An entrepreneur is a risk mitigator, not a risk taker. This is according to the Kauffman Foundation, the organisation responsible for bringing the Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC) to Liverpool from 9th to 16th March. The entrepreneur will work out a new way of getting round or just getting along.
Jonathan Ortmans of the Kauffman Foundation spoke to Your Business eZine. He strongly believes that one of the tools of an entrepreneur is what he calls disruptive thinking. Disruptive thinking can lead to the diversity that then results in innovation.
“Things are now unpredictable, take the UK economy. It seems we can’t rely on anything. Or you can say: “Things happen” and be flexible. Entrepreneurs say we can now try something different. Or they allow their minds to find a new way of doing things.
Take software giant Dell. Dell is involved with GEC and this type of thinking because they recognise they need to engage start up thinking. Because entrepreneurs can see things that large companies can’t. They breathe life into things.
Entrepreneurs find ways of doing things cheaper, quicker or more easily than large companies. An example from Dell of this disruptive or entrepreneurial thinking is that instead of selling computers they put the parts to a computer on the shelf. Nothing clipped together. So their made to order computer concept is an innovation. It came from entrepreneurial thinking.”
Promoting entrepreneurs is why the GEC exists. Harnessing the entrepreneur and their talents is what Ortmans hope to give Liverpool.
“Company management has a mission – it is to maximise profits often by doing with less employees. New firms grow by hiring people. Without people they have nothing. So if we promote the new business, the start up, we can create employment and work for more of our communities. And now it’s ok to recycle. Get a business going and
if isn’t working then change, take the bits that are working and keep going. Jobs are still being created even if it is for 2 years.”
And Liverpool and the way they are organising the GEC is important.
“We can bring in lead thinkers but we cannot reach people in communities in the North of England to show the benefit to them. That is where the fringe events come in.
This will link anyone who may be thinking that starting a business is for them to Angel investors, and a whole range of advice and ideas. Inspiration if you like. Check out Marc Nager who is running a masterclass on how to build a community. The best size movement is grass roots and up, to build culture and to foster entrepreneurship by city.”
Earlier this month we featured an interview with Jonathan Ortmans of the Kauffman Foundation. He spoke frankly about what the GEC is meant to be for Liverpool and the legacy it should leave us. For the full feature see: http://yourbusinessezine.com/feature/20120208/597/will-your-business-become-iconic-brand
The Conference itself is an international forum for entrepreneurs with headline speaker Sir Richard Branson and others such as Sir Michael Heseltine, Martha Lane-Fox and Sir Terry Leahy.
