High-impact entrepreneurship

High-impact entrepreneurship is the work of a High-impact entrepreneur. A high-impact entrepreneur is an entrepreneur who develops a big idea, with an ambitious plan, and turns that idea into a viable business. That business employs hundreds, even thousands of people and generates millions in wages and revenues. A business entrepreneur’s success is typically measured by performance in profit and return, but a high-impact entrepreneur is often recognized additionally by their power to inspire others, revolutionize industries, and change the economy of developing countries. In a The New Yorker article entitled ‘What Microloans Miss,’James Surowiecki says "Business that can generate jobs for others are the best hope of any country trying to put a serious dent in its poverty rate."

History

The term High-impact entrepreneur and High-impact entrepreneurship were first widely used by Endeavor, a non-profit organization working in the field of economic development. It has since been used by Carl Schramm, CEO of the Kauffman Foundation and thought leader on entrepreneurship. (see link ) Endeavor’s focus is on providing support to high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Linda Rottenberg, CEO, was quoted in The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, by Thomas Friedman. “For us, the leverage in supporting these ‘high-impact’ entrepreneurs comes not only through the direct jobs, but also through a multiplier effect: one high-impact entrepreneur creates hundreds of jobs, inspires thousands of future entrepreneurs, and the cycle continues."

One of the first examples of high-impact entrepreneurship is , started in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo, both Electrical Engineering graduate students at Stanford. It is now one of the leading internet brands and has the most trafficked network on the internet.
Another current example of high-impact entrepreneurship is of Marcos Gasperin and Hernan Kazah, who started Mercado Libre- eBay of Latin America, in 1997. They quickly expanded to nine countries, and in 2006 employed 800 people and generated $52 million in revenues. The Financial Times said “The Argentine-based company bucked the general negative trend in emerging market stocks to exceed its original price offering of $18 per share by more than 50 percent." They were selected as Endeavor Entrepreneurs in 2001.

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