When human society has entered the 2 1 century, innovation, entrepreneurship and creation have become the mainstream in economic and social life, just like the entrepreneurial master Larry? Farrell said: "Developing entrepreneurial economy is the key to win this global economic war in the 2 1 century." Entrepreneurial economy plays an important role in enhancing the ability of independent innovation, transforming the mode of economic growth and expanding social employment, which has attracted the attention of political, academic and industrial circles around the world.

In 2008, the world economic growth slowed down in an all-round way, and the US subprime mortgage crisis triggered a new round of global economic shocks. Affected by this, global economic growth is weak. The turbulent international economic and financial situation is gestating new changes, and China's economic development is facing new huge external shocks.

The 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly put forward the principles and policies of promoting employment through entrepreneurship, demanding to improve the policies supporting self-employment and self-employment, and to improve the service system for entrepreneurship. This year, on the 30th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up, a number of entrepreneurial models, such as Beijing Zhongguancun, have made useful explorations on the theory and practice of entrepreneurial economic development. In 2008, the government of China started the national pilot project of 100 entrepreneurial cities, and it is bound to become a new trend to promote a new round of economic development through entrepreneurial economy.

American entrepreneurial economy is booming.

Henrik Fisker doesn't care about the shape of the doorknob, doesn't focus on middle-class female customers, and doesn't plan to hire a bunch of people with the title of vice president to help him with his daily management. This guy, who used to be the chief designer of BMW, aston martin and Ford, abandoned the automobile giants and their business methods and opened a cutting-edge automobile manufacturing company in Irvine, California, USA.

Compared with the tens of thousands of employees of other automobile manufacturers, Fiske Automobile Company has only 50 employees on the roster, most of the manufacturing work is outsourced, and its 80 suppliers are all over the world, and finally the parts are assembled in a factory that produces Porsche in Finland. After less than three years of intense development, the company's first car will be rolled off the assembly line in the summer of 20 10, which is a dazzling plug-in hybrid sports car named "Karma".

Fisco, 46, is not opposed to expanding the company. He just doesn't want the company to fall into a complicated enterprise structure and rigid system, and then be dragged down by its own scale like other automobile manufacturing giants. He believes: "To build a successful automobile manufacturing enterprise, there must be another way. We plan to establish our brand as soon as possible before the market competition of plug-in hybrid vehicles intensifies. Our secret weapon against BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and other companies in the future is: faster than others. "

Indicates that the machine is in danger.

After the economic collapse in 2008, CEOs also developed the same investment habits as ordinary migrant workers, preferring to hide their money under mattresses. It seems that now is not a good time to make big plans, and the business methods of many industries have been completely adjusted. Everyone gradually came to the same conclusion as Fisk: we don't have to do things in the same way. We can take our economy and destiny into our own hands. A change that has been quietly rising in the business world has finally found its foothold: the dawn of entrepreneurial economy has begun, which is an economic system based on rapid response and low-cost operation, and the main driving force is often small and medium-sized enterprises with strong employee mobility.

Surprisingly, this economic crisis seems to be a driving force: some people are out of their own choice, others are helpless, but more and more people are trying to start their own businesses. According to the latest data of American Small and Medium Enterprises Agency (SBA), although most economic indicators declined in 2008, the number of newly established SMEs remained at the level before the economic crisis. The Kaufman Entrepreneurial Activity Index also tracks the annual changes in the number of new businesses. The data shows that it even rose slightly during this period, and the upward trend is expected to continue until the end of 2009. In the past ten years, the rate of self-employment has been growing steadily at the rate of 4.5% per year, which is equivalent to an increase of nearly 1 10,000 people working for themselves every year. Although the data of 2008 and 2009 have not been published, it is estimated that it will be flat even if it does not continue to grow. In addition, the number of students taking entrepreneurship-related courses in colleges and universities across the United States has also soared.

Michael S. Malone, the author of The Future Arrived Yesterday: The Rise of Variety Companies and Its Significance to You, believes that the development of new technologies such as cloud computing is also an important factor in the entrepreneurial society, and various factors have promoted the emergence of the first truly entrepreneurial society in the world. "Overnight, even if there is no big factory, you can start a company to do business. The entry cost is almost zero, and ordinary people can start businesses at low cost. The best strategy now is small-scale, quick response and simplicity. "

George Solomon, deputy director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Talents at George Washington University, shares the same view with other business schools: "In the future, new jobs will mainly come from start-up enterprises, and even if old enterprises can regain their vitality, it is difficult to shoulder this heavy responsibility."

There is no doubt that the wave of entrepreneurship is sweeping across the United States, and it is ringing the values of many Americans. Even US President Barack Obama has repeatedly publicly called on Qi Xin, a small and medium-sized entrepreneur, to work together to help the United States get out of the economic crisis as soon as possible. Obama's economic recovery plan became the key, and he even reached an agreement with the Middle East, promising to use corporate summits and other forms to break down the commercial and cultural barriers between the two countries. In September 2009, the US Department of Commerce also established the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation to help new businesses.

This boat turns around easily.

The rise of entrepreneurial economy is not only an academic course or a political show, but more and more enterprises have made breakthroughs in small-scale flexible management technology, including Dell, Cisco and Facebook. Vizio, the leader of American HDTV, is a good example. Its bright rise has not only pushed old conservative enterprises such as Fujitsu, pioneer electronics and Apex out of the TV manufacturing industry, but also made companies such as Philips earn a lot of money through the licensing of flat-panel TV components.

In 2002, the bursting of the Internet bubble severely hit Princeton Digital Company, a California computer screen manufacturer, but the boss William Wang and his partners decided to seize the opportunity to transform rather than cash out the company. They realized that their expertise and many computer screen components could be used to produce low-priced flat-panel TVs, which were still very expensive luxuries at that time.

So he sold Princeton Digital Company and founded Vizio. They decided not to adopt vertical unified management, nor did they intend to invest all their money in high-tech factories and R&D departments. Vizio, like Fisker Automotive, will not waste time redeveloping new tires. It directly looks for existing high-quality electronic components from suppliers and overseas manufacturers, and then chooses the most cost-effective one. In a short period of five years, Vizio won the position of the leader of American flat-panel TV manufacturers with annual sales of $65.438+$90 million, relying on flat-panel TVs below $2,000. Although it is an electronics giant, the number of formal employees is surprisingly small. Vizio's office in California and the customer service center in South Dakota have only 162 employees, most of whom are marketing, sales and product developers.

Because there is not much production equipment and R&D investment, Vizio can adjust its business at any time. In 2009, they gave up plasma TV and specialized in traditional LCD TV and LCD TV with LED technology. It is said that the latter can achieve the effect of plasma TV at a lower price. However, if new plasma technology appears, Vizio, which is rarely independently developed, can immediately adjust its direction and launch new products within weeks or months. Thanks to this advantage, Vizio was able to transform rapidly after the economic crisis, and produced a small-size 19 ~ 26-inch TV that was more suitable for the market demand.

However, smaller enterprises-those that cannot afford to outsource millions of dollars of electronic components overseas-still find it difficult to find opportunities in the economic crisis and realize the advantages of "small". In fact, when the economic situation is bad, it is not a bad thing to start a business or take the opportunity to adjust the enterprise, and many benefits can be found. Research by Dane Stangler, a senior analyst at Kaufman Foundation, shows that more than half of the largest and fastest-growing enterprises in the United States were founded when the economy was bad, which shows that at least the economic crisis may not be a bad thing for entrepreneurship.

Christopher Gergen, director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership Research at Duke University, said: "Basically, there are gaps in the service industries in various cities in the United States, and traditional competitors are now very conservative and weakened. As long as they are more flexible in the competition, enterprises that can provide quality products and services to the society will definitely have a chance to succeed. "

Thirty years ago, the word "entrepreneur" was associated with a hawker driving a pickup truck to sell seafood, or a liar who cheated the elderly into getting rich quickly. Today, the entrepreneurial myths of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and mark zuckerberg in the technical field are comparable to those of rock stars. With the public aware of the success potential of these energetic and creative entrepreneurs, the whole social culture has been completely changed.

The most obvious thing is that in the Y era, entrepreneurs were regarded as heroes and idols. 10 years ago, there were only a handful of formal entrepreneurship courses offered by American universities. Now there are more than 200 entrepreneurship research centers, and more than 500 high-end institutions provide entrepreneurship training certificates and major and minor degrees. According to a recent survey, 5 1% teenagers hope to start their own businesses one day, and regard this as a way to better grasp their lives.

3F financing

Of course, from the economic point of view, 20 10 financing is still a big problem. The subprime mortgage crisis in 2008 only slightly improved, and it is difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to recover from the trauma in a short time. Scott Shane, a professor of economics at the Catholic University in Washington and a columnist on The New York Times's website, said that the 730 million SME loans in the US government's economic stimulus plan in 2009 and 20 10 were simply a drop in the bucket and could not break the crisis. However, historically, more than 50% people started their businesses not by loans, but by raising their own venture capital through "friends, family and fools".

Robert Fairlie, from the University of California, Santa Cruz, has followed the entrepreneurial situation in the United States, and his statistics are consistent with this conclusion. In 2008, more low-cost and low-income enterprises were established, and he predicted that this level of development would be maintained in 2009.

Mike Michaud thinks that if you start a business when the economic situation is good, it is difficult for enterprises to gain a foothold so easily. In 2007, McCord was fired by Circuit City Company in Darien, Illinois, because he was "overpaid" as an employee. So he decided to try with two friends in their twenties to turn his dream of starting a business into reality. A friend's father sponsored $5,000, and the rest was saved part-time. Finally, the three of them founded an Internet TV website named Channel Awesome, which specializes in producing original content.

Then, one of the first video programs they produced, Man with Glasses, was produced by a partner in front of the mirror, and made a sharp movie review and question-and-answer dialogue, which quickly became popular on YouTube. So they quickly turned their guns and fully developed the business opportunities of this "network red man". After being online for more than a year, the average monthly click-through rate reached 1 650,000, bringing them 1 1,500 dollars. McCord believes that the meager budget and simple early style make the program "Glasses Man" have a unique competitive advantage in the fastest-growing field of online video. He said: "We have always maintained a low-cost strategy and are confident that we can survive the day of economic recovery."

At the same time, they are slowly enriching the theme of the website and want to re-transform into the original network TV channel. At present, they have launched comment games and comment bar programs, and are also preparing sports comments and comedy short films. They plan to launch a total of 300 original series programs.

No matter what will happen to the economy the day after tomorrow or the year after, there is no doubt that the overall situation has changed. Enterprises and employees are not sitting still and watching the future get darker and darker. They work together to reform corporate culture and technology and establish a grassroots economy-a collection of many small enterprises that can keep up with the trend of the times.

"Entrepreneurship is shining." Writer Malone thinks this spirit will be even more dazzling after the economic recovery. "There are many things in the world that you can't change, and the entrepreneurial spirit developed in 100 years is one of them. America is full of such ambitious and capable people who dare to eat crabs. The negative news now can't shake all this. "