Independence is the Real Reason that Entrepreneurs Start Companies

by Nathaniel Whittemore

category: Trends

Published November 08, 2009 @ 11:23AM PT

An interesting piece in BusinessWeek suggests that of those characteristics we associate with entrepreneurs - job creation, disruptive innovation, community rejuvenation it is the independence and freedom to work for one's self that actually drives most people to start their own companies.

Using data from the U.S. Census, Tax returns, and a number of academic studies, Professor Scott Shane of Case Western Reserve University paints a slightly different picture of the average US entrepreneur than the Steve-Jobs-ian model we perhaps have in our heads. Some of his key findings:

• The primary reason people start businesses is to avoid having a boss.
• Only one quarter of all businesses in the U.S. actually have employees.
• Only 9.4% of U.S. businesses have more than four employees.
• Only 15% of the male entrepreneurs and only 7% of the female ones want to maximize their business' growth.
• Only half of nascent entrepreneurs expect to have sales of more than $100,000 in their fifth year of operation.

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Why Give? Because Your (College Nonprofit Entrepreneur) Friends Asked

by Nathaniel Whittemore

categories: philanthropy, Trends, Young Leaders

Published November 07, 2009 @ 10:22PM PT

For the past week, there has been a great conversation over at Tactical Philanthropy about why people give. As a relatively wonky community, the answers to that question have involved a lot of great theories and a number of acronyms. I believe the single most important answer is that you give because your friends asked. And in the next 10 years, as the number of young people involved with or just a step away from social ventures increases, this is only going to become more important.

In a response to the conversation, Network for Good's Katya Andresen puts the reasons for giving in two big categories: personal return on investment (the feeling of having done good) and social return on investment (a dispassionate analysis of actually having achieved some social objective).

I would argue that most of the $200-some odd dollars of money donated to philanthropic causes by individual American citizens each year are donated with an implicit "outsourcing" of the social return on investment part of the equation.

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Unofficial Results for America's Giving Challenge

by Nathaniel Whittemore

Published November 06, 2009 @ 01:05PM PT

Sponsored by Causes, Parade Magazine, the Case Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the second annual America's Giving Challenge has come to an end. According to the unofficial results, the Overseas China Education Foundation has absolutely obliterated the competition, raising $188,000 from over 14,000 individual donations and thus winning the $50,000 prize money.

As I wrote last week, there was clearly something in the water of this years competition, as a few of the groups were able to generate a staggeringly higher number of donations than the others. The competition worked by awarding bounty sums of money to groups that were able to generate the greatest number of individual donations (vs. the greatest total amount of money).

The $50,000 prize winner had 14,000+ donations, the two $25,000 winners had 12,000 and 10,000+, and then with only one exception, the nine $10,000 winners had between 1,600 and 2,500 donations.

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Best Friday Entrepreneur Links

by Nathaniel Whittemore

Published November 06, 2009 @ 11:55AM PT

It's been a while since I've done a link post. There has been a lot of great content over the last couple weeks - enjoy:

Ten Rules for Webstartups: Twitter CEO Evan Williams shares some tips that, while aimed at web startups can be useful for any young startup leader.

30 Under 30: America's Coolest Young Entrepreneurs: Inc. magazine puts out their annual list of the coolest young entrepreneurs in the country. One of my favorites? Ideapaint, the product that turns any wall into a whiteboard.

Manhattan Institute Social Entrepreneurship Award 2009: The conservative think tank Manhattan Institute demonstrates social entrepreneurship political-barrier-crossing appeal and has been supporting the work of social entrepreneurs since 2001 with a $25,000 award. Meet their new class.

Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship: The very awesome MIT center is recruiting fellows for next year's class.

20 of the Best Resources To Get Your Startup Off the Ground: Mashable puts together a great list of free advice and tools relevant for any type of entrepreneur.

(Photo: Matti Matilla)

For Startups To Succeed Means to Evolve

by Nathaniel Whittemore

Published November 05, 2009 @ 03:36PM PT

PayPal started as a payment and cryptography platform for palm pilots. Apple - perhaps the savviest consumer company of our era - began by selling assemble-it-yourself computer kits for the uber geeky. Change.org started without any of the content features through which I'm now writing this post. In the land of startups, the ability to adapt and seize new opportunities is perhaps the essential required skill.

I was thrilled yesterday to see a Wired piece on Groupon, the group-purchasing tool for local services. Every day, Groupon emails its subscribers a new offer, or "Groupon." A Groupon is a certain service - like a massage, or a dinner or something else - that has a discount included. The Groupon is only applicable, however, if a certain threshold of people sign up for it.

In that way, the services harness collective buying power to enable businesses to reduce cost in a great big exciting circle. Launched just a year ago, the service now has over a million subscribers, operates in 23 cities, and has sold 600,000 Groupons.

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The Power of Partnerships in the Coming Fundraising Season

by Nathaniel Whittemore

Published November 05, 2009 @ 06:20AM PT

The end of the year is the biggest part of the fundraising season for many nonprofits, but with the economy continuing to struggle, this year is likely going to be harder than ever on many. Some are trying to address this by participating in contests like America's Giving Challenge; others are sending me direct mail trying to guilt me back into funding (sorry - it's not happening). Others are discovering their DNA as collaborative, 21st century nonprofits who, when times get rough, ask how partnership and the skills of those around them can help.

Catapult Design is a startup nonprofit based out of San Francisco that, in the tradition of leaders like Paul Polak, are using engineering and design solutions to help people out of poverty. Embracing the notion of human-centered design and community partnerships for appropriately designed technology, Catapult is a group that has collaboration at the center of their social mission.

More than that, however, their collaborative DNA extends to their work in the states. Like many collaboration-oriented organizations, they have a fiscal sponsor, share office space with others, work to harness the power of engaged interns, and embrace openness in the form of things like their weekly open sessions where anyone can come and learn more about the organization.

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Watch TEDIndia Live Tomorrow

by Nathaniel Whittemore

Published November 04, 2009 @ 09:11PM PT

The first ever TEDIndia conference is streaming live tomorrow (well, in a few hours, to be precise), and you can get all of the details on their site: http://conferences.ted.com/TEDIndia/

There are some amazing folks speaking at the event - more in fact than I can tell you about, as the reality is that I'm just not as familiar with many of those they have from around India. Some notables that you might know already, though, who are speaking tomorrow include Hans Rosling, who has wowed TED before with his completely nontradtional statistical visualizations, and Tony Hsieh, the renown (at least over in this part of the world) CEO of Zappos, the online shoe company that has built its brand around innovative customer service.

In addition to watching, it's worth your while to check out the TEDIndia fellows, whose project range from Samasource's computer based work for the poor to CellBazaar's marketplace for mobile users.

(Photo: VS Ramachandran speaks at yesterday's session of TED U. See more pics of TED U. Photo: TED/ James Duncan Davidson)