“The industry a person picks to start a business has a huge effect on the odds that it will grow. If you go back 20 years or so, about 4% of all the startups in the computer and office equipment industry made the Inc. 500, 0.005% of startups in the hotel and motel industries made that list, and 0.007% of startups in eating and drinking establishments. So that means the odds that you make the Inc. 500 are 840 times higher if you start a computer company than if you start a hotel or motel.”

This quotation is from an interview in BusinessWeek online with Scott Shane, author of The Illusions of Entrepreneurship, professor of entrepreneurial studies at Case Western University, also a researcher on new businesses for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and an angel investor with the Cleveland-area North Coast Angel Fund.

Shane finds that most “successful” founders earn 35% less over ten years than they would as employees. Despite, that, they report more job satisfaction than those who continue to work for others. In fact, they are so happy they would have to earn 2.5 times as much to be as happy in an employee rôle.

To the extent that we at the IED have a greater responsibility to foster economic development and job growth than to enhance the lifestyles and satisfaction of would-be entrepreneurs, we need to think clearly about these facts. What is the equivalent today of the computer and office equipment industry? Clearly, although computers, microprocessors, and software are today entwined in every business, their growth is not what it once was.

Is the growth industry of tomorrow based on biology or nanotechnology? If so, how do we systematically look for and encourage entrepreneurs in those areas? If not, then where will growth come from? Perhaps alternative energy or other sustainable technology?

I think these are important questions we should be thinking about and having a dialog about.