Endeavor

9 Have you seen the recent news on entrepreneurship? Did you hear about that massive funding round? What about the latest newborn unicorn? For years, entrepreneurial success has been narrowly defined as growth, profit, and valuation. While both entrepreneurs and the business media often focus on companies' financial successes, we believe these metrics only tell half the story. Equally important for the growth of ecosystems is the Multiplier Effect — the compound impact entrepreneurs have by virtue of mentoring, inspiring, and investing in the next generation of entrepreneurs. We also believe the Multiplier Effect can ignite ecosystems and bring broad, sustainable economic growth to emerging and underserved markets. When investor Aileen Lee coined the term "unicorn" to describe startups with a valuation of $1 billion or more in 2013, all 39 existing unicorns were founded in the United States. Today, Endeavor alone supports 68 unicorns founded in 22 countries around the world. Unicorns may get all the attention, but they're just the most visible outcome of networks of trust. Mini (and not so mini) Silicon Valleys are popping up in emerging and underserved markets around the world thanks, in large part, to these networks. As Endeavor co-founder and CEO Linda Rottenberg says, "a unicorn that doesn't breed even more unicorns is just an endangered species." The practice of paying it forward by investing in the next generation of founders jumpstarts ecosystems, and it doesn't take a huge number of multipliers to make a difference. Endeavor research shows that it takes a few local successful companies with the Multiplier Effect mindset to jumpstart a tech ecosystem. Similarly, a single founder can impact more than 700 other founders regionally. Through the Multiplier Effect, early successful founders fertilize what will later become thriving unicorn-breeding grounds. You can see the power of the Multiplier Effect to ignite innovation ecosystems in stories as well as statistics. Much as the "PayPal mafia" went on to found companies, including Tesla, LinkedIn, Palantir, SpaceX, Affirm, and Yelp in the United States, alumni from Colombia's first ever unicorn, on-demand delivery app Rappi, have gone on to found or lead more than 100 tech firms across Latin America. When Mudassir Sheikha returned to Dubai after a successful stint founding a company in Silicon Valley, he was determined to repeat this success in the Middle East. Not only did he manage to build Careem, a ride-hailing company that was acquired by Uber for $3.1 billion, becoming the Middle East's first unicorn, but Careem has acted as a training ground for more than 100 startup founders, igniting the local ecosystem. The success of just a few founders with the multiplier mindset in an emerging market breaks both mental and structural barriers to building thriving ecosystems in even the most unexpected places. That is the essence of the Multiplier Effect. R E D E F I N I N G E N T R E P R E N E U R I A L S U C C E S S " A unicorn that doesn't breed even more unicorns is just an endangered species."

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