Travelling around the world in, mostly poor countries, you see a lot of small businesses. Lots of opportunity to invest, one would say….

Everywhere you look you see people doing things. Everybody has its little business, selling stuff, renting out stuff, massaging etc. But is this true entrepreneurship? Well it is and it is not.

It is because this is the most pure from of trading. People develop a skill and work hard to get by and maybe save some money or build assets.

But if you look really close…it is not entrepreneurship, it is a job; not really what investors are looking for: Most of these small ventures would not know what to do with an investment, there are no plans excepts getting by and build some assets for the children. Very strange indeed as I was in awe of the entrepreneurship in Thailand, India and South Africa, to conclude that these ventures are more like jobs then real ventures.

It is driven out of a lack of a good functioning labor market instead of a internal drive to create companies and ventures and invest in them. You can spot that the visionary entrepreneurial drive is not really there by the fact that most business owners do not see new possibilities to expand their business; they would often see an investment as a reason to work less instead of growing their operations. So when would I call it “visionary” entrepreneurship then?

Well there has to be a plan, there has to be a need for investment and investment will potentially bring growth. On top of that an entrepreneur in the investable form must be able to walk away from his venture: there has to be an alternative…

I know: shocking words from an entrepreneur. But do you have a better way to define investable entrepreneurship in our society