Scalable business or open source entrepreneurship

In our recent entrepreneurship forum, I realized that there is an understandable love affair with scalable business. Since the industrial revolution, good businesses have often become big businesses. In the field of venture capital, there is an affinity to businesses that are not only viable, but also scalable. There are some businesses that can and should be scalable to provide the greatest impact to small communities and to networks of communities (cell phone service is a prime example).

Yet what is needed most in the field of entrepreneurship is not big benevolent companies, but small repeated entrepreneurship in communities where members of the community assess the needs, the opportunities and the risks and invest in the community. So the very ventures that are most needed in local communities are the least likely to attract the start-up capital to get going. Investors want something that's going to make lots of money. Most small businesses will make a good return, but won't turn anyone into a millionaire overnight.

The more that I am involved with entrepreneurship, the more I feel called to catalyze small, repeated entrepreneurship in the community, from the community and for the community. I think that the way that this happens best is through open source entrepreneurship. By confessing that we are acting for the community, we can be transparent with community members about the process of entrepreneurship, assisting others with intellectual, human and financial capital to establish other businesses that support the community.