Overview
When human society enters the 21st century, innovation, entrepreneurship and creation have become the mainstream in economic and social life, just like entrepreneurial master Larry? Farrell said: "Developing entrepreneurial economy is the key to win this global economic war in the 21st century." Entrepreneurial economy plays a significant role in enhancing the ability of independent innovation, transforming the mode of economic growth and expanding social employment, which has attracted global attention from political, academic and industrial circles.
in p>28, the world economic growth slowed down in an all-round way, and the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States triggered a new round of global economic shocks. Affected by this, global economic growth is weak. The turbulent international economic and financial situation is gestating new changes, and China's economic development is facing new and huge external shocks.
The 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has clearly put forward the principles and policies of promoting employment through entrepreneurship, demanding to improve the policy of supporting self-employment and self-employment and improve the service system for entrepreneurship. This year, on the occasion of the 3th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up, a number of entrepreneurial models, such as Zhongguancun in Beijing, have made useful explorations on the theory and practice of entrepreneurial economic development. In 28, the Chinese government started the pilot project of 1 entrepreneurial cities nationwide, and it is bound to become a new trend to promote a new round of economic development through entrepreneurial economy.
American entrepreneurial economy is booming
Henrik Fisker doesn't care about the shape of the door handle, doesn't focus on middle-class female customers, and doesn't plan to hire a bunch of people with the title of vice president to do daily management for him. This guy, who used to be the chief designer of BMW, Aston Martin and Ford, abandoned the automobile giants and their business methods, and started a new cutting-edge automobile manufacturing company in Irvine, California, USA.
compared with tens of thousands of employees of other automobile manufacturers, Fisker Automotive has only 5 employees on its roster, and most of its manufacturing work is outsourced. Its 8 suppliers are all over the world, and finally its components are assembled in a factory that produces Porsche in Finland. After less than three years of intense development, the company's first car will be rolled off the assembly line in the summer of 21, which is a dazzling plug-in hybrid sports car called "Karma".
Fisco, 46, doesn't resist making the company bigger. He just doesn't want the company to fall into the complicated enterprise structure and rigid system, and then be dragged down by his own size like other automobile manufacturing giants. He believes: "There must be another way to build a successful automobile manufacturing enterprise. We plan to establish our brand as soon as possible before the market competition of plug-in hybrid vehicles intensifies. Our secret weapon against companies such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Lexus in the future is: faster than others. "
After the economic collapse in 28, CEOs also developed the same investment habit as ordinary migrant workers, preferring to hide their money under the mattress. It seems that it is not a good time to make big plans, and the business methods of many industries have been completely adjusted. Everyone gradually came to the same conclusion as Fiske: we don't have to do things in the same way. We can control our economy and destiny in our own hands. A change that has been quietly emerging in the business world has finally found its foothold: the dawn of entrepreneurial economy has already begun, which is an economic system based on rapid response and low-cost operation, and the main driving force is often small and medium-sized enterprises with strong employee mobility.
Surprisingly, this economic crisis seems to be a driving force: some people are out of their own choice, others are helpless, but more and more people are trying to start their own businesses. According to the latest data of American Small and Medium Enterprises Agency (SBA), the number of newly-established small and medium-sized enterprises remained at the level before the economic crisis, even though most economic indicators declined in 28. The Kaufman Entrepreneurial Activity Index also tracks the changes in the number of new enterprises every year. The data shows that it even rose slightly during this period, and it is expected that the upward trend will last until the end of 29. In the past ten years, the self-employment rate has been growing steadily at the rate of 4.5% per year, which is equivalent to an increase of nearly 1 million people who work for themselves every year. Although the data of 28 and 29 have not been published, it is estimated that it will be flat even if it will not continue to grow. In addition, the number of students taking entrepreneurship-related courses in colleges and universities across the United States has also soared.
Michael S. Malone, the author of "The Future Arrives Yesterday: The Rise of Ever-changing Companies and Its Significance to You", believes that the development of new technologies such as cloud computing is also an important factor in an entrepreneurial society, and various factors * * * have promoted the emergence of the first truly entrepreneurial society in the world. "Overnight, even if there is no big factory, you can start a company to do business. The entry cost is almost zero, and ordinary people can start low-cost enterprises. The best strategy now is to be small-scale, respond quickly and keep everything simple. "
George Solomon, deputy director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence at George Washington University, shares the same view with other business colleges: "In the future, new jobs will mainly come from newly-started enterprises, and even if old enterprises can revive, it will be difficult to shoulder this heavy responsibility."
There is no doubt that the entrepreneurial tide is sweeping across the United States, and it is ringing with the values of many Americans. Even US President Barack Obama has repeatedly publicly called on small and medium-sized entrepreneurs to work together to help the United States get out of the economic crisis as soon as possible. Obama's economic recovery plan became the key, and he even reached an agreement with the Middle East, promising to use corporate summits and other forms to break the commercial and cultural barriers between the two countries. In September 29, the U.S. Department of Commerce also set up an Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation to help new businesses.
A small boat makes a U-turn
The rise of entrepreneurial economy is not only a academic course or a political show, but more and more enterprises have made breakthroughs in small-scale flexible management technology, including Dell, Cisco and Facebook. Vizio, the leader of HDTV in the United States, is a good example. Its bright rise has not only pushed old conservative enterprises such as Fujitsu, pioneer electronics and Apex out of the TV manufacturing industry, but also made companies such as Philips make a lot of money by licensing flat-panel TV components.
In p>22, the collapse of the internet bubble severely hit Princeton Digital, a California computer screen manufacturer, but the boss William Wang and his partners decided to take the opportunity to transform instead of cashing out the company. They realized that their professional knowledge and many computer screen components could be used to produce low-priced flat-panel TVs, which was still a very expensive luxury at that time.
so he sold Princeton Digital and founded Vizio. They decided not to use vertical unified management, nor did they intend to invest all their money in high-tech factories and R&D departments. Vizio, like Fisker Automotive, doesn't waste time to re-develop new tires. It directly looks for existing high-quality electronic components from suppliers and overseas manufacturers, and then selects the most cost-effective one. In a short period of five years, Vizio won the position of the leader of American flat-panel TV manufacturers with annual sales of $1.9 billion by virtue of his flat-panel TV production below $2,. Although it is an electronic giant, its number of formal employees is surprisingly small. The employees of Vizio's office in California and the customer service center in South Dakota add up to only 162, most of whom are marketing, sales and product developers.
Vizio can adjust its business at any time because it doesn't invest too much in production equipment and research and development. In 29, they gave up plasma TV and specialized in traditional LCD TV and LCD TV with LED technology. It is said that the latter can achieve the effect of plasma TV at a lower price. However, if new plasma technology emerges, Vizio, which is rarely independently researched and developed, can immediately adjust its direction, and new products can be launched within weeks or months. Thanks to this advantage, Vizio can quickly transform after the economic crisis, and produce small 19 ~ 26-inch TVs that are more suitable for market demand.
However, it is still difficult for smaller enterprises-those that cannot outsource millions of dollars of electronic components overseas-to find a chance in the economic crisis and to appreciate the advantages of being small. In fact, it is not a bad idea to start a business or take the opportunity to adjust the enterprise when the economic situation is bad, and many benefits can be found. Research by Dane Stangler, a senior analyst of Kaufman Foundation, shows that more than half of the largest and fastest-growing enterprises in the United States were founded when the economy was bad, indicating that at least the economic crisis may not be bad for entrepreneurship.
Christopher Gergen, director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership Research at Duke University, said: "Basically, there are gaps in the service industries in various cities in the United States, and traditional competitors are now conservative and weakened. As long as they are more flexible in the competition, enterprises that can provide quality products and services to the society will definitely have a chance to succeed. "
thirty years ago, the word "entrepreneur" was associated with the image of a peddler selling seafood in a pickup truck, or a liar who cheated the elderly to get rich quickly. Nowadays, the entrepreneurial myths of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and mark zuckerberg in the technical field are comparable to rock stars. As the public realizes the success potential of these energetic and creative entrepreneurs, the whole social culture has been completely changed.
The most obvious is the Y era, in which entrepreneurs are regarded as hero idols. Ten years ago, there were only a handful of formal entrepreneurship courses offered by American universities. Now there are more than 2 entrepreneurship research centers, and more than 5 high-end institutions offer entrepreneurship training certificates and major and minor degrees. According to a recent survey, 51% of teenagers hope to start their own businesses one day, and regard this as a way to better grasp life.
3F financing
Of course, from the economic aspect, financing will remain a big problem in 21. The subprime mortgage crisis in 28 has only slightly improved, and it is difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to recover from the trauma in a short time. Scott Shane, a professor of economics at the Catholic University of Washington and a columnist on The New York Times's website, said that the 73 million SME loans in the US government's economic stimulus plan in 29 and 21 were simply a drop in the bucket and could not break the crisis. However, historically, more than 5% of people started their businesses not by loans, but by raising their own venture capital through "friends, family and fools".
Robert Fairlie of the University of California, Santa Cruz, tracked the entrepreneurial situation in the United States, and his statistics are consistent with this conclusion. In 28, more low-cost and low-income enterprises were established, and he predicted that this level of development would be maintained in 29.
Mike Michaud feels that if he started his business when the economic situation is good, it will be difficult for enterprises to gain a foothold so easily. In 27, McCord was fired by Circuit City Company in Darien, Illinois, because he was "overpaid" as a clerk. So he decided to try it with two friends in their twenties and turn his dream of starting a business into reality. A friend's father sponsored $5,, and the rest was saved by part-time. Finally, the three of them founded a network TV website named Channel Awesome, which specializes in producing original content.
Then, one of the first video programs they produced, "Glasses Man", was made by a partner in front of the mirror with sharp movie comments and question-and-answer dialogues, which quickly became popular on YouTube. So they quickly turned their guns and fully developed the business opportunities of this "network red man". More than a year after the launch of Glasses Man's website, the average monthly click-through rate reached 16.5 million, bringing them $15, in income. McCord believes that the meager budget and the simple style in the early days make the program "Glasses Man" have a unique competitive advantage in the fastest-growing field of online video. He said: "We have always maintained a low-cost strategy and are confident that we can survive the day of economic recovery."
At the same time, they are slowly enriching the theme of the website and want to re-transform into the original network TV channel. At present, they have launched a review game and a review bar program, and are still preparing sports reviews and short comedy shows. Together, they plan to have 3 original series programs.
no matter what happens to the economy in the year after tomorrow or the year after next, there is no doubt that the general situation has changed. Enterprises and employees are not sitting still, watching the future getting darker and darker. They are working together to reform corporate culture and technology, and to build a grassroots economy-a collection of many small enterprises that can keep up with the trend of the times.
"Entrepreneurship is shining." Writer Malone thinks this spirit will be even more dazzling after the economic recovery. "There are many things in the world that you can't change, and the entrepreneurial spirit developed in the past 1 years is one of them. The United States is full of such ambitious and capable people who dare to eat crabs. The current negative news can't shake all this. "