High-Impact Entrepreneurship

CLICK HERE to read the full Endeavor Insight report, “Emerging Market Entrepreneurs Have Emerged: A look at the fastest growing entrepreneurs in Endeavor’s portfolio”

While it is not surprising that the majority of Endeavor’s fastest growing entrepreneurs are serial entrepreneurs, the finding that a majority have also previously worked at large corporations–including multinational companies–is somewhat counter to traditional notions of the “solitary entrepreneur.”  Moreover, many of these high-growth entrepreneurs argue that this prior experience at a large company was a key asset in helping them grow their current venture. Specifically, they cite this experience as having been essential to learning about a specific market and/or about the organizational structure that operates within large companies.

Basel Mashhour, founder of The Bakery Shop, an Endeavor Entrepreneur in Egypt who would have placed in the Top 100 of this year’s Inc. 500, explained that his previous experience working at Henkel as a brand manager helped him to better understand consumers and to identify new needs for certain customer segments: “It gave me [a] good view on the market, how it’s segmented and how to understand the consumers. Also, working in a big corporation gave me a sense of how to deal with the different departments and get the best out of everyone since, as a brand manager, I handled the brand from the marketing side, the sales side, and the production side.”

To learn more about Basel, other fast growing Endeavor Entrepreneurs, and their lessons for success, please read the full report here.