Entrepreneurial culture in Russia is in its infancy. Hi-tech startups are slowly starting to gain traction, but the number of them is still rather small, as a lot of people don't really realize how to take their idea forward.
On the cultural level we're in a rather difficult situation – if you consider Russia from the point of view of Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions (www.geert-hofstede.com) we're in trouble: high power-distance, low individualism, high uncertainty-avoidance (note: there is no official Geert Hofstede data for Russia, so I'm using Raghu Nath and Kunal K. Sadhu, "Comparative Analysis. Conclusions, and Future Directions," in Comparative Management -A Regional View; Raghu Hath, ed. (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1988), p. 273.)
Innovation and entrepreneurship are hot topics for the government these days, and there are numerous activities like state venture funds, venture forums, incubators and so on, but they are mostly targeted at relatively developed ventures. And I strongly believe that innovation and entrepreneurial culture should be stimulated from the very bottom – if we have low risk-tolerance we could create an environment where early stage risk could be reduced, and if we're low on individualism we could create a team environment. These are the cultural reasons for the extended version of iWeekend.
If you look at Shane's Entrepreneurial Process (Shane. A general theory of entrepreneurship : the individual-opportunity nexus in New Horizons in Entrepreneurship series, Edward Elgar Publishing) everything starts with the existence of opportunity, then comes the discovery of opportunity, decision to exploit it, resource acquisition and so on. Here in Russia activities following the "decision to exploit" opportunity are already covered – we have entrepreneurial communities, who meet to discuss startup projects, invite experts and VCs to discuss them, business incubators can take them for further development.
However, I believe that activities should be stimulated at an even earlier stage, and we should distinguish between "ideas" and "opportunities" – not all ideas are opportunities, and it takes a good deal of effort to actually turn an idea into an opportunity (or to realize whether it's an opportunity or not), and this is where I want to come into play.
A lot of people have ideas they don't know how to handle – they don't realize if the idea is viable, if it is actually interesting to anyone except them, maybe an idea just needs a little tweak here and there to make it extremely attractive. While organizing iWeekend we've had one introductory meeting where participants shared their ideas and discussed them. The feedback to it was very positive, and having discussed this with several people we've decided to organize those meetings on a regular basis. A sort of a discussion club for entrepreneurs, and just people with ideas – it's important, because not all people who have ideas actually want to implement them (and vice versa – not all people who want to create a startup actually have an idea). The aim of this club is to bridge the gap between an "idea" and an "opportunity" by providing feedback to the author, making suggestions and giving advice.
We're planning to attract high-profile speakers (i.e. well-known serial entrepreneurs, media specialists, hi-tech specialists) to those meetings as well to have more credibility, attract more people and make it more interesting and dynamic. These meetings should happen on a regular basis (1-2 times a month) and will be free to attend to those interested. Once or twice a year we will also have "iWeekend weekends" where people with ideas will be able to present their projects and maybe get them implemented. (for more details on iWeekend check out http://www.iweekend.org)
Building a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem is impossible without involvement of educational institutions, and we're planning to have a separate programme for Universities, because students generally have different expectations. Having a community that could unite students from different universities with different backgrounds should create positive conditions for the emergence of new businesses.
Sources of income – as stated in the previous post I want to make money on this project. "Idea" meetings themselves should be free for participants, "iWeekend weekend" is a paid-for event, but the fee is minimal and can only cover the meals during the event. Possible sources of income, as I see them now, are:
- Corporate sponsorship – this is the most obvious, but the most tough at the same time;
- Educational – making paid programmes for Universities. Educational institutions are generally interested in providing entrepreneurial education for their students, and showing them that it's not just about science and technology, but also about money (which is kind of important for people in their early 20-s J)
- Headhunting – not all people who come will want to start their own business, but will rather be networking in search of better opportunities. On the other hand recruiting agencies are constantly looking for bright people for their clients, and our meetings can be a great opportunity to spot talent.
- VCs are looking for new projects. Some of them consider seed-stage investments as well. iWeekend is a great "filter" for them (this is the feedback we got from one VC after the first iWeekend), and they should be ready to pay for this service.
Right now I'm working on assembling an advisory board for iWeekend – high-profile people who would be ready to help me in bringing this project to life, would be ready to participate in regular meetups, and who will be able to support iWeekend with their "personal brands".
Another ambitious part of this undertaking is the hope to make Russian projects more international – right now a lot of local startups are targeting local market. The market is relatively big, so this strategy is justifiable. On the other hand local entrepreneurs don't really know how they can reach out to the global market, and I was hoping to bring some of the world-wide entrepreneurs for a few masterclasses here in Russia. Just to show our entrepreneurs that doing business on a global level is not as scary as it might seem. (And entrepreneurs from the Cambridge network are definitely on the top of my list)
As you can see the idea is rather ambitious, and as I'm acting in "effectuation" paradigm I'm trying to see how I can utilize the resources I have. If you have any ideas about all this – please drop me a note, or comment this post here.
Disclaimer: iWeekend is still a temporary title – the original iWeekend idea came from Spain, and we did the event as a part of the global iWeekend initiative. Further development of the concept was done by me, and I still don't have the confirmation from the iWeekend HQ that they like it. But if they don't I'll still go on under a different brand.
