Is Your Region Full Of Savvy Entrepreneurs?

By guest author Irina Patterson

Unless you’re based in Silicon Valley, I don’t think so. Many economic development organizations and incubators spend considerable time and money to attract savvy entrepreneurs to their regions.

Sometimes, they manage to get entrepreneurs from another state or even another country to move to one of their regional incubators. But all the while, their local entrepreneurial potential remains an untapped resource.

Who are those unrealized entrepreneurs that exist in great numbers in every region? Well, they come in different flavors.

Some are those who were rejected by local angel investors. It is a huge group of so-called rejects, considering that 99% of all entrepreneurs get rejected by angel investors.

Then, there are the fully employed with business ideas, people who can’t afford to give up their job and move to an incubator because they need their paycheck.

There is also a large group of entrepreneurs who make very costly mistakes at the start, which prevents them from ever moving forward with their business.

Together they are a humongous untapped entrepreneurial resource that exists in practically every region worldwide.

All of these “not-ready for prime-time” entrepreneurs could validate their business ideas by going through 1M/1M pre-incubation. They wouldn’t have to quit their day job or move anywhere. 1M/1M is a virtual program that is accessible from any place in the world.

Only after their ideas are clarified and validated at 1M/1M, they could move to local incubators and, if warranted, be funded by local angels.

Note: The 1M/1M team has invested significant resources to engage with and understand the challenges of the incubator industry around the globe. You can sign up for our opt-in mailing list to get this information via email on an ongoing basis.