A B+/C- Fund

Here is a podcast by Tom Mulready from CoolCleveland interviewing Guy Kawasaki about The Art of the Start”. There are many points I love about it. In particular, Guy suggests that regions should focus less on creating a $100 million venture fund and more on the basics – starting world class engineering schools. While I agree that engineering schools are vital for spawning disruptive technological business models (e.g. Google), there are several other Blue Ocean opportunities out there for would be entrepreneurs to get going on.

One example are laundromats in Italy. They are not conveniently available to the masses and people don’t start businesses (take risk) there like in America because failure is a life long social “black mark.” Can an entrepreneur be born or made; I don’t really know? Certainly, you have to have more than engineering skills to want to take risk in the face of being a social outcast. To this point, a good friend’s friend (bored American who wanted to live in in Europe) set up 10 laundromats in Italy and is now a millionaire (no engineering degree required)! An “A” grade does not require chutzpah and (stubborn) persistence to turn a vision into reality, as evidenced in the real world of business.

In addition to engineering schools, I have been tinkering with the idea of putting more emphasis on sending B-/C+ college students around the world to “make the grade” in a more non-traditional sense. The main point being that, since these types have a tendency to become entrepreneurs anyway, it might be a good idea to get them out of a rigid curriculum centered environment and challenged in different ways (i.e. surviving in a non-english speaking world). Just give them an automatic “C” and immerse them in something completely foreign. Make sure they obey the law, blog everyday (observe), and write a simple five page business plan to get going on. When they complete the program, give a few that are unproven, curious, and passionate their full tuition back to see if they can start a business! College students can beg, borrow and deal on practically nothing and are not prone to common sense around which corporate america tends to force people to conform (stifling creativity and innovation). Why not start with a group of 20, and see what happens…

“Yeah, but they might start an enterprise in another country that does not directly benefit the region?”

True in the short term. On the other hand, it’s about doing something reasonably different (and relatively low risk and low cost) to possibly produce a radically different result. If such a program does succeed, there can be many ways to localize it.