With inexpensive technologies and tools, wide communication networks, skill sharing…it has never been easier to start your own company, but entrepreneurship is in the decline.
Before I read about the Entrepreneurship Paradox at Pieria, I'd said: I don't believe…too many publishers praised the entrepreneurial society, the age of the makers, the Do It Yourself movement…
But, I should have known it better: NN Taleb said: a system that is old will become much older (I paraphrased).
It seams that the future is becoming old, like the rest of us (entrepreneurs)? Why is this so? Does it need (too much) time to become antifragile?
OK, entrepreneurship at the high-tech sector started declining after the dot-com crash. But the dot-com boom triggered a broadband emergence that helps entrepreneurship?
If we want a vibrant, growing economy, what to do?
Do factory and lab work simultaneously
There's one important thing: old and new firms should fight the worst enemy - "be happy with the achieved"- together. Collaborate!
For entrepreneurs it's not so easy to collaborate with old firms under clear rules and old firms fear entrepreneurs may disrupt their working principles.
At the lab we strive for finding a breakthrough, new ways to solve new problems and do new things. In labs we accept to get insight from failure. A lab does not think too much about exploiting, but creating.
The factory is made for reliability and productivity. It works automated and precise. It does what it did yesterday tomorrow, but maybe faster or cheaper.
Working with entrepreneurs, large, old firms can set a stage of solving complex problems, build new skills, leverage technology and conserve capital.
Entrepreneurs may absorb quantitative management techniques, rationalization, ways of brand promises…
To bring them together was one of my most challenging activities over 25 years.
