Turkey one of the top entrepreneurial countries globally

Turkey one of the top entrepreneurial countries globally

The latest Global Entrepreneurial Report ranks Turkey as second most entrepreneurial country in the world

A new report takes a look at entrepreneurial activity, attitudes and experiences in 33 countries and points to Turkey as the second most entrepreneurial. Perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively, the Global Entrepreneurial Report, researched and published by Oracle Capital Group, points to a collection of developing nations as the most entrepreneurial. 

The report presents entrepreneurism in 33 major industrial nations and emerging economies, measuring the opinions, attitudes, experiences and activity that contribute to entrepreneurism, by looking at factors such as “perception of entrepreneurs”, “attitude to risks involved in starting a new venture”, “fear of failure”, “willingness to risk personal finance” and “national levels of entrepreneurial activity”, amongst others.

India captured the top spot by scoring highly on feasibility, experience, desirability, willingness to self-fund, low failure rates and high early-stage business activity. It was followed in the top ten by (in order): Turkey, United States (US), Brazil, China, Iceland, Ireland, Russian Federation, Estonia and Austria.

Commenting on the results Baybars AltuntaÅŸ, Ambassador of the World Entrepreneurship Forum to Turkey & the Balkans, said:

‘‘The most important stage of entrepreneurship is to finance the start-up at a very early stage. The report is a valuable insight into the significance of entrepreneurial features of Turkey in common with most of the other developing economies, how it scores well on attitude to risk, low fear of failure, desire, willingness to self-fund and early-stage business activity. 

The report shows that early-stage finance is not a challenge for Turkish entrepreneurs because they are willing to self-fund their start-up. This prevents delays, especially to the creation of any demos, and provides an opportunity to pitch to angel investors much more quickly in the lifecycle of the new business. 

On the other hand, low fear of failure and attitude to risk are two important competitive advantages of Turkish entrepreneurs in the global entrepreneurship ecosystem. A fast developing angel investment community in Turkey and attempts by Istanbul Stock Exchange (Borsa Istanbul) to create more liquidity for start-ups should move Turkey into first place in the ranking in the coming years”.

The report found that more than half of the world‘s richest 1,000 individuals come from the list‘s top ten – although that shouldn‘t be much of a surprise as 34.2% came from the US alone. 

At the opposite end of the ranking were a number of “more developed” economies. The bottom of the list included: Spain, Portugal, Denmark, France, United Kingdom, Hungary, Italy, Germany, Belgium and Japan. 

The report does contain some interesting comparisons between attitudes and experiences in the participating countries:

Image of entrepreneurs: Iceland had the best/most positive image of entrepreneurs and Hungary had the worst

Attitude to risk: China had the best attitude toward risk and the UK had the worst 

Feasibility: Brazil had the highest ranking on feasibility while Japan had the lowest 

Self-funding: Turkey had the best attitude toward self-funding while Sweden had the worst. 

Key findings include:

Developing countries rank best for entrepreneurism

The strong correlation between growth of personal and national wealth in countries where entrepreneurism is high

A growing number of High Net Worth individuals come from ‘entrepreneurial‘ countries

Higher proportion of entrepreneurial activity in emerging economies, driven by necessity, despite these countries being more difficult to do business in

More than half of the world‘s richest 1,000 individuals come from the top ten entrepreneurial countries

One of the biggest inhibitors to entrepreneurism is legislation and red tape

Wealthy individuals from the most entrepreneurial countries tend to remain in their homelands

The Entrepreneurialism Measure 

1^st – India tops the list of most Entrepreneurial countries. It scores particularly highly on feasibility, experience, desirability, willingness to self-fund, low failure rates and high early-stage business activity.

2^nd – Turkey, in common with most of the other developing economies scores well on attitude to risk, low fear of failure, desire, willingness to self-fund and early-stage business activity.

3^rd – USA is the only large developed economy to appear in the top ten. It scores particularly highly on experience, early-stage business activity and (lack of) fear of failure.

7^th – Ireland, Europe‘s best performer, scores well for the image of entrepreneurs. It also scores well for prior experience and for early-stage business activity.

28^th – UK scores towards the lower end of the Entrepreneurism Measure along with Japan and other developed European economies such as Germany and Belgium. In common with these other countries, it scores towards the lower end for attitude to risk, desire and willingness to self-fund.