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February 06, 2007
Where are the lemonade stands?
Jan Blanchard believes there are three main factors that explain the differences between Europe/Ireland and the US in terms of entrepreneurship - ease of doing business, social systems and culture. I'm not sure though that I agree entirely with the conclusion -
"The US built their success on a philosophy that came from Europe. We have a fantastic heritage to build on. Europe is made of 27 countries with different languages, tax and social systems, and different attitude to Entrepreneurship. If Europe applies simple standardized measures to make it easier to do business and create incentives to work and innovate then people will work and innovate."
Is it as straightforward as that? Going to geek dinners and Barcamps has been a breath of fresh air to me because I meet so few entrepreneurs in my daily life. Growing up I was aware of very few people who started their own business and those who did were usually seen as 'having notions'. In contrast it seems to me that everyone in the US grows up with entrepreneurs all around them as epitomized by the lemonade stand. I don't remember seeing any lemonade stands when I was growing up (not that we had the weather). Is this a simplistic and romantic view of entrepreneurship in the States?
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Comments
This is what we need: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/05/next-generation-entrepreneurs-compete-at-google-hq/
Posted by: Damien Mulley | Feb 6, 2007 4:25:47 PM
The AmE for it would be "lemonade stand," and yes, it seems like approximately every American child tries their hand at one at some point or another.
One of the more embarrassing childhood photos of me is of a pink-hat-wearing self running a lemonade stand at the beach.
Posted by: Edward O'Connor | Feb 6, 2007 6:06:12 PM
The "having notions" attitude was very prevalent in Ireland in the past and I think it is still here to some degree.
I'll always remember a man I knew back in the early 80's who had a business building wooden-framed houses. People used call him a chancer and a fool and in the end he went bust. A chorus of "told you so's" echoed around the town.
Here we are over twenty years later and of course we now realise the man was a visionary and was just way ahead of his time and the market.
His story is why I'll always take plenty of time listening to ideas that on the surface sound crazy/stupid/bluesky/impractical.
Posted by: Conor O'Neill | Feb 6, 2007 6:19:58 PM
"Having notions"? Is this an Irishism (I'd say Gallicism, but I'm guessing it's an Irish-English thing) that I'm missing or do non-entrepreneurs not "have notions". I guess that if one has no notions at all, performing any kind of role - entrepreneurial or not - in society has gotta be pretty tough. :)
It's simple. It's just about taking a risk. These days, with technology the way it is, the risks are dropping every day. I'd bet that when I retire, Google will still be around. My state pension is unlikely to be. That shows you how messed up our ideas of risk and reward are.
The point about technology and entrepreneurship is *what else would you do?* For certain people, it is the only option. I have a feeling that the people who end up going in to business for themselves or working for startups are crazy enough to think it might work but sane enough to see how bad all the other options in life are.
Posted by: Tom Morris | Feb 6, 2007 8:20:46 PM
Thanks Edward, corrected. Interesting to learn that it's no myth! So nearly every American kid has a go at entrepreneurship at some stage in life. Wonderful.
Tom, yes anyone can have general 'notions' of course but in this case I'm referring to 'notions' about being successful and wealthy. The Irish are better begrudgers than any other race I know of :(
And you're right, for me entrepreneurship is the *only* option.
Posted by: James Corbett | Feb 7, 2007 11:37:18 AM
