21 Inc. posted the link to an interesting story on its Facebook page. It’s another attempt to classify different types of entrepreneurship. The author suggests that there are four distinct types of entrepreneurial organizations; small businesses, scalable startups, large companies and social entrepreneurs.
He says the entrepreneur who owns a small business wants to “feed the family” while the scalable startup goal is to make lots of dough and implement their vision. He makes good points about both entpreneurial companies (large) and social entrepreneurs.
This stuff matters to economic development. As I have said before, most of the focus has been on supporting and nurturing small business writ large when it may be more impactful to focus just on the ‘scalabe start ups’. Or maybe not. My point is that either one is a policy objective but if your stated objective is to foster more high growth, export-oriented entrepreneurs than you should target that group (scalable start ups) rather than blanket incentives for all small businesses.
Thanks for highlighting this article by 21 Inc. As a small business entrepreneur in NS with an initiative that intrigues many but doesn’t appear fit into any existing descriptions of ‘business-type’ I will be watching this closely.