and INHolland Rotterdam. Central question: Do Entrepreneurs need support? An interesting day with many participants, including our partner BSC Armenian claims, including charming and inspiring leadership of Samvel Gevorgyan. Below some provocative statements that I've recorded during the day, as food for thought, and links to the presentations on the website for a more complete picture.

In brief: Business plans are not sacred, entrepreneurs do not need help, failure is an option (A lesson for donors?!)

Alan Gibb, Chairman of the Foundation for SME Development at Durham University (UK) Presentation
* Give meaning to experience: that is the challenge of working with entrepreneurs.
* China grew so quickly due to big number of entrepreneurs; without enabling environment.
* Business Plan: good to get money from banks, but it is NOT the heart of a business.

Mistakes in working with (foreign) entrepreneurs until now:
* We did not fully appreciate where and how entrepreneurs learn as learning organisation
* The neglect of know who
* Neglect of emotions in learning
* Lack of empathy with ways small enterprises do, feel, organise, communicate, think and learn.

Needed:
* Adapt language to entrepreneurs
* Managing interdependency amidst day to day uncertainty.
* Not market planning. Teach how to.
* Vocational colleges for small business design.

Nils de Witte, Director Business in Development Network. Presentation
* To breed entrepreneurs you need entrepreneurs (peer networking)
* Entrepreneurship is not a science. You can’t tell entrepreneurs what to do, need to make own choices.
* They only need some guidance. AID does not do the trick
* Most successful businesses start in times of crisis.
* Until now, business incubators have not shown any changes on macro level.

Danny Melic, 2009 Dutch best entrepreneur under 25 years. Presentation
* Meeting other entrepreneurs, instead of attending (another) Business Plan training.
* It is not about the Plan, it is about planning
* Entrepreneurship is a Way of Life
* Help is not appreciated by entrepreneurs. At maximum: facilitation.
* A Safety-net is important

Paul Iske, Institute of Brilliant Failures, Dialogues ABN AMRO. Presentation
* Remove barriers for enterprises. Biggest barrier: fear.
* Climate for innovation & entrepreneurship
* Keywords: Diversity; Selection; Perpetuation; Co-evaluation; Unlearning Disruption Simplicity; Spare capacity; Timing
* Pace of learning should exceed rate of change.

Some loose remarks made during workshops:
* 2nd loop learning: knowledge of experience not used when partners are afraid to share mistakes with donors.
* All entrepreneurs are incomplete, you can not do everything alone. Need support to do things they can not.
* An entrepreneur is selfless: not looking for financial rewards (that is the right motivation).
* Important in re-emerging countries: how to deal with the survived companies instead of starting new ones.