In a recent international conference in Istanbul, Usama Fayyad, Executive Chairman of the Jordan-based Oasis500 business accelerator, said: "It is not about creating jobs. It is about creating new companies." The simple concept and the explanation that followed made me realize: Usama, along with many others in the Middle East and North Africa facing a monumental challenge of unemployment, understands something that we in Washington are still struggling with: the solution to our unemployment challenge will not come from existing large companies hiring more employees. Rather, it will come from the creation of new small and medium businesses. While this concept seems obvious, it bears repeating.
Small and medium businesses (fewer than 500 employees) account for 52 percent of all U.S. workers. Small firms accounted for 65 percent (or 9.8 million) of the 15 million net new jobs created between 1993 and 2009 in the United States. No doubt, the sentiment expressed in Istanbul holds true throughout the rest of the world.
The meeting in Istanbul brought together representatives from more than 10 countries, and they eagerly honed in on common challenges and solutions. It comes as no surprise that the biggest challenge identified was regional unemployment. Usama, who previously held leadership roles in NASA's JPL, Microsoft and Yahoo!, discussed his Oasis500 business accelerator. Through an intense boot camp of training for candidate-entrepreneurs, Oasis500 evaluates not only the business ideas but also the individuals. A select few gain admission to the 100 day long program, out of which they will launch a company with a clear business plan and growth strategy that will also be linked to potential investors. Those who did not make the cut still gain essential training in business development.
With the goal of 500 new businesses in Jordan in five years, Usama's Oasis500 will put a significant dent in Jordan's employment challenge. In just over a year of operation, Oasis500 has trained more than 350 companies, invested in 44 of them, and helped 10 raise investments from $100,000 to $3mn. The key, he says, is finding investors for the boot camp, which is the most costly portion of the program. Once local businesses and investors recognized the value of the accelerator in creating a pipeline of potential investments, they've started supporting the boot camp. "Even if a company fails," Usama added, "the entrepreneur is now changed and will try again."
While Oasis500 is a new model in the region, the conviction that only the creation of new businesses can meet the challenge of unemployment is widespread. In Tunisia, Mondher Ben Ayed, CEO of TMI, launched a program that brings American MBA students to Tunisia for several weeks and matches them with Tunisians. The first group of business students, from Georgetown University, visited interior towns and identified business opportunities. These opportunities are not technology startups -- they are barbershops and convenience stores. The students then develop specific business plans and are matched with investors to launch these businesses.
Meanwhile, in Washington, the debate rages on: should we increase or cut taxes on the "job creators?" This is not just a theoretical debate; it comes with an opportunity cost. Resources are scarce and therefore need to be prioritized.
If they can get it right in the Middle East and North Africa, we ought to try it in the United States. Let's place our major focus on supporting and fostering an ecosystem that will spur the creation of new small and medium-sized companies. We should work to match U.S. venture capital funds with accelerators that will provide them with investment opportunities.
Let's directly target unemployment where it exists by unleashing all the tools we have at our disposal. If we can send American students to assist Tunisian entrepreneurs in identifying and developing business plans, shouldn't we also send American students to hurting cities in the U.S. to do the same thing?
Mickey Bergman is director of the Middle East Programs at the Aspen Institute -- Secretariat of Partners for a New Beginning.
Follow Mickey Bergman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mickeybergman
James Marshall Reilly: 'Shake the World': How To Successfully Start Your Own Business
Dave Johnson: For 2012 Let's Restore Our "Industrial Commons"
Office of Investment | SBA.gov - Small Business Administration (SBA)
(SBIC) Financing - SBA Homepage - Small Business Administration ...
Business & Small Business | News, Advice, Strategy | Entrepreneur ...
Small Business Investment Companies Explained - BusinessWeek
NOW, are we talking about the same Small Business that pays MINIMUM WAGE, MARKES UP TO 700 TIMES THE MATERIAL and LABOR and DEDUCTS ALL of this FROM INCOME
I think you need your head examined
INSTEAD OF TRYING TO MANIPULATE and FIX the economy. Simply Tax the Profit to force a Balance of Capital to Labor.
Creating not only Tax Code, but Earning Justice.
I guess the longer the Politicians do this Crony Capitalist the more everyone has a BRIGHT IDEA. Especially with auto suggestion and affirmation of TV Media
But let's all be poor workiing for peanuts rather than getting OUR SHARE of EARNING for doing all the WORK
Let's reward more people for RENTING the common FOLKS
Even if Slavery did not work for 10,000 year, but it built pretty Coliseum and Pryamids. If we fan convince the people working for minimum wage is GREAT. Maybe we can convince them to do their public service and Feed the LIONS with themselves
It is true if you can sell a widget and you are the OWNER you make more than the minimum wage you give your workers
BUT WHAT THE HELL IS NEW ABOUT THAT. What is this Modern Times Telling you that did not exist in the Time of Christ.
There are people who use others and they make more money than those who do all the work.
It's a Miracle
Almost as Miraculous as having those with no Saving and Loan account BAILOUT those who have one so they don't loose theirs
Almost as Miraculous as having Banks who charge workers INTEREST, get free BAILOUTS from the workers they charge interest to
Almost as Miraculous as the killing the children of those who "hate us because they hate use" for increased security.
The only thing that is Happening in this Modern Time GROUP thing. Is people think the pubic is stupid and cannot wait to get their share of all their work.
If you want to improve the economy TAX Corporations and Small Business Owner to raise the wages so the worker has more Cash to consume. Haviing more broke workers only maked Owners more for doing less
AND you think minimum wage of $7.25 per hour or $14,500 will improve the economy Total Income, buying power, balance of payments and a balance budget
WILL MAKE THE RICH STOCK TRADER AND BUSINESS OWNER RICHER
Need you like we need another GWB or OBAMA
Michael
http://thecogentcoach.com/wordpress
Business is relatively stupid.
Assets - Liabilities = Equal Owners Equity
Retained Earnings = Gross Income - expenses (material, wages, depr) - Taxes - Dividends
That is all the business there is to measure performance and value.
Of course you could account for depreciation, manage risk, human resources, etc. due to all kinds of loop holes and regulations
You could also aquire your competitors business. Laying off all departments and employees, doubling your Bank Accounts, Cell Phones or Cook and Limonade sales. And shout greater productivity. Like Obama and Bush.
Or you can say wake up. America has an INBALANCE OF CAPITAL TO LABOR. Tax the profit of corporations and small business
And business will HIRE, RAISE WAGES and private spend, TO AVOID TAX. Expanding the business and the economy
We DON'T need any more STUPID, BRIGHT IDEADS. we need to do what the last 3 presidents did before GWB. RIASE TAXES to halt a recesion and grow the economy. Greating GREATER DEMAND and RAISING THE PRICE OF STOCK (greater assets per share). The FREE ENTERPRISE way
US citizens should elect politicians that will work towards RE-INDUSTRIALIZATION of the USA because that will create a bigger economic pie, create more jobs for US citizens, and create more NATIONAL WEALTH in the USA that could be CONFISCATED by the governments at various levels as taxation to pay for our ever increasing government expenses such as more infrastructure, more teachers, more firefighters, and maybe to also PAY OFF SOME OR ALL OF THE US NATIONAL DEBT that we are expecting our children to pay to the bondholders.
RE-INDUSTRIALIZATION of the USA and Europe would create an increasing economic pie (GDP) instead of consuming a larger and larger piece of the existing ever shrinking economic pie, and selling or mortgaging our existing NATIONAL WEALTH (borrowing money with privately held assets as collateral) to pay for more and more federal government expenditures that only consumes the NATIONAL WEALTH that was created by others!
The US government must stop creating new legislation that drives US businesses and those US jobs to foreign countries.
The US government should repeal the laws that they created that caused and economically required that US businesses and their US jobs to relocate to foreign nations.
1. plant, grow and/or harvest something of commercial value from the earth;
2. extract something of commercial value from the earth;
3. manufacture something of commercial value that is consumable
4. construct a building that is permanently useful for rental income;
5. provide professional services (medical, legal, dental, engineering, architecture, land surveying, technology, accounting, etc.);
6. collect payment for patent and copyright uses;
and then trade, sell, lease or rent these items and/or services to parties outside of their family, in return for a net transfer of gold, currency or commodities from other parties outside of their family into their own family.
Non-government JOBS are ONLY created by businesses and corporations in order to CREATE WEALTH for those same businesses and corporations!
The price of Gold is not rising, the purchasing power and/or value of the US dollar is falling!
How about also passing laws to prohibit the import of services (the same as exporting the jobs) such as accounting, telemarketing, customer assistance service, computer aided drafting, engineering, legal research, etc. that are now easily provided by workers overseas through the internet at a small fraction of the costs paid to US citizens to perform those services.
Creating new companies just to watch them leave US shores sounds like a waste of time and money.