The World's Most Fearless (& Timid) Entrepreneurs

According to a survey of 170,000 people across 49 countries and territories, the number of people who feel like it is a good moment for entrepreneurs does not evenly correlate with the share of folks who would actually go ahead and give that entrepreneurial idea of theirs a shot. The recently released report by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor shows instead that some nations are equipped with fearless entrepreneurs who won't be dissuaded, while other places have more timid populations that cite fear of failure as a reason not to start a business despite agreement on ample opportunity.

The tendency to be more or less bold in regards to entrepreneurialism is not strictly dictated by a country's income level either. For example, the levels of perceived business opportunity are similar in Venezuela and the Netherlands, at a good 60 percent of respondents seeing favorable conditions to start a business. Around a third of these people - or around 20 percent of total respondents from each of the two countries - would still decline to do so out of fear of failure. The same is true for response patterns in Switzerland and Iran, despite economic conditions being very different in these two places as well.

Saudi Arabia and Indonesia are the countries in the survey where most people saw favorable conditions for starting a business. Yet, more than half of those identifying opportunity wouldn't act on it in Saudi Arabia, while that share was only a third in Indonesia. This is despite high shares in both countries saying they considered the bureaucratic hurdles to entrepreneurship manageable, had the knowledge to run their own business and also knew other people who had started businesses recently. In the United States, reluctance to start a business was also low when compared with perceived opportunity to do so - in line with the ethos of entrepreneurialism in the country. Again, U.S. answer patterns were close to those of another nation - the UK - concerning bureaucratic ease and perceived opportunity. They differed much more, however, in regard to the intention of actually starting a business, hinting at differences more deeply engrained in society. On this topic, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor identifies diverging ideas on how "collective good is viewed compared to individual success, and how people and groups weigh risk against reward" as factors that could influence individuals' decisions on a deeper level.

Respondents in the rapidly developing economies of China and India acted rather timid in a global comparison. This instance means that in the end, the U.S. still recorded more people who saw potential and wanted to start a business than China, which ranked much higher for opportunity but also for reluctance. The lowest hesitation, but also one of the lowest assessments of opportunity, was recorded in South Korea. In Japan, finally, only 12.7 percent thought it was a good moment for entrepreneurs, with around half of them - a tiny 6.2 percent in total - not ruling out the option of becoming one.