Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Celebrating Entrepreneurs and Angels – Key to Our EconomyMany in the world are waking up to the huge importance of entrepreneurs – who create high quality jobs and innovations that change people’s quality of life. Entrepreneurs, investors, incubators, universities, and a wide variety of community leaders have known about this for a long time, but now the public and elected officials are also seeing it. They’re also celebrating entrepreneurs and now angel investors in a series of events, proclamations, articles and other programs:
November also includes other important celebrations such as National Veterans Small Business Week, which ACA recognized last week, and the upcoming Small Business Saturday on November 29th. All of this celebration makes a lot of sense. As Reps. Scott Peters, Ron Kind, and Patrick Murphy wrote yesterday, “There's no question that the flame of entrepreneurship still burns brightly for millions of Americans: According to the Kauffman Foundation, 70 percent of our young people still dream of owning their own business one day. And new business owners are still putting their own resources on the line to kickstart their ventures: Eighty-two percent of entrepreneurs in 2012 used their own savings for startup cash. That level of commitment and determination makes it clear that entrepreneurs and small-business owners will continue to power our economic growth.” And let’s not forget how important angel investors are to these wonderful entrepreneurs: last year angels invested nearly $25 billion in about 71,000 entrepreneurs in every US state, providing nearly 90 percent of the outside equity funding for startups. They added mentoring and other intellectual capital to help those startups grow and be successful. I invite you to join these various celebrations in any way you can. If you have events or information to publish about your work in entrepreneurship or investing, let the world know! You can post your information on the GEW website. Tags: |