From Elitist to Egalitarian: The #1 Entrepreneurial Pivot to More Unicorns…Everywhere

Should the entrepreneurial development infrastructure i.e. business schools, incubators and regional developers focus on venture capital based entrepreneurship to stimulate an elite or on unicorn entrepreneurship to benefit everyone?

Does Entrepreneurship Development waste educational resources teaching venture capital-based entrepreneurship to entrepreneurs and students who need to know Unicorn-Entrepreneurship?

Entrepreneurial development today primarily teaches:

· Small business - but is a 4 year degree necessary to grow a small business?

· Venture capital-based entrepreneurship, which assumes that venture capital is needed to develop growth businesses. As a result, many business schools teach about innovation, viable products, business plans, and venture capital funding; and organize business plan or pitch competitions; and shark tanks.

But is venture capital-based entrepreneurship the right direction, especially for the 99.98% who don't fit the narrow profile and requirements of the venture capital industry, and for 100% who don't get venture capital before Aha, i.e. evidence of potential:

VC is Capital-for-the-Privileged. It funds about 100/100,000 companies and does so after Aha. Is entrepreneurial development missing an opportunity to teach everyone the skills needed to take off without VC, as 94% of unicorn entrepreneurs did? (The Truth About VC)

· VC has worked primarily in Silicon Valley. In an analysis of 85 billion-dollar entrepreneurs, 88% of those in Silicon Valley used VC. But most of them used skills to delay the VC until after takeoff. Should entrepreneurial development teach the skills and smart strategies to achieve Aha?

· Outside of Silicon Valley, 91% have not used VC. They used skills, smart strategies and capital as a tool, which works everywhere, and before and after Aha! Should entrepreneurial development teach the skills and smart strategies to grow without VC?

Entrepreneurial development can do better by:

· Teach capital-efficient unicorn entrepreneurship rather than venture capital-based entrepreneurship. With Unicorn-Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs can learn to grow without wasting their time and opportunities seeking venture capital, only to be rejected. Venture capitalists reject about 98-99% of entrepreneurs who approach them for funds.

· Focus on skills, not ideas. Entrepreneurs must come to Aha to be taken seriously. Unicorn-Entrepreneurs mostly came to Aha and beat early-comers by using smart financial strategies and skills.

· Encourage capital-oriented skill competitions rather than capital-presenting competitions. Pitch contests assume smart judges can pick the winners. But VCs, who are the smartest professionals in the startup industry, wait for Aha, meaning proof of potential, and then fail 80% of their businesses. So why can pitch competition judges do better? Before Aha when no one can assess skills.

EU can spur successful business growth everywhere, especially in business schools and community colleges that aren't high on the VC radar. By teaching smart financial skills, entrepreneurs can prove their potential based on real-world performance, not on-the-job performance.

Making VC more accessible can only mean more VC losses. The top 3% of VCs are said to earn 95% of VC returns. To get high returns, VCs need unicorns. Increasing the number of VCs and increasing VC availability is unlikely to create more homeruns without developing more unicorn entrepreneurs.

MY OPINION: If the goal is to create more unicorns outside of Silicon Valley, and among disadvantaged communities and women-owned businesses, teaching Unicorn-Entrepreneurship can do more than more VC . Without Unicorn-Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs could wait for capital that may never come and waste the opportunity that has presented itself. If the goal is to build more unicorns, in all communities rich and poor, Entrepreneurial Development should stop promoting pitch comp...