Dan Isenberg, advisor to several governments as executive director of the Babson Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Project, has developed a list of policy assumptions, and reveals which are myths.
Here is a quick test he developed as a reality check on entrepreneurship ecosystems. Do you think the following are true or false?
- “You know that you have a strong entrepreneurship ecosystem when there are more and more startups.”
- “Offering financial incentives (e.g. angel investment tax credits) for early stage, risky investments in entrepreneurs clearly stimulates the entrepreneurship ecosystem.”
- “Job creation is not the primary objective of fostering an entrepreneurship ecosystem.”
- “In order to strengthen your regional entrepreneurship ecosystem, it is necessary to establish co-working spaces, incubators and the like.”
- “If we want strong entrepreneurship ecosystems we need strong entrepreneurship education.”
- “Entrepreneurs drive the entrepreneurship ecosystem.”
- “Large corporations stultify entrepreneurship ecosystems because they prey on entrepreneurs and their ventures”.
- “According to entrepreneurs the top three challenges everywhere are access to talent, excessive bureaucracy, and scarce early stage capital.”
- “Banks are irrelevant for the entrepreneurship ecosystem because they don’t lend to startups.”
- “Family businesses squash entrepreneurial initiative in order to protect their ‘franchise.’”
Check the answers, here.
How well did you score?