This week’s list of the top articles for entrepreneurship was filled with lists: the 10 countries where gender equality is closer to reality, the 10 startup metrics every entrepreneur should measure, and the 10 reasons new businesses fail.
It’s always interesting to scan the lists to see what country, piece of advice, or startup activity makes its way to the top–or on the other end, which didn’t even make it on–and then hopefully, dig a little deeper and find out why. As the calendar year comes closer to its end, I know more and more of these lists, especially the best or worst of lists, will be popping up in my feeds. With lists on the mind, I wanted to call out a few of the pieces of information on this week’s lists that got me thinking.
Take a look at the 10 counties where gender equality is a little closer to reality. The World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap Index examined gaps in health, education, economic participation and political empowerment. Why is this important? Countries with more gender equality tend to be more developed, more productive and have better economies.
Once again, Iceland took the top tier. The United States didn’t even make the list (we came in overall at 20). According to some additional research on the Index (I found it on U.S. News and World Report), while we score well in education and health, our biggest gap lies in political engagement. “The United States has never had a female president, one of the measures in the study, and rates of women in government are low. For the score in ‘women in parliament,’ the U.S. ranks 83 out of 142 countries.” At least we know where the problem lies. The hard part is closing the identified gap.
Share your thoughts on closing the gender gap, or any of this week’s top ten lists, on Twitter using #TopOfMind.
10 countries where gender equality is closer to reality
The World Economic Forum (WEF’s) annual Global Gender Gap Index publishes a report that analyzes gaps in rights/opportunities between men and women. These gaps include health, education, economic participation and political empowerment. There are 142 economies in this report. The top countries were Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Demark, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Ireland, Philippines and Belgium. This report does measure the gaps in access to resources. However, it does not measure actual levels of the available resources. Will the gap ever close?
Why The ‘Drop-out Entrepreneur’ Stereotype Needs To Go Away
For a while now, there has been a stereotype going around that indicates that being a successful entrepreneur is equated with dropping out of school. The only reason this stereotype exists is because of Richard Branson, Alan Sugar and Bill Gates. However, these people are the exception. Alex Hoye stated that “Going to see how a dysfunctional company operates is a good thing for a first straight job out of college”. Unless you are Bill Gates and simply think you can do it, then do. However, if not, you should try to build a support network.
10 Reasons New Businesses Fail
CB Insights analyzed 101 failed startup companies. Here are the top nine reasons these companies did not make it. Can you guess the tenth?
- No market need.
- Ran out of cash.
- Not the right team.
- Were outcompeted.
- Price/cost issues.
- Poor product.
- Needed/lacked business model.
- Poor marketing.
- Ignore customers.
- Product mis-timed.
Read more to find out ten more reasons why startups fail.
10 Startup Metrics Every Entrepreneur Should Measure
Ten founders from the YEC shared the metrics that they keep track of and find valuable.
- Cost of Acquisition.
- Employee Happiness.
- Burn Rate.
- Qualified Pipeline Value.
- Net Promoter Score.
- Client Engagement.
- Retention.
- Missed Business Opportunities.
- Organic User Acquisition.
- Employee Engagement.
How Local Governments Are (or Aren’t) Examining Economic Development Dollars
Many economic development or local governments struggle to retain or track accountability metrics. Some of these groups are measuring the effectiveness of business incentives and some others are measuring cost benefit analysis. However, these can be very difficult to fully measure because there can be unrealistic assumptions or questionable methodologies. These evaluations must consider the actual goals. The Governmental Accounting Standards Board may be proposing new rules to the government to report total resulting revenue loss.