No youth teams, no national team...

Respect for small entrepreneurs is what I’m calling for in this 2011 video. I was annoyed by a political focus that, to me, seemed almost exclusively concerned with big growth companies.

Respect for small entrepreneurs builds a talent pool

Of course big companies are interesting. But where are future entrepreneurs supposed to get their experience if we look down on the hairdresser, the hot dog stand owner or the person opening a small shop?

I didn’t start with Jubii or SPAMfighter either. I started in a small basement in Nørrebro, distributing shareware games. Later, I opened a shop on Falkoner Allé selling computer games.

They were small projects. But they gave me experience, contacts and a way forward. You try something, learn from it and become better equipped for the next thing.

No youth teams, no national team

I compare it to sport. If all the attention goes to the national team, and nobody cares about the small teams and clubs, where is the talent supposed to develop?

In the same way, we need a broad base of people who dare to get started. Not everyone builds a growth company. But some do, and they need somewhere to begin.

Small entrepreneurs share knowledge others can use

On Amino, entrepreneurs share their experiences of specific problems. That knowledge can also help people with bigger companies who are looking for an answer.

I wanted more interest in entrepreneurship in schools, more programmes and more visibility for people who create something. Those were my wishes in 2011, not an account of current entrepreneurship policy.

My point is simple: Make room for and respect people who start small. It could be the beginning of something much bigger.

Fewer than one in ten could imagine starting a business

I’m a bit irritated when I make the video. I promise you’ll be spared another "Fuck Holger" rant, but this has annoyed me all the same. I’ve read in Erhvervsbladet that fewer than one in ten Danes could imagine becoming an entrepreneur. That’s bloody few.

Of course there’s the tax burden and other factors. But I also think we should look at what elected politicians highlight when they talk about entrepreneurship. To me, the focus is almost entirely on entrepreneurs building growth companies.

The interesting thing is supposed to be the next Novo Nordisk, our own Intel or some other giant company. Yes, of course big companies generate growth. I don’t disagree. But where the hell is the talent pool supposed to come from if we don’t care about people starting something small?

SPAMfighter wasn’t my first project either

You usually start small, try different things and dip your toes in. You learn and build a network. Once you’ve got a better handle on things, the next project can gain more momentum.

I didn’t start with Jubii or SPAMfighter. In the video, I explain that SPAMfighter’s turnover at the time is around DKK 60 million. It’s not a huge company, but I think it’s a decent business. It just wasn’t the first thing I did. You can read my own entrepreneurial story in Iværksætter til jeg dør.

First came the little basement in Nørrebro and distributing shareware games. Then came the computer games shop on Falkoner Allé. Those are exactly the kinds of projects I feel get ridiculed: Surely we can’t make a living from a small computer games shop in the future.

No, of course the little shop can’t carry Denmark’s future on its own. But it can be a place where someone learns to run a business and gains experience for something bigger.

You can’t just pick a national team off the street

To me, it’s like the government only wanting to support the national team. Why spend time on children’s teams and sports clubs? They don’t win world championships, and we don’t make big money from them.

But without that broad base, we won’t get the players for the national team either. You can’t just find a 25-year-old in the street, say he looks good and has great thighs, give him a silver spoon and put the best coaches to work on him. Talent needs somewhere to develop.

That’s how I see entrepreneurship too. We need to start at the bottom. We need to make trying to start something interesting and acceptable before demanding that it looks like a future global corporation.

TV programmes and an interest in getting started

I remember that a few years earlier, more was being done to generate interest, including state-supported entrepreneurship programmes on TV 2. My impression was that they produced both entrepreneurs and an appetite for entrepreneurship.

In the video, I mention an earlier level of interest of around 25 percent compared with the under 10 percent I’ve just read about. Those are the figures I’m discussing in May 2011. My point is that, in my view, we’d lost focus on getting ordinary people to take the first step.

Amino is a reference resource for bigger companies too

I’m also annoyed that, in my experience, the government’s major entrepreneurship initiatives wouldn’t advertise on Amino because they saw its users as small entrepreneurs rather than growth entrepreneurs.

To me, that’s bloody nonsense. It’s true that people building big growth companies don’t necessarily sit debating on Amino all day. They don’t have time. But they can still use the knowledge there.

When they Google a specific problem, an answer on Amino may come up. It could be how to market a business abroad on Facebook or how to approach importing from China. Small entrepreneurs share their experiences and together build a kind of encyclopaedia.

That creates knowledge and energy that bigger companies can benefit from too. And some of the small businesses become growth companies themselves. I put it provocatively and say it may only be one in a hundred Amino users. That’s my estimate, not a count. But without all those beginners, we won’t get the ones who go further either.

It should be okay to open a hair salon

It should bloody well be okay to start a hot dog stand or a hair salon. I mention Ole Henriksen as an example of how something in beauty can become much bigger. In the video, I mention the sale of his company to a large French group whose name I can’t remember.

I also ask why he built his business in the United States rather than Denmark. It’s a question about our attitude towards people who want to build something. Denmark does many things well, but there are also things I think we get wrong.

I’m calling for more respect for small entrepreneurs and less arrogance towards them. We need to go into primary and lower secondary schools and talk about entrepreneurship. We need more TV programmes and competitions showing entrepreneurs as people who create growth and deserve recognition.

It’s true that we can’t make a living just cutting each other’s hair. But if we don’t make room for the small hairdresser, hot dog stand owner and computer games retailer, we also lose part of the foundation for big companies. Focus on the small entrepreneur and respect the small entrepreneur. That’s my call.

Best wishes, Martin