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Inc. Magazine Editor Speaks to Louisville's Venture Club About The Future of Entrepreneurship In America

by Theresa Fritz Camoriano

Michael Hopkins, the Editor in Chief of Inc. Magazine, spoke to a large crowd at the Venture Club's May 9 meeting at the Seelbach.  While Hopkins said he does not pretend to know where the stock market is going, he and his magazine see many changes occurring in business today. 

·        First, while start-up companies often have been formed by outsiders, he now sees more people who are insiders, managers in large businesses, going out and leveraging their experience, expertise, and contacts in starting up new businesses more than in the past. 

·        Second, entrepreneurship is the last real meritocracy.  The market doesn't care whether you are a woman, a minority, an immigrant, or a 40-year-old white male.  It just cares whether you can produce -- whether you can deliver.  So people who are not well-connected can start up companies and succeed as entrepreneurs to a greater extent than perhaps they could inside large companies.  As an aside on that point, he said that women have consistently had a larger number of start-ups than men, but women's start-ups do not grow to the extent that men's do.  This may reflect the fact that women are starting up companies in order to maintain a lifestyle that they want rather than to grow a large business and make lots of money.  It may also reflect a difference in management style.  He also noted that 80% of high school students dream of starting up their own business as their first job rather than seeking to join a large corporation, which is an extraordinary change from only a few years ago.  As a society, big institutions have lost their appeal to us.  We have lost our faith in big businesses, in big government, and even in big religious institutions, looking instead to smaller enterprises to meet our needs.

·        Third, we have moved from the time when people started up companies as speculators, trying to hype a business and sell it quickly for a large profit to a time when people are having to seriously look at creating a sustainable business.  He also noted that entrepreneurship is more about being able to be creative and to create a business that makes you want to come to work every day than about just making money.  While money is certainly a part of the equation, it is really the creative force that drives entrepreneurs more than profits.

Inc. Magazine will also have a program in Louisville at the end of May, which may be of interest to capitalists in the area.