Accelerating Entrepreneurship in the Arab World

1. Offer a helping hand. Established entrepreneurs should give time, advice and seed funding to aspiring entrepreneurs.
2. Change behaviours and evolve the culture. Discuss entrepreneurship every day and generate hype around a handful of success stories.
3. Bring entrepreneurship to the classroom. Everyone in high school and university should learn entrepreneurial principles.
4. Bring entrepreneurship to the office. Companies should encourage employees to unleash their own talent.
5. Do not imitate Silicon Valley. Identify and leverage your country’s own unique resources.
6. Welcome new ideas. Engage domestic and foreign workers to encourage a free flow of expertise and enterprise.
7. Break the stereotype. Great entrepreneurial ideas can come from anyone in any industry.
8. Embrace the diaspora. Tap successful entrepreneurs living abroad for their advice and connections.
9. Eliminate red tape. Governments should give many kinds of support to all types of entrepreneurs.
10. Expand the venture capital (VC) model. VCs need to go beyond funding and provide a support structure for entrepreneurs.

• Lifestyle or passion: Entrepreneurs who are motivated in this way create businesses in fields where they have a particular interest, talent or knowledge. They may combine a hobby with a profession and may choose not to expand the business in order to remain in control.
• Social good: These individuals are motivated by a social problem and use entrepreneurial principles to create, organize and manage a venture that will bring about socio-economic change for a particular group. Rather than measure their success by revenue and profits, these entrepreneurs typically equate success with social impact.
• Fame and fortune: These entrepreneurs aim big and are driven strongly by the profit motive. They want to grow their businesses, dominate their industries and be acknowledged for their success.

In addition, there are three external forces or circumstances that drive entrepreneurship (p. 8):

• Innovation: Some entrepreneurs create new demand by nourishing an innovative idea they have conceived or acquired; they build a new business by combining know-how and capital.
• Opportunity: Entrepreneurs who recognize a demand/supply gap in the market, an unmet need or an opportunity for change can seize that opportunity. In doing so, they create value for themselves and society.
• Necessity: Entrepreneurs in this category have been forced by their environment to seek self-sufficiency and satisfy their basic needs of food, shelter and security.

“A key to accelerating job creation in the MENA region is fostering an entrepreneurial environment. Not only do start-ups employ their owners, but the spillover benefits for the larger economy can be significant: multiple sources of innovation; increased competition; efficiency and productivity; economic flexibility and adaptation; job creation; supply chain development; seedbeds for future growth; and the inclusion of more elements of society. Indeed, once start-ups mature into small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), they become significant contributors to employment and gross domestic product (GDP)” (p. 7).