We help you get
closer to your customers.

The "missing middle"

2005 was dubbed the International Year of Microcredit, and one year later, Muhammad Yunus, the pioneer of microfinance in Bangladesh received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work. Microfinance in the third world, often as little as $100 to help a woman buy a sewing machine or a family purchase a goat, has been very successful in helping lift the poorest of the poor out of poverty. And it’s big business; there is over $25B in microloans at the moment.

What is interesting about this model, however, is that while it helps poor individuals, it doesn’t do much for poor countries. These microloans aren’t enough to actually help entrepreneurs build businesses. And what emerging countries need are small and medium-size businesses that can employ people and pay taxes. Until there are employees being paid a fair wage and a tax base to support local infrastructure and schools and healthcare, poor countries will continue to depend on handouts and loans from wealthy countries (World Bank, IMF, etc.)

So what if we could help to coach and mentor third-world entrepreneurs? What if we could give them personal access to their successful entrepreneurial peers in the United States? My hypothesis is that we could stimulate the entrepreneurial class in poor countries to create industry, provide employees a paycheck, and help to finance the educational and healthcare infrastructure they so desperately need.

I’m on my way to Rwanda to test this hypothesis. I’ll let you know what I find…