This week I attended a meeting where the featured speaker was Kanwal Rehki, co-founder of TiE, The Indus Entrepreneurs. They were started in 1982 in the Silicon Valley. As an entrepreneur, Kanwal had an idea, went to 100 venture capitalists and virtually all said the same thing to him- - Indians are good tekkies, but not good business owners. Finally one took a chance on him and his idea and as they say "the rest is history".
A couple of facts he mentioned:
1. Only 1 - 2% of a country's population are entrepreneurs. U.S. is close to 2%.
2.Small businesses are usually not funded by V.C.'s. --only 6% get funded that way.
He spoke to entrepreneurs in the audience:
If you are an entrepreneur, you will be unique.
You will have less friends because you will be working on your idea in the garage, kitchen, spare room.
You will go on a journey into the unknown.
Entrepreneurs create something out of nothing.
People rush to create a version of the newest invention.
Don't worry about the bubble bursting on the first idea or those versions that always come after because that is part of the nature of the beast of an open economy.
What you do is always be the new fish and create something no one has thought of yet.
Kanwal said that immigration and entrepreneurship experience were much the same. Just be patient.
Because he had such a hard time getting funding, he created a VC for other entrepreneurs: Inventus Capital.
Jim Koch, founder of Samuel Adams micro beer, had the same experience looking for funding.
See http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2011/06/22/brewing-dreams.html?sid=101
Jim has also set up a VC for the same reason as Kanwal.
Both of these men have decided to give back. Thank you.
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