Small businesses, you can give them capital, but what they often need as much is mentoring, advice and help with their business plan.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Small business is crucial. I think we talk so much about large businesses, they're well represented; they talk well for themselves. But most people work for small businesses; most wealth that stays in a community gets generated from them.
Mentors, by far, are the most important aspects of businesses.
Small business owners that are female, that is their number one problem, is access to capital.
There are a lot of studies about small businesses and how they make a difference in their community and create a lot of jobs and values. So we need to focus on small businesses or entrepreneurs who want to start manufacturing or making things.
Start small; get to know the landscape. We take risks but not major risks. We always started with small capital - €4m in Holland, $10m in Russia - and as we get to know the landscape of a country, we think about other businesses.
There are companies with management and companies with money. You can always find money. Management is the key to success in any business.
I would say raising capital is one of the weakest things for most entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs, because they need money, they are willing to share their crystal ball with someone like me. That's the best thing ever.
Most of my job and most of what I do is to mentor people. There are a lot of people I work with that I don't have investments in.
What you need if you want jobs are small and medium sized enterprises, local initiatives, labour intensive work, community development, service providers and the like.
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