The 3 major limitations to entrepreneurship development

In our previous blog we matched the topic of unemployment and how entrepreneurship can help solve youth unemployment. Now I guess the point was pretty clear and it seemed pretty obvious that entrepreneurship helps solve this issue.

So now that we answered that question, today I want to share with you readers my two cents on why it is so important to help these youngsters go out and acquire the basic competencies, as well as give these youngsters an environment and platform to be able to develop.

I believe there are 3 main limitations to the development of successful business startups.The goal of this blog is to describe them and eventually open up to the solutions we can provide to them.

1- Lack of basic skills.

I mean think about it, if you want to start a business you need certain skills to be able to run it successful. Now the main challenge is that traditional education does not teach us these skills. Whether it’s communication, negotiation, presentation or pitching skills (just to name a few), these are some competencies that are beyond necessary. Now the challenge is that traditional education does not emphasize as much as needed on these skills, but most importantly, traditional education does not adapt to the trends and the changes in the market. They perform a poor job at making students understand that the only constant in the market is change. As a business student myself, I have never heard anything about social media marketing, Snapchat, FacebookAds and Google Analytics in marketing classes in one of the best business schools in Europe. As a main solution to this challenge, we need to provide individuals with a platform that will help them acquire the basic skills and allow them to develop through practice and mentorship, but also ensure that what is taught to these individuals is up to date information.

2- Lack of capital

Money, money, money. Let’s not lie to ourselves. Financial capital is required to some extend to be able to start a business. Don’t get me wrong, money is not everything, but every business has costs that have to be covered. Just the legal setup of a company will generally cost some money. On top of that, if you have a product idea then you need to build the product, test the product and then market the product and hence a certain financial backup is required. So not everyone comes from a family that can financially help them, or is able to rely on some source of savings, especially someone who is currently unemployed. By teaching individuals how to manage their money, financially educate them and guide them through their journey, to be extremely cost efficient, we can help make the issue of capital less extreme and eventually solve it. There are many ways for a business to be cost efficient and spend less capital than expected, however some sort of guidance is needed to take advantage of these opportunities.

3- Lack of contacts

I am a strong believer in the saying “Your network is your net worth”. It is clear the more people you know around you in the business world, the more easily you will be able to bring your business to life. Why? Because people, know people, who know people. If you have a big network and are looking to develop an app, you probably know an app developer and even if you don’t, one of your contacts probably will. Now I’m not saying that every youngster should go out and meet thousands of people just with the unique purpose of starting a business. I am just saying that we need to give these youngsters more opportunities to meet new people, network with people from their age or already established business owners to give them a contact base that can help them eventually in their entrepreneurial career. By helping individuals develop their network, this will open other opportunities for these youngsters to meet people in the industry they wish to enter, get access to mentorship and most importantly build relationships with people they might have never known.

These three main limitations to entrepreneurship can see like a pretty big headache, especially for someone who is hesitant or unsure about starting a business. Now every problem comes with a solution and in our next blog we will discuss more in detail how these problems can be overcome.