Description
Detailed description related to enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world.
Enabling
entrepreneurs in
a mobile world
helping
young people
shape their
future
01
VimpelCom
Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
“ There is increasing focus
on the potential for
digital technologies
to contribute solutions
to many societal
challenges.”
Introduction
from the CEO
About VimpelCom
VimpelCom – an international telecoms company
operating in 14 countries and headquartered
in Amsterdam. It is one of the world’s largest
integrated telecommunications services operators
providing voice and data services through
a range of traditional and broadband mobile
and ?xed technologies in Russia, Italy, Ukraine,
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Armenia,
Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Algeria, Bangladesh,
Pakistan, and Zimbabwe.
www.vimpelcom.com
About 'Make your Mark'
Make Your Mark is a key element of VimpelCom’s
corporate responsibility strategy with a goal
to ‘help young people shape their future’.
Make Your Mark recognizes the challenges
that today’s young people face in relation to
issues such as poverty, youth unemployment,
inadequate healthcare and education, food
security, resource scarcity and climate change –
reinforced by a rapidly growing population.
Make Your Mark aims to provide young people
with the technology tools, support and mentoring,
and in some cases access to basic education,
to help them tackle these challenges at an
individual, community and national level –
to shape their future.
helping
young people
shape their
future
About the Authors
Caribou Digital is a consultancy dedicated to
building digital economies in emerging markets
via investment advisory, research and consulting.
This report was researched and written by Chris
Locke and Marissa Drouillard from Caribou Digital,
who each have over ?fteen years experience
in the mobile and internet industries globally,
and who specialize in developing digital
entrepreneurship in emerging markets.
Contents
Section 1 02
Understanding the value
of digital entrepreneurs
Section 2 06
The challenges facing digital
entrepreneurs
Section 3 16
The role of mobile operators in
supporting digital entrepreneurs
Recommendations 20
Recommendations for mobile
operators on how to support young
tech entrepreneurs
References 22
At VimpelCom we are seeing the
convergence of three important
trends that are very relevant to
our business.
Firstly, it is clear that today’s
young people will face signi?cant
challenges over their lifetimes.
Climate change and resource
pressures, the ongoing ?ght
against poverty and hunger,
poor education and healthcare
provision, all coupled with a
population growing to 9 billion
by 2050, will heavily impact quality
of life. This comes at a time of
signi?cant youth unemployment
when many young people are
struggling to get a start in life.
Secondly, there is increasing
focus on the potential for digital
technologies to contribute solutions
to many of these challenges,
by helping to connect people
more effectively, or even for the
?rst time, to government or private
sector services vital for their social
and economic development.
Mobile-enabled services can often
bring a ‘step-change’ in ef?ciency
and reach of service provision, and
at the same time can play a key role
in reducing environmental impact.
And thirdly, as this report highlights,
much of the growth in innovation
in digital businesses and app
development is coming from
aspiring young digital entrepreneurs
in both developed and developing
markets. But this growing opportunity
is not evenly distributed across all
regions and countries, and young
entrepreneurs need support and
nurturing for them to be successful.
As telecommunication companies
continue to transition from voice
centric to digital businesses, they
are learning to work with a new
ecosystem of players and different
business models. This change
in business approach, coupled
with the trends indicated above,
suggests an opportunity for
companies like ours to help stimulate
an innovation pipeline that will help
young people shape their future
whilst helping our business to prosper
in a more sustainable commercial
environment.
This report, the ?rst commissioned
as part of our newly launched
Make Your Mark program
(see on page 01) looks at the
challenges and opportunities for
young entrepreneurs and provides
recommendations for mobile
operators on how they can best
support the growth of new digital
businesses. I hope you ?nd it
interesting and helpful.
Jo Lunder
Chief Executive Of?cer
03
VimpelCom
Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
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Understanding
the value of digital
entrepreneurs
Figure 1:
Measuring the
impact of the
digital economy
Section 1 The 21st Century is the era
of the digital economy
It is clear to anyone with a
smartphone that we live in the era
of the digital economy. Increasingly
ubiquitous, essential and demanded
by consumers, access to digital
networks and the services they
provide is the de?ning feature
of the 21st Century.
The exponential growth in global
mobile adoption is an oft-cited
phenomenon. There are 3.6bn
global users of mobile phones,
with 40-50% of those users in the
developed world using smartphones
(GSMA 2014). The internet revolution
of the past twenty years has
resolutely gone mobile in the last
?ve years, with mobile and tablet
usage of internet services fast
outstripping other access methods
with 80% of the global population
forecast to have smartphones by
2020 (Evans 2014).
The other oft-cited phenomenon
is the economic impact of this
revolution in Internet access. We
are familiar with the Deloitte statistic
that for every 10% increase in mobile
subscribers there is a 1.2% increase
in GDP (Deloitte 2007). But we are
seeing a much more signi?cant
impact in more recent studies
that look at a broader range
of economic impacts from the
digital economy.
A recent McKinsey report states
that the digital economy is worth on
average 3.4% GDP (McKinsey 2011)
– which if it were counted as a sector
would make it more valuable than
Agriculture or Utilities. And we are
still at the early stages of growth,
particularly in emerging economies
such as the BRICs and Sub-Saharan
Africa and South East Asia.
Moving even beyond the direct GDP
impact of the digital economy, the
OECD has examined how the direct
and indirect bene?ts of access
to the Internet play into country
economies. By considering the
consumer surplus created by digital
services and the socio-economic
effects as well, their model builds a
more complete picture of what the
true impact of the digital economy
is (see ?gure 1).
This approach starts to identify
a more interesting impact of the
digital economy, in particular in
the society-wide effects. We know
that access to information via digital
services has driven a much broader
access to educational information,
and via sites such as Khan Academy
it has started a revolution in free
access to world-class educational
content. Massive open online
courses (MOOCs) and an increasing
trend within universities of opening
up their course materials online has
started to remove many barriers to
quality education around the world.
But beyond access to content,
digital services have also improved
the experience and management
of the education sector – as can
be seen in the case study of Bridge
International Academies in Kenya,
where digital ?nancial services
are having an unexpectedly large
impact on the delivery of a quality
educational experience
(see case study 1).
It is clear from all of these studies
that the impact of digital services
is profound from both economic
and social perspectives. What is
also clear from the usage statistics
is that mobile services are the
engine of growth driving this
revolution forward.
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Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
Source: OECD 2014
ADDED VALUE
GENERATED IN
SOCIETY-WIDE EFFECTS CONSUMER SURPLUS
(BEYOND GDP)
generated through consumption
of goods and services offered through:
(BEYOND GDP) (PART OF GDP)
All other activities as
the result of the internet
Activities purely based
on the internet
Activities
supporting the
internet
(e.g. through lower search costs,
better matching processes, etc.)
(e.g. search engines,
e-commerce web services, etc.)
(e.g. ISPs, internet equipment
manufacturers, etc.)
All other activities as a
result of the internet
Activities purely based
on the internet
Activities
supporting the
internet
Environment
Health
Education
Government
transparency
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Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world 05
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Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
“. . . great potential for
quality youth employment –
manufacturing, agriculture,
retail and hospitality,
construction, ?nance and
business services, transportation,
government and social services,
transportation, and ICT. Growth
possibilities exist for ICT-related
jobs throughout the value
chains of each of these sectors.
However, and speci?c to ICT
as an independent sector,
?ve subsectors offer signi?cant
potential for youth employment
and entrepreneurship:
Business Process Outsourcing;
Development of mobile
telephones; Telecommunication;
Internet website design;
Network administration.”
Understanding the value of digital entrepreneurs
continued
Digital entrepreneurs –
particularly young
developers – are the crux
of this creation of value
and social impact
As with many tech revolutions,
young entrepreneurs have been at
the center of the genesis of the new
digital economy. The value of digital
entrepreneurs can be measured,
as stated above, in their contribution
to driving the social and economic
impact by providing new services
to customers and driving economic
growth, but it is also in creating
employment and other opportunities
that we can assess the value they
bring to the table.
The world is facing a ‘youth bulge’
– a population explosion that, in a
time of global austerity, is creating
an unbalanced workforce with
high levels of youth unemployment
in most countries. Young people
aged 15-29 will represent more than
50 % of the working population by
2020 and yet we have on average
a 12% youth unemployment rate
globally (ILO 2013).
This is creating a ratio of
unemployed youth against
adult employment that is a source
of tension and concern. And this
is not something affecting
developing economies alone –
many developed economies
have suffered badly from the recent
?nancial crisis and this is driving
the imbalance. As we can see
in the data below developed or
advanced economies such as
Russia and Italy actually have higher
ratios of youth to adult employment
compared to some developing
markets where there has been
more growth in the local economy.
At the center of this
growth is the mobile
phone and the app
– bringing new services
to customers around
the world
Increasing smartphone access is
driving entirely new experiences
for consumers, as slowly the majority
of services we require become
apps. This has become so pervasive
that research shows in developed
markets such as the US, the vast
majority of time online is now spent
on the internet using a mobile
device, and the bulk of that time
is spent using apps to access the
internet (see ?gure 2).
But this is even more pronounced
in emerging markets where access
to the Internet can often only be
achieved using mobile phones.
And it is new services appearing on
mobile phones that are driving the
growth in usage of digital services.
This cuts across sectors – from
entertainment, to health, to
education, and most notably in
?nancial services. Financial services
have long been something that has
been denied to many in emerging
markets, but the arrival of ubiquitous,
cheap mobile phones has brought
about a payments revolution,
with huge take up of the services
in Africa, the Middle East,
Latin America and South Asia.
Deployments stood at 38 globally
in 2009, but had risen to 219 by 2013
(GSMA 2013).
Mobile money has acted as a
catalyst in these markets, both
as a tool to create a formalized
banking culture where previously
there had been none. Also,
as the economy moves from
informal to formal, from unbanked
to banked, an opportunity to
monetize services that was not
previously available, helping to
create revenue streams for new
businesses.
Not only are these new jobs
categories opening up new
employment opportunities for youth,
but also they’re better paid. In the
same Rockefeller Foundation/
Dalberg report, monthly wages
in the ICT sector in Ghana were
substantially better than of?cial
minimum wages or the self reported
wage in other sectors – by a factor
of over ?ve.
So, beyond the macro-level impact
of digital services, we can see
there is a very strong impact on
the ground, as ICT jobs and training
provide a fast-paced industry for
unemployed youth.
What this points to is an opportunity
for entrepreneurs – a connected
audience with a varied and
widespread set of needs creates the
perfect ecosystem for entrepreneurs
to enter into the digital services
market. And this is where we see
the most exciting activity and value
creation around the world – in
start-ups creating new app-based
businesses built on these leapfrog
services. It is this con?uence of
available, affordable technology,
digitization of service delivery, and
the broad adoption of increasingly
powerful mobile phones that is
driving a new generation of digital
mobile entrepreneurship.
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
And yet we have not seen the
much-vaunted emerging market
competitor to Facebook or Google
yet. So what is holding back the
growth of local entrepreneurs?
(Source: Benedict Evans 2014)
Bridge International
Academies
Case study
In East Africa the mobile money
revolution has had a knock-on
effect in other sectors. When
asked how digital technology can
improve schooling, most people
will assume smartphones or tablets
with pre-loaded content is the
most effective way. But Bridge
International Academies have
pioneered the usage of mobile
money to improve the back-end
systems of their schools.
Using nothing more complex than
a US$80 smartphone and black
and white Nook e-readers, the
entire ?nance, staff, supplier and
student management can be
done. By receiving payments from
parents and by paying suppliers
using mobile money this school
administrator – Paul from the
Bridge Academy in Kisumu, Kenya
– saves two days travel a week,
days that can instead be spent on
site at the school making sure the
students and staff are supported
well. This success is evident
in Bridge Academies results,
where core reading skills amongst
students are 35% higher than
average for Kenya, and core
math skills 19% higher.
Figure 3: Youth unemployment
ratio compared to adults in
VimpelCom markets
Algeria 3.00
Armenia 2.50
Bangladesh 2.90
Italy 3.90
Pakistan 2.10
Russia 3.40
Ukraine 2.70
Zimbabwe 2.70
WORLD 2.80
(Source: ILO2014)
Recent research by the International
Youth Foundation looked at which
growth industries can provide new
jobs for this ‘youth bulge’ (IYF 2014)
(see ?gure 3). Their analysis
uncovered nine high growth sectors
in sub Saharan Africa that offer:
Section 1
June 2013 June 2014
Figure 2: Mobile apps driving time online
0
250
500
750
1,000
1,250
MOBILE
WEB
MOBILE
APP
DESKTOP
WEB
US time spent online (billion minutes)
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Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
The challenges
facing digital
entrepreneurs
In the previous section we
discuss the opportunities that are
there for entrepreneurs, building
on the growth of mobile and
digital platforms making it
easier to develop new services,
and a growing audience hungry
for apps on their smartphones.
But there are few countries that
have replicated the success
of Silicon Valley in terms of
supporting entrepreneurs.
We will look at what’s unique
about the Valley, and what
is replicable.
Section 2
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Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
The San Francisco Bay
Area/Silicon Valley
entrepreneurship
ecosystem was a
trans-generational
consequence of earlier
investments in innovation.
It’s no coincidence that many of
the world’s most successful digital
companies were either started or
scaled in the San Francisco Bay
Area. Even overseas digital
companies grew by creating ties
to American investors, with many
establishing signi?cant of?ces
in the Bay Area (Ahmed, 2014).
But Silicon Valley would not be
the epicenter of start-up activity
without the institutions and cultural
demographics that evolved over
several generations. And while new
digital ecosystems are emerging
from Berlin to Bangalore, it will take
at least a decade before they reach
comparable levels of self-sustaining
maturity as Silicon Valley.
01
Two primary ingredients catalyzed
the development of an early
technology ecosystem following
World War II: (1) US government
investment in research and
development, and (2) the
emergence of a talent pool
with skills and interest to advance
and commercialize cutting edge
technology. Following an initial focus
on military uses for technology in the
1950s, Silicon Valley emerged in the
1960s as the premier place to work
on innovative projects at prestigious
Bay Area universities, such as
Stanford and UC Berkeley, and
government-backed technology
companies (Leslie, 1993). Great
weather and career opportunities
attracted young, top-quality
engineering talent to study and
then stay to work at leading
companies like Fairchild, Hewlett
Packard, and Intel. (Scaruf?, 2014).
New wealth created from the
semiconductor industry was then
used to invest in the next generation
of early-stage technology
companies, beginning a trend
referred to as the “Entrepreneurship
Acceleration Cycle” (Endeavor
Insight), where successful founders
reinvest their time and money into
new ?rms. By sharing networks and
providing individual advice based
on experience, early venture
capitalists created a model for
perpetuating success. Indeed, as
noted in “How the ‘PayPal Ma?a’
Rede?ned Success in Silicon Valley”,
it was the advice given to new
start-ups in addition to money that
helped shape the next generation
of start-ups (Forrest, 2014).
In addition to its de?ning culture,
high levels of investment activity,
strong capacity, and a close-knit
support network make the San
Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley
a unique environment for scaling
digital start-ups. The Bay Area also
bene?ts from a number of
prestigious local universities
producing highly skilled,
entrepreneurial graduates.
Combined with routine start-up
churn, this results in a readily
available talent pool for start-ups
to tap into. But its not just accessible
coders and cash that make the
Bay Area unique, technology
multinationals, accelerators,
incubators and co-working spaces
support rapid development and
scaling. Not only are these
organizations in close proximity to
investors and universities, but also
they are extremely well networked.
The Silicon Valley venture capital
?rm Sequoia Capital uses their
‘Mobile Tectonics’ landscape
tool to characterize the diverse
set of stakeholders that now play
a vital role supporting digital
and increasingly mobile start-ups
(Reilly, 2014). From analytics
providers, to payment platforms,
to developer tools, the
concentration of leading
technology companies in the
Bay Area offers local start-ups an
advantage, not only through easier
access to resources and individuals
who can help, but also through
increased awareness of latest
and greatest technology.
Through a process
of replication and
evolution, we are
starting to see buds
of entrepreneurship
activity all over the
world, but start-ups
in emerging digital
communities struggle
for various reasons.
Digital entrepreneurship communities
begin with a small number of
pioneering start-ups, and develop
through increases in the level of
support for start-ups, number of
investors and investment levels,
and interconnectedness with private
sector, until the ecosystem becomes
independent and self-sustaining.
The challenges facing digital entrepreneurs
continued
Section 2
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Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
The start-up Ecosystem 2014
The Ecosystem stages The Ecosystem stages
(Source: Caribou Digital analysis and The Start-up Genome, 2012)
01
Seed
02
Hype
03
Independence
04
Integration
05
Expansion
06
Contraction
First few
start-ups
within a
concentrated
area
First success
stories, more
talent and
investors
migrate
Ecosystem
becomes
self-sustaining
Local and
global
consolidation
of talent and
capital
Global
integration
and
continuous
growth
Braindrain,
no renewal
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Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world 11
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Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
Challenge 01
A lack of a basic set of institutions
to function, such as credibility
enhancers, information analyzers
and advisors, aggregators and
distributors, and transaction
facilitators (Khanna & Palepu, 2013)
In the early days, there are
insuf?cient or missing local
institutions to support digital start-ups
and global options are not easily
accessible. The lack of institutions,
speci?cally channels and platforms
for aggregation and distribution,
facilitation of transactions, and
institutions to provide early stage
capital, partially explains why many
digital entrepreneurs in emerging
markets are still struggling.
Challenge 02
A lack of channels and platforms
that ?ll institutional voids in
emerging digital entrepreneurship
ecosystems
In the US, Europe, and more mature
emerging markets, Internet platform
players such as Google and Apple
play a facilitation role by
aggregating products and
integrating payments, in addition to
enhancing credibility for relatively
unknown start-ups. These platforms,
however, have limited relevance
in the developing world where
smartphone adoption rates are low
and a minority of the population
holds credit cards. To target the
masses in these markets,
entrepreneurs must utilize alternative
mobile channels, such as messaging
(SMS or USSD) or interactive voice
response (IVR), at least until
smartphones become more
prevalent.
Yet accessing these channels is
a problem for many early stage
start-ups. Mobile operators and other
third parties who control mobile
channels aim to make a pro?t
and generally charge for network
services on a per unit basis – so
delivery costs increase with traf?c
volumes. While some operators
discount for large volumes, early
stage start-ups with only a few or a
few hundred customers are unlikely
to generate suf?cient volumes to
reach lower price bands. This means
* iHub_ and the emerging tech
community in Nairobi
It often takes a ‘foundational’
company to kick-start an ecosystem
for entrepreneurs in a country.
Just as the founders of Fairchild
had a role in shaping Silicon Valley,
Nairobi’s current tech scene bene?ts
from alumni from two pioneering
start-ups: Ushahidi and 3Mice
Interactive. What we can learn
from them is how a community of
like-minded start-ups can lay the
seeds for an entire sector’s success.
Ushahidi was founded during the
aftermath of Kenya’s disputed
2007 election as a crowdsourcing
platform for social activism
and public accountability.
One of Ushahidi’s co-founders,
Eric Hersman, went on to establish
the _iHub* as a space for Nairobi’s
emerging tech community, as well
as co-found another Kenyan
start-up, BRCK, a physically robust
multi-mobile network hub with
enough power to survive a blackout.
Hersman is also a General Partner
in the African VC and accelerator
Savannah Fund.
3Mice Interactive Media was one
of the ?rst technology start-ups in
Kenya, founded in 1998 by Paul
Kukubo, Ken Njoroge and Betty
Mwaniki-Kukube. Kukubo is now
the ?rst and current CEO of the
East Africa Exchange (EAX), based
in Kigali, Rwanda, after previously
serving as the founding Chief
Executive Of?cer of the Kenya
Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) Board. Njoroge
moved on to found Cellulant,
a pan-African mobile payments
infrastructure company connecting
mobile operators, banks, businesses
and customers. Cellulant is now
in eight countries and is serving
25 banks across the continent
and has touched the lives of over
10 million customers.
Case study
that relative to revenues that
start-ups currently generate using
these channels, mobile resources
are expensive, limiting the viability
of many business models. Indeed,
research in Kenya found high costs
of operator resources to be the
greatest technical challenge that
digital entrepreneurs were facing
(50 per cent of respondents).
Whereas in Silicon Valley
monetization is sometimes an
afterthought, in many emerging
markets cash ?ow is a serious
concern for early-stage
entrepreneurs, many of who fund
their own way through services
launches. Because effectively
emerging market entrepreneurs
can be priced out of the market for
using mobile channels, the markets
they can reach are limited.
Challenge 03
A lack of information analyzers and
limited specialist advisors hinders
the ability to deploy capital
Securing ?nance is dif?cult for
a start-up in any market, but it's
particularly challenging in emerging
digital start-up communities
because of relatively fewer specialist
technology funds and experienced
investors or entrepreneurs. As
a result, ?nance is a bottleneck
to scaling digital services in many
markets. Funds that do specialize
are limited by their capacity to
provide guidance and consequently
there is less capital to go around,
particularly for very early stage
start-ups. Whereas in the US
approximately US$162 billion has
been invested during Q1-3 of 2014,
signi?cantly less was invested in
emerging ecosystems: US$6 billion
in the Russian Federation, US$100
million in Bangladesh, and US$24
million in the Ukraine.
Figure 4: Challenges in Emergent Digital Entrepreneur Ecosystems
(Source: Caribou Digital analysis and Khanna & Palepu, 2013)
The challenges facing digital entrepreneurs
continued
Section 2
• Limited ‘App stores’
for feature phone users
• Lack of independent
credit agencies
missing or non-functioning market ecosystem
that companies depend on
• Relevant information on
market demand is lacking
• Few technology specialist
VC or angel lists in
developing world
• Mobile operators exert
control over channels for
accessing featurephone
end-users
• Mobile money facilitates
transactions, however
many operators have
yet to roll out integrations
MERITOCRACY
Mentorship
CREDIBILITY ENHANCERS
INSTITUTIONAL VOIDS
culture that nurtures entrepreneurship
only beginning to develop
NASCENT CULTURE
INFORMATION
ANALYZERS & ADVISORS
AGGREGATORS &
DISTRIBUTORS
TRANSACTION
FACILITATORS
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Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world 13
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Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
Sometimes being too
technologically advanced is a
disadvantage when speaking to
local investors. One tech savvy
Kenyan investor noted that his ?rm
has recently changed tack and
is shying away from risk-taking
companies, opting for safer bets
on proven models – mainly because
it’s hard to be one of the few ?rms
being that innovative in a country.
That said, because across all
sectors there is less infrastructure
and fewer legacy business models,
the disruption that has currently
trans?xed developed markets
actually ?lls institutional voids when
launched in the developing world
(e.g. taxi apps, etc.), and there is
plenty of opportunity for copy cats.
(see ?gure 5).
Challenge 04
A lack of a nascent start-up culture
that cultivates meritocracy and
mentorship in emerging ecosystems
The de?ning characteristics of Silicon
Valley culture – a social system that
provides opportunities based on
ability and a belief that success
should be ‘paid forward
02
’ through
mentorship – contributed to the
creation of a successful model for
scaling innovation. In addition to
institutional voids, these cultural
aspects are the other primary
reason why start-ups struggle in
nascent ecosystems. At the root
is really a lack of success stories:
this affects the con?dence and
ambitions of entrepreneurs,
the number of angel investors
and mentors, and the size and
banglalink in Bangladesh
Bangladesh is a country starting to
come to grips with Internet access,
but still only 24% of the population
has Internet connectivity. Of that
number, 97% access the Internet
via mobile phones.
Banglalink, the 2nd largest mobile
operator in Bangladesh, recognized
a need to address the opportunities
for young entrepreneurs to use
mobile apps. In 2011 banglalink
launched its ‘Grandmaster’
competition to identify and
nurture ideas and apps from young
developers. The idea came from
brainstorming internally, as staff felt
the need to establish platforms for
development of Internet services
across the country and within the
company. The Government’s vision
for ‘Digital Bangladesh 2021’ was
an in?uence, and they felt mobile
was the key platform to enable this.
Targeting Universities and Colleges,
the ?rst year of the contest was
focused on an idea generation
contest – “Bring the ideas” which
was a simple and very open format
for 2-4 person groups to bring ideas
that required a mix of talents from
technology, business development
and marketing. This ?rst year saw
over 4,500 registrations.
Now in its fourth year the
competition has moved on so
participants are supported in
developing beyond the idea stage
to create actual apps. The
banglalink app store has already
been launched, where the top 25
apps from the competition will be
made available, and where they
will receive royalties, support and
marketing from the company.
This will be a step ahead from the
previous years where winners will
not only receive awards but also get
the opportunity to showcase their
entrepreneurial talent at young age.
Alongside this support, in 2014,
previous ?nalists have bene?ted
from a partnership with Huawei,
visiting their technological labs and
research centers in various cities in
China for training, workshops &
personal development. In 2015,
Banglalink has planned to partner
with an organization having app
development expertise, which will
further support the young digital
entrepreneurs of Bangladesh to
shape their own future.
www.banglalink.com.bd
Case study
availability of local technology
funds and business accelerators.
Because fewer experienced
entrepreneurs are available to pass
along advice on what it means to
be a start-up and how to go about
creating value, often entrepreneurs
are poorly prepared to pitch to an
investor, let alone run a business.
This can be frustrating for investors;
a wide-spread perception persists
among investors that most start-ups
in Kenya are creating code, not
creating companies, and it’s not
uncommon for an investor to be
approached by a solo developer,
or two technicians with no
operations, ?nance, or marketing
team members. Indeed, investors
are right to assess that many
start-ups lack proper team structure,
track records, and skills necessary
to run a business.
Compared to peers in other
innovation hubs, there is a real
difference in terms of experience:
whereas the average age of
entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley is 34,
in Kenya 86 per cent are younger
than this and have little formal work
experience. Similarly, in Moscow and
Santiago the average age is 28,
and in Sao Paolo 31 (Telefonica
Digital & The Start-up Genome,
2012). Combined with the fact that
start-ups do not receive enough
business advice from mentors who
have walked before them, this
explains the other major reasons
why start-ups struggle. The net result
is that relatively young and
tech-heavy start-ups in emerging
markets focus on what they know –
product development – rather than
on understanding the customer. It’s
then not surprising that marketing is
such a challenge for start-ups in
emerging markets.
Ecosystems eventually
reach an in?ection
point where they are
self-sustaining locally
and attracting
international investment.
Among those countries that attract
more than 1 per cent of global
investments, Bangalore, Moscow,
Shanghai and New Delhi are the
fastest growing emerging market
technology ecosystems
03
. So far in
2014, start-ups from these regions
have raised a total of nearly
US$23 billion, which is about
10 per cent of the amount raised
globally. While no comparison
to Silicon Valley in terms of the
total amount of funding, there
has been a dramatic shift in focus
even in the last year. According
to CrunchBase data (2014), nearly
three-quarters of the investment that
start-ups in Bangalore have received
to date was received just in the
current year (US$9.9 billion out of
US$13.9 billion). Furthermore, just
recently in September 2014, the
world witnessed the high pro?le
IPO of China’s Alibaba, which raised
US$21.8 billion, valuing the company
at over US$168 billion (Bloomberg,
2014). India’s e-commerce titans
are not far behind China. Flipkart
recently raised US$1 billion (Shu,
2014), and Snapdeal, which
competes with Flipkart, is already
planning to list publicly in the US
sometime in the next 12 to 24 months
(Farr, 2014). Meanwhile, the Russian
Federation’s ‘Amazon’, online retailer
Ozon.ru, recently raised US$150
million, based on a US$694 million
valuation, surpassing a previous
US$130 million investment in Rocket
Internet’s e-Commerce giant
Lamoda (Hopkins, 2014).
(Source: Caribou Digital analysis and CrunchBase database, 2014)
The challenges facing digital entrepreneurs
continued
Section 2
Figure 5: Total investments in Digital Technology (2010-2014)
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Billions $
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Armenia
Bangladesh
Brazil
Chile
China
Algeria
Greece
Indonesia
India
Israel
Italy
Kenya
Nigeria
Pakistan
Philippines
Russian Federation
Singapore
Ukraine
South Africa
Zimbabwe
Note: Countries with very lowlevels of investment are all indicated by grey lines.
This data cannot be easily differentiated in the chart.
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The Global Innovation Fund,
a US$200 million nonpro?t
collaboration supported by DfID,
USAID, Omidyar Network, Sida, and
the Department of Foreign Affairs
and Trade in Australia is one of these
initiatives (Global Innovation Fund,
2014). Recently launched in New
York in September 2014, the fund will
provide grants and risk capital to
scale breakthrough solutions to
global development challenges.
While not speci?cally tech in remit,
the fund builds on lessons learnt from
previous decades that innovation
can come from any sector and
that ?exible ?nancing approaches
are needed.
Ideabox Myanmar, a community
for entrepreneurs that is focused
on building the next generation of
Internet companies through events,
new start-up incubation and
acceleration of existing companies,
was launched in Yangon in early
2014 by Ooredoo, even before the
mobile operator launched mobile
services (Ideabox, 2014).
Moreover, Orange, the multinational
mobile operator based in France,
recently launched its partnership
initiative for developers and
start-ups, to address two critical
issues already mentioned in
emerging markets: i) APIs
(Application Programming
Interfaces, the code needed to
connect apps to operator services
such as billing) for payments (as well
as offering APIs to other Orange
innovation platforms such as rich
communication, cloud, connected
objects, etc.) and ii) channels for
product distribution or promotion
to Orange customers globally.
In addition to the BRICS, Berlin,
Tel Aviv and London are also
formidable ecosystems, and in some
instances competitive with Silicon
Valley as a head-of?ce destination.
Fab, a US company based around
providing ‘?ash sales’ online,
recently closed down and the CEO
moved to Berlin to start an online
furniture company, tempted by
cheaper operating costs (such as
premises & staff). This comes at a
time when burn rates (the rate at
which investment money is spent
in new businesses) in Silicon Valley
are at historical highs (Koh & Winkler,
2014; Quittner, 2014). Indeed,
before the layoffs at Fab began,
the company was burning
US$14 million a month.
Cheaper real estate is not the
only reason to move to Europe
and regions outside of the US
04
.
Telefonica Digital and Start-up
Genome (2012) found Tel Aviv to
be a highly advanced ecosystem
and the leading alternative to
Silicon Valley. Indeed, Israel is known
for its big acquisitions, such as Waze
to Google and Snaptu to Facebook.
Emerging Market Mobile
Operators at the crossroads
The recent focus on digital
entrepreneurs in the developing
world re?ects not only a realization
that private sector development
is crucial to economic growth and
poverty alleviation, but also the
critical role that entrepreneurship
and innovation play in solving
problems and creating
opportunities. In particular,
developing world mobile operators
are at a critical crossroads. While in
nearly every country operators have
enjoyed a decade of rapid
consumer adoption, eventually
subscriber growth will saturate just
as in developed markets, limiting
revenue growth from customer
acquisitions. Similar to the broader
ICT industry, the mobile industry is
becoming increasingly competitive
and commoditised; limited ability
to differentiate core service offerings
– such as voice calls, SMS, voicemail,
and data – is leading to ?erce
price competition among mobile
operators. As noted by one
African mobile operator, “Network
coverage is no longer a competitive
advantage; therefore we [need to]
innovate on the service layer. As we
evolve we will become service and
marketing companies, instead of
just mobile network operators.”
Entrepreneurs developing ever
new and innovative services are
therefore critical to the future growth
of the mobile industry – both in the
developed and developing world.
Digital services address business
challenges, enable transparency
and ef?ciency for government, and
offer convenience, entertainment,
and empowerment to consumers.
The secret of their success,
according to the 2009 book
Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s
Economic Miracle, is mandatory
military service where the culture
within the Israel Defense Forces
fosters the same kind of meritocracy
mindset that stimulated
entrepreneurship in the early days
of Silicon Valley. In addition to the
many examples cited in the book,
‘Viber’ – a rising messaging service
start-up founded in Tel Aviv to
compete with Skype – was created
by Talmon Marco, who was the
former chief information of?cer of
the Israeli army central command.
The company was recently bought
by Japan’s largest ecommerce
company by sales, Rakuten, for
US$900 million, and remarkably
never received any institutional
?nancing (Mance, 2014). London
and Berlin vie for third place behind
Tel Aviv, but are still developing
aspects of their support
infrastructure. While London was
second to Silicon Valley in terms of
support, there is still a signi?cant
funding gap (likely due to insuf?cient
early stage investors and micro VCs
targeting deal sizes between
US$500,000 and US$2.5M) and
slightly less support from mentors
than start-ups in Silicon Valley
(3.24 vs. 4.04 mentors per start-up).
They also create demand for more
sophisticated devices, increase
revenues for mobile operators and
add to a country’s economic value.
As discussed, mobile operators
play a central role in emerging
ecosystems by enhancing credibility,
aggregating and distributing, and
facilitating transactions, however
for most start-ups securing such
partnerships has been a dif?cult
road. More effort needs to be
made to work collaboratively and
constructively, harnessing the skills
and experience of individuals and
institutions outside the four walls of
mobile operator of?ces. Through
collaboration, a thriving ecosystem
of support can be developed
to enable entrepreneurs building
locally relevant content and
services. Supported by robust
institutions and a strong
entrepreneurship culture,
entrepreneurs will truly transform
digital economies in emerging
markets.
So what can mobile operators
do to encourage digital start-ups,
create communities and enhance
entrepreneurship initiatives?
Meanwhile, Berlin is currently hyped
as ‘just behind New York’ in terms
of its development, and one of
the leading start-up ecosystems
in Europe. With a few successful
entrepreneurs turned business
‘angels’ (early stage investors),
Berlin now has a burgeoning Venture
Capital scene. However, according
to Alexander Ljung, the Founder &
CEO of SoundCloud, while
entrepreneurs share know-how
and experiences among each
other, they still lack signi?cant
support from advisors and mentors,
making Berlin a dif?cult place to
scale a company (Telefonica Digital
& The Start-up Genome, 2012).
In some ecosystems,
governments, donors and
mobile operators are all
trying to stimulate digital
entrepreneurship
Clearly, ecosystem maturity,
both culturally and in terms of
infrastructure, affects the ability
of entrepreneurs to enter into the
market and scale digital services.
While progress will continue
organically, in some ecosystems
mobile operators are trying to
kick-start the volume of activity
by providing capital, mentorship
programs, or other support
functions.
The challenges facing digital entrepreneurs
continued
Section 2
As we have seen in section 1,
the primary mode of Internet access
for many users is mobile, and as a
consequence mobile operators ?nd
themselves playing a crucial role
in enabling entrepreneurs to reach
their audience with their digital
service. We have just discussed
in section 2 how there are many
structural problems that are barriers
to success for digital entrepreneurs,
and how differing market conditions
are preventing many countries
from replicating the success of
Silicon Valley.
Primarily, these issues can be
summarised as the general lack
of a supportive ecosystem for
entrepreneurs, and a lack of
organisations willing to bridge
the gap between the needs of the
entrepreneur and the capacity
and experience of larger
corporates. There is a structural gap
in many markets that means the
mentorship, funding and technology
and commercial partnerships
that entrepreneurs require are not
in place.
Mobile operators are in a strong
position to ?ll this gap. Alongside
playing the role of Internet provider
for consumers in most markets –
bringing audiences to digital
services – mobile operators have
the capacity and capability to help
build ecosystems to support digital
entrepreneurs in their markets.
Speci?cally they have key assets
they can bring to the problem:
> Technology platforms (billing,
customer management,
app stores)
> Deep market experience &
consumer knowledge
> Marketing & distribution platforms
> Commercial knowledge
and expertise
There are, of course, Value Added
Service (VAS) teams within mobile
operators who are often competitive
to external digital service
companies, and there can be
a resistance to partnering with or
supporting entrepreneurs for fear
of cannibalizing existing revenue.
But increasingly mobile operators
are recognizing the value of open
innovation, where they partner with
external innovators to bring services
to their customers.
This makes commercial sense.
As the data in section 1 shows,
the vast majority of time spent online
in many markets is now spent on
mobile apps. It is forecast that the
global app economy is growing at
28% CAGR and will reach a value of
US$143bn in 2016 (Vision Mobile
2014). This is a signi?cant stream of
revenue that mobile operators can
share in with the right strategies to
work with innovative entrepreneurs.
We have seen at an industry level
how some mobile operators are
trying to support app entrepreneurs
– the trade industry body the
GSM Association is both developing
a standard set of application
interfaces for developers in its
OneAPI program
05
, and has hosted
the App Planet
06
part of the annual
Mobile World Congress for the past
four years. This program has done
a lot to bring small app developers
to the attention of large mobile
operators at the main industry event.
The role of mobile
operators in
supporting digital
entrepreneurs
Co-creative:
Creating value by sharing or
combining resources from ?rms,
suppliers, and active customers
to create new services.
Collaborative:
similar, but the sponsoring
organisation controls services
developed with contributors.
Co-operative:
similar, but sharing or combining
resources only between
agreed parties.
143bn
Global app economy will reach a value of
US$143bn in 2016 (Vision on Mobile 2014).
Section 3
But an increasing number of mobile
operators are adopting open
innovation strategies to harness
the energy and creativity of external
innovators themselves. These
strategies typically fall into
three groups (see below).
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The role of mobile operators in supporting digital entrepreneurs
continued
There are further sub-categories
within these groups, and we can
see there are various operator
strategies that are currently
being deployed within these
areas of activities (?gure 6).
These programs that forge
relationships with developers
can bene?t mobile operators
both from bringing in the ideas
of the entrepreneurs to their core
business, and also looking at what
commercial relationships can
come from these programs.
In this way mobile operators can
respond to the institutional voids
and nascent tech start-up culture
that exists in emerging markets,
which are in many cases preventing
start-ups from entering or scaling.
In addition to the strategies
set out in the table (see ?gure 6),
we identify below six ways in which
mobile operators act to support the
ecosystem and ?ll the institutional
voids (?gure 7).
Figure 6: Mobile operator strategies to drive innovation
Figure 7: Mobile operator opportunities to address emerging
ecosystem challenges
In Conclusion – there are
signi?cant bene?ts for mobile
operators in developing
programs to support mobile
digital entrepreneurs.
Consumer attention and Internet
browsing activity is migrating
inexorably towards mobile apps,
and a signi?cant share of industry
revenue is migrating to app
developers as a consequence.
WIND Business
Factor and Luiss
Enlabs incubator
in Italy
In Italy, the ecosystem for
entrepreneurs is not very well
developed, despite the traditional
high number of small and medium
enterprises. There are few VCs and
more of a ‘job for life’ working
culture. As a consequence there
is no strong track record of global
leading tech start-ups, although
there are some fantastic, global
major corporations and brands.
So there is no lack of expertise and
experience, but no ecosystem to
support young tech entrepreneurs,
or to bridge the gap to let them
bene?t from this wealth of large
corporate knowledge.
The Wind Business Factor virtual
incubator (set up by Wind), and
the Luiss Enlabs incubator (set up
by L-Venture Group in partnership
with WIND and Luiss University),
aim at plugging this gap, but to
do so they had to create a strong
tech ecosystem themselves. They
recognized that money isn’t enough
– entrepreneurs need mentorship
and advice. They also need to be
close to other entrepreneurs, so
they can share experience and learn
collaboratively. The Luiss Enlabs/
L-Venture Group is an acceleration
program in partnership with
Luiss university of Rome, physically
located in premises which comprise
a 2,000msq space in Rome, on the
second ?oor of the main railway
station. This means they are very
central, and handy for Milan-Rome
trains and the river of corporate
talent that ?ows between these
two cities.
The facility runs a ?ve month program
for young tech entrepreneurs with a
very strong focus on mentorship and
support – every two weeks the teams
have an update meeting and
presentation to advisors to track
where they are and what help they
need. At the end of the program
there is an investor day, where the
teams pitch in front of a group of
investors.
This approach has been successful –
in 2014 they have accelerated 10
startups, adding to a total portfolio
of 25 start-ups. The total program
investment runs at 2.8m euros, but
has attracted 6.7m euros in further
follow-on funding from investors.
Alongside the direct mentorship,
the incubator hosts events to
introduce corporate guests to the
teams. There are tech events such
as a recent Facebook ‘hackathon’
and a session exploring Google
cloud services, and business events
such as dinners with big corporate
guests, entrepreneurs who have
exited, etc. On recent visits by
Wind management some of the
companies incubated – GamePix,
NetLex – secured a marketing and
distribution deal with the mobile
operator, proving that this mix of
support, training and investment
can work.
www.windgroup.it
Case study
But this should be seen as an
opportunity rather than a challenge
for mobile operators because, as we
have seen, there are still signi?cant
challenges that entrepreneurs
encounter that are a very strong ?t
with the capabilities of mobile
operators. Understanding how best
to harness the assets within mobile
operators, and developing the best
programs to bridge the divide
between them and entrepreneurs
can have a signi?cant commercial
value to the operator alongside a
signi?cant social value in creating
and supporting new, young
businesses within the country. The
role of the operators is unique, and
considerable, and it is unlikely viable
ecosystems to support entrepreneurs
will develop in many markets without
their participation and support.
Section 3
• GSMA OneAPI
• banglalink (VimpelCom Group)
Grand Master Programme
• Telefonica Digital
• NTT DoCoMo Capital
• Wind Italy (VimpelCom Group)
and The Venture Group
• Safaricom M-KOPA
• Orange Data for Development
Challenge
• Sprint Developer Programme
• Orange
APIs
App store and marketing
resources
Acquisition of start-ups
Majority/minority stake
in start-ups
Start-up incubator/accelerator
Co-branding with start-ups
Crowd-sourcing and contests
Developer communities
Joint R&D with Universities
and Hubs
Open Innovation
Strategy Spectrum
Co-creative
Collaborative
Co-operative
Mobile Industry Examples
(Source: Caribou Digital Analysis)
Mobile operator role Ecosystem strengthening result
Credibility enhancers
Information analysers and
advisors
Aggregators and distributors
Transaction facilitators
Creating a culture of
meritocracy
Sharing experience and
knowledge
Customers trust the reputation and brand of
mobile operators
Customer context information
Local App stores, marketing capabilities,
agent networks, software push technology
APIs to enable monetization, channel access at
affordable rates
Start-up and developer programs that make services
available (not necessarily for free) with a clear
pathway for stronger partnerships
Direct investments and in-kind support to start-ups,
along with training and mentoring.
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Recommendations
Shift the culture –
adapt to the world of
Digital Entrepreneurs
Based on this review of the
digital start-up landscape,
there are three main
recommendations for
mobile operations on
how to support young
tech entrepreneurs.
Understand the needs –
listen, and respond with
practical support
Evolve the ecosystem –
create the right environment
through partnerships
01 02 03
The report shows there is a wealth of
innovation coming from an energetic group
of young developers, and there are strong
bene?ts in opening up and partnering with
them. This requires a different way of thinking,
a different organizational culture that
recognizes that innovation does not always
come from within.
Actively creating bridges to bring this
innovation into the core business is bene?cial,
as we saw in the WIND/Venture Group case
study where commercial partnerships have
come from a culture of embracing the digital
entrepreneurial world.
The levels of ecosystem support and
investment vary wildly from country to country
and region to region. What works well in one
location may fail elsewhere so it is important
to be ?exible and adjust the strategy as the
program develops. banglalink has evolved its
Grand Master program in every year since its
inception, increasing what is required from
entrepreneurs each year to identify
the real talent, and increasing the support
to make sure that the best ideas have the
best chance of success. They are learning
from experience and improving year on year
– which shows in their results.
There are many ways of partnering with
entrepreneurs and supporting them but,
as noted above, context is everything
and needs will vary from market to market.
Therefore the likelihood of implementing
a successful program is greatly increased
by fully understanding the speci?c needs
of digital entrepreneurs market by market.
In many countries it is dif?cult to bridge the
gap between small entrepreneurs and large
corporates, but mobile operators can open
up to developers and offer practical support
such as access to marketing resources and
distribution channels, sharing knowledge,
open APIs and access to app stores. The
report indicates the signi?cant importance
of mentoring and mobile operators can
look for opportunities to build general
business skills in tech-focused start-ups,
either directly or through convening powers
(see recommendation 03).
Beyond these relatively lower cost options,
operators can also look at ways to attract
and develop young entrepreneurs and
their businesses in ‘full service’ incubators/
accelerators. Bringing entrepreneurs together
to support each other is equally important.
Often technologists starting a business have
brilliant ideas and the ability to execute
on them, but lack more traditional business
knowledge and skills. Equally, there are many
bright MBAs searching for opportunities
to develop a start-up. Creating a virtual,
or physical, community of like minds within
a program increases the chances
of success and entrepreneurs ?nding
the right partners and staff.
Operators should recognize the value other
partners can bring to a program, and actively
seek out partnerships with other companies,
supporting institutions, software vendors etc.
Partnerships with app ecosystem players
like Facebook and Google can provide
strong support to the program, and insight
for the entrepreneurs in how to increase
the audience for their services. Finding
the successful start-ups and ways to leverage
this back into the community builds
con?dence that success is possible and
creates a pipeline of mentoring resource.
Equally, university or business school
partnerships provide access to talent, and
supporting skills from faculty. Partnering with
Government agencies can bring resources
and institutional support. Working with
VCs and other funders can bring follow-on
funding. The mobile operator cannot
do it all alone, but can play a critical
role in convening the ecosystem.
Section 4
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End notes
01 Estimate based on an average 8-14 years from Angel/VC investment to exit, and the critical role
that experienced entrepreneurs play in guiding the next generation of start-ups (Peters, No date).
02 ‘Paid forward’ refers to one of the de?ning characteristics of Silicon Valley noted by Steve Blank and others,
where successful entrepreneurs are willing to help mentor, network and connect strangers, stemming from
a belief that “I was helped when I started out and now it’s my turn to help others” (Blank, 2011).
03 5-year CAGRs of 138 per cent for Bangalore, 133 per cent for Moscow, 38 per cent for Shanghai and 28 per cent
for New Delhi (TechCrunch Data Analysis)
04 According to Tech Crunch, n New York, Fab paid US$250,000 per month for two ?oors of of?ce space. In Berlin,
the company spends US$125,000 per year on rent (Lunden, 2014)
05http://www.gsma.com/oneapi/
06http://www.mobileworldcongress.com/see-do/app-planet/
How the West Was Won: The Military and the Making of Silicon Valley, in
Technological Competitiveness: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives
on Electrical, Electronics, and Computer Industries. Piscataway: IEEE Press.http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/images/0/0b/Leslie,_How_the_West_Was_
Won.pdf
Fab Was Burning Through US$14M/Month Before Its Layoffs And Pivot. Tech
Crunch.http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/20/fab-hem/
Six things to know about Viber. Financial Times.http://www.ft.com/cms/
s/0/6bc24706-9555-11e3-8371-00144feab7de.html#axzz3HTlpgwJP
McKinsey, Sizing the Internet Economy 2011http://www.mckinsey.com/
features/sizing_the_internet_economy
Venture Capital Exit Times.http://www.angelblog.net/Venture_Capital_
Exit_Times.html
Why High Burn Rates Don't Mean the End of the World Is Nigh. Inc. http://
www.inc.com/jeremy-quittner/silicon-valley-burn-rate-sounds-the-alarm-
for-bubble.html
For Sequoia Capital, ‘mobile tectonics’ is how it’ll ?nd its next billion dollar
company. Venture Beat.http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/08/for-sequoia-
capital-mobile-tectonics-is-how-itll-?nd-its-next-billion-dollar-company/
A History of Silicon Valley – Almost a 3rd Edition CreateSpace Independent
Publishing Platform.http://www.scaruf?.com/svhistory/sv/chap73.html
Indian E-Commerce Giant Flipkart Raises Massive US$1B Investment Round.
Tech Crunch.http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/29/indian-e-commerce-
giant-?ipkart-raises-massive-1b-round/
Start-up Ecosystem Report 2012.http://blog.digital.telefonica.com/?press-
release=start-up-ecosystem-report-2012
Sizing the App Economyhttp://www.developereconomics.com/report/
sizing-the-app-economy/
LESLIE, S. (1993)
LUNDEN, I. (2014)
MANCE, H. (2014)
MCKINSEY (2011)
PETERS, B. (No date)
QUITTNER, J. (2014)
REILLY, R. (2014)
SCARUFFI, P. (2014)
SHU, C. (2014)
TELEFONICA DIGITAL &
THE START-UP
GENOME (2012)
VISION MOBILE (2014)
© 2014 VimpelCom
www.vimpelcom.com
doc_273354803.pdf
Detailed description related to enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world.
Enabling
entrepreneurs in
a mobile world
helping
young people
shape their
future
01
VimpelCom
Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
“ There is increasing focus
on the potential for
digital technologies
to contribute solutions
to many societal
challenges.”
Introduction
from the CEO
About VimpelCom
VimpelCom – an international telecoms company
operating in 14 countries and headquartered
in Amsterdam. It is one of the world’s largest
integrated telecommunications services operators
providing voice and data services through
a range of traditional and broadband mobile
and ?xed technologies in Russia, Italy, Ukraine,
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Armenia,
Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Algeria, Bangladesh,
Pakistan, and Zimbabwe.
www.vimpelcom.com
About 'Make your Mark'
Make Your Mark is a key element of VimpelCom’s
corporate responsibility strategy with a goal
to ‘help young people shape their future’.
Make Your Mark recognizes the challenges
that today’s young people face in relation to
issues such as poverty, youth unemployment,
inadequate healthcare and education, food
security, resource scarcity and climate change –
reinforced by a rapidly growing population.
Make Your Mark aims to provide young people
with the technology tools, support and mentoring,
and in some cases access to basic education,
to help them tackle these challenges at an
individual, community and national level –
to shape their future.
helping
young people
shape their
future
About the Authors
Caribou Digital is a consultancy dedicated to
building digital economies in emerging markets
via investment advisory, research and consulting.
This report was researched and written by Chris
Locke and Marissa Drouillard from Caribou Digital,
who each have over ?fteen years experience
in the mobile and internet industries globally,
and who specialize in developing digital
entrepreneurship in emerging markets.
Contents
Section 1 02
Understanding the value
of digital entrepreneurs
Section 2 06
The challenges facing digital
entrepreneurs
Section 3 16
The role of mobile operators in
supporting digital entrepreneurs
Recommendations 20
Recommendations for mobile
operators on how to support young
tech entrepreneurs
References 22
At VimpelCom we are seeing the
convergence of three important
trends that are very relevant to
our business.
Firstly, it is clear that today’s
young people will face signi?cant
challenges over their lifetimes.
Climate change and resource
pressures, the ongoing ?ght
against poverty and hunger,
poor education and healthcare
provision, all coupled with a
population growing to 9 billion
by 2050, will heavily impact quality
of life. This comes at a time of
signi?cant youth unemployment
when many young people are
struggling to get a start in life.
Secondly, there is increasing
focus on the potential for digital
technologies to contribute solutions
to many of these challenges,
by helping to connect people
more effectively, or even for the
?rst time, to government or private
sector services vital for their social
and economic development.
Mobile-enabled services can often
bring a ‘step-change’ in ef?ciency
and reach of service provision, and
at the same time can play a key role
in reducing environmental impact.
And thirdly, as this report highlights,
much of the growth in innovation
in digital businesses and app
development is coming from
aspiring young digital entrepreneurs
in both developed and developing
markets. But this growing opportunity
is not evenly distributed across all
regions and countries, and young
entrepreneurs need support and
nurturing for them to be successful.
As telecommunication companies
continue to transition from voice
centric to digital businesses, they
are learning to work with a new
ecosystem of players and different
business models. This change
in business approach, coupled
with the trends indicated above,
suggests an opportunity for
companies like ours to help stimulate
an innovation pipeline that will help
young people shape their future
whilst helping our business to prosper
in a more sustainable commercial
environment.
This report, the ?rst commissioned
as part of our newly launched
Make Your Mark program
(see on page 01) looks at the
challenges and opportunities for
young entrepreneurs and provides
recommendations for mobile
operators on how they can best
support the growth of new digital
businesses. I hope you ?nd it
interesting and helpful.
Jo Lunder
Chief Executive Of?cer
03
VimpelCom
Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
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Understanding
the value of digital
entrepreneurs
Figure 1:
Measuring the
impact of the
digital economy
Section 1 The 21st Century is the era
of the digital economy
It is clear to anyone with a
smartphone that we live in the era
of the digital economy. Increasingly
ubiquitous, essential and demanded
by consumers, access to digital
networks and the services they
provide is the de?ning feature
of the 21st Century.
The exponential growth in global
mobile adoption is an oft-cited
phenomenon. There are 3.6bn
global users of mobile phones,
with 40-50% of those users in the
developed world using smartphones
(GSMA 2014). The internet revolution
of the past twenty years has
resolutely gone mobile in the last
?ve years, with mobile and tablet
usage of internet services fast
outstripping other access methods
with 80% of the global population
forecast to have smartphones by
2020 (Evans 2014).
The other oft-cited phenomenon
is the economic impact of this
revolution in Internet access. We
are familiar with the Deloitte statistic
that for every 10% increase in mobile
subscribers there is a 1.2% increase
in GDP (Deloitte 2007). But we are
seeing a much more signi?cant
impact in more recent studies
that look at a broader range
of economic impacts from the
digital economy.
A recent McKinsey report states
that the digital economy is worth on
average 3.4% GDP (McKinsey 2011)
– which if it were counted as a sector
would make it more valuable than
Agriculture or Utilities. And we are
still at the early stages of growth,
particularly in emerging economies
such as the BRICs and Sub-Saharan
Africa and South East Asia.
Moving even beyond the direct GDP
impact of the digital economy, the
OECD has examined how the direct
and indirect bene?ts of access
to the Internet play into country
economies. By considering the
consumer surplus created by digital
services and the socio-economic
effects as well, their model builds a
more complete picture of what the
true impact of the digital economy
is (see ?gure 1).
This approach starts to identify
a more interesting impact of the
digital economy, in particular in
the society-wide effects. We know
that access to information via digital
services has driven a much broader
access to educational information,
and via sites such as Khan Academy
it has started a revolution in free
access to world-class educational
content. Massive open online
courses (MOOCs) and an increasing
trend within universities of opening
up their course materials online has
started to remove many barriers to
quality education around the world.
But beyond access to content,
digital services have also improved
the experience and management
of the education sector – as can
be seen in the case study of Bridge
International Academies in Kenya,
where digital ?nancial services
are having an unexpectedly large
impact on the delivery of a quality
educational experience
(see case study 1).
It is clear from all of these studies
that the impact of digital services
is profound from both economic
and social perspectives. What is
also clear from the usage statistics
is that mobile services are the
engine of growth driving this
revolution forward.
02
VimpelCom
Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
Source: OECD 2014
ADDED VALUE
GENERATED IN
SOCIETY-WIDE EFFECTS CONSUMER SURPLUS
(BEYOND GDP)
generated through consumption
of goods and services offered through:
(BEYOND GDP) (PART OF GDP)
All other activities as
the result of the internet
Activities purely based
on the internet
Activities
supporting the
internet
(e.g. through lower search costs,
better matching processes, etc.)
(e.g. search engines,
e-commerce web services, etc.)
(e.g. ISPs, internet equipment
manufacturers, etc.)
All other activities as a
result of the internet
Activities purely based
on the internet
Activities
supporting the
internet
Environment
Health
Education
Government
transparency
04
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Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world 05
VimpelCom
Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
“. . . great potential for
quality youth employment –
manufacturing, agriculture,
retail and hospitality,
construction, ?nance and
business services, transportation,
government and social services,
transportation, and ICT. Growth
possibilities exist for ICT-related
jobs throughout the value
chains of each of these sectors.
However, and speci?c to ICT
as an independent sector,
?ve subsectors offer signi?cant
potential for youth employment
and entrepreneurship:
Business Process Outsourcing;
Development of mobile
telephones; Telecommunication;
Internet website design;
Network administration.”
Understanding the value of digital entrepreneurs
continued
Digital entrepreneurs –
particularly young
developers – are the crux
of this creation of value
and social impact
As with many tech revolutions,
young entrepreneurs have been at
the center of the genesis of the new
digital economy. The value of digital
entrepreneurs can be measured,
as stated above, in their contribution
to driving the social and economic
impact by providing new services
to customers and driving economic
growth, but it is also in creating
employment and other opportunities
that we can assess the value they
bring to the table.
The world is facing a ‘youth bulge’
– a population explosion that, in a
time of global austerity, is creating
an unbalanced workforce with
high levels of youth unemployment
in most countries. Young people
aged 15-29 will represent more than
50 % of the working population by
2020 and yet we have on average
a 12% youth unemployment rate
globally (ILO 2013).
This is creating a ratio of
unemployed youth against
adult employment that is a source
of tension and concern. And this
is not something affecting
developing economies alone –
many developed economies
have suffered badly from the recent
?nancial crisis and this is driving
the imbalance. As we can see
in the data below developed or
advanced economies such as
Russia and Italy actually have higher
ratios of youth to adult employment
compared to some developing
markets where there has been
more growth in the local economy.
At the center of this
growth is the mobile
phone and the app
– bringing new services
to customers around
the world
Increasing smartphone access is
driving entirely new experiences
for consumers, as slowly the majority
of services we require become
apps. This has become so pervasive
that research shows in developed
markets such as the US, the vast
majority of time online is now spent
on the internet using a mobile
device, and the bulk of that time
is spent using apps to access the
internet (see ?gure 2).
But this is even more pronounced
in emerging markets where access
to the Internet can often only be
achieved using mobile phones.
And it is new services appearing on
mobile phones that are driving the
growth in usage of digital services.
This cuts across sectors – from
entertainment, to health, to
education, and most notably in
?nancial services. Financial services
have long been something that has
been denied to many in emerging
markets, but the arrival of ubiquitous,
cheap mobile phones has brought
about a payments revolution,
with huge take up of the services
in Africa, the Middle East,
Latin America and South Asia.
Deployments stood at 38 globally
in 2009, but had risen to 219 by 2013
(GSMA 2013).
Mobile money has acted as a
catalyst in these markets, both
as a tool to create a formalized
banking culture where previously
there had been none. Also,
as the economy moves from
informal to formal, from unbanked
to banked, an opportunity to
monetize services that was not
previously available, helping to
create revenue streams for new
businesses.
Not only are these new jobs
categories opening up new
employment opportunities for youth,
but also they’re better paid. In the
same Rockefeller Foundation/
Dalberg report, monthly wages
in the ICT sector in Ghana were
substantially better than of?cial
minimum wages or the self reported
wage in other sectors – by a factor
of over ?ve.
So, beyond the macro-level impact
of digital services, we can see
there is a very strong impact on
the ground, as ICT jobs and training
provide a fast-paced industry for
unemployed youth.
What this points to is an opportunity
for entrepreneurs – a connected
audience with a varied and
widespread set of needs creates the
perfect ecosystem for entrepreneurs
to enter into the digital services
market. And this is where we see
the most exciting activity and value
creation around the world – in
start-ups creating new app-based
businesses built on these leapfrog
services. It is this con?uence of
available, affordable technology,
digitization of service delivery, and
the broad adoption of increasingly
powerful mobile phones that is
driving a new generation of digital
mobile entrepreneurship.
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
And yet we have not seen the
much-vaunted emerging market
competitor to Facebook or Google
yet. So what is holding back the
growth of local entrepreneurs?
(Source: Benedict Evans 2014)
Bridge International
Academies
Case study
In East Africa the mobile money
revolution has had a knock-on
effect in other sectors. When
asked how digital technology can
improve schooling, most people
will assume smartphones or tablets
with pre-loaded content is the
most effective way. But Bridge
International Academies have
pioneered the usage of mobile
money to improve the back-end
systems of their schools.
Using nothing more complex than
a US$80 smartphone and black
and white Nook e-readers, the
entire ?nance, staff, supplier and
student management can be
done. By receiving payments from
parents and by paying suppliers
using mobile money this school
administrator – Paul from the
Bridge Academy in Kisumu, Kenya
– saves two days travel a week,
days that can instead be spent on
site at the school making sure the
students and staff are supported
well. This success is evident
in Bridge Academies results,
where core reading skills amongst
students are 35% higher than
average for Kenya, and core
math skills 19% higher.
Figure 3: Youth unemployment
ratio compared to adults in
VimpelCom markets
Algeria 3.00
Armenia 2.50
Bangladesh 2.90
Italy 3.90
Pakistan 2.10
Russia 3.40
Ukraine 2.70
Zimbabwe 2.70
WORLD 2.80
(Source: ILO2014)
Recent research by the International
Youth Foundation looked at which
growth industries can provide new
jobs for this ‘youth bulge’ (IYF 2014)
(see ?gure 3). Their analysis
uncovered nine high growth sectors
in sub Saharan Africa that offer:
Section 1
June 2013 June 2014
Figure 2: Mobile apps driving time online
0
250
500
750
1,000
1,250
MOBILE
WEB
MOBILE
APP
DESKTOP
WEB
US time spent online (billion minutes)
07
VimpelCom
Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
The challenges
facing digital
entrepreneurs
In the previous section we
discuss the opportunities that are
there for entrepreneurs, building
on the growth of mobile and
digital platforms making it
easier to develop new services,
and a growing audience hungry
for apps on their smartphones.
But there are few countries that
have replicated the success
of Silicon Valley in terms of
supporting entrepreneurs.
We will look at what’s unique
about the Valley, and what
is replicable.
Section 2
06
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Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
The San Francisco Bay
Area/Silicon Valley
entrepreneurship
ecosystem was a
trans-generational
consequence of earlier
investments in innovation.
It’s no coincidence that many of
the world’s most successful digital
companies were either started or
scaled in the San Francisco Bay
Area. Even overseas digital
companies grew by creating ties
to American investors, with many
establishing signi?cant of?ces
in the Bay Area (Ahmed, 2014).
But Silicon Valley would not be
the epicenter of start-up activity
without the institutions and cultural
demographics that evolved over
several generations. And while new
digital ecosystems are emerging
from Berlin to Bangalore, it will take
at least a decade before they reach
comparable levels of self-sustaining
maturity as Silicon Valley.
01
Two primary ingredients catalyzed
the development of an early
technology ecosystem following
World War II: (1) US government
investment in research and
development, and (2) the
emergence of a talent pool
with skills and interest to advance
and commercialize cutting edge
technology. Following an initial focus
on military uses for technology in the
1950s, Silicon Valley emerged in the
1960s as the premier place to work
on innovative projects at prestigious
Bay Area universities, such as
Stanford and UC Berkeley, and
government-backed technology
companies (Leslie, 1993). Great
weather and career opportunities
attracted young, top-quality
engineering talent to study and
then stay to work at leading
companies like Fairchild, Hewlett
Packard, and Intel. (Scaruf?, 2014).
New wealth created from the
semiconductor industry was then
used to invest in the next generation
of early-stage technology
companies, beginning a trend
referred to as the “Entrepreneurship
Acceleration Cycle” (Endeavor
Insight), where successful founders
reinvest their time and money into
new ?rms. By sharing networks and
providing individual advice based
on experience, early venture
capitalists created a model for
perpetuating success. Indeed, as
noted in “How the ‘PayPal Ma?a’
Rede?ned Success in Silicon Valley”,
it was the advice given to new
start-ups in addition to money that
helped shape the next generation
of start-ups (Forrest, 2014).
In addition to its de?ning culture,
high levels of investment activity,
strong capacity, and a close-knit
support network make the San
Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley
a unique environment for scaling
digital start-ups. The Bay Area also
bene?ts from a number of
prestigious local universities
producing highly skilled,
entrepreneurial graduates.
Combined with routine start-up
churn, this results in a readily
available talent pool for start-ups
to tap into. But its not just accessible
coders and cash that make the
Bay Area unique, technology
multinationals, accelerators,
incubators and co-working spaces
support rapid development and
scaling. Not only are these
organizations in close proximity to
investors and universities, but also
they are extremely well networked.
The Silicon Valley venture capital
?rm Sequoia Capital uses their
‘Mobile Tectonics’ landscape
tool to characterize the diverse
set of stakeholders that now play
a vital role supporting digital
and increasingly mobile start-ups
(Reilly, 2014). From analytics
providers, to payment platforms,
to developer tools, the
concentration of leading
technology companies in the
Bay Area offers local start-ups an
advantage, not only through easier
access to resources and individuals
who can help, but also through
increased awareness of latest
and greatest technology.
Through a process
of replication and
evolution, we are
starting to see buds
of entrepreneurship
activity all over the
world, but start-ups
in emerging digital
communities struggle
for various reasons.
Digital entrepreneurship communities
begin with a small number of
pioneering start-ups, and develop
through increases in the level of
support for start-ups, number of
investors and investment levels,
and interconnectedness with private
sector, until the ecosystem becomes
independent and self-sustaining.
The challenges facing digital entrepreneurs
continued
Section 2
09
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Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world 08
VimpelCom
Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
The start-up Ecosystem 2014
The Ecosystem stages The Ecosystem stages
(Source: Caribou Digital analysis and The Start-up Genome, 2012)
01
Seed
02
Hype
03
Independence
04
Integration
05
Expansion
06
Contraction
First few
start-ups
within a
concentrated
area
First success
stories, more
talent and
investors
migrate
Ecosystem
becomes
self-sustaining
Local and
global
consolidation
of talent and
capital
Global
integration
and
continuous
growth
Braindrain,
no renewal
10
VimpelCom
Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world 11
VimpelCom
Enabling entrepreneurs in a mobile world
Challenge 01
A lack of a basic set of institutions
to function, such as credibility
enhancers, information analyzers
and advisors, aggregators and
distributors, and transaction
facilitators (Khanna & Palepu, 2013)
In the early days, there are
insuf?cient or missing local
institutions to support digital start-ups
and global options are not easily
accessible. The lack of institutions,
speci?cally channels and platforms
for aggregation and distribution,
facilitation of transactions, and
institutions to provide early stage
capital, partially explains why many
digital entrepreneurs in emerging
markets are still struggling.
Challenge 02
A lack of channels and platforms
that ?ll institutional voids in
emerging digital entrepreneurship
ecosystems
In the US, Europe, and more mature
emerging markets, Internet platform
players such as Google and Apple
play a facilitation role by
aggregating products and
integrating payments, in addition to
enhancing credibility for relatively
unknown start-ups. These platforms,
however, have limited relevance
in the developing world where
smartphone adoption rates are low
and a minority of the population
holds credit cards. To target the
masses in these markets,
entrepreneurs must utilize alternative
mobile channels, such as messaging
(SMS or USSD) or interactive voice
response (IVR), at least until
smartphones become more
prevalent.
Yet accessing these channels is
a problem for many early stage
start-ups. Mobile operators and other
third parties who control mobile
channels aim to make a pro?t
and generally charge for network
services on a per unit basis – so
delivery costs increase with traf?c
volumes. While some operators
discount for large volumes, early
stage start-ups with only a few or a
few hundred customers are unlikely
to generate suf?cient volumes to
reach lower price bands. This means
* iHub_ and the emerging tech
community in Nairobi
It often takes a ‘foundational’
company to kick-start an ecosystem
for entrepreneurs in a country.
Just as the founders of Fairchild
had a role in shaping Silicon Valley,
Nairobi’s current tech scene bene?ts
from alumni from two pioneering
start-ups: Ushahidi and 3Mice
Interactive. What we can learn
from them is how a community of
like-minded start-ups can lay the
seeds for an entire sector’s success.
Ushahidi was founded during the
aftermath of Kenya’s disputed
2007 election as a crowdsourcing
platform for social activism
and public accountability.
One of Ushahidi’s co-founders,
Eric Hersman, went on to establish
the _iHub* as a space for Nairobi’s
emerging tech community, as well
as co-found another Kenyan
start-up, BRCK, a physically robust
multi-mobile network hub with
enough power to survive a blackout.
Hersman is also a General Partner
in the African VC and accelerator
Savannah Fund.
3Mice Interactive Media was one
of the ?rst technology start-ups in
Kenya, founded in 1998 by Paul
Kukubo, Ken Njoroge and Betty
Mwaniki-Kukube. Kukubo is now
the ?rst and current CEO of the
East Africa Exchange (EAX), based
in Kigali, Rwanda, after previously
serving as the founding Chief
Executive Of?cer of the Kenya
Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) Board. Njoroge
moved on to found Cellulant,
a pan-African mobile payments
infrastructure company connecting
mobile operators, banks, businesses
and customers. Cellulant is now
in eight countries and is serving
25 banks across the continent
and has touched the lives of over
10 million customers.
Case study
that relative to revenues that
start-ups currently generate using
these channels, mobile resources
are expensive, limiting the viability
of many business models. Indeed,
research in Kenya found high costs
of operator resources to be the
greatest technical challenge that
digital entrepreneurs were facing
(50 per cent of respondents).
Whereas in Silicon Valley
monetization is sometimes an
afterthought, in many emerging
markets cash ?ow is a serious
concern for early-stage
entrepreneurs, many of who fund
their own way through services
launches. Because effectively
emerging market entrepreneurs
can be priced out of the market for
using mobile channels, the markets
they can reach are limited.
Challenge 03
A lack of information analyzers and
limited specialist advisors hinders
the ability to deploy capital
Securing ?nance is dif?cult for
a start-up in any market, but it's
particularly challenging in emerging
digital start-up communities
because of relatively fewer specialist
technology funds and experienced
investors or entrepreneurs. As
a result, ?nance is a bottleneck
to scaling digital services in many
markets. Funds that do specialize
are limited by their capacity to
provide guidance and consequently
there is less capital to go around,
particularly for very early stage
start-ups. Whereas in the US
approximately US$162 billion has
been invested during Q1-3 of 2014,
signi?cantly less was invested in
emerging ecosystems: US$6 billion
in the Russian Federation, US$100
million in Bangladesh, and US$24
million in the Ukraine.
Figure 4: Challenges in Emergent Digital Entrepreneur Ecosystems
(Source: Caribou Digital analysis and Khanna & Palepu, 2013)
The challenges facing digital entrepreneurs
continued
Section 2
• Limited ‘App stores’
for feature phone users
• Lack of independent
credit agencies
missing or non-functioning market ecosystem
that companies depend on
• Relevant information on
market demand is lacking
• Few technology specialist
VC or angel lists in
developing world
• Mobile operators exert
control over channels for
accessing featurephone
end-users
• Mobile money facilitates
transactions, however
many operators have
yet to roll out integrations
MERITOCRACY
Mentorship
CREDIBILITY ENHANCERS
INSTITUTIONAL VOIDS
culture that nurtures entrepreneurship
only beginning to develop
NASCENT CULTURE
INFORMATION
ANALYZERS & ADVISORS
AGGREGATORS &
DISTRIBUTORS
TRANSACTION
FACILITATORS
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Sometimes being too
technologically advanced is a
disadvantage when speaking to
local investors. One tech savvy
Kenyan investor noted that his ?rm
has recently changed tack and
is shying away from risk-taking
companies, opting for safer bets
on proven models – mainly because
it’s hard to be one of the few ?rms
being that innovative in a country.
That said, because across all
sectors there is less infrastructure
and fewer legacy business models,
the disruption that has currently
trans?xed developed markets
actually ?lls institutional voids when
launched in the developing world
(e.g. taxi apps, etc.), and there is
plenty of opportunity for copy cats.
(see ?gure 5).
Challenge 04
A lack of a nascent start-up culture
that cultivates meritocracy and
mentorship in emerging ecosystems
The de?ning characteristics of Silicon
Valley culture – a social system that
provides opportunities based on
ability and a belief that success
should be ‘paid forward
02
’ through
mentorship – contributed to the
creation of a successful model for
scaling innovation. In addition to
institutional voids, these cultural
aspects are the other primary
reason why start-ups struggle in
nascent ecosystems. At the root
is really a lack of success stories:
this affects the con?dence and
ambitions of entrepreneurs,
the number of angel investors
and mentors, and the size and
banglalink in Bangladesh
Bangladesh is a country starting to
come to grips with Internet access,
but still only 24% of the population
has Internet connectivity. Of that
number, 97% access the Internet
via mobile phones.
Banglalink, the 2nd largest mobile
operator in Bangladesh, recognized
a need to address the opportunities
for young entrepreneurs to use
mobile apps. In 2011 banglalink
launched its ‘Grandmaster’
competition to identify and
nurture ideas and apps from young
developers. The idea came from
brainstorming internally, as staff felt
the need to establish platforms for
development of Internet services
across the country and within the
company. The Government’s vision
for ‘Digital Bangladesh 2021’ was
an in?uence, and they felt mobile
was the key platform to enable this.
Targeting Universities and Colleges,
the ?rst year of the contest was
focused on an idea generation
contest – “Bring the ideas” which
was a simple and very open format
for 2-4 person groups to bring ideas
that required a mix of talents from
technology, business development
and marketing. This ?rst year saw
over 4,500 registrations.
Now in its fourth year the
competition has moved on so
participants are supported in
developing beyond the idea stage
to create actual apps. The
banglalink app store has already
been launched, where the top 25
apps from the competition will be
made available, and where they
will receive royalties, support and
marketing from the company.
This will be a step ahead from the
previous years where winners will
not only receive awards but also get
the opportunity to showcase their
entrepreneurial talent at young age.
Alongside this support, in 2014,
previous ?nalists have bene?ted
from a partnership with Huawei,
visiting their technological labs and
research centers in various cities in
China for training, workshops &
personal development. In 2015,
Banglalink has planned to partner
with an organization having app
development expertise, which will
further support the young digital
entrepreneurs of Bangladesh to
shape their own future.
www.banglalink.com.bd
Case study
availability of local technology
funds and business accelerators.
Because fewer experienced
entrepreneurs are available to pass
along advice on what it means to
be a start-up and how to go about
creating value, often entrepreneurs
are poorly prepared to pitch to an
investor, let alone run a business.
This can be frustrating for investors;
a wide-spread perception persists
among investors that most start-ups
in Kenya are creating code, not
creating companies, and it’s not
uncommon for an investor to be
approached by a solo developer,
or two technicians with no
operations, ?nance, or marketing
team members. Indeed, investors
are right to assess that many
start-ups lack proper team structure,
track records, and skills necessary
to run a business.
Compared to peers in other
innovation hubs, there is a real
difference in terms of experience:
whereas the average age of
entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley is 34,
in Kenya 86 per cent are younger
than this and have little formal work
experience. Similarly, in Moscow and
Santiago the average age is 28,
and in Sao Paolo 31 (Telefonica
Digital & The Start-up Genome,
2012). Combined with the fact that
start-ups do not receive enough
business advice from mentors who
have walked before them, this
explains the other major reasons
why start-ups struggle. The net result
is that relatively young and
tech-heavy start-ups in emerging
markets focus on what they know –
product development – rather than
on understanding the customer. It’s
then not surprising that marketing is
such a challenge for start-ups in
emerging markets.
Ecosystems eventually
reach an in?ection
point where they are
self-sustaining locally
and attracting
international investment.
Among those countries that attract
more than 1 per cent of global
investments, Bangalore, Moscow,
Shanghai and New Delhi are the
fastest growing emerging market
technology ecosystems
03
. So far in
2014, start-ups from these regions
have raised a total of nearly
US$23 billion, which is about
10 per cent of the amount raised
globally. While no comparison
to Silicon Valley in terms of the
total amount of funding, there
has been a dramatic shift in focus
even in the last year. According
to CrunchBase data (2014), nearly
three-quarters of the investment that
start-ups in Bangalore have received
to date was received just in the
current year (US$9.9 billion out of
US$13.9 billion). Furthermore, just
recently in September 2014, the
world witnessed the high pro?le
IPO of China’s Alibaba, which raised
US$21.8 billion, valuing the company
at over US$168 billion (Bloomberg,
2014). India’s e-commerce titans
are not far behind China. Flipkart
recently raised US$1 billion (Shu,
2014), and Snapdeal, which
competes with Flipkart, is already
planning to list publicly in the US
sometime in the next 12 to 24 months
(Farr, 2014). Meanwhile, the Russian
Federation’s ‘Amazon’, online retailer
Ozon.ru, recently raised US$150
million, based on a US$694 million
valuation, surpassing a previous
US$130 million investment in Rocket
Internet’s e-Commerce giant
Lamoda (Hopkins, 2014).
(Source: Caribou Digital analysis and CrunchBase database, 2014)
The challenges facing digital entrepreneurs
continued
Section 2
Figure 5: Total investments in Digital Technology (2010-2014)
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Billions $
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Armenia
Bangladesh
Brazil
Chile
China
Algeria
Greece
Indonesia
India
Israel
Italy
Kenya
Nigeria
Pakistan
Philippines
Russian Federation
Singapore
Ukraine
South Africa
Zimbabwe
Note: Countries with very lowlevels of investment are all indicated by grey lines.
This data cannot be easily differentiated in the chart.
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The Global Innovation Fund,
a US$200 million nonpro?t
collaboration supported by DfID,
USAID, Omidyar Network, Sida, and
the Department of Foreign Affairs
and Trade in Australia is one of these
initiatives (Global Innovation Fund,
2014). Recently launched in New
York in September 2014, the fund will
provide grants and risk capital to
scale breakthrough solutions to
global development challenges.
While not speci?cally tech in remit,
the fund builds on lessons learnt from
previous decades that innovation
can come from any sector and
that ?exible ?nancing approaches
are needed.
Ideabox Myanmar, a community
for entrepreneurs that is focused
on building the next generation of
Internet companies through events,
new start-up incubation and
acceleration of existing companies,
was launched in Yangon in early
2014 by Ooredoo, even before the
mobile operator launched mobile
services (Ideabox, 2014).
Moreover, Orange, the multinational
mobile operator based in France,
recently launched its partnership
initiative for developers and
start-ups, to address two critical
issues already mentioned in
emerging markets: i) APIs
(Application Programming
Interfaces, the code needed to
connect apps to operator services
such as billing) for payments (as well
as offering APIs to other Orange
innovation platforms such as rich
communication, cloud, connected
objects, etc.) and ii) channels for
product distribution or promotion
to Orange customers globally.
In addition to the BRICS, Berlin,
Tel Aviv and London are also
formidable ecosystems, and in some
instances competitive with Silicon
Valley as a head-of?ce destination.
Fab, a US company based around
providing ‘?ash sales’ online,
recently closed down and the CEO
moved to Berlin to start an online
furniture company, tempted by
cheaper operating costs (such as
premises & staff). This comes at a
time when burn rates (the rate at
which investment money is spent
in new businesses) in Silicon Valley
are at historical highs (Koh & Winkler,
2014; Quittner, 2014). Indeed,
before the layoffs at Fab began,
the company was burning
US$14 million a month.
Cheaper real estate is not the
only reason to move to Europe
and regions outside of the US
04
.
Telefonica Digital and Start-up
Genome (2012) found Tel Aviv to
be a highly advanced ecosystem
and the leading alternative to
Silicon Valley. Indeed, Israel is known
for its big acquisitions, such as Waze
to Google and Snaptu to Facebook.
Emerging Market Mobile
Operators at the crossroads
The recent focus on digital
entrepreneurs in the developing
world re?ects not only a realization
that private sector development
is crucial to economic growth and
poverty alleviation, but also the
critical role that entrepreneurship
and innovation play in solving
problems and creating
opportunities. In particular,
developing world mobile operators
are at a critical crossroads. While in
nearly every country operators have
enjoyed a decade of rapid
consumer adoption, eventually
subscriber growth will saturate just
as in developed markets, limiting
revenue growth from customer
acquisitions. Similar to the broader
ICT industry, the mobile industry is
becoming increasingly competitive
and commoditised; limited ability
to differentiate core service offerings
– such as voice calls, SMS, voicemail,
and data – is leading to ?erce
price competition among mobile
operators. As noted by one
African mobile operator, “Network
coverage is no longer a competitive
advantage; therefore we [need to]
innovate on the service layer. As we
evolve we will become service and
marketing companies, instead of
just mobile network operators.”
Entrepreneurs developing ever
new and innovative services are
therefore critical to the future growth
of the mobile industry – both in the
developed and developing world.
Digital services address business
challenges, enable transparency
and ef?ciency for government, and
offer convenience, entertainment,
and empowerment to consumers.
The secret of their success,
according to the 2009 book
Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s
Economic Miracle, is mandatory
military service where the culture
within the Israel Defense Forces
fosters the same kind of meritocracy
mindset that stimulated
entrepreneurship in the early days
of Silicon Valley. In addition to the
many examples cited in the book,
‘Viber’ – a rising messaging service
start-up founded in Tel Aviv to
compete with Skype – was created
by Talmon Marco, who was the
former chief information of?cer of
the Israeli army central command.
The company was recently bought
by Japan’s largest ecommerce
company by sales, Rakuten, for
US$900 million, and remarkably
never received any institutional
?nancing (Mance, 2014). London
and Berlin vie for third place behind
Tel Aviv, but are still developing
aspects of their support
infrastructure. While London was
second to Silicon Valley in terms of
support, there is still a signi?cant
funding gap (likely due to insuf?cient
early stage investors and micro VCs
targeting deal sizes between
US$500,000 and US$2.5M) and
slightly less support from mentors
than start-ups in Silicon Valley
(3.24 vs. 4.04 mentors per start-up).
They also create demand for more
sophisticated devices, increase
revenues for mobile operators and
add to a country’s economic value.
As discussed, mobile operators
play a central role in emerging
ecosystems by enhancing credibility,
aggregating and distributing, and
facilitating transactions, however
for most start-ups securing such
partnerships has been a dif?cult
road. More effort needs to be
made to work collaboratively and
constructively, harnessing the skills
and experience of individuals and
institutions outside the four walls of
mobile operator of?ces. Through
collaboration, a thriving ecosystem
of support can be developed
to enable entrepreneurs building
locally relevant content and
services. Supported by robust
institutions and a strong
entrepreneurship culture,
entrepreneurs will truly transform
digital economies in emerging
markets.
So what can mobile operators
do to encourage digital start-ups,
create communities and enhance
entrepreneurship initiatives?
Meanwhile, Berlin is currently hyped
as ‘just behind New York’ in terms
of its development, and one of
the leading start-up ecosystems
in Europe. With a few successful
entrepreneurs turned business
‘angels’ (early stage investors),
Berlin now has a burgeoning Venture
Capital scene. However, according
to Alexander Ljung, the Founder &
CEO of SoundCloud, while
entrepreneurs share know-how
and experiences among each
other, they still lack signi?cant
support from advisors and mentors,
making Berlin a dif?cult place to
scale a company (Telefonica Digital
& The Start-up Genome, 2012).
In some ecosystems,
governments, donors and
mobile operators are all
trying to stimulate digital
entrepreneurship
Clearly, ecosystem maturity,
both culturally and in terms of
infrastructure, affects the ability
of entrepreneurs to enter into the
market and scale digital services.
While progress will continue
organically, in some ecosystems
mobile operators are trying to
kick-start the volume of activity
by providing capital, mentorship
programs, or other support
functions.
The challenges facing digital entrepreneurs
continued
Section 2
As we have seen in section 1,
the primary mode of Internet access
for many users is mobile, and as a
consequence mobile operators ?nd
themselves playing a crucial role
in enabling entrepreneurs to reach
their audience with their digital
service. We have just discussed
in section 2 how there are many
structural problems that are barriers
to success for digital entrepreneurs,
and how differing market conditions
are preventing many countries
from replicating the success of
Silicon Valley.
Primarily, these issues can be
summarised as the general lack
of a supportive ecosystem for
entrepreneurs, and a lack of
organisations willing to bridge
the gap between the needs of the
entrepreneur and the capacity
and experience of larger
corporates. There is a structural gap
in many markets that means the
mentorship, funding and technology
and commercial partnerships
that entrepreneurs require are not
in place.
Mobile operators are in a strong
position to ?ll this gap. Alongside
playing the role of Internet provider
for consumers in most markets –
bringing audiences to digital
services – mobile operators have
the capacity and capability to help
build ecosystems to support digital
entrepreneurs in their markets.
Speci?cally they have key assets
they can bring to the problem:
> Technology platforms (billing,
customer management,
app stores)
> Deep market experience &
consumer knowledge
> Marketing & distribution platforms
> Commercial knowledge
and expertise
There are, of course, Value Added
Service (VAS) teams within mobile
operators who are often competitive
to external digital service
companies, and there can be
a resistance to partnering with or
supporting entrepreneurs for fear
of cannibalizing existing revenue.
But increasingly mobile operators
are recognizing the value of open
innovation, where they partner with
external innovators to bring services
to their customers.
This makes commercial sense.
As the data in section 1 shows,
the vast majority of time spent online
in many markets is now spent on
mobile apps. It is forecast that the
global app economy is growing at
28% CAGR and will reach a value of
US$143bn in 2016 (Vision Mobile
2014). This is a signi?cant stream of
revenue that mobile operators can
share in with the right strategies to
work with innovative entrepreneurs.
We have seen at an industry level
how some mobile operators are
trying to support app entrepreneurs
– the trade industry body the
GSM Association is both developing
a standard set of application
interfaces for developers in its
OneAPI program
05
, and has hosted
the App Planet
06
part of the annual
Mobile World Congress for the past
four years. This program has done
a lot to bring small app developers
to the attention of large mobile
operators at the main industry event.
The role of mobile
operators in
supporting digital
entrepreneurs
Co-creative:
Creating value by sharing or
combining resources from ?rms,
suppliers, and active customers
to create new services.
Collaborative:
similar, but the sponsoring
organisation controls services
developed with contributors.
Co-operative:
similar, but sharing or combining
resources only between
agreed parties.
143bn
Global app economy will reach a value of
US$143bn in 2016 (Vision on Mobile 2014).
Section 3
But an increasing number of mobile
operators are adopting open
innovation strategies to harness
the energy and creativity of external
innovators themselves. These
strategies typically fall into
three groups (see below).
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The role of mobile operators in supporting digital entrepreneurs
continued
There are further sub-categories
within these groups, and we can
see there are various operator
strategies that are currently
being deployed within these
areas of activities (?gure 6).
These programs that forge
relationships with developers
can bene?t mobile operators
both from bringing in the ideas
of the entrepreneurs to their core
business, and also looking at what
commercial relationships can
come from these programs.
In this way mobile operators can
respond to the institutional voids
and nascent tech start-up culture
that exists in emerging markets,
which are in many cases preventing
start-ups from entering or scaling.
In addition to the strategies
set out in the table (see ?gure 6),
we identify below six ways in which
mobile operators act to support the
ecosystem and ?ll the institutional
voids (?gure 7).
Figure 6: Mobile operator strategies to drive innovation
Figure 7: Mobile operator opportunities to address emerging
ecosystem challenges
In Conclusion – there are
signi?cant bene?ts for mobile
operators in developing
programs to support mobile
digital entrepreneurs.
Consumer attention and Internet
browsing activity is migrating
inexorably towards mobile apps,
and a signi?cant share of industry
revenue is migrating to app
developers as a consequence.
WIND Business
Factor and Luiss
Enlabs incubator
in Italy
In Italy, the ecosystem for
entrepreneurs is not very well
developed, despite the traditional
high number of small and medium
enterprises. There are few VCs and
more of a ‘job for life’ working
culture. As a consequence there
is no strong track record of global
leading tech start-ups, although
there are some fantastic, global
major corporations and brands.
So there is no lack of expertise and
experience, but no ecosystem to
support young tech entrepreneurs,
or to bridge the gap to let them
bene?t from this wealth of large
corporate knowledge.
The Wind Business Factor virtual
incubator (set up by Wind), and
the Luiss Enlabs incubator (set up
by L-Venture Group in partnership
with WIND and Luiss University),
aim at plugging this gap, but to
do so they had to create a strong
tech ecosystem themselves. They
recognized that money isn’t enough
– entrepreneurs need mentorship
and advice. They also need to be
close to other entrepreneurs, so
they can share experience and learn
collaboratively. The Luiss Enlabs/
L-Venture Group is an acceleration
program in partnership with
Luiss university of Rome, physically
located in premises which comprise
a 2,000msq space in Rome, on the
second ?oor of the main railway
station. This means they are very
central, and handy for Milan-Rome
trains and the river of corporate
talent that ?ows between these
two cities.
The facility runs a ?ve month program
for young tech entrepreneurs with a
very strong focus on mentorship and
support – every two weeks the teams
have an update meeting and
presentation to advisors to track
where they are and what help they
need. At the end of the program
there is an investor day, where the
teams pitch in front of a group of
investors.
This approach has been successful –
in 2014 they have accelerated 10
startups, adding to a total portfolio
of 25 start-ups. The total program
investment runs at 2.8m euros, but
has attracted 6.7m euros in further
follow-on funding from investors.
Alongside the direct mentorship,
the incubator hosts events to
introduce corporate guests to the
teams. There are tech events such
as a recent Facebook ‘hackathon’
and a session exploring Google
cloud services, and business events
such as dinners with big corporate
guests, entrepreneurs who have
exited, etc. On recent visits by
Wind management some of the
companies incubated – GamePix,
NetLex – secured a marketing and
distribution deal with the mobile
operator, proving that this mix of
support, training and investment
can work.
www.windgroup.it
Case study
But this should be seen as an
opportunity rather than a challenge
for mobile operators because, as we
have seen, there are still signi?cant
challenges that entrepreneurs
encounter that are a very strong ?t
with the capabilities of mobile
operators. Understanding how best
to harness the assets within mobile
operators, and developing the best
programs to bridge the divide
between them and entrepreneurs
can have a signi?cant commercial
value to the operator alongside a
signi?cant social value in creating
and supporting new, young
businesses within the country. The
role of the operators is unique, and
considerable, and it is unlikely viable
ecosystems to support entrepreneurs
will develop in many markets without
their participation and support.
Section 3
• GSMA OneAPI
• banglalink (VimpelCom Group)
Grand Master Programme
• Telefonica Digital
• NTT DoCoMo Capital
• Wind Italy (VimpelCom Group)
and The Venture Group
• Safaricom M-KOPA
• Orange Data for Development
Challenge
• Sprint Developer Programme
• Orange
APIs
App store and marketing
resources
Acquisition of start-ups
Majority/minority stake
in start-ups
Start-up incubator/accelerator
Co-branding with start-ups
Crowd-sourcing and contests
Developer communities
Joint R&D with Universities
and Hubs
Open Innovation
Strategy Spectrum
Co-creative
Collaborative
Co-operative
Mobile Industry Examples
(Source: Caribou Digital Analysis)
Mobile operator role Ecosystem strengthening result
Credibility enhancers
Information analysers and
advisors
Aggregators and distributors
Transaction facilitators
Creating a culture of
meritocracy
Sharing experience and
knowledge
Customers trust the reputation and brand of
mobile operators
Customer context information
Local App stores, marketing capabilities,
agent networks, software push technology
APIs to enable monetization, channel access at
affordable rates
Start-up and developer programs that make services
available (not necessarily for free) with a clear
pathway for stronger partnerships
Direct investments and in-kind support to start-ups,
along with training and mentoring.
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Recommendations
Shift the culture –
adapt to the world of
Digital Entrepreneurs
Based on this review of the
digital start-up landscape,
there are three main
recommendations for
mobile operations on
how to support young
tech entrepreneurs.
Understand the needs –
listen, and respond with
practical support
Evolve the ecosystem –
create the right environment
through partnerships
01 02 03
The report shows there is a wealth of
innovation coming from an energetic group
of young developers, and there are strong
bene?ts in opening up and partnering with
them. This requires a different way of thinking,
a different organizational culture that
recognizes that innovation does not always
come from within.
Actively creating bridges to bring this
innovation into the core business is bene?cial,
as we saw in the WIND/Venture Group case
study where commercial partnerships have
come from a culture of embracing the digital
entrepreneurial world.
The levels of ecosystem support and
investment vary wildly from country to country
and region to region. What works well in one
location may fail elsewhere so it is important
to be ?exible and adjust the strategy as the
program develops. banglalink has evolved its
Grand Master program in every year since its
inception, increasing what is required from
entrepreneurs each year to identify
the real talent, and increasing the support
to make sure that the best ideas have the
best chance of success. They are learning
from experience and improving year on year
– which shows in their results.
There are many ways of partnering with
entrepreneurs and supporting them but,
as noted above, context is everything
and needs will vary from market to market.
Therefore the likelihood of implementing
a successful program is greatly increased
by fully understanding the speci?c needs
of digital entrepreneurs market by market.
In many countries it is dif?cult to bridge the
gap between small entrepreneurs and large
corporates, but mobile operators can open
up to developers and offer practical support
such as access to marketing resources and
distribution channels, sharing knowledge,
open APIs and access to app stores. The
report indicates the signi?cant importance
of mentoring and mobile operators can
look for opportunities to build general
business skills in tech-focused start-ups,
either directly or through convening powers
(see recommendation 03).
Beyond these relatively lower cost options,
operators can also look at ways to attract
and develop young entrepreneurs and
their businesses in ‘full service’ incubators/
accelerators. Bringing entrepreneurs together
to support each other is equally important.
Often technologists starting a business have
brilliant ideas and the ability to execute
on them, but lack more traditional business
knowledge and skills. Equally, there are many
bright MBAs searching for opportunities
to develop a start-up. Creating a virtual,
or physical, community of like minds within
a program increases the chances
of success and entrepreneurs ?nding
the right partners and staff.
Operators should recognize the value other
partners can bring to a program, and actively
seek out partnerships with other companies,
supporting institutions, software vendors etc.
Partnerships with app ecosystem players
like Facebook and Google can provide
strong support to the program, and insight
for the entrepreneurs in how to increase
the audience for their services. Finding
the successful start-ups and ways to leverage
this back into the community builds
con?dence that success is possible and
creates a pipeline of mentoring resource.
Equally, university or business school
partnerships provide access to talent, and
supporting skills from faculty. Partnering with
Government agencies can bring resources
and institutional support. Working with
VCs and other funders can bring follow-on
funding. The mobile operator cannot
do it all alone, but can play a critical
role in convening the ecosystem.
Section 4
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References
AHMED, M. (2014)
BLANK, S. (2011)
BLOOMBERG (2014)
CRUNCHBASE (2014)
DELOITTE (2007)
EVANS (2014)
FARR, C. (2014)
FORREST, C. (2014)
GLOBAL INNOVATION FUND (2014)
GSMA (2013)
GSMA (2014)
HOPKINS, B. (2014)
IDEABOX. (2014)
ILO (2013)
IYF (2014)
KHANNA, T. & PALEPU, K. (2013)
KOH, Y. & WINKLER, R. (2014)
Big tech start-ups bypass Silicon Valley. Financial Times.http://tinyurl.com/
ovwq36w
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the-pay-it-forward-culture/
Alibaba said to raise US$21.8B in Record-Breaking U.S. IPO. Bloomberg.http://www.bloomberg.com/video/dividends-vs-buybacks-companies-
best-use-of-cash-yNFSDKuSSciwLcUPW8q1Cg.html
Crunchbase dataset.https://info.crunchbase.com/about/crunchbase-
data-exports/
Deloitte mobile tax report 2006-7http://www.gsma.com/publicpolicy/
global-mobile-tax-review-2006-2007
Mobile is Eating the Worldhttp://ben-evans.com/
benedictevans/2014/10/28/presentation-mobile-is-eating-the-world
Why India’s answer to Alibaba & eBay is the tech IPO to watch. Venture
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ebay-is-the-tech-ipo-to-watch/
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customers-reached-61-million-in-2013
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htm
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Africa, International Youth Foundationhttp://library.iyfnet.org/library/
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silicon-valley-risk-1410740054
End notes
01 Estimate based on an average 8-14 years from Angel/VC investment to exit, and the critical role
that experienced entrepreneurs play in guiding the next generation of start-ups (Peters, No date).
02 ‘Paid forward’ refers to one of the de?ning characteristics of Silicon Valley noted by Steve Blank and others,
where successful entrepreneurs are willing to help mentor, network and connect strangers, stemming from
a belief that “I was helped when I started out and now it’s my turn to help others” (Blank, 2011).
03 5-year CAGRs of 138 per cent for Bangalore, 133 per cent for Moscow, 38 per cent for Shanghai and 28 per cent
for New Delhi (TechCrunch Data Analysis)
04 According to Tech Crunch, n New York, Fab paid US$250,000 per month for two ?oors of of?ce space. In Berlin,
the company spends US$125,000 per year on rent (Lunden, 2014)
05http://www.gsma.com/oneapi/
06http://www.mobileworldcongress.com/see-do/app-planet/
How the West Was Won: The Military and the Making of Silicon Valley, in
Technological Competitiveness: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives
on Electrical, Electronics, and Computer Industries. Piscataway: IEEE Press.http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/images/0/0b/Leslie,_How_the_West_Was_
Won.pdf
Fab Was Burning Through US$14M/Month Before Its Layoffs And Pivot. Tech
Crunch.http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/20/fab-hem/
Six things to know about Viber. Financial Times.http://www.ft.com/cms/
s/0/6bc24706-9555-11e3-8371-00144feab7de.html#axzz3HTlpgwJP
McKinsey, Sizing the Internet Economy 2011http://www.mckinsey.com/
features/sizing_the_internet_economy
Venture Capital Exit Times.http://www.angelblog.net/Venture_Capital_
Exit_Times.html
Why High Burn Rates Don't Mean the End of the World Is Nigh. Inc. http://
www.inc.com/jeremy-quittner/silicon-valley-burn-rate-sounds-the-alarm-
for-bubble.html
For Sequoia Capital, ‘mobile tectonics’ is how it’ll ?nd its next billion dollar
company. Venture Beat.http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/08/for-sequoia-
capital-mobile-tectonics-is-how-itll-?nd-its-next-billion-dollar-company/
A History of Silicon Valley – Almost a 3rd Edition CreateSpace Independent
Publishing Platform.http://www.scaruf?.com/svhistory/sv/chap73.html
Indian E-Commerce Giant Flipkart Raises Massive US$1B Investment Round.
Tech Crunch.http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/29/indian-e-commerce-
giant-?ipkart-raises-massive-1b-round/
Start-up Ecosystem Report 2012.http://blog.digital.telefonica.com/?press-
release=start-up-ecosystem-report-2012
Sizing the App Economyhttp://www.developereconomics.com/report/
sizing-the-app-economy/
LESLIE, S. (1993)
LUNDEN, I. (2014)
MANCE, H. (2014)
MCKINSEY (2011)
PETERS, B. (No date)
QUITTNER, J. (2014)
REILLY, R. (2014)
SCARUFFI, P. (2014)
SHU, C. (2014)
TELEFONICA DIGITAL &
THE START-UP
GENOME (2012)
VISION MOBILE (2014)
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