While there are days of the entrepreneur, various government backed incubators initiatives and some absurdly difficult to find money from the EU, the one thing – and possibly the most important thing that is missing Europe-side, are readily accessible mentors. Those seasoned entrepreneurs who are willing to donate their free time to help the future generations of younger ones who lack that experience which sometimes means the difference between success and failure. Well and to keep them away from the failure.
In the U.S., that is SCORE or known by its longer name the Senior Corps of Retied Executives who typically council America’s small businesses, and set them on the road to success and profitability. On average retired individuals who have a passion for entrepreneurship and years upon years of experience in setting up companies. More so, this is probably the most prevalent of all U.S. entrepreneurship initiatives – and is non-for-profit.
On the other hand, Europe has what sometimes seems like countless initiatives dedicated to helping the entrepreneur. Information sessions, workshops conducted in conference halls, packets, subsidized space, financial assistance, etc… etc… etc… and best of all they are all typically backed by taxpayer money.
But the rub is that there is no necessity to subsidize businesses, in fact subsidized companies will be more likely to fail due to the preconceived conception that access to capital is easier to acquire, or simply that to gain that capital one needs to adhere to a set of absurd government guidelines.
What the business needs is contacts, clients and a strategy on how to acquire them – this capital does not provide, nor do information sessions on why it’s great to be an entrepreneur or institutions whose “vision” is to help the entrepreneur focusing more on their own prevalence in any geographic area.
There’s just too much mess out there, too many signals, not enough simple guidance and “proper & effective” entrepreneurial education. Academia is great and teaching people how to be entrepreneurs is fantastic, but there are no better ways to learn that to just do it.
For all the people in the EU, SCORE is accessible form outside the U.S. and the information in there, i.e. business toolbox can be helpful to non business oriented entrepreneurs, and even some business oriented ones.
